‘A tuner,’ Mr Kabuto said.

I’d never heard this word before, and thought it might relate to the air conditioning.

I had more school tests the next day so I buried my head in a history book for a while, before heading over to the entrance. A man in a brown jacket was waiting, a large case in one hand.

‘Are you here for the air conditioning?’ I asked, opening the door wide for him.

‘My name is Itadori. I’m from the Eto Music Shop.’

I hesitated, momentarily confused.

‘I hear that Mr Kubota has a staff meeting today,’ the man said. ‘So, if you’d be kind enough to show me where the piano is?’

I nodded, placing the brown slippers we used for visitors on the floor in front of him.

I wondered fleetingly what he was going to do to the piano, although to be honest I wasn’t that bothered. ‘Please follow me,’ I said, leading him down the corridor and noticing how very heavy his briefcase looked. What on earth might he keep in there? I walked him over to the piano in the corner of the gym. He laid his bag carefully on the floor and nodded to me. My cue, I thought, to leave. I turned to go.

The gym usually resounded with students calling out during volleyball or basketball and the screeching and thudding of trainers on the maple-wood floors. At this hour it lay quiet. Evening light poured in through the high windows, bathing the whirling eddies of dust in a yellow glow.

As I made my way back down the corridor, the sound of the piano halted my step. It was mellow and rhythmic. I took a breath and listened again. A repeated clanging and twanging, higher then lower, echoed in the gym. It is hard to describe. But my soul was suddenly filled with a nostalgia and longing – and something else I couldn’t quite identify. I was taken aback. I crept quietly towards the gym and peeked my head through the door as the man went about his business. Feeling braver, I came closer. The man continued industriously, knocking and twanging. He moved around the piano and carefully lifted the huge black wing of the lid, propped it on the support stand, and pressed a few more keys.

It was then that I smelled the unmistakable scent of the forest at nightfall, felt I was on the very cusp of setting foot inside. I considered entering, but resisted. The forest after dark is dangerous, after all – or so children’s stories tell us.