I had no desire to argue with him over something as trivial as a name. I had never been particularly strict about etiquette, even for a woman of noble birth, and between Astaire and me there were more important things to argue about than names.

“You said piano makes you think of him. That you wouldn’t play because of that. I’m very fond of your piano playing, Miss Danyu, so that would put me in quite a difficult position.”

Before I knew it, Astaire was at the piano, pressing keys as he spoke. An unhurried voice. A composed manner. The notes vibrating through the air were endlessly peaceful.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder what you are. It was the melody of a nursery rhyme my mother used to sing to me when I was small. Whenever I cried or threw a tantrum, she would sing this song to soothe me.

The memory surfaced easily, and my face crumpled the moment it did. Astaire was soothing me right now, just the way my mother had back then, humoring a child’s fussing. A hollow laugh slipped through my lips.

He was twenty-eight, the same age as Sio, a full-grown adult. It made me sad that everything so overwhelming to me at nineteen was this easy and meaningless to them at twenty-eight. That was also why my feelings for Sio had been treated as nothing more than a child’s tantrum or a passing whim.

“So I administered a drastic remedy. It’s a forceful method, but in cases like this, shock therapy usually… oh, Miss Danyu?”

My legs finally gave out and I sank down where I stood, and the music filling the air went quiet. I could hear Astaire calling my name in a startled voice as he had been speaking so calmly, but I buried my face between my knees and turned away from him.

“You called me extreme, but you’re far worse, Astaire. Even if I look like a child to you, is it satisfying to tease me like that?”

“Miss Danyu.”

Astaire had drawn close before I noticed and called my name, but I didn’t lift my head. I resented Astaire for kissing me the way you’d hand candy to a fussing child, and I felt wronged by my own inability to keep from attaching meaning to a kiss that small.

“Above all else, the first time is special. People may forget the second or the third, but no one ever forgets the first. History books only record the first, too. The first person to discover a continent, the first person to write a poem, the first person to win an award, and… anyway, it’s always the first. So the first time is history. Something that will never be forgotten.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Danyu, but I can’t follow the conversation.”

“What I’m saying is!”

Astaire spoke in a flustered voice, clearly unable to keep up with the torrent of words. He had bent down at some point to meet my eyes. I had lifted my head to shout with spirit, but under his blank, steady gaze, I dropped it again.

“It was my first time.”

My voice was small enough to burrow into the ground. I knew how ridiculous it would sound to Astaire, attaching meaning to something simply because it was a first, but I felt I would suffocate if I didn’t say it. I expected to hear laughter, but contrary to my expectations, Astaire did not mock me.

“Ah, that’s something I hadn’t considered. Well, young ladies these days do enjoy courtship freely, and you were Sio’s student on top of that. I hadn’t thought a kiss would be your first.”

When I looked up, Astaire was flustered by the unexpected admission, rambling and scratching his head. Under my blank stare, his eyes curved into a gentle smile.

“How strange. This feels rather better than I expected.”

“Never mind. Stop talking. It’s making me think of it again.”

That look made my face flush in a way I couldn’t explain. Without my realizing it, the distance between us had closed considerably. A subtle, peculiar air wrapped around us. The thought that I needed to break this mood flashed through my mind.

“So, you said earlier that you like my piano playing. You must have heard me play before?”

I rose quickly and stepped away from him, steering the conversation to a safer subject. Astaire stood up after me.

“You sat the entrance examination for Bauer Arts University, didn’t you?”

“Yes. And?”

Though I had brought up the subject first, Astaire offered no answer. I glanced over at him and found him tilting his head with a strange expression, somewhere between a smile and something else entirely.

“You really had no idea. I knew you were the type to see only one thing once you fixed on it, but were you truly looking at no one but Sio Lieselotte even in the examination hall?”

I blinked, at a loss. The entrance examination for Bauer Arts University had been several months ago. I remembered preparing for it with extra dedication because Sio, who had graduated from the university and now taught there as a lecturer, was on the panel of judges. In the examination hall itself, I had caught sight of Sio’s face and grown so nervous that my playing hadn’t gone the way I had hoped.

“I am Astaire Werner, assistant professor at Bauer Arts University. I introduced myself in the practical examination hall as well.”

I did my best to hide my embarrassment and reached back for the memory of that day. Thinking on it carefully, there had been someone like that. Someone sitting with such composed bearing that even I, with my eyes fixed on Sio, had glanced over for a moment.

That had been Astaire.

“You were the one sitting next to Professor Sio?”

“I’m reduced to the man sitting next to Professor Sio……”

I fumbled through the hazy memory as I spoke, and Astaire laughed out loud.

“All the other students played etudes showing off their technical skill, but Miss Danyu played a lyrical sonata. It left an impression. You were different from the others.”

Astaire opened his mouth as though the memory of that day had come back to him as well.

Just as he said, I had played a sonata that day rather than the etude most students chose. It wasn’t a strategic decision. I had never been confident in my technique, and I simply couldn’t play something like an etude in an examination that would make me more nervous than usual.

It was only natural that it had seemed unusual. Playing a sonata at leisure in an examination where you had to show as much as possible in a short time. On top of that, I had made several mistakes during the sonata.

At the time, I had been certain I failed the examination and felt low from the moment I finished playing, but the notice that arrived not long ago had the word “accepted” printed on it.

“Ah, what I meant wasn’t that your choice of piece was different, but that your sound was different. The moment I heard the first note, I thought it was a beautiful sound. I remember thinking, of course, she’s Sio Lieselotte’s student. A clear, beautiful sound. Miss Danyu produces a sound very similar to the one he made in his early days.”

Astaire’s fingers tapped the air. The movement was so fl*id, so like someone playing at a piano, that the inaudible notes seemed to ring out anyway.

‘Danyu produces the sound I used to make.’

Sio had said something like that once. I had thought it was only natural. I had always wanted to resemble him, and through that, to understand the depths of his heart that I could never quite reach. It was inevitable that the sound I produced, having always played piano while watching him, would come to resemble his.

Only, he had said used to. Something now lost.

I had asked him why he had lost that sound.

‘Time,’ Sio had answered. I couldn’t understand the meaning packed into that short reply, but the peculiar expression on his face as he said it stayed with me clearly.

“That’s why I gladly accepted Sio’s request to take over Miss Danyu’s lessons. So you can imagine how my heart sank when Miss Danyu said she wouldn’t play piano anymore. And on top of that……”

Astaire, who had been speaking without pause, went quiet for a moment. His eyes, deep and still, rested on me for a time as though he was turning something over in his mind. In the settled air between our gazes, Astaire let out a quiet laugh. With that familiar sound, a memory I had pushed to the back of my mind surfaced.

The day of the practical examination at Bauer Arts University. Convinced I had ruined my performance, I couldn’t lift my head from the moment I took my hands off the piano. It was well known that I was Sio’s student. The thought that I had disgraced him with that playing made it impossible to face him.

I bowed hurriedly and stepped outside, and in that moment a small laugh reached me from behind. My gaze turned back on instinct, and at the end of it, a head of sunlit blond hair caught the light. Astaire Werner, sitting in the seat beside Sio. So that was you. The realization arrived.

“Miss Danyu. As a pianist, I admire Sio Lieselotte. That damnable talent of his and his strangely twisted personality are another matter, but his sound is something I cannot diminish. If Sio Lieselotte had come to me with the same troubles as Miss Danyu, I would have thrown a punch at the man rather than kissed him while he sat playing piano. I’m not agreeable enough to kiss someone I have no feelings for.”