THE GROUP WERE DUMBFOUNDED.
Kokoro, too, needed time to digest things. They would forget all that has unfolded within its walls – the words were a shock.
‘Are you … joking?’ a voice finally piped up. Rion, sounding puzzled. ‘It’s not as if I don’t believe you, but are you serious?’
Kokoro could fully understand Rion’s confusion. He could understand her meaning, but his emotions rejected it. And he wanted to make sure. Kokoro – and probably the rest – felt the same.
‘I’m utterly serious,’ the Wolf Queen said serenely. ‘Do you have any other questions?’
‘So what happens to our memory of our time here?’ It was Masamune who asked this. There was a hint of aggression in his tone. ‘Several months are passing, so what will we have been doing all that time?’
‘Your memories will be filled in as needed,’ said the Wolf Queen. ‘They’ll be filled in with a repeat of the things you were doing before. Sleeping, watching TV, reading manga and books, going out shopping occasionally, playing in video arcades. Memories of those sorts of things, I imagine.’
‘So you’re saying that memories of reading any books or playing video games here will be replaced with something else? So something new I’ve read here, a manga story for instance, won’t stay with me at all? What a waste of time.’
‘Maybe, but is that such a problem?’ The Wolf Queen’s tone was brusque. ‘Is it that important to you to store up new manga stories?’
‘Of course it is. Don’t be stupid.’
Masamune pouted, his irritation finally showing. For her part, Kokoro was reflecting how, in her bedroom with its light orange curtains, she enjoyed watching, day after day, the reruns of her favourite TV soap. And how, by the end of the day, the storyline would have half faded in her memory anyway. It wasn’t just dramas. Talk shows and variety shows, too – the content was quickly forgotten.
But for Masamune, who was moved to tears by video games just as he was by manga and movies, not being able to build up new knowledge from their content might truly be a colossal loss. The Wolf Queen just shook her head.
‘Then give them up. They might be important to you, but that’s how much energy needs to be expended to make a wish come true. If you don’t like it, then, if you find the key, don’t use it.’
The Wolf Queen had a stern look in her eye, as she stared into each of their faces.
‘But what you Little Red Riding Hoods have done on the other side of the mirror will remain. Playing football, finding a boyfriend, dyeing your hair. Going back to school and getting beaten up.’
Kokoro could sense Ureshino tense up. ‘You mean me?’ he asked in a tight voice. ‘Are you making fun of me, Wolf Queen?’
Ever since the incident, Ureshino had become calmer, never once raising his voice or even falling in love with any of them, and Kokoro was at pains to avoid the subject coming up again.
Unexpectedly, the Wolf Queen replied, ‘No, I am not. I find your courage in going back commendable. I just mentioned it as an example, and if it has bothered you, I’m sorry. My apologies.’
Her uncompromising reply left Ureshino deflated. ‘Eh?’ he said. He turned to Fuka, next to him, and asked, ‘Commendable? What does that mean?’
‘It means she respects you.’
Ureshino’s eyes opened wide in astonishment.
‘Any more questions?’ the Wolf Queen asked.
What Kokoro wanted to say wasn’t a question but more of an opinion. Or to put a finer point on it, something that dissatisfied her.
Their memories would vanish. They’d forget the castle, and naturally that meant they’d forget each other as well.
Kokoro had no idea how the Wolf Queen interpreted their silence.
‘If there’s nothing else, I’ll be going,’ she said. And with that, she was gone.
They hadn’t seen her disappear like that in a while, but no one dared comment. When she’d first performed her vanishing act, it had caused quite a stir, but now the atmosphere had changed. Kokoro missed those earlier days.
‘So our memories vanish – so what?’ a voice said, breaking the silence.
It was Aki. The group gave her a look. Kokoro wasn’t sure if she was doing it intentionally or not, but she met their eyes with a cool response.
‘That doesn’t bother me one bit,’ she said. ‘I mean, we can only be here in the castle until March anyway, and after that we won’t be able to see each other any more. The key will grant any wish, and not to use it would be a huge waste. Right?’ Aki looked at each of them in turn, as if seeking agreement.
‘All of this didn’t exist before, so it will just mean going back to our earlier lives. What’s wrong with that?’
‘Everything.’
They all turned in surprise at the voice. It was Ureshino. He tended to get emotional, but his voice seemed unusually quiet.
Aki, uncharacteristically, didn’t respond, and Ureshino continued, ‘I hate the thought of it. I don’t want to forget how you’ve all heard me out. Or how the Wolf Queen said she respected me.’
‘She didn’t say she respected you; she said she found your action commendable,’ Masamune said.
