This will be the last foreseeable chapter of this collection. Thank you for reading. Reviews are appreciated.


The sound of erhu and flute could be a beautiful combination.

So it was a terrible pity that the erhu player had to be Kou Shuurei and that the flute player had to be Ran Ryuuren.

This was what the people living near the Kou estate thought each evening as the Ran prodigy visited the resident princess for dinner, then inevitably stayed to practise their instruments.

It was a shock at first, to learn that the young man, so famous for his flute playing, was actually a genius on any other instrument. The melodies were perfectly coherent. He played the classics with ease, and composed his own songs with skill. Occasionally, the song choice in both performers would overlap, and the result was bewitching to any who should hear.

But when it was the flute Ryuuren favoured, watch out. Shuurei would beseech him not to play, looking out for her neighbours, and she won half of the time. The other half of the time, her neighbours knew to plug their ears with small bundles of cotton.

It was strange, they thought, how Shuurei could stand his flute. It was even stranger that the two should play, but not together. Why practise together but not select the same song?

A group of onlookers caught the flautist leaving that evening, speaking to Shuurei from beneath her window. "I'll see you next when the wind wills it, soul friend number one."

Several pairs of eyes shot to her face, eager for her reply, engrossed by their miraculous friendship.

Shuurei was smiling mildly, eyes twinkling in the faint lamplight. She must have known that he'd come again next evening, but she just nodded. "See you then, Ryuuren."