After returning home, I lay on my bed and messed around on my smartphone. I wasn't aimlessly surfing the net like usual; today, I had a firm purpose.

"How to pass on to the afterlife"

I was searching using such stupid keywords.

However, the search results that came up were all content aimed at people who were already possessed, filled with things like "stay strong" or "go get an exorcism"—basically nothing but exorcism-related stuff, which left me exasperated.

...It's not like I'm actually possessed or anything.

...I'm not possessed, right?

Feeling somewhat anxious, I tried patting my own shoulders. There wasn't any weird sensation or heaviness; it was just the appropriate amount of a single day's fatigue weighing down on my shoulders.

"Sunohara-saaan?"

I called out just in case, but there was no reply.

I just ended up feeling vaguely embarrassed.

As if to distract myself from the embarrassment, I read through the search results intently, but there was no useful information. Well, it's not like burning some incense would just magically end it, and to begin with, making meticulous plans didn't suit my nature. I had no choice but to conclude that I'd just have to wing it.

And so—

"Please try playing the piano."

"You... are quite abrupt, aren't you."

When I went to the music room after finishing my after-school cleaning duties, Sunohara-san was already there. It was the first time she had been waiting for me, so I was a little taken aback, but she must have been waiting since she knew beforehand that I was coming. She was sitting on the podium swinging her legs, and upon noticing me entering, she casually hopped down. It was to her that I made the previous request.

"Because I realized I have no idea how well you can actually play the piano, Sunohara-san."

"I suppose that's true... but I fully expected we were just going to have a fun chat."

My idea was definitely spur-of-the-moment, but I wondered about this "fun chat" thing too.

It's not like she committed suicide out of loneliness from having no friends when she was alive, surely.

"...Is that a no?"

If she really did have some lingering regrets about the piano, playing it would be an unavoidable step.

However, exactly because the piano was her regret, there might be some sort of baggage attached to it. A slight pang of regret crossed my mind, wondering if demanding she play the piano right off the bat was rushing things too much.

—Wait, can a ghost even play the piano?

The reason she and I could touch each other was because of some soul connection or something, so maybe her hands actually couldn't touch a piano? My words might have been terribly inconsiderate. Wait? But she was holding my smartphone yesterday, right? While I was agonizing over this...

"Well, if you say you want to hear it, I can at least play something for you."

Perhaps having convinced herself during that pause, Sunohara-san headed toward the piano.

"Ah, thank you...?"

I hastily chased after her back. She adjusted the height of the chair, lightly closed her eyes, and steadied her breathing. Then, she turned her gaze toward me. I felt like there was a faint tinge of resignation in it.

Her expression didn't look at all like someone about to perform.

Rather, it was a face that looked more fitting for someone heading off to die.

"Do you have any requests?"

As if her mind was already made up, Sunohara-san asked this at the exact moment she sat down.

"Ah, I don't really know many piano pieces."

"Well, you certainly don't seem like you'd be well-versed in classical music. Classical music isn't exactly a typical hobby for modern high school girls to begin with, anyway. Let's see... then I'll just pick out a famous piece at random that even you might know. ...Even a kindergartener would know this song."

Sunohara-san, sitting in the chair, straightened her back, and her gaze upon the keyboard took on a sharp edge.

Caught up in that predator-like gaze, my own back straightened, and my breathing nearly stopped.

Just as her fingers gently stroked the keys, a succession of short notes rang out.

Along with that melody, a cute child's singing voice echoed in my head.

—Twin-kle twin-kle lit-tle star!

"Wait, that's 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'!"

The retort slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it. After all, if someone mentions classical music and gives you a glare that sharp, it's normal to brace yourself for some grandiose performance. Yet what she played was "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," a song sung by kindergarteners. The whiplash almost drained all the strength from my body.

...Is she making fun of me because I don't know classical music?

Just as I was getting slightly annoyed, I made eye contact with Sunohara-san. She was smiling. It wasn't a mocking atmosphere; she just looked as if she found my entire string of reactions incredibly amusing.

And then, just as she finished the second 'How I wonder what you are,' suddenly—

—Her fingers leapt.

Her right hand bounced around at many times the speed it had before, while her left hand braced itself as if to support it. A sequence of lightly dancing melodies—if I had been 'lifted up and dropped' earlier, I was now in a 'state of rapid, soaring ascent.' The intense shifts in tension were enough to make me feel seasick.

