With the windows of the train pushed up just about five centimeters, the smell of the sea was already slowly drifting in.
It was a Sunday afternoon, and there were no other passengers aboard the train aside from me. There would be a lot of visitors heading down to the beach once the summer holidays arrived; but it was only early April, so there was still quite some time before the beaches would become crowded. Given that, the only people that would make a trip down to the beach during spring break would probably be middle school students...... and that included me.
The double-carriage train rumbled past a gentle turn. The walls of mountains and bamboo forests suddenly disappeared before my eyes, and my line of vision broadened, bringing with it the growing smell of the sea. The clusters of rooftops and the copper-rust-colored sea were darkened under the gloomy sky.
The train wobbled and stopped at a small station.
I grabbed my backpack from the luggage rack, and as I walked onto the open platform, I could immediately see a grey band in-between the dark-green mountains on my right.
I had no idea when it started, but the valley had turned into a huge dumping ground. I didn't know if the dumping ground was legal or not, but plenty of trucks from all over the place went there to dispose of broken electric appliances or furniture. And as time passed, that place became strangely silent. It was so quiet it felt as though you had been transported to fifteen minutes after the apocalypse—and because of that, an enclosed space had formed. The middle school I studied at was located close to the beach, and ever since I had stumbled upon that special place by accident after getting lost one day, I secretly called that place <The Department Store of Hearts' Desires>. I had borrowed that name from a certain novel, and even though it was long and unwieldy, it didn't matter, because I didn't plan on telling anyone about it.
My father has a weird occupation as a music critic (though that's really rude to other critics, I want to emphasize how uncommon my father's job is to me), and because of that, my house is filled with all sorts of sound systems, records, CDs, musical scores and other related items. My mother left the house about ten years ago because she couldn't take any of it much longer; and though I had no plans or aspirations back then, I had sworn to myself on the night that I became six, that I would never become a music critic.
But let's put all that aside for the moment. The equipment in our house are the tools of the trade; and yet, my father always handles them carelessly. He breaks everything—whether it's the speakers, the turntable or the DVD player. But when I was young, there weren't a lot of people who would buy toys for me, so I resorted to dismantling that broken equipment for fun; and because of that, I slowly learned how to assemble and repair things. Now, it's sort of like a half-hobby to me.
And because of the needs of my hobby, I visit <The Department Store of Hearts' Desires>, located next to the beach, once every two to three months to collect some useful parts, making my way down there via the wobbling train. It feels like I'm the only living person left in this world when I walk around the rubbish heap by myself, and that feeling is rather pleasant.
However, I wasn't the only person to visit the dumping ground that day.
As I walked through the forest, making my way towards the valley, I saw a mountain made up of abandoned fridges and scrapped cars that had been exposed to rain and shine. But surprisingly, I also heard the sound of a piano.
I originally thought I was hearing things, but as I stepped out of the forest and looked at the heap of rubbish right in front of my eyes, I realized I wasn't just hearing the sound of a piano. The low chords of the bassoon were like the surface of the calm seas...... and the sounds of the clarinet came to me soon after.
I had no idea what the song was, but I had heard it before. It was probably a piano concerto from Nineteenth Century France. But why can I hear it here?
I climbed on top of the roof of a derelict car and began scaling the rubbish heap. The melody of the piano started turning into that of a march. I had originally thought that the sound of the piano was coming from a radio that still had some power left in it, but that thought vanished within seconds. The depth of the sound wasn't the same. It was definitely the sound of a live piano.
I looked at the basin after I reached the peak of the heap, and the sight that greeted me was so shocking it made me hold my breath.
A large grand piano was buried amid the cupboards and broken beds. Its lid was giving off a black glow, as though it were doused with water, and expanded outwards like the wings of a bird. On the other side of the piano, was a bunch of maroon hair that swayed along with the exquisite sounds of the instrument.
It was a girl.
That girl was sitting in front of the slanted keyboard, with her gaze fixed on her hands, and her long eyelashes slightly drawn back. Those penetrating and exquisite sounds played by her were like the raindrops of late winter, bouncing out drop by drop from within the piano.
I somehow recognized her face.
Her stern and pale white face was something that was out of this world. She was so beautiful I couldn't turn my sight away from her. Her maroon hair shimmered like molten amber under the sun.
I've seen her somewhere before, but...... where?
I couldn't remember her name. And I couldn't recall the piece she was playing either.
There should be no one else around here, so I should only be hearing the sound of the piano and the gushes of waves filtering through the forest. So why? Why can I hear the sounds of an orchestra?
I suddenly noticed that the piano beneath me was giving off a tremble and a slight sound whenever she played the low notes with force. But it wasn't just that. The bicycle buried under the rubble over there, the rusted metal container, the broken LCD screens, everything—they were all resonating with the piano.
The rubbish buried in the valley was singing.
And those echoes stirred up my memories of the sound of the orchestra that accompanied that tune.
It was just an auditory hallucination, but it felt way too real.
I know that piece of music somehow, but what exactly is it?
Why—does it touch my heart so much?
The allegro march was like a flurry of footsteps flowing into the expansive estuary before dawn, which was the music at adagio. Countless tiny bubbles of notes flowed upwards from the depths of the sea to the surface, and gradually spread outwards. Then, the sounds of the orchestra rang from afar again, and should've continued on steadily—
But the music suddenly stopped.
I held my breath and looked down at the piano while I was stuck to the peak of the rubbish heap like a barnacle.
The girl had stopped playing, and was looking at me with an extremely stern look.
The illusory orchestra, the reverberations of the piano, and even the sound of the wind rustling through the trees—they had all disappeared, leading me to think, for an instant, that the apocalypse had really come.
"...... How long have you been standing there?"
