Kokoro turned away, unable to look, and when she started to run in the direction of their individual rooms, another loud howl rang out.

Aoooooooooooooooooooo!

The howl was so loud she couldn’t tell where it was coming from. She grabbed the door handle to the nearest room. The shock of the howl hit her cheeks like a gale.

Once inside the room the aftershocks of the howl seemed to fade, and the wind died away.

Her eyes traced the shapes in the darkened room. It had been wrecked, just like the rest of the castle.

The lid to the piano was propped open. The keyboard, like a mouth with missing teeth, had been destroyed, and it looked pitiful.

Fuka’s room.

She’d never been in here before. The room was smaller than Kokoro’s. Aside from the piano, there was no bed or bookcase like in her own room.

On top of the broken desk were textbooks, reference books, pens and notebooks.

I’m pretty sure there’s one under the desk in my room.

An X.

She waited a few moments before reaching underneath the desk. She placed her finger firmly on top of it.

She needed to know, to access all their memories, to hear everyone’s full story.

FUKA WAS PRACTISING IN THE piano room in her house.

Fuka enjoyed having quiet time alone to practise.

A calendar hung on the wall: 23 December, a national holiday, was marked in red. Underneath, it said: Piano competition.

It was coming up very soon.

‘FUKA-CHAN IS QUITE THE GENIUS, Ma’am,’ the piano teacher had said to her mother.

Fuka had not yet started elementary school.

Fuka’s mother, busy with work, had taken her daughter to free introductory lessons at the piano school, at the invitation of Mima-chan’s mother, who lived nearby. The three free lessons had run out when the teacher spoke to Fuka’s mother.

‘She has a real gift,’ the teacher said.

Fuka’s mother was both astonished and pleased. ‘Really? My little Fuka?’

‘She absorbs things so much more quickly than other children. I’ve been teaching for many years but have never seen such potential. You really should consider her future, perhaps send her to study abroad at some point.’

Fuka listened in while they were talking.

‘You’re … not just saying this because you want us to continue lessons with you now that they’re no longer free?’

Her mother seemed suspicious. Her cell phone started buzzing inside the bag she always took to work, the one with the worn handles. Normally she would have answered it but she chose not to.

‘Not at all,’ the teacher went on. ‘I am honestly amazed by her playing. I don’t say this to all the children.’

What he said was true.

The teacher hadn’t said the same thing to Mima-chan, who’d gone with Fuka, or to Mima-chan’s mother.

I am gifted. I am gifted.

I’m different from other kids.

AT PE AT SCHOOL, FUKA sat on the sidelines and watched.