I was instantly drawn into the sound.

The performance gained both lightness and intensity without losing the original melody.

The rapidly shifting notes, the transforming atmosphere, bringing to mind a tranquil starry sky—or perhaps an elegant shooting star, and the surface of a lake reflecting it... Mesmerized by the scenery, I even forgot to breathe.

"Ah—"

After a single-beat rest, the atmosphere changed drastically once again.

The core of the melody shouldn't have changed, yet somehow it filled me with an overwhelming sadness.

The stars that had brightly colored the sky began to scatter, as if pulled by threads. I instinctively reached out, wanting to grab them. But the world, having shed its stars, was enveloped in a darkness as if it had lost light itself—and yet, the melody continued to unleash a muddy torrent of sound, as if struggling in vain.

I still wasn't allowed to move.

—I had been swallowed by the music.

The feelings of 'fun', 'pretty', and 'beautiful' inside me were completely painted over by the negative emotion of 'sadness'. 'Anger', 'frustration', and... probably 'resignation'.

The keyboard spelled out the final note, and its remnants spread across the room, tumbling to the floor.

Realizing the performance was over, I tried to clap my hands, thinking I needed to applaud.

Yet for some reason, my hands were trembling, my thoughts were tangled, and I couldn't even manage a proper clap.

It was too violent to be called an afterglow; it felt much closer to the sensation of drowning in sound.

Finishing the performance, Sunohara-san let out a long, thin breath.

To my drowning self, that breath was like a lifeline.

Grasping it, I snapped back to reality.

"Um, Sunohara-san, you're incredibly good at the piano."

"That piece was 'Twelve Variations on Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,'" she said, keeping her eyes lowered on the keys.

So it was 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'.

But it was completely different from the 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' I knew.

"It's not that difficult of a piece. If you practice seriously, even an elementary schooler can play it."

"An elementary schooler could play that...?"

Honestly, to an amateur's eyes, what she just played looked like transcendental technique. Just thinking about the fact that there are countless pieces in this world even more complex than that was enough to make my head spin.

"B-But, your performance was amazing, Sunohara-san. I think I was... really, deeply moved."

Overwhelmed by the music, uttering that fragmented impression was the best I could do.

"Moved, huh. Well, I suppose you could call that being moved, too."

Fufufu. Sunohara-san laughed, though she didn't sound particularly amused.

Moreover, her loaded way of speaking gave me an indescribable sense of dissonance. However, knowing nothing about her, I absolutely couldn't grasp the true meaning behind her roundabout words.

As if signaling the end of the performance, she draped a red cloth over the keys and closed the heavy lid.

I found myself thinking it was a shame—that's how much I had been enchanted by Sunohara-san's playing.

With no other choice, I tried to think of a question to keep the conversation going.

"How difficult of a piece can you play, Sunohara-san?"

"Even if I told you, would you understand?"

There was no malice in it, but her tone was a bit sharp.

I was right; the atmosphere around her really had changed since I asked her to play the piano.

"...I probably wouldn't. But I was just wondering about your level... like, if you were a pro."

I couldn't afford to get discouraged here, so I kept the conversation going.

Because I felt like this part was the core of her—and the crux of this whole situation.

"In piano, there's no clear benchmark like 'if you can play this piece, you're a pro.' It simply comes down to: those who can make a living off it are pros, and everyone else is an amateur. And me... I couldn't become a pro. This world is brutally meritocratic, and the element of luck gets tangled up in it too. The question is whether or not you can keep putting in the effort until luck flows your way... there's no point in complaining about it."

As she said this, Sunohara-san forced an expressionless look, as if trying to mask her emotions.

I was able to notice it because her voice trembled and held an unnatural tension.

"Is that why you committed suicide, Sunohara-san?"

Her reply was a smile heavily laced with a sigh.

"Fufu. If I could have just committed suicide out of despair over that, I might have still been saved."

Saved by suicide.

"Does that mean—"

Unable to understand the meaning behind Sunohara-san's words, I was momentarily at a loss for a reply.

Not missing that momentary pause, before I could open my mouth, she continued.

"But your reaction just now made me feel a little bit saved. It made me think that maybe my so-called music isn't entirely worthless yet. Ghosts are simple creatures, aren't they."

