Having made it past Christmas, I stubbornly stayed in the music prep room until the 28th before returning to the Sunohara family home. My parents' house, which could easily be called a mansion, gives me an intimidating feeling greater than its appearance suggests, making me shrink back.

I don't like this house because it's too big for someone like me to live in.

...It's so big that it actually makes it hard to breathe.

The cozy atmosphere of the music prep room suited my nature much better.

"Sigh... Guess I'll go in."

Realizing there was no point in hesitating in front of the house forever, I muttered that to myself as if kicking my own behind. Sliding my carry-on bag across the snowy path, I passed through the gates and opened the front door.

The inside of the house was dead silent, but it wasn't as if there was no sign of people.

Leaving my luggage at the entrance for the time being, I walked straight toward the living room.

"Oh my, welcome home. Miss Ghost of the music room."

My cousin, who was lying on the sofa reading a manga, looked up.

Her face was nearly expressionless, but her voice sounded quite cheerful.

As if to say that calling me a "ghost" was unbearably amusing.

"Sigh... So it really was you, Emiri."

When I first heard the "Ghost Story of the Music Room" from Miyuki, I was worried that my hanging around the music room had given birth to a weird rumor, but the bad taste of its contents had bothered me a little. I couldn't shake the feeling that there was some sort of message hidden within that ghost story. So I had thought it was a possibility... and looking at her expression, it seems my guess was correct.

"I'd prefer not to be called that if possible."

"Are you saying you are a ghost exclusively for Miyuki-san?"

"........................"

If Emiri was the one who created the ghost story, then Emiri must also have been the one who egged Miyuki on. I didn't think she knew about the relationship between Miyuki and me, but from her expression alone, I couldn't tell how much of the situation she knew to be messing with me like this. So, I had no choice but to remain silent.

Finding something amusing in my reaction, Emiri finally floated a smile on her face.

"Well, if you don't like 'ghost', then how about Auntie Chifuyu—"

"I'm telling you, I'm your cousin, not your aunt!"

For some reason, this girl has always wanted to call me "Auntie" since she was a kid. Even though Emiri is my mother's younger sister's daughter, making us cousins. Our ages aren't even that far apart.

When it comes to height, Emiri is nearly 20 centimeters taller.

Being treated like a child was annoying, but being treated like an old lady was even worse.

"More importantly, what was that about? That tasteless ghost story. Even for a spiteful remark, that was going too far."

I had no intention of having a long talk with Emiri, but since she was getting involved this much, I decided to face her head-on.

When I walked over to the sofa where she was lying down, she rested her head on the armrest and looked up at me. Her upside-down face appeared right in front of me, which made it incredibly awkward to deal with.

"You've got some nerve saying that, considering you ran away from home and barricaded yourself in the school at your age."

Despite the sarcastic content, her tone remained strictly cheerful.

Because of that, I couldn't read her true intentions, always putting me on the back foot.

"...Well, that's—"

"Did you hate seeing my face that much?"

Emiri's upside-down face—her eyes sharply pierced through me.

"........................"

Cowering at that sharpness, I couldn't help but lose my words. As I stood there frozen, pathetically unable to argue back, Emiri let out a soft scoff and gave me a relaxed smile.

"Have you finished talking with your mother?"

"I'm... going to talk to my mother now."

Leaving it for later would only make me feel worse, so I decided to get the talk with my mother over with quickly. Talking to Emiri could wait until after that settled down. Thinking this, as I was about to pass through the living room to head to my mother's private room, the piano sitting by the side of the living room caught my eye.

"Hm...?"

I didn't know when the last time I had laid eyes on that piano was, but back then, its surface had been covered in a thin layer of dust. Now, however, that dust had been cleanly wiped away. At first, I thought it might have been wiped during a major house cleaning, but looking closely, I noticed the height of the stool had changed.

It was not the height I used.

There was only one other person in this house who played the piano—

"Emiri, have you been playing the piano recently?"

When I shifted my gaze from the piano to Emiri, she quickly looked out the window.

Drawn by her movement, I looked outside too, but there was only a pure white yard where the snow hadn't been fully cleared.

"Yes... well, listening to a certain someone's story made me feel nostalgic, too."

But as expected, I just can't play it well.

Emiri chimed in a soft, moist voice that seemed to melt into the air.

Her good mood from earlier seemed to have melted away and vanished as well.

"So, could you... play the piano for me?"

It sounded like that same soft, moist voice from earlier, but forced to be louder.

Perhaps because of that, her voice trembled slightly, carrying a clinging, pleading tone.

Drawn by that voice, I returned my gaze from the yard back to Emiri.

She was staring intently at me with pleading eyes.

—I wanna play the piano like Chifu-chan too!

Those eyes reminded me of Emiri when she was little, following me around everywhere. The color in her eyes that gradually changed as she grew up also came back to my memory in tandem.

Because I had run away from this house as if to escape those very eyes.

But now, I was able to look straight back into those eyes.

"...After I finish talking with my mother."

Lightly stroking the lid of the piano, I started walking toward the room where my mother would be.

A voice calling my name, "Chifuyu-chan," softly struck my back and fell to the floor.

"Welcome home."

"Yeah. I'm home."

Answering naturally, my feet carried me further from the living room.

Playing the piano still brought with it a corresponding amount of suffering and sorrow.

But here, too, was a person who looked forward to my piano playing.

The fact that I had come to view that as happiness.

I could believe from the bottom of my heart that this change itself was undeniably a form of happiness. And as long as her warmth remained in these hands, I felt like I couldn't give up on living.