Kazune looked at me, wide-eyed. ‘You’re right.’ Her lips slowly curled up in a smile. ‘I don’t exactly fall apart when I play to an audience, so I shouldn’t worry about it, should I?’

In actual fact, I remember resenting my own younger sibling. I envied him every time he snatched away the prize that I felt should have been mine, but I pretended not to care.

‘I’ve been wasting your time worrying about pointless stuff – like it’s all a question of luck or something you’re born with. I don’t want to lose sight of more important things. Sorry to have bothered you,’ Kazune said. She bowed twice to me and then left the shop with a small wave, the doorbell jangling behind her.

I was left hoping that she wouldn’t end up feeling resentful towards Yuni. It’s a lot more painful to be jealous of someone than to be the object of jealousy.

I was about to take the stairs up to the office when Mr Yanagi caught up with me. He was a little breathless and looked as though he’d just arrived.

‘Well, that was a surprise. Wasn’t that Kazune-chan?’

He sounded in a good mood.

‘You can tell the twins apart, can’t you, Mr Yanagi?’

Tuning case still in his hand, Mr Yanagi inclined his head, a questioning look on his face. ‘What do you mean, Tomura?’

‘Makes sense as you’ve been going to their house since they were little.’

‘Tomura, how old do you think I am, anyway? When the twins were young, so was I.’

‘Oh!’

There was a three- or four-year age difference between the twins and me, and I guessed there must be ten years at least between them and Mr Yanagi. I was wondering how old the twins had been when he first started tuning their piano, when he suddenly said, ‘Their uniforms are slightly different.’

‘Uniforms?’

‘Even if you can’t tell their faces apart, anybody can figure it out by looking at their uniforms.’ He began to sound impatient. ‘Are you telling me you haven’t noticed?’

‘Ah well – now that you mention it.’

Mr Yanagi broke into a grin.

Now that he’d said it, I realized their uniforms were indeed different. Kazune had told me once that they were attending different sixth-form colleges since Yuni had better grades.

‘No, it’s because all Kazune can think of is the piano,’ Yuni had said on another occasion, laughing. ‘Our grades are about the same, though I do better in maths. For me, once I’ve psyched out the first problem, then I feel I can do the next one too. But Kazune doesn’t feel excited about anything except the piano.’