Then why did Sunohara-san die?

How did she become a ghost and get trapped here?

Accidental death? Death from illness? Or was she murdered by someone?

I knew I should press her for answers, but merely thinking it wasn't enough to take that crucial first step. Precisely because I knew it was the key, I lacked the courage to step forward. I just seemed to be terrified of something.

"Sunohara-san, do you... like the piano?"

That's why I ended up throwing such a roundabout question at her. Still, even if it was a detour, I was certain that the question held significant meaning for us.

"Who knows... you're probably the one who knows the answer to that best, having just listened to my performance."

She formed a thin, yet sharp smile—a smile like thin ice, as if mocking something.

And I still didn't have the courage to cross over that thin ice. 

Boarding the bus home, the temperature difference from the outside air made me feel a bit breathless. The only saving grace was that since it was an awkward time to head home—6:00 PM—there were very few other students around. If this had been rush hour, dozens of students would be packed together, struggling like goldfish gasping for oxygen.

On the spacious bus, I claimed a corner of the back seat and took out my smartphone.

I opened a video site app, typed "Twelve Variations on Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" into the search bar, and hit search. Several performance videos titled "Mozart - Twelve Variations on Ah vous dirai-je, Maman K. 265" popped up. Alongside them, there were also clips from drama scenes and anime videos.

I tapped on one that featured a small child.

—So 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' was a Mozart song. 

Thinking about that, I listened to the performance flowing through my earphones. It was a video shot from the audience of a child performing on stage. Checking the description for the date, it was from over ten years ago, and the performer appeared to be a first-grader. Perhaps because it was old, the image quality felt terribly grainy. However, the sound quality wasn't bad, so they might have prioritized audio over video when recording.

Just like earlier, after a monotonous ten seconds or so, the hands and fingers danced vividly across the keyboard with the vigor of a fish taking to water. Even with the rough video quality, I could tell from the sound that the little girl was enjoying her performance.

So a child this small really can play it.

In this case, I couldn't tell if the piece was simple or if this girl was just special. But to me, those hands moving intensely back and forth seemed to possess incredible technique.

However, as it approached the second half, I was struck by a sense of wrongness.

...Was this what the song sounded like?

Since I had only heard the performance once, it wasn't like I had perfectly grasped the structure of the piece.

But I at least remembered the impression the song gave me.

The momentum, almost resembling a sense of starvation, that I felt from Sunohara-san's performance was completely absent in this little girl's playing.

The fact that I probably couldn't feel even a tenth of the piano's resonance through a video was likely one of the reasons. But even taking that into account, I felt like something was missing from the girl's performance.

No, "missing" wasn't exactly accurate.

After all, it was true that I actually found myself thinking: Is this girl... better? The moon singing, the stars laughing, and even the surface of the lake reflecting them shining gorgeously—it was a performance with that kind of atmosphere.

It was just entirely bright and brilliant, leaving me with the feeling that it was asserting, "Music is full of joy!"

An assertion—no, it almost felt like a kind of imposition.

And that performance left something akin to a scratch mark on my heart.

Today was the first time I had ever sought out classical music on my own, so I had no idea how close to the mark my impressions were. But that was my honest thought as an amateur. Realizing my sample size might just be too small, I checked out various other performance videos besides that little girl's. The ones with high view counts naturally belonged to people with a certain level of skill. They all sounded skillful to me, but they all felt similar, leaving a flat impression on me.

Only the 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' played by Sunohara-san was different, after all.

It wasn't a matter of being good or bad; it felt like something fundamental was completely different.

Just as I finished watching the third person's performance video, I got off the bus, having arrived at my stop.

The moment I stepped outside, the chilled air filled my lungs and scattered the drowsiness that had been rearing its head.

...Classical music really doesn't suit my nature.

Or perhaps becoming so relaxed you get sleepy is the exact intended effect of classical music. While crunching through the damp snow in my boots, I entertained thoughts that would probably anger musicians and classical music lovers around the world. Classical music, the piano, music in general—I just didn't get it. And when you multiply that by the variable known as Sunohara-san, it becomes completely incomprehensible, and I'm totally at a loss.

The situation and the information are just far too chaotic.

As I thought this, what crossed my mind was Sunohara-san's troubled-looking smile.