Episode 12 — Flower Fortune

What I know. That Kanzaki-san is beautiful. That her technique is, in all likelihood, extraordinary. That Kanzaki-san’s sound strikes my chest harder than the after-school commotion, the shouts from the grounds, the wind ensemble’s individual practice, all the sounds of other people’s youth combined. That the longing of my childhood exists before me now, in exactly the shape I imagined it.

That much I know — and of music, I know nothing.

Even so: today, Kanzaki-san seemed to waver. Something slightly unstable about her. Her movements a little more forceful than usual, her fingering a little rougher. As though she were gripping at something slipping through her fingers, something falling away. As though she were clinging to something that was leaving.

I couldn’t claim any knowledge of music — but the accumulated days of watching Kanzaki-san without looking away had given me an instinct sharp enough to catch even small changes, and that instinct spoke clearly.

Kanzaki-san playing like that overlapped, somewhere, with the grief-soaked playing of the first day we met. Today’s piece was not her usual trembling-with-joy kind — it was something more complex, joy and sorrow woven through each other.

What was it that was destabilising her? What was the true shape of the grief that had broken over her the first time we met? Why had she decided to quit piano?

Kanzaki-san was enigmatic not only in what she said and did, but in everything. The only thing that was ever certain was her beauty — a beauty so complete it left no room for argument.

That was why I wanted to reach toward her. Wanting to know her true shape, to understand it — I put words together to catch even a fragment of it. I weave strings of characters. In a world without sound and without colour, if only I could still reflect you there —

What I don’t know about Kanzaki-san. What I do know — my own feelings. What I don’t know — what it means to be drawn to her like this. Alternating them like petals in a flower fortune — fact and ornament, turn by turn — I felt the sound brush against its final note. Kanzaki-san’s fingers sank into the keys, leaving resonance behind.

And then, still seated at the piano, she turned toward me. Quietly, she let words fall.

“How was it?”

The expression on Kanzaki-san’s face as she asked flickered, for just an instant, with something like anxiety. Or so I thought — but in the space of a single blink, the usual blankness was back before me. Like a heat shimmer conjured by a hint of summer. Wavering, gone.

“It was wonderful.”

I murmured it, and Kanzaki-san gave a small nod, picked up her bag, and rose from her seat. I followed, rising and falling into step beside her.

How powerless words are.

◇◇◇

The train sways. The city’s glittering buildings are pushed into the past by the carriage window. Our shoulders brush, or don’t. Touching or not touching, even tracing the outline of that possibility sends my pulse dancing — and I don’t understand why, even that. Caught up in how little I understand Kanzaki-san, I begin to lose even myself. So at least, if nothing else, I want to know her — and I ask, quietly:

“Kanzaki-san — lesson again today?”

Kanzaki-san nodded and murmured:

“There’s no such thing as a day without a lesson.”

The words came out like something spat aside. And even so, they were beautiful, refined. Kanzaki-san’s voice was always beautiful. Beautiful enough to feel fragile — as though touching it wrong might break something — and so I couldn’t bring myself to reach toward it. All I could do was scoop up its outline in the soundless world of words.

That frustration — I felt it. The wanting to know, the helplessness. Each one of these was entirely new to me.

How much would Kanzaki-san need to bring me before she was satisfied? The feeling was something like unreasonable anger. And anger, I’d always half-known, lives right next to sadness.

Ah. So — when Kanzaki-san is sad, I am sad.

I was reaching out to gather up those words left hanging in the air between us, when:

“Next stop — ○○ — ○○ —”.

The announcement rang through the carriage, and the train began to slow. The straight-running rails strained. The scene in the window sharpened — the line of buildings coming into clear relief.

And then, eventually — the train stopped. Kanzaki-san stood.

She walked to the door with her light, easy step, scattering colour from that pale skin as she went — and then.

As if reaching for something to hold on to. For just an instant, she looked back.

“Bye.”

That murmur fell, sadly, into the air. And in that instant, I stood up —

“Watching the heroine leave the train in the final scene — I found myself wondering if the heroine wanted the protagonist to take her hand”.

Otonashi-san’s comment crossed my mind, from nowhere.

“Wait.”

I called out, clinging to something. The departure bell was ringing — I crossed the carriage in a rush, reached out my hand.

And took hers. That small hand that looked as if it might break at any moment.

The doors closed. The train set off again, carrying Kanzaki-san, who should not have been here. Kanzaki-san’s cheek was faintly flushed, her palm holding a trace of warmth, and those violet-indigo eyes glittered like the buildings in the carriage window.

“What’s the matter?”

A soft murmur, and she tilted her head. As if to scatter her bewilderment — as if to push even a little of that sadness away from her —

“Let’s do something fun.”

That was the clumsy, artless thing I said. That was what I used to make her stay.

“Okay.”

And with that one word, Kanzaki-san smiled.