Playing through the music in a feeling that was a strange blend of awe and emptiness, I lost track of time until the day had faded. The moment the sun went down, the overcast sky made good on its promise and rain began to pour. The force of it was stronger than I had expected, and the thought of the open window came to me suddenly. I moved quickly to close the living room window on the ground floor, and near the entrance I caught the shape of a familiar figure.

I started and moved toward the door. It was a person I had no business seeing there, and I could not trust my own eyes. I pulled the front door open in a rush, and the figure I had seen through the window was standing right there. It was Danyu, soaked through with rain.

“Miss Danyu? What is this? The lesson ended long ago. Why didn’t you go home?”

Water dripped from the hem of Danyu’s dress. Her face and hair were drenched with rain. I pulled her inside in alarm, and a chill rose from her fingertips. Her body temperature had dropped considerably from being caught in the rain.

“I had something to think about, so I left a little late, and then the rain just came pouring down. The estate is too far, and your house is near the school, so I thought I’d come here. Still ended up looking like a drowned rat, though.”

I looked up at her with concern, but she shrugged with a perfectly composed expression.

“And you find that amusing? You’ll catch a cold with your body this cold.”

I hurried Danyu over to the fireplace. I quickly lit a fire in the hearth, which had been unlit since it was spring, and draped a blanket that had been tossed over the sofa across her shoulders. The fine trembling in her body seemed to ease a little.

“First, warm yourself up a bit by the fire.”

“Astaire.”

Before my worried words could continue, Danyu called my name and looked up at me quietly. The anxiety in her eyes as I looked into them felt somehow unfamiliar. In the two of us, the one who wore that anxious look was usually me.

“Are you uneasy about my feelings for you?”

“Is this about what I said at school today?”

“I kept thinking about it. What I could do so that you wouldn’t feel uneasy.”

“So that was what you had to think about.”

The words from Danyu’s lips swept away in an instant all the puzzlement that had been filling my mind. Realizing that the shadow on her face as I left the practice room had not been simply because of the weather, I felt a dull ache at my own foolishness. The jealousy inside me was mine alone to carry, and it was not something she should have been made to worry over like this.

“Is that why you didn’t go home until now? I made a mistake. If I had known you would take it this much to heart, I wouldn’t have said anything. Forget you heard it. It’s entirely my problem. You are perfectly fine just as you are.”

“How can I unhear something I’ve already heard?”

The gentle, careful words I had offered were met with an immediate rebuttal. Seeing her stick out her lower lip in displeasure, I felt helplessness and gratitude wash over me at the same time.

“The fact that you cared enough to think about it is more than enough.”

Unable to put that complicated feeling into words, I pressed a light kiss to her forehead, and the drop in her temperature was unmistakable against my lips. The fire I had hastily lit was not enough to warm a body soaked through with rain.

“Before anything else, let me get you a towel.”

“No. It’s all right. I think in a situation like this, I’d better follow my sister’s advice.”

I had started to rise in concern when Danyu shook her head quickly. The words made no sense to me, and I tilted my head, and she let a small smile slip through.

“With that in mind, I should change out of these clothes first. And have a bath.”

“Pardon?”

Words I had not expected came from Danyu’s lips. I blinked in surprise, but her face as she said it was so perfectly matter-of-fact that I found myself the one embarrassed for no reason.

“But you don’t have a change of clothes. It would be better to just warm yourself by the fire.”

“I’m too cold. And the wet clothes are uncomfortable. So I’d like to change. While I’m bathing, we can send word to the estate to have clothes brought over, can’t we? They’ll need to send a carriage for the ride home anyway.”

Hearing it laid out like that, it was not entirely unreasonable.

“Then come this way.”

I thought about it briefly and showed Danyu to where she could bathe. Following my lead to the bathroom, Danyu looked around the interior with the same unhurried expression and began searching for soap and the like. The faint warmth that had stirred in me simply from bringing her into such a private space cooled in an instant. I reproached myself for the improper direction of my thoughts, helpfully gathered the bathing things, and returned to the living room.

The first thing I did was send someone to the Astrid estate. I sometimes paid a merchant from a nearby shop to run errands for me, but given the weather, he was reluctant, and it took considerable effort to persuade him.

I pressed twice the usual amount into his hand and sent him on his way, then returned to reading through Sio’s scores, which I had been playing through until a little while ago. My intention was to narrow down the six or so pieces I had set aside while playing to two that Danyu might perform. It was easy to lose myself in the scores. Sio’s music held stories and feeling, and anyone who looked at his pieces would inevitably be drawn in.

“Astaire.”

“Ah, Miss Danyu. The person from the estate hasn’t arrived yet.”

Deep in the scores, I heard Danyu’s voice from behind me. I rose from my seat without thinking and turned around, and there stood Danyu with nothing but a towel wrapped around her. The words died in my throat. The paleness of her bare arms and legs and the water dripping from her hair sent my gaze into disarray.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“I told you. That one day I would make you completely lose your composure.”

I had barely managed to collect myself enough to get a word out when Danyu shrugged with the same composed expression she had worn when she first came through the door. Something surged in me at the sight. This was too dangerous to be a joke. I tried my best not to look at her and grabbed her by the arm.

“You’ve surprised me enough. Get back into the room.”

“No.”

I went up the stairs and pushed Danyu into the room, but before I could close the door, Danyu pulled me inside. In an instant our bodies were close. The warm heat of Danyu, fresh from the bath, reached me through every part of me. And the fact that the only thing covering her body was a single thin towel made my head burn all the more.

“Do you understand how dangerous what you are doing right now is? I am not nearly the gentleman you seem to think I am.”

“Yes. You’re not a gentleman. Why do you think I don’t know that?”

The words I had barely forced past my lips were cut off before I could finish.

“I kept thinking, on my own. About how I could take away your unease.”

Even in the darkness, Danyu’s eyes shone clearly as they looked at me.

“I know very well how much the anxiety of loving someone can eat away at you. I know how tormenting and exhausting it is. You said you felt uneasy because you were a small person, but the truth is that it’s all my fault. I showed you far too much of what Sio meant to me, and the wounds that came from it.”

Danyu’s hand moved through my hair. I could do nothing but stand there, dazed, and look at her lips.

“But all of that is nothing more than the past. What matters is not the past but the present. The person beside me is you. You said the mere sound of Sio’s name from my lips was enough to unsettle you, but the reason I can speak his name at all is because I have truly let him go. Without a single trace of lingering feeling.”

The hand that had been moving through my hair came to rest on my shoulder. Danyu pressed down on my shoulder, rose onto her toes, and lightly touched her lips to mine. The way she had done to comfort me in the practice room earlier today.

“I want you to know that there is no past love left inside me, and that if anyone were to ask me who I love, I would say your name without hesitation. But how do I make that reach you? I don’t know. No matter how many times I say it, the unease inside you won’t disappear.”

Danyu’s hand moved and undid the knot of the towel. The towel fell to the floor, and behind it, her bare pale form came into view.

“I want to give you certainty, Astaire. So take me. They say there is no greater certainty for a man than this.”

“Miss Danyu. Do you understand what you are saying right now?”

“I told you. I know. Why do you believe I know nothing? Did you think that someone who has been coming and going from her lover’s home every single night had no resolve behind it?”