Page 1 of Discordant Cultivation

1

My bright and broken star...

Vale

Valerian Rose had always believed that art required true suffering, but watching the boy with the guitar case fumble for change in front of the train station, he realized he’d never understood the mathematics of pain until now. The young man’s fingers trembled as he counted crumpled bills, his dark hair falling across features that would be beautiful if they weren’t so goddamn broken. Vale wanted to crack open his chest and pour agony inside until music spilled out like blood.

The violence of the image surprised him. He’d broken dozens of artists over the years—methodically, precisely. Never once did he want to crawl inside their skin.

I could make you magnificent.

The thought tasted like copper pennies and sounded like a prayer.

Three months ago, Vale noticed him outside the station: just another busker in an endless rotation of mediocre street performers. But something about the way the boy held his guitar, protective and desperate at once, made Vale pause mid-stride.

He told himself it was idle curiosity in raw talent that hadn’t been ruined by formal training yet. He started recording clips on his phone—seventeen videos, to be exact, and he kept only the clear ones: crowds out of frame, ambient noise low enough to hear that voice properly. He knew the boy performed Monday through Saturday, 7 AM to 11 AM, and vanished afterward, as if he feared someone might follow him home.

For twelve weeks, Vale watched. Documented. Catalogued. He looked up the social media handle written on the inside of the guitar case—KT6Strings—and was unable to find a name. A location. A friend.

He told himself it was research.

This week, something shifted. Monday morning, eighty-four days into his observation, Vale was already late for his quarterly office meeting. He didn’t care. Hearing one more song mattered more. But the busker played something generic that made his jaw clench with secondhand embarrassment.

Still, he dropped a twenty in the guitar case.

Habit, mostly. Vale had stopped for street musicians since he was fifteen, back when his mother used to time his piano practice with a stopwatch, and locked the bathroom door when he made mistakes. Three hours daily, four on weekends. Perfect technique or no dinner.Support the arts, she’d said,even when they’re pathetic.

Especiallywhen they’re pathetic.

He could still hear her voice when he walked the greenhouse aisles explaining how roses needed pruning to reach their potential.Cut away the weak growth. Force the plant to focus its energy where it matters.

Tuesday morning, the kid was there again. Same corner, same nervous energy, and a different song. Vale planned to walk past—studio time was booked, three artists were waiting on his feedback, and he had to approve mixes from soundengineers, but his feet stopped moving of their own accord. The busker’s voice had a different quality when he sang this time, pained almost, a compressed quality to his vocal technique that most industry professionals spent years trying to manufacture—genuine vulnerability, the kind that made listeners feel like voyeurs.

Vale lingered near a coffee cart longer than necessary, pretending to check his phone while he watched the young man play three more songs. He had nervous tics, like the way he touched his medical alert bracelet before starting each song.

The kid never looked up.

Today, the train could go fuck itself. Vale rescheduled two meetings and ignored six calls from his assistant, Eliza. He was doing his due diligence.

Nothing more.

He stood fifteen feet away and just watched, taking note of all the same details he had every other time he watched him play. The musician was folded in on himself, all sharp angles from being undoubtedly underweight, his hair cut unevenly in a French crop like he had done it himself. His clothes hung loose on his shoulders, like he was playing dress-up in someone else’s wardrobe, and his steel earrings and medical alert bracelet caught the sunlight when he moved. He had stunningly sad brown eyes—the kind that made people want to feed him or fix him.

He was playing covers like he did everyday, and they were okay. They showed competent but uninspired muscle memory—serious skill without emotional investment. Vale counted eighteen people walking past without stopping. Two dropped coins without slowing down. One teenager filmed for thirty seconds before getting bored and moving on.

The teenager’s video would get fewer views than the performance deserved despite the mediocre song selection.Vale’s jaw clenched. Strangers would watch this boy on their phones, not understanding what they were seeing. Something hot and possessive coiled in his chest.

Then the musician cleared his throat.

“This one is-s-s—th-this song—I wrote it.”

There.

Vale’s heart hammered, and he moved closer without thinking—close enough that if the boy looked up, he’d see Vale watching. He was close enough for it to be weird, to be noticed. He should step back.

He didn’t.

The boy adjusted his grip on the guitar as his fingers found the first chord, but he didn’t begin playing right away. He rolled his hunched shoulders back, lifting his head even as he kept his eyes on the concrete, and from his mouth came a sparse melody in a haunting, minor key. Recognition itched at the back of Vale’s skull. He had to consciously still his hands at his side. When was the last time that happened? Not since he was sixteen, playing his first composition for his mother and waiting for her verdict.