‘So?’ Ureshino looked serious. ‘If it means forgetting you all, then I don’t need to have my wish granted.’ His eyes looked straight ahead and shone, for once, without any hint of spite. He turned to Aki, tilting his head. ‘Don’t you feel like that too, Aki-chan? Would you really prefer your wish to come true?’
Kokoro listened in surprise. Ureshino had admitted to hunting for the key, but now declared he’d rather keep his memories than have his wish granted. She was part of these memories. So were Masamune and Aki, with all their bickering and arguing. Every one of them.
Kokoro felt something warm seeping out of her, from deep inside. And she realized it was a feeling of happiness.
Aki might have been experiencing the same sort of elation. Despite her tough words, she seemed thrown off her stride. ‘No … it’s not like I—’ she said.
Maybe Aki was just putting up a brave front. Could she really say that as long as she had her wish, she didn’t care?
Ureshino piped up. ‘In fact, I might really go for it and get hold of the key first. Then I’d break it, or hide it. I might actually try to block you, Aki-chan.’
Aki turned a bright red, and glared.
‘Sorry.’ Ureshino looked down, and no one spoke.
A silence descended on them, even more stifling than if someone had been angrily shouting. Finally Aki spoke up.
‘Fine. Do whatever you want.’
And with that she departed from the room.
The group were left to look at each other blankly. The unspoken message: it was time to go.
‘I wonder what Aki’s wish is.’ This from Subaru, who’d not spoken up till now. It didn’t sound like he was seeking anyone’s opinion, merely voicing his own thoughts. ‘Well, I suppose it’s each to their own,’ he murmured, and smiled. ‘But still, the Wolf Queen’s so mischievous. I mean – why tell us that now, at this late stage? Or perhaps she was waiting for this to happen?’
‘Waiting?’ Kokoro asked. He’s always got such an unusual take on things, she thought.
‘Yeah,’ Subaru replied. ‘Maybe she was waiting for us to get to know each other first. Waiting until the moment when we don’t care about our wish any more. Maybe she never intended to grant anyone’s wish anyway. Perhaps there isn’t even a key at all.’
‘I can see that,’ Masamune muttered.
‘True, no?’ Subaru said.
‘Nah,’ Rion shook his head. ‘I think the Wolf Queen does mean to grant one of us a wish. I don’t think she’s doing all this out of spite. She could be testing us, though. To see if we’ll go for the wish in full knowledge of the consequences. No matter what we decide, I think she’ll go along with it. I have the feeling she wasn’t lying when she said she’d simply forgotten to tell us earlier.’
Kokoro got the faint sense the Wolf Queen was still listening in on their conversation.
‘What do you think, Fuka?’
‘Me?’
Fuka turned around to face them. She had an odd expression. ‘I’d been thinking that even when we return to the real world, I’d still keep in touch with you all.’
‘Eh?’
‘Till now, I’d always thought if we tell each other who we are and where we live, we could carry on seeing each other. So I didn’t find it all that upsetting.’
‘Oh.’
Kokoro understood what Fuka meant, since she’d sort of been thinking the same way. She couldn’t imagine never seeing them again.
Fuka’s real world took on an even heavier weight.
This was real, being here in the castle, she thought, but their reality lay outside, the kind of place she didn’t want to go back to if she could avoid it.
‘But if we forget everything, isn’t that impossible? We might exchange addresses, but won’t we forget that we’ve even done it?’
‘But if a wish isn’t granted, then it might be a good idea to exchange our contact info, just in case,’ said Masamune.
‘Addresses and phone numbers?’ Subaru asked, and Masamune nodded.
At the beginning, the two of them had played video games together all the time and they’d seemed quite similar, in part, but after the summer break, when Subaru had bleached his hair, they began to seem a bit mismatched. Kokoro just couldn’t picture them – Masamune and the flashy yet so polite Subaru – together in, say, a classroom.
Our contact info – the words pierced her.
The real world, our outside contact info.
It hit home for Kokoro that so many things here in the castle were the exception.
They really knew nothing about each other.
Rion apparently was living in Hawaii, she knew that much, but she’d always felt she couldn’t ask the others where they were from, and so she hadn’t. Certainly she was dying to know, but she resisted the notion of anyone knowing anything about her.
I wonder why, she thought.
Because I want to forget it all myself.
While she was here, she wanted to be free from it all – from being a student at Yukishina No. 5 Junior High, from that class with Miori Sanada in it, from Tojo-san who lived two houses down the road.
The others may have felt the same way. They might at some point start to show some interest in Fuka’s idea of exchanging personal information, but none of them seemed ready to take that step today.