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 - Trembling Fingers and the Final Tuning
In the back of the darkened shop, Minato stood frozen, phone clutched in his hand, unable to move for a long while. Outside the window, the instrument district lay steeped in a deep, soundless night. Now and then the sound of a car passing in the distance crept in, like something crawling along the bottom of water.
At the top of his call history was the name Saeki Fumi. Proprietor of Café Dolce, a friend of Minato's father from years past. An old woman, a former pianist, who had known Minato since he was a child.
His fingers trembled.
Minato drew several deep breaths before pressing the call button. The ring tone echoed absurdly loud deep in his ear. Twice, three times—
"Hello, Minato? You finally picked up."
Through the receiver came a voice gentle, yet with an unyielding core. Feeling his throat tighten, Minato managed to force out his voice.
"...I'm sorry. I had my phone off."
His voice was hoarse. Two days of barely speaking had done that.
"That's all right. Just hearing your voice is enough for me. ...So. I heard about Kanade. That must have been terrible."
The moment Kanade's name was spoken, something ground dully in the depths of Minato's chest.
"...It's my fault. Because I couldn't protect Kanade."
"Minato. You've always been that kind of child — carrying everything on your own shoulders, deciding it's all your fault. But that's not true. It's not that you couldn't protect anyone. You were just afraid to believe in your own sound."
Fumi's voice seemed to slowly unravel the air of the dark shop. Minato's grip on the receiver tightened, just slightly.
"Your father just wanted to hear your sound one more time."
Those words sank quietly, yet surely, to the bottom of Minato's chest.
His father's last words.
—Let me hear your sound.
Those words his father had left him on his sickbed, at the very end. Every time Minato remembered them, he felt his father's voice repeating itself deep in his ears.
"...Dad."
Tears spilled from Minato's eyes. Hot drops traced down his cheeks and fell onto the screen of the phone he clutched. The tracks of the droplets blurred the light of the display.
"Your sound isn't dead yet. Kanade is carrying it on, properly. That child is trying to make your sound ring out at the finals. So all you have to do is what you can do. Even if your fingers won't move, your ears and your heart are still alive and well."
Fumi's words lit Minato's heart like a single ray of light in the darkness.
His own fingers would not move.
But Kanade's fingers were there.
His own ears could distinguish every note.
His own heart still loved music.
—To make someone's sound ring out.
—With his own tuning.
"...Fumi. There's somewhere I have to go."
"Yes. Go on. I'll be here, always."
After hanging up, Minato walked to the back of the shop. He opened the deepest drawer of the workbench. There, a single tuning hammer lay quietly sleeping.
His father's keepsake — a tuning hammer.
Minato gripped it in his right hand. His fingertips trembled. But for the first time, that trembling did not frighten him.
This was proof of his past.
And it was the tool with which he would make Kanade's sound ring out now.
———
Minato ran through the night streets.
Through the arcade of the instrument district, across the main avenue, up the slope that led to the hospital. His lungs burned. His heart pounded violently against the inside of his ribs.
The hospital where Kanade had been taken was Sonare Central Hospital. A large general hospital, not far from Arcadia Hall.
He asked for Kanade's room at the reception desk and leapt into the elevator. His face in the mirror looked terribly haggard — two days with hardly any sleep.
Before the hospital room, Minato stopped.
From beyond the door, he could hear a voice.
"...I want to stand on that stage. To stand there and make Minato-san's sound ring through that hall."
It was Kanade's voice. Trembling, wet with tears.
Minato grasped the doorknob. His fingertips trembled again. But there was no hesitation anymore.
He opened the door.
Inside the room, Kanade was there, in the bed by the window. His right hand was fixed in bandages and suspended from his neck. Those bandages looked painfully stark under the white hospital light.
Beside Kanade stood a doctor and a nurse. Both wore troubled expressions.
"Minato... san...?"
Kanade turned his large amber eyes, wet with tears, straight toward Minato.
Minato took a step into the room.
"...Doctor, could you let us speak alone for a moment?"
Minato's voice was, to his own surprise, low and calm. The doctor hesitated for an instant, but perhaps sensing something in Minato's bearing, gave a small nod and left the room.
Silence filled the hospital room.
Minato stood at the side of Kanade's bed. He stared fixedly at the bandages on Kanade's right hand.
"...Does it hurt?"
"...A little. But I can bear it."
Kanade tried to force a smile through his tear-swollen face. But that smile looked ready to crumble at any moment.
"What did the doctor say?"
"...That the finals are impossible. The tendons in my fingers are badly damaged — it'll take three months to fully heal."
Kanade's voice shook.
"But I don't want to give up. I can't give up. Because I promised — I promised to make Minato-san's sound ring out on that stage."
Kanade clutched his bandaged right hand tightly to his chest.
"I was saved by your sound, Minato-san. The Chopin ballad you played at that competition eight years ago. I heard it, and I started playing the piano. Your sound was the beginning of everything for me. So I—"
Kanade's words broke apart, fragment by fragment, in his tears.
Minato listened, as if chewing each word at the bottom of his heart.
And then he said:
"Kanade. I'll make your sound ring out on the finest piano there is. So stand on that stage."
Kanade's tears stopped.
"...What?"
"I'll tune the Steinway at Arcadia Hall. To match your fingers — every single note. So that you can make your sound ring out. So stand on that stage."
Minato's voice was quiet. But within that quiet, resolve burned like a flame.
