“The lesson is already over. You have something specific you want to say, don’t you? That’s why you’ve been dragging things out like this. You’ve already told me about the recital several times, so it can’t be that.”

I had noticed long ago that she had something she wanted to say. She had been watching me cautiously for days now, circling around it with one deflection after another, so it would have been stranger not to notice. Even so, I had played along and pretended not to know, all because of a strange feeling I could not shake. Perhaps it was the pin still sitting quietly in my drawer. Lately, every time I saw Danyu, my chest would ache with an unease I could not explain.

“Well, um.”

Danyu hesitated, then held out an envelope she had tucked between the pages of a book. I wondered for a moment if it was a letter from Sio, but the pale pink envelope was nothing that fellow would ever choose.

“What is this?”

“A wedding invitation. I’m getting married soon.”

“Pardon?”

I turned the envelope over in my hands, puzzled, and received a far more straightforward answer than I expected. A wedding invitation. Marriage. The words came out so casually that the shock froze my hands in place. In truth, it was not only my hands that froze. My mind had stopped working entirely, and the word marriage echoed through it over and over.

“It’s a bit sudden, I know, but it couldn’t be helped. Apparently he wants to finally settle down and find some stability. After all the trouble he put me through, and here we are.”

She must have seen the blank look on my face, because Danyu continued carefully, watching my reaction. She spoke with a sigh in her voice, but the last words carried a smile. I turned the envelope over in my hands, still feeling dazed.

Marriage. This suddenly.

“But I was under the impression he’s not in the capital right now.”

It occurred to me that Sio was not in the capital. Thinking she might be delivering someone else’s invitation on their behalf, I asked quickly, and Danyu gave a light shrug.

“That’s right. We set the date around when he’s expected to return. This coming May. My mother had quite a time of it. Well, even so, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I’m going to be a May bride, after all. That’s something like a romantic dream women have about marriage, so all in all, it worked out well.”

Danyu smiled brightly as she said it. A flush had crept into her usually pale cheeks without her noticing. Every word she strung together carried a flutter of excitement. I watched her, and this time I truly lost the ability to speak. Had my mind ever gone this blank in my life?

“Well. Congratulations.”

All manner of words drifted through my emptied head like ghosts, but the only thing that managed to push its way out was a pitiful congratulation.

“Thank you. All that waiting finally paid off. People were so surprised, you know. They said they never saw this coming. The feeling was more like, you actually pulled it off! That kind of thing.”

A bright laugh spilled from Danyu’s lips. I had known her for quite some time, but I had never seen her laugh this openly. Once the laughter faded, the words kept coming. Things like, good things come to those who endure, and that she had accomplished something tremendous and deserved a reward for it. With each thing she said, my expression stiffened despite myself.

“Oh, right. That’s actually not what I wanted to say.”

After talking for a while, Danyu glanced at me again and opened her mouth carefully. I forced the corners of my stiff mouth upward and tried my best to arrange my face into something composed. I could not be certain I managed it, but it was something I had been doing well for a long time, so I thought I could at least pass for normal.

“I’m sure you’ve already heard, but I wanted to ask whether it bothers you at all. It would have been better to discuss it with you first before things moved forward, but somehow it ended up like this. I kept thinking I owed you an apology for the lack of consideration. I’m sorry.”

Danyu kept her eyes on her feet as she spoke, unable to look at me directly. She was so tense that her hand kept fidgeting where it gripped her skirt. I was so busy watching her that her words reached my ears a beat late. An apology. I thought for a long moment about why she was sorry, and then I found the answer.

Over the past few months, something subtle had undeniably passed between us. No one could say what name to give that feeling. But we had both been aware of it, and now she was trying to erase its existence by apologizing to me.

I felt relief that I had not been the only one carrying that subtle feeling all this time, and a quiet sting at the reality that whatever it was had faded before it ever had the chance to bloom. I let out a small laugh. It was very much like Danyu Astrid to properly apologize and close the door even on something she could have simply let pass without a word.

So you found your storybook ending after all.

Good. A beautiful ending where first love comes true suits a pure-hearted young woman.

But why does my chest feel like this……

“Not at all. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest, so please don’t worry.”

I forced down the strange tightness rising in my chest and opened my mouth as though nothing were the matter.

“Really? You’re really all right?”

Danyu’s head snapped up at my smiling reply. She looked at me with unsteady eyes, and strangely, I felt a hollow, empty ache in my chest at that gaze.

“Yes. Don’t mind me. Do as you wish.”

“I’m glad.”

At my reassurance, Danyu’s expression shifted into something unreadable. She opened and closed her mouth several times as though she wanted to say something, then ultimately said nothing and rose from her seat.

“Then I’ll see you at the next lesson.”

She gave a small bow and turned away. Her red hair scattered with every step. Knowing I could not catch it, I reached out anyway toward the red that shimmered before my eyes. As expected, the light slipped away and only grew more distant.

Did I actually smile just now?

The question arrived with the silence, and I could not bring myself to answer it. The wedding invitation in my hand had crumpled without me noticing.

* * *

Not long after I received the invitation, word spread that Sio Lieselotte would soon return to the capital. A reporter from a newspaper who claimed to have contacted him directly ran a story with his photograph, so it was no idle rumor. The article even specified a timeframe. May, when spring was in full bloom. Sio Lieselotte would return in that beautiful season. I crumpled the newspaper with the article and threw it into the wastebasket along with the wedding invitation I still could not bring myself to open.

After that day, our lessons grew considerably awkward. Whether the problem was mine or Danyu’s, I could not say. For some reason, every time our eyes met, all we could manage was an uncomfortable smile, and we greeted and parted each time like strangers, forgetting even the conversations we used to have.

All the while, time pressed steadily toward May. Day by day, the smile disappeared from Danyu’s face whenever she looked at me. Each time I met that expression, I felt a strange sensation, like returning to the past. Four years ago, when we were complete strangers to each other. The face I had watched from a distance rose up like smoke.

After seeing Danyu at Sio’s house, I had found myself spotting her often. Not only at Sio’s concerts or at high society parties, but even while walking down the street, her red hair would catch my eye without warning.

Once I became aware of her, Danyu Astrid was the kind of girl I could not understand how I had ever overlooked. She always kept apart from the noise of the crowd and moved through the world alone, and that upright bearing only made her more conspicuous, and every time it did, I could not help but follow her with my eyes.

The Danyu Astrid I observed was a remarkably aristocratic woman. Not simply because of the Astrid name behind her, but because everything about her was that way. Danyu Astrid was a woman who never lost her grace or dignity in any situation, and even her briefest words carried weight. For that reason, I thought the word woman suited her far better than girl. It was unusual, considering that most people her age had yet to shed their childish ways and stumbled through everything heedlessly.

I found it rather amusing that a woman like her had fixed herself so completely on a musician of common birth, one who had grown up in an orphanage at that. And equally so, that the maturity so unlike her peers had its origins in a longing for one man.