Again Miss Kitagawa chuckled. ‘Listen, Tomura-kun. That idea of yours could be helpful to her, or maybe it won’t. Even if it isn’t, it might turn out to be useful to your tuning technique in the future.’

‘Miss Kitagawa … when I first heard Mr Itadori tuning a piano, it changed my life.’

‘Wow.’ She smiled knowingly.

‘I don’t know if music is useful to my life as such, but that’s when my inner life really began. It was an experience that went way beyond being useful or not.’

‘I understand.’ Miss Kitagawa gave a decisive nod. ‘Which is why I think you should act on your idea. If it doesn’t work out, you go back to where you started. But it might help Kazune.’

I’d been sitting down, but stood up once again.

‘Listening to you, Tomura-kun, reminds me of a murder mystery I read a long time ago.’

‘What do you mean?’

Miss Kitagawa stood up, walked over to me, and said in a low voice, ‘The plot of the book was really interesting, but the solution at the end was – how should I put it? – a little unusual. When the criminal phoned the protagonist he didn’t say a word but there was a faint thump, thump in the background.’

Where was she going with this?

‘When the protagonist heard the sound he knew where the call was coming from. The criminal had a small dog and that dog, on its last legs, was lying on its side, its tail beating listlessly on the floor. That small sound gave him away.’ Miss Kitagawa let out a breath. ‘From the tiniest, most trivial-seeming of clues, you might discover how to draw out the most beautiful sounds from a piano. The conclusion could turn out to be wrong, or a red herring. But seeing whether it can be done or not is the mark of a tuner with flair.’

I shifted awkwardly in my seat.

‘I believe you can do it. My guess is you’re good at discovering those tiny clues, but your technical skills may not be quite up to it yet.’

I knew that the kind Miss Kitagawa was doing her best to encourage me.

The road ahead was steep and long, and I had no firm idea as to how to achieve my goals. First came the will to do it, then persistence and effort. And then maybe something else entirely.

Working with pianos every day. Paying careful attention to what clients might tell me. Polishing my tuning instruments. Retuning the pianos in our showroom, one by one. Listening to piano music, advice from Mr Akino and Mr Yanagi, hints from Mr Itadori. Kazune’s rich and wonderful melodies.

And maybe, during our short summer, lying down with the scent of grass all around, seeing the trees glowing at night in the mountains, listening closely to the murmur of a mountain spring as it bubbles out of the ground.