Final Chapter: Beyond the Sound, I Am Smiling

♪ BGM: Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 16, K. 545 (Again)

──A solitary, pink-hued reunion.

A former piano kid.
She grew up and entered the path of becoming a piano instructor.

She taught Chopin. She taught Beethoven, too.
But Mozart, above all else──she couldn't bring herself to teach with conviction.

That light, innocent, and sometimes venomous 'pink sound'.
If you play it with mere technique, your lies are exposed in an instant.

She knew that.
And because she had once experienced being 'exposed to the point of pain'.

She had always been afraid of Mozart.

Time passed, and after leaving the path of teaching, she entered the world of administrative work as a 'scrivener'.

Day after day, surrounded by documents, waiting for approvals, running through the city.

──However.

In the corner of that room, there is still a grand piano.

One day, she stopped looking at the mountain of documents,
and sat down in front of the piano.

As if remembering something, she gently placed her hands on the keys.

Do-mi-so-si-do-re-do......

Her hands no longer move as they once did.
She can no longer produce that sparkling sound from before.

On the music stand, the pages of the Henle edition ripple gently.

But, strangely enough,
there was no 'impatience' or 'sense of helplessness' there.

'...Ah, so this is what Mozart is.'

As she whispered that,
she felt as if the wind somewhere far away had giggled.

Heh-heh-ha.

In the empty office, Mozart returned to her fingertips once again.

-The End-

*This story contains some fictional elements.
But, if a grand piano were to ring out happily—
that would surely be the truth.Heh, hah.