At first he’d been rather reserved in his dealings with me, perhaps because we’d had few opportunities to interact. As he got used to me, he relaxed and spoke his mind more freely. When he did so, his words struck me deeply, and I remembered them and carried them with me.

Congratulations. That was right on the mark. All I could manage was to carry Mr Itadori’s bag, but I was awestruck simply at being able to accompany him on a tuning job.

I had decided not to be fazed by it, though. That would be to waste the opportunity. And this was an amazing opportunity – to watch Mr Itadori tune a piano for a world-class pianist.

I went over to the office whiteboard and wrote in the name of the concert hall in the column next to my name.

‘So why are you going, Tomura? What use will you be?’

Mr Akino was scoffing now, and this took me by surprise. Everywhere you go there are unpleasant people who take pleasure in running roughshod over others’ feelings. Be it in a small village in the mountains, in a college in town, among our clients, even in our office, it makes no difference. I tried to convince myself that worrying about it wasn’t going to get me anywhere. But he did, after all, have a point. And because he was right, I had to respond.

‘In five years,’ I began, then corrected myself. ‘I’m sorry – in ten years. I’ll study hard so that ten years from now it’ll bear fruit.’

‘Even if you study … and even in ten years …’ Mr Akino snorted dismissively. I decided to ignore his contempt, and walked out of the door.

There was a shift in the air the moment we entered the spacious auditorium of the concert hall. Suddenly I found myself sensing the vastness of the forest – that selfsame forest all over again. All the commotion outside was forgotten.

With permission from the venue manager, we sat in the middle of the hall to get the clearest view possible of the stage and the piano.

‘It’s a really good idea,’ Mr Itadori said, nodding, ‘to check how the piano appears from the point of view of the audience. You have to strip away your own preconceptions.’

From our seats in the auditorium we were presented with the tableau of the piano on one side of the unlit stage. Even in its stillness, it was beautiful.

‘I’ll go around through the dressing room, and you can come up from here,’ Mr Itadori said, asking me to seek permission from the manager first.