[Two Male Leads / Angst / BE / First Person]
My name is Song Xian. I’m a piano tuner.
My father was a tuner too. After he went deaf, he jumped from the balcony. His suicide note had only one sentence: Don’t go into this line of work.
But I did anyway. I inherited his illness, otosclerosis, and eventually I’ll lose my hearing completely. So while I can still hear, I want to listen for as long as I can.
Someone moved into the apartment upstairs and smashed things every day. I went up to complain and found out he was a pianist. He had injured his right hand and could no longer play, and the grand piano in his home was horribly out of tune.
I tuned it for him once.
After that, he asked me to come every day. I thought he needed a piano tuner. Later, I learned what he really needed was someone who could still play.
His hand had actually healed a long time ago, but he never told me. He was afraid I’d stop coming if I found out.
I never told him my hearing was failing, either. I was afraid he wouldn’t let me tune his piano if he knew.
One of us was losing his hearing, the other his hands. We both lied to each other, each convinced it was for the other’s sake.
I tuned his piano eighty-two times.
On the eighty-second visit, I put down my tuning hammer and said to him, “Gu Zheng, I can’t hear anymore.”
Only later did I realize that I hadn’t had time to hear a single note he played.
