The Tuner with Broken Fingers and the Pianist Who Admired Him
In the city of Sonare, where every street hums with melody, Fujisaki Minato lives a quiet life as a piano tuner—his once-brilliant career as a concert pianist shattered eight years ago when his right hand froze onstage at the height of the national competition. Now he pours everything into caring for the instruments of others, hiding the tremors in his fingers and the memory of the performance that destroyed him.
Then he hears the name Kiryu Kanade.
A nineteen-year-old prodigy on the verge of
The Tuner with Broken Fingers and the Pianist Who Admired Him - A Rainy Night and the Sound That Never Reached
The rain had begun to fall.
The sky over the instrument district had been leaden since morning, and by afternoon a fine drizzle was wetting the cobblestones. Standing at the entrance of Fujisaki Instruments, a familiar smell drifted in with the damp air. Old wood, and the metal of piano strings. And the smell of dust, which grew stronger only on rainy days.
Fujisaki Minato leaned his elbow on the counter and gazed vaguely outside.
Several days had passed since that visitor at dusk.
He still remembered the young man's face clearly. Out of breath, shoulders heaving, and yet looking straight at Minato. Those eyes harboring a fierce light. In the backlight of the setting sun, only his outline had seemed to burn.
—I heard your sound, and I started playing the piano.
Those words clung to the back of his ears and would not leave.
Minato opened and closed his right hand. The fingers were trembling faintly again today. The fact that this hand had once produced a sound that changed that young man's life—he simply could not believe it.
"...How stupid."
Minato muttered, to no one.
The bell at the shop entrance chimed.
"Well, Minato-kun. Cold today, isn't it."
The one who entered was a small elderly woman with her white hair neatly gathered. She held her roughly five-foot frame upright, her gentle brown eyes crinkling. Saeki Fumi, proprietress of Café Dolce. Seventy-eight years old. A former pianist, and an acquaintance of Minato's since his father's time. On the ring finger of her left hand, an old engagement ring glimmered.
"Fumi-san. Welcome."
Minato gave a slight bow.
As always, Fumi leaned against the counter and stared hard at Minato's face.
"You haven't been sleeping again, have you?"
"...Nothing's wrong. I'm fine."
"Liar. You've been a terrible liar since you were small."
Fumi gave a small laugh. Then she set the paper bag she carried on the counter. What emerged was homemade cookies. A faint scent of butter.
"A little something. I baked them yesterday. Are you eating properly?"
"...Thank you."
Minato accepted the cookies. Fumi was always like this. She found some excuse to drop by the shop and check on him. Her worry was plain as day.
"By the way."
Fumi lowered her voice.
"That boy came again, didn't he?"
Minato's hand stopped for an instant.
"...That boy?"
"Don't play dumb. The young man who came that evening. He was saying something to you in front of this shop, wasn't he."
Fumi smiled mischievously.
"The neighbors saw. 'A young fellow came asking for Fujisaki Instruments,' they said. You're famous around here, you know."
"...What a nuisance."
Minato sighed.
"So, what was it?"
"Nothing. Just a customer."
"A mere customer doesn't come to a shop with a face that desperate."
Fumi planted both hands on the counter and peered into Minato's face. A seventy-eight-year-old face carved with deep wrinkles. Yet her eyes had not lost the sharpness of her days as a working pianist.
"Minato-kun. You're carrying something again, aren't you."
"...Nothing."
"I can tell. That face you make when you're hiding something. It's the same face you made when your father died."
Minato could say nothing.
Fumi gazed at him for a while, then gave a small sigh and straightened her back.
"Well, talk to me when you feel like talking. I'll be waiting at the café counter, always."
"...Yes."
Fumi left. The sweet scent of cookies lingered in the shop.
Minato looked at the cookies on the counter. Homemade, slightly misshapen. That was the kind of thing about Fumi he had always loved.
But now, that kindness felt just a little heavy.
A little past three in the afternoon, Minato left the shop and walked through the instrument district.
His destination was Café Dolce.
He had run out of coffee beans. It was his habit to buy the beans he used for the shop from Fumi's café. Her café sat almost in the center of the instrument district, about a five-minute walk from Fujisaki Instruments. A small place, but the coffee was genuine, and it had many regulars.
The rain was still falling.
Minato walked under his umbrella, avoiding the puddles. The arcade of the instrument district kept off the rain, but when the wind blew, fine droplets came in. The sleeves of his shirt grew damp and clung to his skin.
When he opened the door of Café Dolce, the scent of coffee and the tinkle of a small bell welcomed him.
"Welcome."
Fumi poked her head out from behind the counter.
"I ran out of beans."
"Oh, did you. Just a moment."
Fumi began measuring beans with practiced hands. Minato looked around the shop. Four tables. Two of them were occupied by regulars. One was an elderly man reading a newspaper. The other was a man who ran a sheet-music shop in the district.
"Oh, if it isn't Fujisaki-san."
The sheet-music man looked up and called out. Miyashita Makoto, fifty-two. Owner of the sheet-music shop "Prelude." A man who dealt in rare scores too, and who knew everyone in the neighborhood.
"Hello."
Minato gave a slight bow.
"Come over here a moment. I've got something interesting to tell you."
Miyashita beckoned. Minato hesitated a little, but with no reason to refuse, he sat in the seat across from Miyashita.
"Did you hear? About this year's competition."
Miyashita lowered his voice.
"...Not particularly."
"A tuner ought to know, or you'll be in trouble. This year it's a mess, apparently."
"A mess?"
"Sabotage. Sabotage. Scores vanishing, practice-room pianos broken. Worst it's been in years, they say."