She spoke. Her voice was clear, like the shattering of a wine glass on the floor. She was angry. I lost my footing and slipped from the fridge I was standing on.
"I am asking you, how long have you been standing there?"
"Urm, well......"
I was finally able to breathe after squeezing my voice out.
"...... Probably during the cadenza."
"The cadenza at the beginning?"
She sprang upwards, and her soft maroon hair fell down from her shoulders. It was only then I realized she was wearing a white one piece dress.
"So you have been listening since the beginning?"
I couldn't help it, alright! What did you want me to do then? Do an Indian dance while yelling my lungs out for you to see? As I looked at her red face and her fluttering hair, I slowly regained my composure. I did nothing wrong, it was just that someone had arrived earlier than I did, right?
"Sicko! Pervert!"
"No, hold on!" Why must I be charged with those accusations?
"To think you actually stalked me all the way out here!"
"Stalk...... Oi! I'm just here to collect some junk!"
The instant she slammed the key lid of the piano, something resonated along with it. The fridge that I was standing on suddenly gave off a violent tremble. It tilted slightly, and I slid down along with it.
"Whoaaaaa!"
I rolled away from the tilted fridge and the hood of the derelict car, towards the bottom of the basin where the piano was. My shoulders crashed into the leg of the piano.
"...... Ouch!"
Just as I was about to stand up, I realized her face was right in front of mine. Her navy-blue eyes were gazing at me intensely. Shocked and unable to move, I could only stare at those lips of hers, which were gently quivering like the petals of a camellia.
"Why are you here if you are not stalking me?"
"Eh? Ah, no, you see......"
She knitted her brows. The mysterious magical powers that had been binding me weakened a little, and I finally managed to regain control of myself, and scooted backwards while still sitting on the ground.
"I said I'm here to pick up some audio parts! I actually do come here occasionally. It's not like I'm stalking you."
"...... Really?"
Why would I lie? Then again, does this girl suspect she is being stalked by someone?
"In any case, leave this place immediately, and tell no one about my presence here. You are to remove the memory of the tune you just heard from your mind as well."
"How is that possible......"
"You definitely. Cannot. Tell!" Her eyes were shimmering with tears, as though the stars were falling from the sky. Having witnessed that, I could no longer say anything else.
"I understand, I'll just scram, alright?"
I heaved my backpack onto my shoulders and began climbing up the rubbish heap. Then, cranking sounds of a machine suddenly echoed behind me, followed by her screams of "Ah! Ya!"
When I turned my head around to take a look at what was happening, I noticed a palm-sized tape recorder on the piano. It was giving off a strange sound. Could it be that she was actually recording this entire time......? The tape inside seemed to be spinning back and forth. I couldn't bear seeing that worried look on her face as she held that tape recorder any longer, so I walked over and pressed the switch on the recorder.
"...... Is...... Is it broken?"
She asked, with a voice that was close to tears, as she carefully lifted up the tape recorder and cupped it like an egg that was close to hatching.
"Ah, don't do that. You can't just pry open the recorder like that."
She quickly stopped herself from attempting to open the cover. I placed my backpack on the piano and took out a screwdriver. Her eyes widened when she saw that.
"...... Are you dismantling it?"
"Don't worry, I'll repair it carefully."
When I took the recorder from her hands, I realized it wasn't an ordinary recorder, but a double-track recorder and player. Not only could it play the A and B sides of a tape simultaneously, it could also record on them separately as well. But the labels on the recorder were printed in a language that I had never seen before, and it was obviously not English.
"What language is this?"
"Hungarian," she replied softly. European goods, huh. Can I really repair this?
After I unscrewed the screws and removed the outer casing, what appeared before me was an interior made up of parts I was familiar with. International standards are really useful.
"Can it...... be repaired?"
"Probably."
I lowered the lid of the piano to use it as a worktable and slowly began to disassemble the recorder. Just as I thought, the magnetic tape has been pulled out of the cassette. It was spewed out and had clustered into a bunch—just like the spewed out organs of a sea cucumber—so it took me quite some effort to remove the cassette.
"...... Hey, is this tape recorder defective to begin with?"
"Eh? Ah, mmm...... The tape will not stop spinning even after it reaches the end, so it will get even more tangled if you do not press the stop button."
I see, the automatic stopping device was already faulty.
"I-It is because your sudden appearance made me forget to press it."
So it's my fault again? Just buy a new one already.
"Is this important to you?" Since she was still using it despite it being faulty.
"Eh?" She looked at me in surprise, then lowered her head and said, "Mmm."
Hungary huh. This girl shouldn't be Japanese then, or is she? The contours of her face make her look like a mixed-blood to me. As I thought that, I dug for parts in the rubbish heap. After finding the required pieces, I finally completed my surgery on the recorder. Whether it's rewinding the tape or fast-forwarding, it shouldn't go out of control anymore.
"And it's done."
"Eh...... Ah, mmm." Her face showed an expression of disbelief. But just as I was about to press the play button to confirm the recorder was working normally, she suddenly snatched it away from me.
"Y-You are not allowed to listen." She tweaked the volume to its lowest, then pressed the play button to confirm it was working properly.
"...... T-Thanks."
She hugged the tape recorder tightly, then thanked me with a tiny voice while hanging her head downwards with her face flushed red. For some unknown reason, I felt embarrassed as well, so I turned away and nodded.
Right when I was finished packing my tools back into my backpack, she suddenly asked, "Why do you bring so many things along with you?"
"I just told you I enjoy fiddling with machines. That's why I'm here to look for parts!"
"Then...... is that fun?"
Her sudden question caught me by surprise, and I was unsure of how to answer her.
"Hmm...... I'm not too sure if repairing a broken machine is something to be happy about, but everyone seems really happy when they can regain something they thought they had lost."
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