Masamune had let her play some of his video games.

She’d always thought that boys only let the pretty girls touch any of their gadgets.

Subaru added the intimate chan, calling her Fuka-chan. She liked how gentlemanly he was.

Even Rion, the sort of boy who stood out in a crowd, treated her as one of his friends, and called her simply Fuka.

Whenever he did so, she was happy to be her, to be just ‘Fuka’.

Whether I have any talent or not – none of that makes any difference here. They’re all happy to know me.

‘HELLO. HAVE WE … MET before?’

‘Hello.’

As they exchanged greetings, Fuka thought: So this is Ms Kitajima. I’m finally able to meet her.

The others had apparently all gone to the Classroom for the Heart alternative School with their mothers, but Fuka went alone; it was her secret.

The others had talked often about this Ms Kitajima, how she was someone they relied on for support. She found herself wanting to meet her as well.

Ms Kitajima often stopped by Yukishina No. 5 Junior High, and had already heard about Fuka, an eighth-grader who’d had several absences from school. ‘I’m so happy you’ve come,’ she said.

Little by little, in a broken, rambling way, Fuka opened up to her.

After the results of the competition were announced and Fuka had been eliminated, Fuka’s mother began to lose heart. She no longer urged Fuka to practise like she used to. It didn’t seem to matter to her whether Fuka went to her piano lessons or to school. Fuka pretended she was going to school, but actually she was spending her time at the alternative School and at the castle.

She knew she wasn’t about to go back to school. And she wondered what her mother really wanted her to do.

How much longer is Fuka planning to play? Her grandfather’s words were like a curse she heard ringing out from the depths of her being.

As she talked over things with Ms Kitajima, she realized how very depressed and anxious she’d been.

‘I can’t go back now,’ she said. ‘I can’t keep up with schoolwork. I don’t know if I should go on playing the piano.’

‘OK, then – let’s start to study,’ Ms Kitajima said cheerfully. ‘I’ll help you. It sounds to me,’ she went on, ‘as if you feel you’ve become involved in a high-stakes activity.’

‘High stakes?’

‘You’ve been working towards a single goal for years, and worried about what might happen if you can’t win competitions or become a pianist. With that in mind, studying – schoolwork – might be a much lower risk activity for you. If you try hard, you’ll always see results, and it will never be wasted, no matter what you end up doing in life.

‘So let’s do both,’ Ms Kitajima said with a smile. ‘I totally understand how much the piano means to you, Fuka-chan. But let’s do our schoolwork too, not just agonize over the piano.’