At that moment, our eyes met through the mirror. The gray eyes that had been staring blankly at the mirror flickered with surprise.

“Sio!”

Danyu called my name with delight, jumped to her feet, and came to greet me. The welcome was warmer than I had expected, and I walked over awkwardly and stood before her, whereupon her face quickly shifted to one of concern.

“You were sick for days, and it shows. Aren’t you pushing yourself too hard?”

“Funny, that’s exactly what Astaire said.”

“I didn’t used to, but I suppose we’ve been growing more and more alike. His piano playing, his habits.”

“Yeah. You really have.”

I nodded, thinking back to Astaire’s performance I had heard not long ago. His tone had been so similar to Danyu’s that even I had been momentarily fooled. At the time Astaire had said he had been absorbed into Danyu, but in truth Danyu had also been taking on aspects of Astaire.

I had watched the two of them from closer than anyone else, so I knew that better than anyone. Whenever I caught Astaire unconsciously mimicking one of Danyu’s small habits, or saw Danyu with a look in her eyes that resembled Astaire’s, a strange, nauseating ache would come over me and leave me with a headache. The fact that someone else was coming to know the sides of you that only I had known, or perhaps that even I had never known, was what had made my heart so complicated.

“They say brides feel nervous and unsettled before a wedding. Why are you grinning like that?”

I tried to force a smile and say something like my usual self, but it didn’t come as easily as I hoped. Sweat seeped from the hand I had shoved into my pocket and soaked the sheet music.

“Because I’m happy. This marriage is something I fought tooth and nail for. I’m still fine, but Astaire is already on the late side, and he kept dragging his feet saying it was still too soon to get married. Well, in the end, my plan won.”

“A plan?”

“I told him if he didn’t propose to me right then and there, I’d run far away. That I’d do all sorts of things with other men.”

“You really haven’t changed. Still the same threats.”

“It worked on Astaire, didn’t it? He proposed the very next day.”

Fortunately, Danyu was more animated than usual and didn’t seem to notice anything off about me. Every bright word that flowed from her lips was filled with happiness, and it made my chest ache. At some point, I had stopped being the one Danyu spoke to in that warm, lively voice.

There was a time when you laughed and cried because of me alone. Perhaps because of your heart that kept coming back no matter how many times I pushed it away, I had firmly believed you would stay in that place forever. That I, who trusted no one more than anyone else, had trusted your heart of all things, the very heart I had so thoroughly mocked. It was a plain contradiction.

“Why did you come to love Astaire?”

I was staring at Danyu’s bright, smiling face when my mouth opened before I could stop it. I regretted the question the moment it left me, but there was no taking back words already spoken. Danyu’s eyes turned toward me with suspicion.

“Did Astaire put you up to this?”

“No. I was just suddenly curious.”

“That’s.”

Danyu had been studying me carefully, seeming to weigh something, and then she opened her mouth with care.

“Because he didn’t run away even after seeing me at my worst. I showed Astaire a lot of ugly sides of myself. Crying that love was too hard, clinging to him saying I didn’t understand music anymore. He was the first person I had ever shown that much of my foolish self to. Everyone has expectations when they hear you’re a daughter of the Astrid family, and I didn’t want to shatter that. But for some reason it came so easily in front of Astaire. I suppose the circumstances had a lot to do with it. I’d taken quite a shock at the time, and I was half out of my mind, or something like that.”

Even during those months when Danyu had said her final goodbye to me, I had believed she would come back to me in the end. And so every time I happened to cross paths with her, I mocked and ridiculed her the way I always had. Because she hadn’t changed in eight long years, so this time would be no different. All of it had been my arrogance.

“In front of Sio, I always wanted to be perfect. I believed I could only earn love by being a mature and generous person. But then there was someone who didn’t leave my side even after seeing the real me. Once I realized that, everything in the world looked different.”

You are the one who changed my world.

“Astaire says I saved him. What a foolish thing to say. The word salvation itself is ridiculous enough, but if my love saved Astaire, then in the end it was Astaire who saved himself. Because the one who changed me, and through that made me love him, was no one other than Astaire.”

