“Uh, huh?”

The jointed hand trembled like ringing paper.

“Your bed is wide. Ah, is it uncomfortable? Yeah, it would be.”

“Well, um, Sha……”

“I acted strangely spoiled. Sorry.”

Before Carol could add any opinion, Asha quickly withdrew her suggestion.

Like pulling her out of tree branches, like giving up his bed, like lending his arm to replace lost glasses. She had almost naturally leaned on that kind of goodwill.

Not being a child anymore, Asha, who had become somewhat awkward, brushed her side hair and made random excuses.

“I thought it would be nice to have someone next to me. No, you know I’m not usually like this. I’m not, but, well, your room is incredibly spacious unlike mine. The bed seems like it would be three times the size of my bed. There’s no need to go back and forth far or sleep on the couch……”

“Um.”

“Yeah.”

The rambling excuse came to a clean end with one person’s interruption.

Carol, who had leaned his upper body forward, faced Asha. As if excited with fever, as if unwrapping a gift, mysterious gazes collided in the air.

Above the glass-like transparent pupils, a girl with baby fat still remaining filled the space.

“If it’s okay with you, I don’t mind.”

※※※

The days in the mansion isolated by snow were similar.

They ate meals cooked northern-style, toured various parts of the mansion that were hard to memorize completely, and at night chose books Asha didn’t know to read.

Of course, eyesight that couldn’t even make out people’s faces wouldn’t improve just because it was night. The girl who couldn’t taste the moon’s miracle listened to unfamiliar stories relying on the voice of a boy her age.

Northern myths and folktales.

Old stories featuring endless mountains and ill-tempered dragons. The miserable lives of poets and the sudden success of unknown painters. A person with a first love promised for life and a woman having her fifth wedding.

The day after hearing the adventure tale of the smallest girl in the village going to catch a dragon, the blizzard covering Kasoche stopped.

It was Asha’s birthday.

“Come to think of it, I didn’t prepare a present.”

“I missed it last time too.”

“Still.”

The straight lips mumbled as if regretful.

“How about we do this?”

As if a brilliant idea had occurred, color returned to the slender cheeks.

The place Carol led her to was in front of a piano. A glossy black piano that was different in appearance from the small piano Asha used to tap—different from the start.

The bench was not very long, so the two people’s shoulders naturally bumped. Carol, who adjusted his posture, slowly placed his hands on the keys.

The angle of his extended arms, the tilted silver hair, the neat profile.

Asha quietly watched the scene of fingers long enough to cover all her hands and more picking out note by note.

The rare bright winter sunlight gently brushed that child’s face. Opaque five-colored brilliance. The intelligent eyes were like the winter sky itself.

So bright it would bring tears to look directly at.

The fingertips with calluses continued the rhythm to the end without a single sheet of music. There were songs Asha knew well, and songs she didn’t know.

Though unintended, it seemed like small clusters of light rippled beneath those snow-white fingers. She couldn’t take her eyes off the light and smooth connection.

She had no intention of doing so anyway.

“It’s not much for a present, but how is it?”

“It’s really good.”

Asha, who poured out intuitive impressions without embellishment or common flowery language, moved her lips several times before carefully adding.

“I didn’t know the same song could be played so differently. Some pianist said in his autobiography, ‘If a pianist’s job was only to play according to sheet music, one pianist would be enough for the world.’ I didn’t understand when I read it.”

“Misha Asil?”

“Right, that person. You seem to play better than Aila. Aila is……”

Her throat cracked from words poured out breathlessly. Asha, who cleared her throat as if nothing happened, completed the sentence in a bright tone.

“Aila learned from Mom. Though I’ve never seen it.”

Since death occurred simultaneously with birth.

Asha recalled Aila pressing the well-maintained black keys and looking down blankly at the piano keyboard. She also remembered her young self who had tried everything Aila did at least once but never touched the piano alone.

Over the fingers that fell weakly, a large hand overlapped.

The boy who had lived in one of the coldest villages in the kingdom was as warm as someone who had just warmed their hands by a fireplace.

His palms, shoulders, and cheeks that were maturing.

“Do you want to try playing too?”

“What, I have to do it too?”

Though she reflexively shot back, she didn’t hate it.

Asha, who placed both hands neatly like Carol had, slowly moved her fingers.

Though she had admired her friend who completed several songs without sheet music, actually Asha could also play simple songs without looking at sheet music.

She didn’t think much of that fact herself.

Every note created by Asha’s fingertips was a song Carol knew—precisely, a song Carol had taught her. The person who learned might not know, but the person who taught noticed.

“Done.”

“It’s been a while. Someone playing piano with me.”

The straight-falling eyelashes created a small shade under the pupils.

Silver was a color that was rare to nonexistent in Iota. Most were black or brown, and there was no color as bright as Asha’s hair.

But Carol was……

Light seen for the first time in life. A brilliant piece that could be grasped.

Brilliant colors seen only once or twice in art books. The corners of his mouth that smiled as if crumbling like dripping peach juice; his eyes, the slightly reddened area under his eyes made Asha……

Asha……

“Ca, Cas, isn’t there anything you want to receive as a present?”

“There is.”

It was a quick answer without ceremonial refusal.

As if the fickle friend might immediately reject the opportunity, Carol continued without hesitation.

“Will you give it a title?”

“A title?”

“This song. I asked before too.”

Dan, daran.

A monotonous melody continued with the right hand. Neither too slow nor too fast, at an appropriate tempo for a beginner to learn—

Carol’s original composition.

His hands skillfully found their places without looking at the keys. His white forehead touched the black stand. Under the lightly pressed silver hair, his coolly extended eye corners drew an arc.

Looking at that appearance, Asha felt vague anxiety and excitement simultaneously. Just as one person couldn’t stop a surging wave, surging words were the same.

“……What should I do?”

“What?”

“I hate parting with you.”

“Parting?”

“I can’t stay here forever.”

“That’s……”

Though he tended to revere romance, he didn’t lift his feet from reality. The boy’s lips that had been silently grinning closed tightly.

She couldn’t spend her whole life as a guest, imitating an adventurer in an old mansion covered in blizzards.

Though it was obviously natural enough to be strange to explain, both Carol and Asha who brought it up looked troubled.

Asha, who placed her hand over the hand resting on the keys, leaned her temple against the stand like Carol and muttered.

“I have to go after the severe cold ends. Because there are things I need to do.”

“What kind of things?”

“First, getting new glasses fitted?”

“There are opticians in nearby cities too. ……Probably. There should be.”

“I need to think about how to live from now on too.”

“We can think together.”

“With you?”

“Yeah. With me.”

“I need to open closed doors too.”

“Closed doors?”

“The room where Mom and Dad were. Since I received the key, I should open it now.”

“That’s too much.”

The neatly groomed eyebrows tilted pitifully. Though she didn’t know how much intention and sincerity were distributed in that act, Asha’s heart fluttered just from facing that expression.

“If you say it like that, there’s nothing I can do.”

Like a big child reluctantly giving up a present, it was speech dripping with lingering attachment.

That’s why Asha found it truly suspicious and welcome.

“Carol.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you wish I wouldn’t go?”

“……Yeah.”

“Do you wish I’d stay by your side?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you also……”

Only after swallowing the words she most wanted to say, habitually biting the inside of her mouth, and exhaling a shallow breath did her pale lips part.

“When the snow stops, will you come with me?”

“Where?”

“Iota.”