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 - I'm the one who broke your fingers—Himuro Rei, Visits
The break in the rainy season had long since passed. The sky over Sonare lay under thick clouds, and a damp wind swept through the arcade of the instrument district. The promise of an evening shower mingled with the smell of old wood and polished metal, weighing the city's air down into stillness.
Fujisaki Minato sat at the back of the shop with a single sheet of music before him. The fingertips of his right hand were trembling again. Over the past few days the tremor had grown noticeably worse. It had started the moment he heard the news that Kanade had cleared the preliminaries.
He had cleared the preliminaries. That Kiryu Kanade.
Minato could not put a name to the feeling inside his chest. There was a part of him that could not simply be glad. Because he knew how cruelly the young man's talent would be exposed on the stage of the finals to come. Just as his own had been, eight years ago.
The bell at the shop entrance rang with a small clatter.
"Minato-san!"
Before he could turn, a bright voice filled the shop. Kanade came dashing in, his fluffy chestnut hair bouncing. The piano-note earring in his left ear caught the fluorescent light and glimmered faintly. Those large amber eyes shone like a sun piercing the overcast sky.
"Listen to this! I passed the preliminaries! First place!"
Still wearing his backpack swollen with sheet music, Kanade hopped in place. When he smiled, his fangs showed. That innocent joy drove a small thorn, sharp and quick, into Minato's chest.
"...I know. I saw it on the news."
Minato said it deliberately brusquely. He turned his face away and began putting away the tools on the workbench. Somewhere deep down, he could not bring himself to say "congratulations" honestly, and that made him feel pathetic beyond words.
"On the news!? Waah, I'm so happy! Minato-san, you were watching me!"
"...Not really. It just happened to be on."
"There you go again, getting all shy."
Kanade stood so close he was practically pressed against Minato's side. He smelled faintly sweet, like young tree buds. The distance was close. Too close. Minato shifted a step to the side.
"So, have you decided on the piece for the finals?"
"Yes! Chopin's Ballade No. 4. That's the one you used to play, isn't it, Minato-san?"
Minato's hand stopped.
Ballade No. 4. The piece he was supposed to play on the stage of the finals eight years ago. The piece he could not play because his fingers had broken. Even now, its melody clung to the back of his ears.
"...Why that piece?"
"Because it's your favorite, Minato-san. Your sound—I'm going to make it ring out at the finals. I want to keep that promise."
Kanade's voice, so different from the brightness of a moment before, held a quiet, deep resonance. His straight gaze pierced through Minato's profile.
Minato could say nothing.
"And so, I have a favor to ask. Until the finals, I want you to tune my piano, Minato-san."
"...If it's the shop's piano, any time."
"No. The piano I'll play at the finals. The Steinway at Arcadia Hall."
Minato caught his breath.
Arcadia Hall. The finest concert hall in the country. Twenty-five hundred seats. He would tune the piano that stood on that stage. The very stage he was supposed to have stood on eight years ago.
"...I can't. It's too much for me."
"That's not true! Your tuning is the best in the world, Minato-san. Ever since you tuned my piano, the sound is completely different. It's like the piano came back to life."
"You're exaggerating."
"I'm not exaggerating. And besides—after the finals, there's a piece I want you to hear."
Kanade's voice softened, just a little, as if bashful.
"...A piece you want me to hear?"
"Yes. It's still a secret. But at the finals, I will absolutely make you hear it, Minato-san. So until then, I want you to support my sound from the closest place there is."
As he said it, Kanade gently laid his own hand over Minato's right. A young, warm hand. It was as if the beat of Kanade's heart came through that palm.
Minato's chest throbbed hard.
He could not look away from the young man's straight eyes. The old wound in his right hand ached with a dull throb. But the pain was not unwelcome.
"...All right. If I'll do, then I'll do it."
At last, Minato said it.
"Really!? Yes! Thank you, Minato-san!"
Kanade's face lit up all at once, and he squeezed Minato's hand tight. That smile was so dazzling that Minato scowled to hide his embarrassment.
"...Quiet down. I can't concentrate on tuning if you're like this, so back off a little."
"Okaaay."
Kanade obediently stepped back a pace, but his face was still smiling.
Minato headed for the grand piano at the back of the shop. He opened the lid and took up the tuning hammer. Kanade was watching. Feeling that gaze on his back, Minato struck a single key.
Pohn.
A clear note spread through the shop.
"...I'll be looking forward to it."
Still gazing at the piano's strings, Minato murmured it softly.
―――
The following day.
The sky had hung heavy since morning. A leaden sky, ready to burst into tears at any moment. The people passing through the instrument district all seemed to walk a little faster.
Minato opened the shop's shutter and began cleaning the interior as usual. The night before, he had tuned Kanade's piano until late. The fatigue in his right hand lingered, a dull ache.
Clatter.
The bell announcing a visitor.
"Welcome."
Minato stopped cleaning and turned his eyes to the entrance.
Standing there was a man.
His long, silver-tinged platinum-blond hair was tied back in a single bundle. Narrow, sharp eyes. Cold, ice-colored irises. A tall, slender frame. He wore a well-tailored dark suit without a single flaw, and at the tail of his left eyebrow was a small scar.
The man wore a perfect smile. But his eyes reflected not a shred of emotion. He was a cold, beautiful man, like a sculpture carved from ice.
Himuro Rei.
