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 - The Vanished Sheet Music and the Creaking Strings
Morning light was beginning to spill slowly over the instrument-shop street, still drowsy. Rain from the night before lingered in the gaps between the cobblestones, catching the sunrise and glinting silver here and there. The sky was clear. Yet its blue was somehow thin, like a taut membrane stretched too tight.
Fujisaki Minato raised the shop's shutter and drew a deep breath. The morning air was cold, and it seemed to wash clean the depths of his lungs. For a moment, he curled the fingers of his right hand lightly. The tips trembled, faintly. Over the past few days—ever since Kanade had begun coming to the shop—that tremor had been growing more frequent, little by little.
(...It's nothing.)
Minato told himself so and straightened the signboard set out in front of the shop. *Fujisaki Instrument Shop.* This shop, and nothing else, was all his father had left him. It was all he had.
And then it happened.
"Minato-san...! Minato-san, are you awake!?"
From across the street came a voice strained to breaking. A young man was running toward him, his bright chestnut hair in disarray, his breath ragged. Kiryu Kanade. His face, which usually wore a smile as bright as the sun, was now white as paper.
Kanade reached Minato and bent over, hands on his knees, shoulders heaving. The piano-note earring in his left ear caught the morning light and flashed.
"What is it. What happened."
Minato's voice came out lower and calmer than he had expected, even to his own ears.
"The practice room... all my sheet music, it's gone."
Kanade lifted his face. His large amber eyes were brimming, on the verge of spilling over.
"And that's not all. Two of the piano's strings were cut, too... Someone clearly did it on purpose."
Deep in Minato's chest, something gave a cold, ringing sound.
"...The conservatory practice rooms."
"Yes. The preliminaries are only a week away, and... what do I do? My score—that was the only copy I had."
Kanade's voice was shaking. Minato reached out to lay a hand on his shoulder, then stopped himself. Instead he grabbed a ring of keys from the back of the shop and started walking without a word.
"Minato-san, where are you going?"
"To see the scene. Take me there."
The two of them walked side by side through the morning instrument-shop street. The arcade was not yet open; shuttered storefronts lined the way. Somewhere in the distance, someone seemed to be polishing an instrument—the faint clink of metal on metal.
The walk to Sonare College of Music took about twenty minutes. They crossed a broad avenue and passed alongside a concert hall. The white walls of Arcadia Hall were dazzling in the morning sun. The whole way, Kanade kept glancing at Minato's profile as though he wanted to say something, but Minato deliberately kept his mouth shut.
When they reached the conservatory, Kanade led him to the practice-room wing, deserted at this hour. It was an old building, and the corridors were steeped in the peculiar smell of soundproofing material. Kanade stopped before one door.
"This is it. The room I always use."
Minato stepped inside.
The soundproof door stood half open, and the area around the keyhole was scratched—marks as though something had pried it open. Inside was a single grand piano, its lid raised. Minato peered into it and caught his breath.
Two strings had been snapped clean at the base. The cut edges were sharp, freshly made. Someone had severed them deliberately, with pliers or something like them.
"...This is..."
Minato's voice rasped.
"The score was on the desk. It was definitely there yesterday, but when I came this morning it was gone... and then the piano, too."
Only half of Kanade's words reached Minato's ears.
In Minato's mind, a scene from eight years ago flashed back. The night before the finals, a score opened in a hotel room. A single note slipped between the pages. *Your fingers are finished.* And the next morning, the change that had come over his right hand. Even then, there had been no warning the day before.
(It's the same.)
He could feel the blood draining from his fingertips. His heart beat slowly, heavily, against the inside of his chest.
"...Hey, Kanade."
"Yes."
"Have you ever done anything to make someone hate you?"
Kanade looked at him, blinking in blank surprise.
"Huh? Something to make someone hate me? I can't think of anything at all... Oh, but my teacher did tell me that winning too many competitions makes people jealous."
Kanade gave a slightly troubled smile.
"But would anyone really do something like this? Maybe it's just a prank."
"Would a prank cut piano strings? Break the lock?"
Minato's voice had grown sharper than necessary. Kanade flinched, shrinking back.
"...I'm sorry."
Minato let out a deep breath.
"No—it's not something you need to apologize for. ...Anyway, this place isn't safe. Don't practice today."
"But the preliminaries are only a week away. And my score is gone, so I have to practice."
Kanade refused to back down. In his eyes burned a strong will, different from the fear of a moment before.
"...Fine. Then change locations. At the very least, don't use this room."
Kanade nodded, reluctant.
They left the conservatory and retraced their path. Unlike on the way there, Kanade barely spoke. Minato, too, did not know what to say. Only their footsteps rang out, regular, between them.
Back at the shop, Minato dropped heavily into the chair behind the counter. His body felt as heavy as lead. Kanade stood in the middle of the shop, fidgeting uneasily with the strap of his backpack.
"Kanade."
Minato spoke with his eyes closed.
"Quit the competition."
Silence filled the shop.
"...What?"
Kanade's voice trembled, small.
"Didn't you hear me? I'm telling you to quit the competition."
Minato opened his eyes and looked straight at Kanade. Kanade stared back as though looking at something he could not believe.
"Why...? I never thought you were the kind of person to say something like that, Minato-san."