You are also the one who saved me. The one who changed me. All of it was you.

“And yet Astaire says all his happiness is thanks to me. So I’m just going to stay quiet about it. What can you do if that’s what he wants to believe? Instead, I’ll make sure that my being by his side makes him happy. So that Astaire can live a life filled with happiness forever.”

“Then what about me?”

“Pardon?”

If you leave like this, where am I supposed to find my happiness? You showed me there was a world this beautiful. Why didn’t you show me the way to reach it?

“Miss! It’s almost time!”

The maid’s urgent cry broke through the question I hadn’t managed to get out. Danyu’s eyes, which had been looking into mine, left me in an instant.

“Already time to go?”

Danyu rose from her seat in a fluster and grabbed my arm.

“Sio, hurry to your seat too. You’ll be amazed when you sit down. I had the best seat reserved for you. So you can see how beautiful I look and spend the rest of your life regretting you let a woman like me go.”

I regret it. God, do I regret it.

But I couldn’t bring myself to say the words out loud. The moment I opened my mouth, I felt certain the tears would break. Danyu’s face softened as she watched me bite down hard on my lip to hold back the crying.

“Um, Sio. I heard you’ve been struggling with your music. That it’s been causing you a lot of stress. Is it because of the dedication piece I mentioned? You don’t have to write it if it’s too hard. You’ve already given me so many pieces.”

“Are you really all right with that? Not hearing the music I made for you?”

“I really am. Don’t push yourself too hard. You look like half the person you were.”

Her hand reached up and touched my face with worry, and my heart dropped. Perhaps this is the punishment for mocking your heart so thoroughly. You won’t even give me the chance to confess.

“Sio?”

I took hold of the hand Danyu had placed on my cheek and pulled her into my arms just like that. Her puzzled voice reached my ear, but in the quiet stillness Danyu, who had been standing stiffly in my embrace, gave my back a light pat.

“Are you finally upset that I’m getting married?”

Danyu continued in a soft, gentle voice, the way you would soothe a small child. It sounded just like her voice from years ago, when she would sit at the piano bench and tell me about her day. The things Danyu had whispered in my ear in those days drifted through my mind one by one.

How could I just sit there staring at my hands when the person I love is right in front of me? Even the time to look at your face feels precious.

When I grow up, I’m going to marry Sio. Hey, why are you laughing? I’m not joking.

Me, I love it most when Sio smiles like that.

Watching you chatter away like that, I would sometimes have the absurd wish that time would stop in that very moment.

“Sio. I really have to go now.”

“I know. I know.”

Time has passed, and now in this moment. I pray once more for that wish from long ago, with everything I have. That this time, which flows on so cruelly, would stop. That this warmth in my hands would stay by my side forever. But just like in those days, my wish shattered far too easily.

“Let me go now.”

The words from Danyu’s lips felt like God’s answer to my desperate wish. A hollow laugh slipped out. I stepped back from Danyu and looked at her standing before me. Danyu blinked at me with a puzzled expression under my steady gaze.

“Thank you.”

For letting me know that I am someone who can be loved.

Just as she had once confessed her love to me with all sincerity, I conveyed my gratitude to her with my whole heart.

“Me too.”

A radiant smile broke across Danyu’s face, which had been tilted in puzzlement.

With that brilliant smile, Danyu left into the summer sunlight, to his side. I stood there in a daze watching her go, and drew out the sheet music I had crumpled into my pocket. Tears fell again onto the sheet music already stained with tears. I covered my face with it in case anyone might see, but I couldn’t hide the sobs that forced their way out between my lips.

You will probably never know, for the rest of your life, what I meant when I said thank you. Nor what the music I couldn’t give you in this moment was, nor what my heart held within it. That is why I won’t be able to leave this place for a long time. I was slow to understand, and I have only just now learned how to begin, so it will take me a long time to find out how to end. Perhaps I will need more days than the years you spent loving me. I will walk through all of those days and watch over your happiness.

And if someday snow falls on this brilliant summer, may the music I never got to give you reach you like a miracle.

Farewell, farewell.

At the beginning of the end, everything flows toward the future.

Christmas in August — End