Episode 55 — Home

The sound of the phone trembling forces my heavy eyelids open. The matching musical note strap sways.

I reached for the phone with a slow, unhurried movement and pressed it to my ear. No need to check the caller.

“Shion, morning~”
“Uta, morning…!”

Shion’s voice has a slightly stiffer quality than usual. I finally get my eyelids open, check the time, and ask carefully — surprised by the number on the screen.

“You’re up terribly early again today…”

The display showed an even earlier time than the day we’d gone to the seaside, and the question slipped out before I could stop it.

“Because you’re coming to watch my lesson… so I thought I had to wake you up early…”

Shion said it in a voice faintly edged with anxiety. The kind of small, thin voice like a penguin chick trotting hesitantly toward its parent — and I found myself lining up words to stay close alongside her.

“Thank you for waking me. We were out late yesterday — are you all right, not too tired?”
“I’m not tired at all…! Because I get to see you again today, Uta. Because you’ll be listening to my sound.”

Shion answered quickly, then whispered softly, as if holding the fact close — her voice carrying a particular lustre. Strange — just that resonance alone was enough to make my heart warm, to blow away whatever small tiredness or drowsiness remained.

“I’m looking forward to hearing your piano again too — it’s been a while.”

I said it, tracing the image of Shion at the piano in the after-school music room, her beautiful figure striking the keys. I hadn’t imagined I’d be hearing that sound even through summer break. I hadn’t imagined I’d be weaving this much time together with Shion. I hadn’t imagined that the wish to capture all of Shion’s music, all of her ideal beauty, inside a novel could be fulfilled at this density.

Truth is stranger than fiction, they say — but it falls to me to put that fiction-surpassing reality into words. To render Shion’s otherworldly beauty in some perfectly formed chain of characters, someday. The enormity of that task let a faint discouragement brush across my mind.

But Shion blew even that away, her voice bright and buoyant:

“I’m so looking forward to it too!”

Her voice scattered notes like confetti. I was jolted upright from the bed by the resonance of it.

My body was a little heavy with muscle aches.

◇◇◇

In a quiet, high-end residential street — a three-storey house with a large garage attached. I stared for a while at this unfamiliar sight and the shape of my destination, then pressed my finger cautiously into the intercom. At the same moment, a sharp chime rang out — and the door of the neat, tidy entrance flew open instantly.

“Uta, welcome!”

With those words, Shion came running at considerable speed and threw her arms around me. A fluttery skirt that couldn’t possibly count as loungewear brushed against my jeans, and in its wake, Shion’s cool body temperature and sweet scent wrapped around me. Then a light but definite weight leaned into me, and my muscle-aching body groaned.

“You’re full of energy for the morning.”

I murmured it, quietly accepting the embrace, and stroked the hair that shone, reflecting the morning light. Absorbed in the lustrous texture and in processing everything Shion was bringing me — when:

“Welcome, Uta-chan. Come in once you’ve settled down.”

Shion’s mother appeared at the entrance, looking faintly awkward as she said it.

But Shion paid no attention whatsoever, rubbing her head against my palm and making no move to release the embrace.

I could hardly push her away. And yet the gaze of Shion’s mother lingering in the doorway was weighing on me. After stroking Shion’s head for a while, I ventured carefully:

“Shall we go inside? I don’t mind being close — but I really want to hear your piano soon…!”
“…All right.”

Shion murmured it with a trace of reluctance, then slowly let go of the embrace and this time took my hand tight, fingers winding together, and started walking toward the entrance. Over Shion’s shoulder I could see Shion’s mother exhaling a half-resigned sigh and bowing to me with what seemed like commiseration. I nodded back — it’s all right — and let myself be pulled, stepping into the Kanzaki household’s entrance.

“Excuse the intrusion…”

I murmured it — and was struck by the painting hung in the entrance, the chandelier-style lighting, the clean white impression of the flooring and walls. While I was taking in the enormous contrast with my own life, Shion kept pulling me onward insistently, and Shion’s mother was walking ahead to guide us. I hurriedly straightened my shoes with one hand, and stepped properly into the Kanzaki household.

“This way.”

Shion walked an unusually long corridor and brought me to the washroom. There she prompted me to wash my hands, then immediately took hold of them again.

“The piano is in the basement.”

With those words — Shion’s mother accompanying us — we went through the corridor, down a spiral staircase, and headed to the basement. From the all-white impression above, a complete change: four walls of grey concrete surrounding us. At the bottom of the stairs, a grand piano stood enthroned. A piano with its own lustre, and a chair like the one at the competition.

I stared at the scene, slightly struck dumb — and since our hands were joined, Shion stopped too, equally still. As if to bring us back, Shion’s mother said:

“Shion — let’s begin the lesson.”

With a lingering reluctance, Shion released our joined hand and walked slowly toward the piano, settling into the chair.

Then, loosening her fingers with a few warm-up notes —

“Watch me properly, Uta. My sound.”

She turned her gaze toward me, scattering a beauty with something almost bewitching in it — and then slowly pressed her fingers into the keys.

The moment that sound rang out. My eyes went wide.