The sheet music for “Circle” sat untouched on my piano for three years. It was the last piece Mei and I had practiced together before everything changed.

“You need to feel the circular motion,” she used to say, her delicate fingers tracing invisible spirals in the air of my cramped apartment. “The melody keeps returning, like life itself.”

I’d watch her hands dance across the keys, creating ripples of sound that seemed to bend time. Back then, the city felt smaller, more intimate. Now its endless towers and streams of people only amplified my solitude.

“Tanaka-san, are you playing tonight?” Mrs. Chen from the floor below would ask whenever we crossed paths in the elevator. She knew I hadn’t touched the piano since Mei left.

“Maybe soon,” I’d reply with a weak smile, knowing it wasn’t true.

The coffee shop where Mei and I first met had been replaced by a sleek bubble tea franchise. I still walked past it every morning, sometimes pausing to peer through the window at the spot where she’d been sitting, score sheets scattered across the table, her green tea going cold.

“I’m moving to Vienna,” she’d announced one spring evening, her words hanging in the air like cherry blossoms before they fall. “They accepted my application to the conservatory.”

I should have said something meaningful. Instead, I just nodded and asked if she wanted more tea.

Today, a letter arrived from Vienna. My hands trembled as I recognized her handwriting:

“Dear Akira, Remember how we used to joke about circles? How everything eventually comes back around? I’m returning to Tokyo next month. Not permanently - just for a series of performances. But I’d love to hear you play again, if you’re willing.

• Mei”

That evening, I finally lifted the piano cover. The sheet music was exactly where I’d left it, slightly yellowed at the edges. My fingers felt stiff, uncertain. The first few notes came out awkward and hesitant.

Mrs. Chen’s voice drifted up through the floor: “Welcome back, Tanaka-san.”

I played until midnight, until my fingers remembered their dance. The melody spiraled upward, each revolution bringing back memories: Mei’s laughter, the scent of green tea, the way sunlight would catch in her hair.

When I finished, the city seemed different somehow - still vast and impersonal, but with hidden pockets of warmth, like stars emerging after dusk.

I wrote back to Mei that night:

“The circle wasn’t broken after all. It just needed time to complete its journey. I’ll be at your performance.

• Akira”

Setting down my pen, I noticed tears on the paper, blurring some of the words. But I was smiling too - perhaps that’s just how some circles close, with joy and sadness flowing together like countermelodies in a familiar piece of music.