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 pa.s.sengers 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 cl.u.s.ters 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 pa.s.sed, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 . 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 a.s.semble and repair things. Now, it's sort of like a half-hobby to me.

And because of the needs of my hobby, I visit , 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 sc.r.a.pped 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 ba.s.soon 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.

At that time, I obviously had no idea I would be reuniting with Mafuyu again under those circ.u.mstances.