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<To Rose.
Are you still interested in composing?
Duke Crawford mentioned that he would like you to learn composition.
If you are interested, try writing a few pieces and send them to me.
I am also enclosing notes on what the problems were in the pieces you composed in the past.>
Along with the letter came thick books titled <Basic Harmony>, <Everything About Counterpoint>, and <The Fundamentals and Standards of Composition>.
When she opened the books written in the Antaka language, every page was filled with explanations.
Rose recognized immediately that it was Marcel's handwriting.
Though she had read books for self-study while in Bolton, she had never come across books with such detailed explanations.
However, what was more surprising than the professional and kind textbooks was the phrase written in the letter.
‘Duke Crawford.’
That man had made such a request.
Only a few days ago, he was a man who had grown angry, asking if she really needed to hear from Marcel that it was her birthday.
And yet, he had personally contacted her teacher to make this request.
He was a man she couldn't possibly understand.
After all, wasn't this very piano room she was currently browsing these books in something he had provided for her?
Come to think of it, she still hadn't found out who had played this piano before. Had there been an ancestor in the Crawford family who played the piano?
As Rose sat in the chair, aimlessly pressing the keys, she turned around at the sound of the door opening.
It was Ray Crawford.
Perhaps he had an event or a private appointment today, as he was dressed in comfortable clothes for once, rather than a tight-fitting suit.
Rose watched the man, who looked dashing in cream-colored flannel trousers and a beige knit, stride toward her, and she quickly averted her gaze back to the piano.
It was the first time they had faced each other since that night.
The memory of that night, where they were naked and entwined, rushed back, making it impossible for her to meet his eyes.
“It seems Mr. Garnier has granted my request.”
Ray, leaning beside Rose, glanced at the letter and books spread across the piano.
Speaking in his usual calm tone as if nothing had happened, he seemed completely unfazed, unlike Rose.
Trying to emulate the man's composure, Rose stole a glance up at him.
“...Is it really alright for me to learn?”
“Why wouldn't it be?”
“Just...”
Rose trailed off as he asked back with an air of indifference.
Hadn't Crawford spent all this time teaching her that immersing oneself in such things was not at all elegant?
But Ray simply stared at her, as if he had forgotten everything.
“Why, are you that confident?”
He asked in a mock-concerned tone.
“Are you afraid that as soon as you learn, your pieces will be published and you'll become a successful composer immediately?”
The teasing remark broke her tension, and Rose looked up at Ray with a small laugh.
Indeed, just because she learned the basics didn't mean she could achieve anything immediately.
“Yes. I'm worried if it's alright to leave the mansion empty, as I expect invitations to pour in starting next week, requiring me to go on a concert tour.”
The man laughed at Rose's response.
“The reporters at the Daily Oakley Review are going to be busy.”
Rose looked at the lingering smile on Ray's face with a strange feeling. The lazy afternoon sunlight streaming through the large window illuminated him warmly.
He had become more prone to smiling.
He was a man who had always worn a fake smile, but he hadn't let this kind of smile slip so often before.
“Just give it a try,” he said softly.
It was a command, but because of his voice, it didn't sound overly oppressive.
Rose had always thought that he benefited greatly from his voice as a politician.
It was the same in bed.
Ray had whispered vulgar words into her ear—words that seemed like they would never come from his mouth—and Rose couldn't tell if she was crazy for being aroused by them, or if it was simply because of his voice.
“Why are you doing this for me?”
He didn't answer immediately to the question she had hesitantly asked.
As Rose met the blue eyes looking down at her, she realized her assumption was wrong.
He wasn't unfazed.
He hadn't forgotten the events of that night.
The temperature in his eyes, the way he looked at her, was distinctly different.
The hot, persistent gaze almost made Rose feel as though she were lying naked on the bed again.
Even so, she couldn't avoid his eyes as she had before. As if bound by something, Rose could only stare back at him.
“A birthday present.”
After a long silence, he gave a nonchalant answer that contradicted his gaze.
Could one apply ointment and wrap bandages around a heart?
Knowing it was a foolish thought, she couldn't stop thinking it. It was because she truly felt that way.