The most decorated champion in the history of the competition—a popular pianist. The man who, eight years ago, had been bumped up to win after Minato withdrew from the finals.
"Hello there. It's been a long time, Fujisaki Minato-kun."
Rei's voice carried a sweet, carrying resonance. But the instant that voice touched Minato's eardrums, Minato felt the blood in his whole body reverse its flow.
"...Himuro. Rei."
Minato's voice was hoarse, wrung out from the back of his throat.
"You remembered me. I'm glad."
Rei began to walk slowly, surveying the shop. Only the sound of his leather soles striking the wooden floor echoed through the quiet interior.
"Quite a small shop, isn't it. To think a man of your caliber would be smoldering away in a place like this. The world is a mysterious thing."
"...What do you want? If you've come to mock me, then leave."
Minato spoke in a low voice. Unconsciously, his right hand clenched inside his trouser pocket. His fingertips were trembling in small, rapid spasms.
"Mock you? Hardly. I came to see you. There's something I've wanted to talk about for a long time."
Rei stopped before the grand piano at the center of the shop. His long fingers slid slowly, lovingly, across the lid.
"It's about that day, eight years ago."
Minato's heart leaped violently.
"...You're talking about eight years ago?"
"Yes. The day you withdrew from the Arcadia finals."
Rei turned back toward Minato. For the first time, those ice-colored eyes caught Minato straight on.
"I'm the one who broke your fingers."
Time stopped.
Minato's thoughts went pure white. A high, keening ring sounded deep in his ears.
"...What... did you say?"
"Didn't you hear me? I said that I—this man before you—is the one who made your right hand useless."
Rei's lips twisted into the shape of a crescent moon. It was a smile. A smile too perfect, and too cruel.
"The night before the finals eight years ago, I tampered with the hammers of your piano. Just a slight shift in the weight balance. But on the day itself, you unconsciously tried to compensate for it, and you put a fatal strain on your fingers. As a result, your right hand could never play the piano again."
Sound vanished from Minato's body.
The air of the shop, the sound, the light—all of it receded into the distance. Only the beat of his own heart echoed, terribly loud, inside his skull.
"...Why?"
Minato forced the word out. His voice was shaking.
"Why? It's simple. Because I hated your talent."
Rei said it as though it were nothing at all.
"You produced sounds in front of me, calmly, that no amount of effort could ever bring me to. As easily as breathing. I couldn't stand it. If only you were gone, I could stand at the summit of this world. That's what I thought. And in fact, that's what happened."
Deep in Minato's throat, anger churned with nowhere to go.
He hated the talent.
For no other reason than that. On that day of the finals eight years ago. He lost everything. His music, his dream, the meaning of his life.
"You've got to be kidding me... You've got to be kidding me!!"
Before he knew it, Minato had lunged at Rei.
But his hands cut through empty air just before they reached Rei's collar. Rei had nimbly twisted away.
"Whoa there. How dangerous. I can't say I approve of violence."
Still wearing his composed smile, Rei lightly brushed aside Minato's hand.
"Music is something you win. You lost. That's why your fingers broke. That's all there is to it."
"You bastard—!"
Minato's anger would no longer form words. His whole body shook; his teeth would not meet. The nightmare of eight years ago, the rage, the helplessness—they came surging in like a muddy torrent.
"And let me give you a warning. I hear a young pianist has been visiting your shop lately. Kiryu Kanade-kun, was it?"
The instant Kanade's name was spoken, the blood drained from Minato all at once.
"...What are you planning to do to Kanade?"
"'What am I planning to do'—how uncharitable. I'm merely hoping he'll fall to the same place you did."
With that, Rei started toward the shop's exit.
"His sound resembles yours so much. Impudent, dazzling, and fragile. Imagining the moment that sound vanishes from the stage once more—it's quite delightful."
"Wait, Himuro! You can't mean you'll go after Kanade too!"
Without turning back, Rei answered Minato's shout.
"Who knows. I will simply win. More beautifully, more perfectly, than anyone."
Clatter.
The bell rang, cold and mechanical.
Rei's figure disappeared from the shop.
Minato stood rooted to the spot.
The strength drained from his legs. His knees buckled.
Thud.
Minato collapsed to the shop floor, knees giving way beneath him.
The memories of that day eight years ago came flooding out as if a dam had broken. The taut air of the night before the finals. The Ballade No. 4 he had played over and over in a hotel room. And then, on the stage, the moment his fingers stopped obeying him—that sensation.
His fingers had broken.
The sound had vanished.
The dream had died.
"...Ngh... ah..."
Minato pressed both hands to the floor. The fingertips of his right hand were twitching in small convulsions. That tremor bound the nightmare of eight years ago to the present reality with cruel precision.
—I'm the one who broke your fingers.
Rei's voice repeated in the back of his ears, again and again and again.
"...Kanade."
Minato called the name in a shaking voice.
The young man's innocent smile rose in his mind.
He could not let that sound be broken.
But Minato's right hand would not move. Just as it had eight years ago.
Tears spilled from Minato's eyes and fell.
In the quiet shop, only Minato's muffled sobs echoed, long and long.
―――
Several days passed.
After Rei's visit, the harassment clearly escalated.
When Kanade tried to reserve a practice room at the music academy, one after another was canceled. The reasons were all vague, and yet, without fail, it was only Kanade's reservations that were singled out.
The score for the piece he was t
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