Mr Yanagi was just leaving the shop as I arrived. ‘What’s up? You seem in a good mood,’ he said. Mr Yanagi seemed pretty cheerful himself.

‘I was thinking how blessed I am to have such wonderful clients.’

‘Clients, eh?’

I thought about it then added, ‘And such brilliant mentors, too.’

Mr Yanagi glanced at me, chuckling. ‘Hey, you don’t have to worry about sucking up to me! I was just thinking how very like you that is – that you reckon you’re blessed with wonderful clients.’

‘Really?’

‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ he prefaced, and his next words hit me hard, ‘but you’re not blessed with anything special.’

He was right. Of course he was right.

‘At most, some good clients, some good mentors – that’s about it.’

I didn’t have a particularly good ear, wasn’t that clever with my hands, and had no grounding in music. So I wasn’t blessed in any way at all. I had nothing. I was only here because of my obsession with that big, black instrument.

‘What I mean is, it’s all based on your own technical know-how, Tomura.’

‘Hmm?’

Mr Yanagi grinned. ‘It’s not that you’re blessed with wonderful clients – it’s your own ability that gets you the jobs.’

I couldn’t come up with an immediate response, and watched in silence as he walked out.

I felt like I’d just been hit over the head.

‘But how does one become a great tuner?’

I must have said this out loud as I returned to my desk, because a voice answered from behind me.

‘First you have to put in ten thousand hours.’

I turned and saw Miss Kitagawa looking at me.

‘They say that if you put in ten thousand hours towards any goal, things will fall into place. If you’re going to worry, best to wait until after you’ve done your ten thousand hours and then see.’

I calculated how many days that would come to. ‘About five or six years, isn’t it?’

She held up a calculator from her desk to show me her own workings. ‘You can’t spend every minute of every day tuning, plus you need days off.’

I scanned across to Mr Akino, busy with his paperwork. ‘Mr Akino?’ I said, but got no response. ‘Mr Akino, could I go out with you again to watch you tune?’

Slowly he withdrew the earplug from his left ear. ‘I’m busy. How about getting Mr Itadori to let you watch him, instead of me?’ He presented this in a disinterested monotone, without even looking up.

‘I’d really appreciate that, too. I, er …’ I hesitated. ‘The thing is, I’m not planning to become a concert piano tuner, but I want to get good at tuning domestic pianos.’