It felt as if the fact that her birthday had passed unnoticed a few days ago was forming a scab, as if it were no longer a big deal.
Simply because he had given her a birthday present.
“Refuse it if you don't like it,” he added in an arrogant tone to the silent Rose.
“But I think this is better than flowers. Those wither.”
It was such a typical Ray Crawford thing to say that Rose ended up laughing.
He seemed to view flowers from the perspective of utility and birthday presents from the perspective of competition.
Strictly speaking, the composition lessons were being provided by Marcel, the one who gave her the flowers.
Of course, since Marcel hadn't intended to teach her properly until Ray personally requested it, the credit belonged to Ray.
Ray raised his hand and gently brushed the corner of her mouth, where traces of her smile remained, with his thumb. Rose momentarily stopped breathing.
His finger, which had been slowly caressing her lips from the corner of her mouth in silence, pulled away when she defensively pressed her lips shut.
“...Thank you.”
Only after his hand vanished could Rose open her mouth again.
Ray Crawford was truly strange.
After the kiss, he had avoided her.
Since he hadn't shown his face for several days after spending the night like that, she thought he might be treating it as if it never happened.
But today, having sought her out first, he was subtly tender.
As if it were an extension of that night.
That night, too, he had been rough, but occasionally he acted tenderly, like a dream. He had soothed her and laughed.
“Then, as a reward, play a piece for me.”
Contrary to her feeling that he was tender, Ray pointed to the piano with an arrogant tilt of his head.
Rose glared at him, bewildered by his attitude, which felt like he was commissioning a piece with money, but he approached her as if he hadn't noticed.
As Rose shifted her body to the left of the chair, he naturally sat down beside her.
“Why? I heard that when you sponsor artists, they do at least this much.”
Despite the chair being quite long, it felt narrow now that he was sitting there. The feeling of the man's arm touching her shoulder felt strange.
“Is there something specific you want to hear?”
“I don't know, maybe the one you played back then.”
Was that piece really that good?
“Aren't you going to ask for the name of the piece?”
“Isn't it just a number anyway? It'll be Opus something or other; there's no need to know that.”
“You're right. I can't even remember if this one was number 313 or 314.”
Rose thought mischievously that she would never tell him the real name of the piece. She felt that even if he knew the title, he would likely just sneer.
“I'll play a different piece.”
“Anything.”
The man, responding with a benevolent air as if granting a favor, pondered for a moment and added,
“As long as it's a piece you like.”
No one in Orturan, not even the teacher who had taught her, cared about what Rose liked anymore, yet the man she had felt the most distant from was saying such a thing.
And he had once told her that her feelings were not important here.
What had caused this change?
With a fresh feeling, Rose placed her hands on the keys.
Because the man was sitting right next to her, she was physically conscious of him, but her heart was perfectly at ease.
Perhaps because he was a layman when it came to music, he gave her a sense of relief that he wouldn't judge her at all.
Rose played a short piece that had been her favorite until her mother died. It was a song her mother used to sing to her like a lullaby.
When she finished the performance, she was startled to find the man looking not at the piano, but at her face.
She felt embarrassed, wondering if he had been staring at her face like this the entire time she was playing.
She began to worry if she had been making a strange expression.
“...How was it?”
The question came out with an unconscious hint of expectation.
Ray, who had been watching her intently, let out a short laugh.
“I think it's a song I know.”
Rose, who had expected to hear that it was good, felt slightly disappointed.
“I doubt it; it's not a famous piece.”
“Doesn't it have lyrics that mention 'The Rose of May'?”
“How do you know that?”
To Rose's surprised question, he tilted his head.
“I wonder...”
His smile was somewhat secretive and playful. That smile changed his impression, which had been only firm and cold.
“Someone sang it a long time ago.”
“Really? They must have been Antakan. It's an Antakan folk song.”
He merely shrugged his shoulders, and Rose speculated to herself that he probably hadn't been very interested in that person.
“Your wrist.”
“It doesn't hurt much at this level.”
Whether he didn't quite trust her words or not, he silently took her wrist and gently massaged it.
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