Chapter: 09
“It’s still a little short.”
But it wasn’t hopelessly short.
If she helped out at the workshop a little more, she thought she could probably save enough to buy a piano herself.
“I can’t get a piano right away, so….”
Aurelia carefully put the old sack deep inside the wardrobe, intending to think a little more about her plans for the future. Then she sat at her desk and picked up a pen.
As Aurelia sat in front of the desk, Professor Schneider’s words rang in her head.
“Take your time and think carefully about your future.”
Yes, now wasn’t the time to be discouraged like this. It was time to think about her future.
Of course, the future Professor Schneider had told her to think about probably wasn’t supposed to be like this, but that didn’t matter.
Just as she always had, Aurelia would somehow succeed at whatever she set her mind to.
“My future is as a pianist. Even if I have to take a detour and even if I’m late, I’ll definitely stand on stage.”
Only a few days ago, Aurelia had cursed the god who had given her talent, but now she hurriedly changed her mind.
God did not give talent to just anyone.
“He gave it to me because He knew I could handle that talent and overcome any hardship.”
Therefore, even for the sake of the god who had given her the talent to become a pianist before she was even born, Aurelia intended to somehow overcome this world.
Finally emerging from the closet she had locked herself inside, Aurelia remembered the next thing Professor Schneider had said.
If she really wanted to play the piano, there were other ways as well.
“Yes, I could become a composer. And if I become a promising composer someday, there will definitely come a time when I can present my music on stage.”
She knew that wasn’t exactly what Professor Schneider had meant, but she didn’t care.
It was her life, and if she absolutely had to take that path, Aurelia intended to reach her dream by whatever means necessary.
The vitality that had been absent from Aurelia’s face for so long began to return.
“You’re late.”
“Something came up.”
“I didn’t expect you to come back with two violins.”
At Aiden’s words, Leonard merely shrugged once and put a cigar between his lips.
Aiden had no desire to provoke his ill-tempered employer either, so he didn’t ask any further questions and lowered his head back to the sheet music.
Although Aiden and Leonard were closer than a typical employer and employee—in other words, they were more like friends—when it came down to their respective positions, it was only natural that Leonard was the one in charge.
“There was a crazy cat living in the workshop.”
By the time the waiting room had filled with hazy cigar smoke, Leonard finally spoke.
He was thinking about the small, young woman he had met today.
The one who had made the violin he had wanted so badly.
“A cat? I never heard that Bernhard Instrument Workshop kept animals.”
“It nearly tried to eat me alive. And it cried so much, too.”
“Well, that’s what cats are like.”
Aiden played along with Leonard’s words as he thought about the cat that had apparently appeared while he was away.
But no matter how much he thought about it, there was no reason for an animal to have entered the Bernhard Instrument Workshop.
And not even a dog, but a cat.
“But you really mean they were keeping a cat? I thought Uncle Bernhard wasn’t particularly fond of animals.”
More precisely, Aiden knew that Bernhard had such a severe allergy to animal fur that he would cough repeatedly whenever an animal was even nearby.
He wasn’t the sort of person who was kind enough to animals to endure that just to keep one.
Although, there was one person who was more catlike than any cat.
Surely not.
“You mean the kind of cat that goes ‘meow,’ right?”
Leonard lightly rested the half-smoked cigar on the ashtray, then met Aiden’s eyes, which were filled with confusion.
Just from Leonard shrugging once again, Aiden could tell that the ‘cat’ Leonard was talking about wasn’t actually a cat.
“Aurelia?”
“Oh, right. I think that was her name. Even her name is ridiculous. She’s a girl, too, yet her name means something as pathetic as a chrysalis.”
Leonard’s expression remained indifferent.
Unlike Aiden, who bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing at Leonard’s casually spoken words.
She was the only daughter of an instrument workshop that had been in the same neighborhood as Aiden’s since childhood.
She was also his student, and a little younger sister whom he felt he had to protect from the world.
And to Leonard, that girl was a ‘bad-tempered cat with a name like a chrysalis.’
“Anyway, thanks to her, I found a violin I like, so I’ll consider it a worthwhile experience at least once. It’s not as though I’ll ever see her again.”
Even now, in Leonard’s mind, Aurelia was nothing more than a crazy cat with all its fur standing on end.
It had been an annoying encounter, and since he would never meet her again, there was no reason to think about it any further.
“Lily.”
What greeted David when he returned with a relatively bright expression was an empty workshop and a completely forlorn dry towel lying on the floor of the vault.
What it told him was painfully obvious.
Aurelia had entered the vault, realized that her violin was gone, and left.
He should have given Aurelia some warning beforehand. He had been so consumed by the thought of buying a piano for his daughter that he had left her alone, and that had been his mistake.
“Open the door for me for a moment.”
Even knowing that, David couldn’t bring himself to speak to Aurelia carelessly because it had taken time to have a piano made specifically for her.
Regardless of their relationship as father and daughter, he already knew that what he had done was disrespectful to Aurelia as an instrument maker.
‘Still, she’ll change her mind when she sees the piano.’
Upon hearing that the piano had been completed, David had closed the workshop earlier than usual and gone to Krause’s instrument workshop. He was now covered in sweat after carrying the piano all the way home together with the few workers available.
“I don’t really want to open it.”
“Hurry. The people are waiting outside.”
Aurelia, who had been sitting at her desk behind the desk she had placed in front of the door and scribbling on sheet music, eventually put down her pen and let out a deep sigh.
Compared to how she had felt when she first realized what had happened, she was in a much better mood now, but she still resented her father.
She didn’t want to end up saying something hurtful simply because she was in this mood.
But at the same time, she couldn’t exactly refuse to ever see her only father again.
“I’ll come out.”
When Aurelia moved the desk aside and opened the door, David, drenched in sweat, hurried into the room and began moving her desk.
Not to where it had originally been, but to a completely different place.
“Did you come in just to move this? You said people were waiting….”
“Just wait a little. I’ll explain everything.”
Aurelia still couldn’t understand what her father was doing, but her father had always been someone whose actions came faster than his words.
Thinking that he must have a reason, Aurelia watched as David finished moving the desk, then patted her shoulder with his rough hand before leaving the room again.
“Why on earth is he acting like that?”
Aurelia picked up the pen that had fallen onto the floor when they suddenly moved the desk and placed it back on the desk, then let out another deep sigh.
Ink from the pen had spilled onto the sheet music and stained it.
“Lily, come out. You might get hit while we’re moving this.”
A piano so large that it nearly blocked David from view caught Aurelia’s eye.
Two workers she sometimes encountered when visiting Krause’s instrument workshop were moving the piano beside the window together with her father, calling out in unison as they carefully carried it along.
“Suddenly, what is this….”
She still couldn’t understand what was happening.
How was she supposed to react to the piano her father had suddenly brought home after selling her violin without even consulting her, the very father she had been resenting?
“Here. This should do. Since it’s beside the window, it’ll get plenty of sunlight.”
Once the upright piano filled one side of Aurelia’s room, the workers bowed politely to her and left the room.
Aurelia opened her mouth, thinking she would finally be able to hear an explanation, but David also left with the workers.
“Even though I’ve lived with Father my whole life, sometimes I really can’t understand him.”
