The drumsticks felt impossibly soft in Zhang Wei’s hands as he absently rolled them between his fingers. The worn leather wrapping had molded perfectly to his grip over the years, like an old friend who knew all his secrets. Perhaps too many secrets.
“You’re distracted tonight,” Mei said softly from across their small apartment kitchen. Steam rose from the pot of tea between them, curling like question marks in the air.
“Just thinking about tomorrow’s performance,” Wei replied, though they both knew it wasn’t true. The lies had become as familiar as the drumsticks themselves.
Mei studied him with those piercing eyes that had first drawn him in five years ago when they met at the conservatory. “You never used to practice this much before a show.”
Wei forced a weak smile. “The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra has higher standards than a university ensemble.”
The real reason sat heavy in his breast pocket - a folded note with coordinates and a time. Another dead drop scheduled during tomorrow’s performance. As principal percussionist, he had the perfect cover to slip away between movements.
“I made your favorite,” Mei said, sliding a bowl of noodles across the table. “You’ll need your strength.”
The domesticity of the moment felt like a knife twisting in his gut. Wei wondered, not for the first time, if she knew. If those quiet glances held accusation rather than concern.
“Thank you,” he managed, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. The drumsticks continued their restless dance between his fingers.
Mei reached across the table and stilled his hands with her own. Her touch was gentle but firm, like the way she conducted her student orchestra. “Whatever’s troubling you, you can tell me.”
For a moment, Wei almost did. The words rose up like a tide - about the handler who’d approached him three years ago, about the classified documents he’d been passing along, about the crushing weight of it all. But then he remembered the photos they’d shown him of Mei’s family back in Taiwan. The thinly veiled threats.
“It’s nothing,” he said, withdrawing his hands. “Just pre-performance nerves.”
Mei held his gaze for a long moment before nodding once. She understood about keeping secrets - she had to, given her own position in the cultural affairs office. Wei sometimes wondered if that’s why they’d been pushed together in the first place.
The next evening, as Wei prepared for his performance, he found his drumsticks missing from their usual place. In their stead was a single note in Mei’s elegant handwriting:
“Some rhythms are better left unplayed.”
When he arrived at the concert hall, she was gone. On the music stand where his score should have been sat a dossier - his own surveillance photos looking back at him. His drumsticks lay crossed on top like a quiet accusation.
The audience never did hear the Shanghai Symphony that night. But somewhere in the city, Wei imagined he could hear the soft beating of drums, keeping time with his racing heart as he ran.