The first time I met you was when I was 6 years old. You started holding the strings around then, and I was just beginning ballet. We were busy showing off our talents to each other during our frequent interactions. Even when we didn't meet, news of each of us was reported in the media; for our age, the attention regarding being prodigies or studying abroad was quite intense. Fortunately, you and I didn't consider each other rivals. Rather, I thought of you as an indispensable partner, and the fact that we could perform together as a pair later on made us even more of a focus for the media.

About six years passed after that. We were only 12. You were, as always, a genius violinist, and I was a gifted ballerina. Around that time, we made a promise to enter a famous Russian opera house and even appeared on a broadcast together, but that turned out to be poison for me. My days as a naive novice were over for good after that. A slump that was hard to endure kept weighing me down, and our joint practice ended early. You tried to hide your disappointment and said you'd go buy something to drink at the convenience store across the street. Unlike me, who needed time to get ready to leave, you were done once you packed your violin, so it was a kind of thoughtful consideration.

When I finished getting ready and left the practice room, you were smiling brightly at the traffic light on the other side. And the moment it turned green, you quickly stepped out—

SCREECH—

You collided head-on with a motorcycle that couldn't slow down in time. The sight of you floating in the air for a few seconds before crashing onto the asphalt, starting from your left shoulder and arm, seemed to play back in slow motion.

A week later, when I went to visit you in the hospital, you were unrecognizably gaunt. I felt that I was clearly responsible for the way you stared blankly out the hospital window with empty eyes, so I couldn't bring myself to lift my head.

Instead of you, who wouldn't open your mouth at all, your mother told me that you could use your left arm through rehabilitation, but only for simple daily life; you could no longer rest a violin on your left shoulder or hold the strings. Before I left your room, when I saw you through the small window in the door, you were crying in your mother's arms. That was the last I saw of you. And not long after, the last news I heard was that you had smashed your cherished violin on the hospital floor with your left arm, and because of the strain that put on your arm, you had to be re-examined. Oh, and truly finally. The fact that you started focusing on your studies after being discharged was the last chance I could have had.