Something deep in Minato's chest gave a small creak.
"...Who would do such a thing?"
"Don't know. But rumor has it a fellow who was a favorite to win had all his scores wiped out right before the performance, and he withdrew."
Miyashita furrowed his brow.
"Poor bastard. Years of preparation, and right before the real thing. Without the score, you've got no choice but to play from memory. But memorizing a program that size—that's not something just anyone can do."
Minato said nothing.
"The Arcadia Music Association does have its fairness rules, but without evidence they can't do a thing. There's hardly ever been a case where the saboteur got caught."
"...I suppose so."
Minato answered briefly.
Miyashita took a sip of coffee and went on.
"So, here's the thing. Young folks entering this year's competition come by my shop a lot, and they're all on edge. Nobody knows who'll be sabotaged next. Well, can't blame them."
"...That must be hard."
"You be careful too. A tuner deals with the performers' sound, after all. No telling when you might get dragged in."
Miyashita said it with a serious face.
Minato nodded vaguely.
Just then, Fumi's voice came from behind the counter.
"Miyashita-san, are you filling Minato-kun's head with strange things again?"
"It's not strange. It's important."
"You, of all people—just because you run a sheet-music shop, you go around collecting all these dangerous stories."
Fumi said, exasperated, and held out a bag of beans to Minato.
"Here, Minato-kun. Will this do?"
"Ah, thank you."
Minato paid and rose from his seat.
"Drop by again."
Miyashita waved.
Minato gave a slight bow and left the café.
Outside, the rain had grown stronger than before.
Minato raised his umbrella and hurried back to the shop. Miyashita's words sank heavily into his heart.
—Sabotage.
—The scores vanished.
—Withdrawal.
He could not help but remember that day, eight years ago.
Back at the shop, Minato resumed his afternoon tuning work.
Today it was maintenance on the grand piano kept as a display piece. An old Steinway. A weathered instrument that had been there since Minato first came to this shop. Its tone was soft and deep. Minato loved the sound of this piano.
Tuning hammer in hand, he checked each string one by one. The faint vibration traveling to his fingertips. If he listened closely, he could tell where the pitch had gone astray. Only while doing this work could he keep from thinking about anything else.
But today was different.
Miyashita's words would not leave the corner of his mind.
—Sabotage.
Minato set down the hammer and exhaled deeply.
The fingers of his right hand were trembling again.
Night came.
Closing time approached, and the employees left one after another. Minato, the last to remain, locked up the shop and sat at the work desk in the back, keeping the books.
Outside, the rain had become a steady downpour.
Only the sound of rain echoed through the shop, a steady hiss. Now and then the wind blew and rattled the window glass.
Minato closed the ledger and stretched broadly.
—Time to go home.
It was then.
The bell at the shop entrance chimed.
Minato raised his head.
The shop was already closed. Had someone wandered in by mistake? Thinking so, he looked toward the entrance.
There stood the young man.
He was soaked to the bone.
His light chestnut, fluffy hair clung to his forehead, wet with rain. His large amber eyes shone strangely clear in the dark shop. He wore a backpack, and his thin shirt, soaked with rain, stuck to his body. At his left ear, a small piano-note earring swayed.
It was the young man from that dusk.
"...You."
Minato was at a loss for words.
The young man said nothing.
He only stared straight at Minato. Raindrops traced down his cheeks and fell. Water dripped ceaselessly from his bangs and from the tip of his chin. A small puddle was forming on the floor.
"...The shop's closed already."
That was all Minato finally managed.
The young man blinked slowly. Raindrops glistened on his long lashes.
"...I'll come again tomorrow."
The young man's voice rang out strangely clear amid the sound of the rain.
Having said only that, he bowed deeply.
Then he turned his back and disappeared into the rain.
Minato could not move for a while.
At the shop entrance, where the young man had stood, a trace of water remained.
—I'll come again tomorrow.
The words echoed in his head.
Minato was remembering the young man's back. A slender back, wet with rain. And yet the spine held straight. An unfaltering gait.
—That's who I used to be.
The thought came to him suddenly.
Eight years ago. The night before the finals at Arcadia Hall. Minato had gone to see someone. Who it was, he could no longer remember. But someone had been there. Someone Minato had wanted to see, no matter what.
What had Minato said to that person?
He could not remember.
But surely his own face back then had looked like that too. Soaked by rain, and yet with eyes that looked only straight ahead, as if burning for something.
Minato's right hand trembled.
From the next day on, the young man came to the shop every day.
At first, he only peered inside from the entrance. When Minato noticed and tried to call out, he would give a little bow and flee.
Gradually, he began to come inside.
But he did not give his name.
And Minato did not ask.
The young man liked to stand before the shop's old Steinway. He would open the lid, gaze at the strings, and watch the movement of the hammers intently. His profile was serious, and somewhere childlike.
One day, as Minato was tuning, the young man approached and stared at the tuning tools.
"...That's a tuning hammer, isn't it."
For the first time, the young man spoke to Minato.
"Yeah."
"May I touch it?"
Minato hesitated a little.
"...Don't touch it on your own."
"Then let me help."
The young man smiled brightly.
A canine tooth showed.
Minato was taken aback by that smile.
"...Help? Do you have any tuning experience?"
"None. But I'll learn. If you teach me, Minato-san."
The young man said it as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
"...You know my name?"
"I do. Fujisaki Minato-san. The tuner at this shop, and once—"
The young man cut off there.
"...Once, what."
"...Nothing."
The young man smiled, a little troubled.
Minato sighed.
"...Don't touch anything on your own. If you're just watching, do as you like."
"Yes!"
The young man nodded happily.
After that, the y
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