[ he can't help the little swell of pride at the praise, even if - especially if - it comes from his future self. ]

Hm... [ he gives the question consideration, glancing from the keys to knives himself. ] ... We could try to find the source of the problem? Maybe replace the keys with ones that work properly? [ he doesn't know much about piano upkeep, having only ever peered inside a few times out of curiosity to watch how the pieces worked while vash pressed the keys.

he brings a hand up to carefully push down one of the desolate keys, once then twice slowly. ] Everything else works well enough.