Not knowing why the twins had asked me to come, I watched as Mr Yanagi smoothly went about his tuning. His work was so very precise. Now that I was tuning myself I could really appreciate his labours, see what painstaking care he employed with each step of the process and marvel at his nimble fingers. There was no point in trying to imitate his technique – no one else could tune quite like him – but I was grateful for the opportunity to study his work at close hand.

Mr Yanagi opened the door and called out, ‘I’ve finished.’ Mrs Sakura and the twins came in straight away.

‘I’ve tuned it so it sounds the same as before,’ Mr Yanagi explained, and Yuni seemed somehow dissatisfied.

‘But we’re not the same as before.’ She looked straight in his eyes as she said this.

‘I think it’s best to have the piano sounding as it was before. If the two of you have changed, you’ll produce a tone that’s different from how it was in any case.’

Yuni inclined her head slightly, looking uncertain, then turned to me and said, ‘What do you think, Mr Tomura?’

‘I really don’t know.’ This was my honest response, and I sensed her look away.

‘We won’t know unless you play,’ Mr Yanagi said. ‘Could you try it out for us?’

The twins shared a glance, and then Kazune nodded.

In the past when they’d tested the piano, it was four hands that danced across the keys, two straight backs sitting shoulder to shoulder. Seeing them both in front of the gleaming black instrument was an image that had struck a chord in my heart, even before they had started to play.

Yuni’s melodies had been so alluring, gorgeously free-spirited and uninhibited – playing that brought to mind all the most intensely pleasurable joys of life. Kazune’s playing, in contrast, was quieter, more subtle. For me it conjured up a mountain spring in the hidden depths of a forest. So what was going to happen now, with only one of them? Would that mountain spring still bubble in its mysterious way?

When Kazune sat down alone at the piano I got a surprise. Her posture was bold and resolute. From the moment she placed her slim fingers on the keyboard and began to play, all memories and worldly thoughts flew away.

It felt as though I’d already been listening to the music before it even began – the melodies, though, I could pick out only here and now. Kazune’s presence in this moment was entirely wrapped up in it – it was music that would go on for ever. As I listened to her play, wave after wave washed over me. Her fortitude and strength of character were there for all to hear.