The spinning needle of my inner compass had now come to a halt. All the red arrows hovering over so many different pianos – in the forest, in town, in the gym of my sixth-form college – all of them were now pointing in a single direction. Towards Kazune’s piano.

Tune for the Individual

Kazune’s words, ‘The piano is how I’ll make a life,’ kept replaying in my head, along with her wilful, commanding tone as she said them. Her flushed cheeks. Her dark, sparkling eyes.

In the mornings as I walked to work I mulled this over and over. Kazune’s playing, her words, her expression. I knew these weren’t just meant for me, but even so they moved me. Even in my lowly state there had to be some way I could give something back to her. Some response I could offer.

I unlocked the door to the deserted office. When I’d first started with the company I’d assumed that as the new boy I would open up in the morning. But I was soon told not to worry about that. Mr Akino came to work early because the roads weren’t so busy then, so I needn’t concern myself with opening the shop up.

This morning, however, I couldn’t contain myself. I couldn’t wait to get to the office and get my hands on a piano.

It wasn’t just because she was so skilled that I liked Kazune’s playing. There was something beyond the beautiful and refined depths of her tone – an anticipatory tension that something was about to be revealed.

That extra something in Kazune’s playing was no lingering shadow, nor was there any sense of her having taken on the burden of playing on behalf of a bitter and regretful Yuni, whose own dreams of life as a pianist had come to an abrupt end. Kazune had digested all of this, and out of it had been born an altogether fresh, new radiance.

Back in the office I flung open all the windows. Morning light flooded the rooms, and the early breeze still contained a residual coolness.

I imagined how, for Kazune, from the moment she decided to become a professional pianist, the world must have looked so different to her. I’d been the same age then as Kazune was now: seventeen when I encountered Mr Itadori. And I could still recall the ecstasy I’d felt when I decided to become a tuner. Nothing was for certain, yet I was full of elation as though the mist before my eyes had suddenly cleared, and for the first time my feet were properly touching the ground as I walked; a deep happiness so palpable I could almost trace its outline. Right at that moment, I was sure I could walk as far as I would ever need to.