‘I found a couple of restaurants with pianos. A restaurant with a nice instrument but so-so food, or one with fantastic food but only a so-so piano – which would you choose?’

‘The one with the good piano.’

‘I agree!’ Mr Yanagi looked down at his bag of tuning tools. ‘But she wanted to go for the one that has the best food.’

‘Ah.’

That was a little surprising. I would have thought Miss Hamano would go with the piano.

‘The food I can leave up to others, but she told me, “The piano you should be able to take care of, Yanagi.”’

‘Really?’

‘No reallys about it. The groom is very busy on his special day. If I weren’t the groom I’d do my best with the piano, but I’m going to have my hands full. So I was thinking …’ Mr Yanagi held my eyes. ‘I asked a very good pianist to play for us.’

‘That’s wonderful.’

‘Work-related guests with a good ear for music will be coming. But whether or not the guests have a good enough ear, or have even heard a decent pianist, listening to a wonderful recital while dining is a perfect way to celebrate.’

He looked so happy it made me happy too.

‘I was thinking of having you tune the piano, Tomura.’

This came so out of the blue, my voice shot up an octave:

‘But – th–there must be someone else you could—?’

Mr Akino would be good, and naturally Mr Itadori would be superb.

‘I’d like you to do it, if you’re OK with that?’

For a moment I questioned whether I should accept, me being a junior tuner and all. This was a very special day for them. It would be better to have someone more skilled than me to do the tuning.

‘The pianist is going to be Kazune-chan.’

‘Wha—?’

I was astonished. What a wonderful party that would be – to dine while listening to Kazune play the piano.

‘You’d like to do the tuning now, I bet.’ Mr Yanagi grinned.

‘No—I think—’

All the more reason to have someone better than me do the tuning, I was about to say, when an emotion I couldn’t suppress welled up in me.

‘I can do it,’ I announced, in a voice so decisive it took me by surprise. ‘Please let me do it.’

I bowed my head, and Mr Yanagi nodded in delight.

V

A Master Class

Greatness = Perseverance + Resignation

That evening when I got back to the office there was a message taped to my desk.

Tomorrow’s appointment with Mr Kimura is cancelled.

Cancelled? I had a bad feeling about this. I went over to check the details with Miss Kitagawa, who’d taken the call. ‘He’s not rescheduling for later, but cancelling altogether?’

Miss Kitagawa shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

‘Another one who wants to change tuners?’

‘Umm,’ she said, avoiding my eyes.