"This isn't just harassment. Someone is trying to crush your entry before it even begins. You don't understand anything. You have no idea what kind of filth goes on behind that stage."
Minato's voice gradually took on heat.
"What are *you* talking about, Minato-san! I chased your sound all the way here. For eight years, all of it. I finally got to meet you, finally thought I could touch a piano you had tuned. And now you tell me to quit—that's too cruel!"
Kanade's voice rose as well. It was the first time Minato had ever seen him angry.
"Your feelings don't matter here! I can't stand to watch you get hurt!"
Minato struck the counter with his fist. A dry sound echoed through the shop.
"It's fine if I get hurt! I want to make your sound ring out on that stage. That's all. What's so wrong with that!?"
Tears spilled from Kanade's eyes.
"You... you don't understand anything. Eight years ago, I went through the same thing. The night before the finals, my score was erased, the piano was tampered with... and this right hand was destroyed."
Minato thrust his trembling right hand out before Kanade.
"So the same thing might happen to you. No—it already has. Next time, they'll go after your fingers. I'm telling you to quit before that happens."
Kanade stared fixedly at Minato's right hand. The trembling fingers, marked with old scars.
"...Minato-san."
Wiping his tears, Kanade spoke quietly.
"You're not worried about me, are you. You're just afraid for yourself."
Minato felt as though his heart had stopped.
"You're overlaying what happened eight years ago onto me. It's not that you're afraid of me getting hurt—you're just afraid of remembering that time again yourself."
"...That's not it."
"It is! You're only thinking about yourself. Have you ever once considered how I felt coming here, how much I've admired your sound!?"
Kanade's voice was close to a shout now.
"...You can't understand. What it means to lose your fingers. How painful it is, to never be able to dream again."
Minato's voice was hoarse.
"I do understand. Because I understand, I want to hear your sound once more. What you lost—I'll bring it back for you. So please. Don't tell me to quit."
Kanade bowed his head deeply. His shoulders trembled in small, tight shudders.
Minato could say nothing.
A long, long silence flowed between them.
"...Leave."
That was all Minato finally managed to say.
Kanade slowly raised his face. His eyes were swollen red from crying.
"...I understand. But I will never give up."
Kanade hitched his backpack higher and started toward the shop door.
"Kanade."
Kanade stopped before the door. But he did not turn around.
"...Be careful."
That was all he could manage.
Kanade gave a small nod and left the shop.
For a while, Minato could not move. The tremor in his right hand would not stop. His heart pounded, loud enough to be unbearable.
(Am I wrong?)
Kanade's words remained lodged in his chest like a thorn.
That night.
After closing up, as Minato was working on the account books, the shop door rattled with a chime.
"Hey there, Minato-kun. Still up, are you?"
It was one of the shop's regulars. A short, stout man in his late sixties. In his hand he carried a large bottle of sake.
"...We're already closed."
"I know. Humor me a little, would you? There's something I want to talk about."
The man helped himself to a chair from the back of the shop and sat down before the counter. Then he set the bottle he had brought on top of it.
"Sorry to impose. Just one cup."
Minato sighed and produced two small glasses from beneath the counter. The man poured happily. The clear liquid swayed in the glass.
"So. What did you want to talk about?"
Minato asked without picking up his glass.
"That competition business. This year's supposed to be especially bad."
The man lowered his voice.
"...Bad, how?"
"You know Himuro Rei, don't you? That young pianist with the most wins in the competition's history. The sweet-faced one who's always on TV."
Minato's heart gave a great leap.
"I know him."
"Word is, his crowd is pulling strings behind the scenes. They crush any young player who looks like they might beat him, before the preliminaries even start. Erasing scores, breaking practice-room pianos—they've got specialists doing that kind of sabotage, or so the rumor goes."
Minato picked up his glass without a word and drained it. The taste of cheap liquor burned his throat.
"Last year, too—one of the favorites had all his scores erased right before the finals and was forced to withdraw. He just swallowed his tears. There was no evidence at all."
"...Evidence?"
"There isn't any. There couldn't be. That crowd hires professionals for this kind of work. They do it cleverly, so nothing can be traced back to them."
The man emptied his own glass and poured another.
"You be careful too, Fujisaki-san. A young pianist's been coming to your shop lately, hasn't he? If that kid's entering this year's competition, he'll be a target for certain."
Minato could say nothing.
After the man left, Minato went to the workbench at the back of the shop.
He opened a drawer. A single yellowed newspaper clipping.
—*Prodigy Boy Withdraws in Tears After Right-Hand Injury.*
The article about the Arcadia finals incident eight years ago.
With his finger, Minato traced the name printed small in the corner of the article.
—*Himuro Rei (17), wins by default.*
"...Himuro Rei."
Minato clenched the clipping in his fist. The paper crinkled.
(That time—was it you who destroyed my fingers?)
Conviction sank like a black mass to the bottom of Minato's chest.
(And now, Kanade.)
Anger and fear surged up in him at once. Kanade's smile rose in his mind. That young man, laughing so innocently.
Minato clenched his fist. His nails bit into his palm.
The next day.
Kanade did not appear at the shop.
Minato sat at the counter, gazing outside. He had been restless since
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