NOT EVERYONE WAS THERE EVERY day. After they’d dyed their hair, Aki and Subaru were often absent. She wasn’t sure how to put it, but to Kokoro the two of them seemed to talk about more superficial subjects these days.
Kokoro was especially surprised when Aki told her she had a boyfriend.
Fuka and Kokoro weren’t used to the subject of boyfriends, and Aki seemed to enjoy watching them squirm. ‘He’s not my first,’ Aki added, and the two younger girls recoiled even more.
Kokoro felt she had to ask something, so she said, ‘What’s he like?’ to which Aki simply replied, ‘He’s older. Twenty-three. He’s going to take me out on his motorcycle next time.’
‘How did you meet?’
‘Well, it’s kind of a long story.’
She deflected the question, probably intentionally.
Aki didn’t keep her story for the girls only, but hinted at it with the boys as well.
‘That’s weird,’ Masamune said once, when Aki wasn’t there. ‘A girl who’s a senior in junior high and a twenty-three-year-old man? What the hell’s that guy thinking?’
‘I know,’ Subaru said, ‘but my brother’s friend Mitsuo, who’s nineteen, has a girlfriend who’s in second year in junior high.’
Masamune clammed up in a huff.
Unlike Aki, Subaru didn’t say things because he enjoyed making them feel uncomfortable, and Kokoro felt just as awkward as he did.
After Subaru had bleached his hair, there was a distinct distance between him and Masamune that hadn’t been there before.
Subaru didn’t come over to the castle as often as before, and even when he did, he’d often just sit by himself on the sofa in the Game Room and listen to music on his earphones.
‘What are you listening to?’ Kokoro asked him once.
‘When I’m at home, most of the time I listen to the radio,’ he said, ‘but I can’t get any reception here.’
That’s how Kokoro found out there was no radio signal at the castle. Come to think of it, except when they used the TV for video games, they couldn’t watch TV either.
‘This player was broken once, and I went to Akihabara to see if I could get it fixed, but they told me it’d be better to just get it replaced. I didn’t know what to do, so I searched the back alleys and found a shop that could fix it for me.’
The music player his father had given him was clearly a prized possession. ‘I see,’ Kokoro nodded, and Masamune looked up from his video game and murmured, ‘So you’ve been to Akihabara?’
Kokoro was curious.
She had no idea where Subaru and Masamune lived. But since Subaru had gone to Akihabara, it must mean he lived in Tokyo. So he must live close enough to go there alone? Or did someone else take him?
Other than Rion talking about Hawaii, this was the first time any place names had come up in their conversations. Kokoro prepared herself for more details about where each of them lived, but Subaru just nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said.
An unnatural silence descended and their chat died away.
✦ ✦ ✦
IT WASN’T JUST SUBARU WHO had begun to mention things outside the castle. Aki did too, and often.
Aki dressed differently now. After summer she often arrived in tiny hot pants, in white or a dazzling neon. Even Kokoro was a bit uncomfortable at the display of her long slim legs.
‘Last Saturday,’ Aki announced, ‘my boyfriend and I were almost picked up for hanging around on the street. Christ, I freaked out. The guy caught up with us and my boyfriend told him, Oh, she’s seventeen. She’s already graduated from junior high.
‘So what do you think?’ she asked Fuka and Kokoro. ‘Could I pass for seventeen? Maybe a bit too easily?’
With her dyed hair and glitzy clothes, Aki did indeed look more grown-up, a fact that Kokoro found daunting.
‘Sorry,’ Aki said. ‘You girls are quite sensible, so you probably find all this boring.’
‘No, I wouldn’t say that.’
The word ‘sensible’ made it sound like she was making fun of them, and neither Kokoro nor Fuka knew how to respond. It wasn’t that Kokoro felt jealous, but the whole thing left her uneasy.
So what sort of relationship did Aki and this man have now? The fact that Aki had a life in the world outside weighed on her, and made her anxious.
✦ ✦ ✦
EVERYONE’S CIRCUMSTANCES WERE DIFFERENT.
She’d thought this before, but after hearing Ureshino’s story, it hit home even more clearly.
And she started to wonder what Rion, this ordinary boy who was studying in Hawaii, thought about the rest of them.
‘Rion-kun, what do your parents do?’ Kokoro ventured one day.
‘Hm?’
‘I was thinking, since they had the idea of sending you to Hawaii, maybe they worked in something related to that.’
‘Oh,’ Rion nodded. He took a breath and said, ‘Well, my dad works for a large company, and my mother doesn’t work. I heard she used to work in the same company as my dad, but she gave it up when I was born.’
‘Oh.’
‘What about your family, Kokoro?’
‘Both my dad and mum work.’
‘Really?’
‘Do you have any brothers or sisters? I’m an only child.’
‘I have one older sister.’
‘Is she in Hawaii too?’
For some reason, Rion’s face looked a bit troubled. ‘Japan,’ he replied. ‘She’s in Japan.’ He suddenly became serious. ‘I wanted to ask you – have you dropped out of school too?’
Her chest ached at the question. Even though she herself had brought up the subject, this was the first time someone had asked her so directly. And of all people it was Rion, who was going to school.
‘Yeah,’ she managed to say.
‘So did something happen, like with Ureshino?’ he asked.
‘Um – sort of.’
She was struck by a sudden desire to tell Rion all about it. About Miori Sanada, and all they’d done to her.
But Rion didn’t ask. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Must be tough.’ And with that their conversation ended.
✦ ✦ ✦
AFTER SHE’D GOT HOME FROM the castle, she checked it was dark outside and went to look in the mailbox.
The best thing about going to the castle was that she could avoid hearing the clang of the mailbox, and the rustling sound when the school handouts were slid inside.
That said, she couldn’t exactly wait until after her mother came home to check the mailbox. If her mother saw the bumf, it would remind her all over again that her daughter wasn’t going to school. So as a rule, Kokoro emptied the mailbox herself before her mother got home.
And she was just about to do that when it happened.
The front doorbell, which rarely rang, sounded through the house.
Kokoro peeked outside from her bedroom window. She was pretty sure it wasn’t them, but it would be awkward if it were Tojo-san, or another classmate. Maybe Miori and the others were barging in all over again.
Time had passed since then, but the fear was still a part of her. She froze instinctively at the sound, and her stomach ached. But it wasn’t a classmate. There were no bikes around. Instead, a woman was standing there.
The woman turned her head slightly, and Kokoro caught a glimpse of her profile. She realized who it was.
‘Coming!’ she called, and skipped downstairs.
She opened the door to find Ms Kitajima from the Classroom for the Heart School. She looked kindly as always. She beamed at Kokoro.
‘Hello,’ Kokoro said.
Kokoro had just returned from the castle, and she wasn’t in her PJs or casual indoor clothes, so she shouldn’t have felt awkward, yet she found it hard to meet her eyes. ‘I’m so happy to see you,’ Ms Kitajima said. Kokoro stood there with bated breath.
This was the first time Ms Kitajima had come to her house.