"Minato-san..."
Tears spilled from Kanade's eyes once more. But those tears were different from the ones before.
"Are you sure... are you really sure? Is it really all right for me to play the piano in front of you again?"
"Of course it is. Let me hear your sound. That's what I want."
Kanade wiped his tears and looked straight back into Minato's eyes.
"...Yes. I will absolutely make the finest sound ring out in front of you, Minato-san. So — Minato-san. Please tune my piano."
A strong light dwelled in Kanade's eyes.
Between the two of them passed a fierce gaze — one that reconnected hearts that had nearly given up.
———
Arcadia Hall, late at night.
The finest concert hall in the country, towering at the heart of Sonare. Twenty-five hundred seats. Its grandeur was wrapped in a cold, still silence, different from the daytime.
Minato and Kanade entered through the hall's back entrance into the wings.
"They actually let us in at this hour. Weren't you scared of the security guard?"
Kanade said in a small voice.
"I contacted the stage director, Kuroda-san. Tuning the day before the finals isn't entirely without precedent. And when I explained your situation, he agreed — reluctantly."
As he spoke, Minato walked down the corridor toward the tuning room in the wings.
Before the tuning room, a man was waiting. Kuroda Takeshi. Stage director of Arcadia Hall. Forty-five years old. Short hair mixed with white, and eyes that looked tired yet sharp.
"Fujisaki Minato. I've heard about you. Tuning the day before the finals is normally not permitted. But given the circumstances of Kanade-kun's injury, and out of respect for your skill, I've made a special exception. Don't waste it."
Kuroda said this in a low voice.
"...Thank you."
Minato bowed deeply.
Kuroda led the two of them into the tuning room. There, a single Steinway Model D rested quietly.
The competition's official piano. Roughly twenty million yen apiece. Three of these finest grand pianos in the world were kept at Arcadia Hall.
"The one used for the finals is this one. Finish the adjustments by tomorrow morning. Beyond that, I can't take responsibility."
Leaving those words behind, Kuroda exited the tuning room.
Silence returned.
Minato stood before the Steinway.
The piano of that stage — the one he should have stood upon eight years ago.
His fingers trembled.
Minato took out his father's keepsake tuning hammer. He gripped it in his right hand. His fingertips twitched faintly.
"...It's all right. I came here to do this."
Minato murmured softly, as if convincing himself.
Then he opened the lid of the piano.
He checked the tension of the strings and set the tuning hammer against the pin of the first string.
—Click.
A small sound echoed through the quiet tuning room.
Minato turned the hammer carefully, listening intently. He made minute adjustments to the string tension, bringing the notes into tune.
Suddenly, the spasms in his right hand grew stronger.
—Clatter.
The hammer nearly slipped from the pin.
"Minato-san!"
Kanade cried out involuntarily.
"...It's fine. Don't worry."
Minato took a deep breath. He supported his trembling right hand with his left.
"Fujisaki-san, don't rush. There's still time. Take it slow — it's all right."
Kanade's voice resonated gently through the quiet tuning room.
Minato felt his heart settle, just a little, at that voice.
"...Yeah. I know."
Minato gripped the hammer anew.
One note, and then another.
Minato adjusted the piano while picturing in his mind the habits of Kanade's fingers, the strength of his touch, his preferences in sound.
The piano he should have played eight years ago.
Now, this piano would ring out for Kanade.
That fact kindled a strange warmth in Minato's chest.
———
When the tuning had reached its midpoint.
Kanade quietly approached the Steinway's keyboard.
"...Fujisaki-san. May I try playing just a little?"
Kanade's voice was hesitant.
"...Is your right hand all right?"
"Just a little. I want to check the sound. The sound of the piano you tuned, Fujisaki-san."
Minato hesitated for a moment, then gave a small nod.
Kanade gently placed his bandaged right hand on the keyboard.
Then, with his injured finger, he pressed a single key.
—Pohn.
Kanade's face twisted with pain.
But that note made the air of the tuning room tremble softly.
"...Your tuning is amazing, Fujisaki-san. It's like the sound is waiting for my fingers."
Kanade murmured, tears welling in his eyes.
At those words, Minato felt something tighten sharply deep in his chest.
"...Kanade. Let me hear your sound. Tomorrow, on that stage — let it ring out with everything you have."
Minato's voice was trembling.
Kanade, on the verge of tears, nodded again and again.
"...Yes. I will absolutely make it ring out. The finest sound, in front of you."
The two of them left the tuning room and sat side by side in the empty seats of the hall.
The darkened hall. Twenty-five hundred empty seats.
Tomorrow, this place would be full.
Waiting for Kanade's sound.
"...Tomorrow, then."
Minato said quietly, gazing out over the dark seats.
"Yes. Tomorrow. I'll play Chopin's Ballade No. 4 on the piano you tuned, Fujisaki-san. Your favorite piece."
Kanade said quietly beside him.
"...That piece, huh."
"It's the piece you were supposed to play in the finals eight years ago, isn't it. I wanted you to hear it. I wanted to make your sound ring out on that stage myself. Because that was the dream I've always wanted to fulfill."
Kanade's voice resonated through the dark hall like a clear, pure note.
Minato could say nothing.
He simply felt the presence of Kanade beside him, as if confirming it.
———
Before the Steinway, its tuning complete, Minato gazed at his own right hand.
His fingers were still trembling.
But for the first time,
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