KOKORO WAS THUNDERSTRUCK.
‘What’s wrong?’ Aki asked, standing up.
Her eyes still looked cloudy, though in Kokoro’s company, a clear spark of life had returned. The red crease from the skirt still showed on her cheek; Kokoro thought that she may have been crying. Perhaps because of the tears, a few stray strands of hair were stuck to her cheek.
‘Oh!’
They heard voices, and turned to find Subaru and Masamune standing in the doorway. They could have come through the mirrors around the same time. They stood fixed to the spot, eyes wide, and looked incredulously at Aki.
Kokoro had no idea what to say. She saw the two boys’ gaze slide quickly from Aki’s face to the school badge on her chest.
‘What?’ Masamune said. ‘Why the uniform? I mean – is that actually your school uniform?’
‘What do you mean?’
Her eyes narrowed as she realized something was up.
‘Because – it’s exactly the same.’
Aki frowned.
‘It’s exactly the same uniform worn by the girls at my school!’
Subaru, restless beside him, began to wrinkle his brow.
‘At yours too?’ Subaru asked.
Aki looked at Kokoro, astonished. ‘Wha-what? What’re you …?’ And then at the faces of the boys, pale with shock.
‘Yukishina No. 5 Junior High,’ Aki said, as if piecing together the syllables one by one. ‘You are joking, of course. It’s not just that the uniform’s familiar,’ she added. ‘You’re actually telling me you both go to Yukishina No. 5 Junior High? In Minami Tokyo?’
‘And me,’ Kokoro managed to say. Now it was Subaru, Masamune and Aki’s turn to stare at her in utter astonishment.
What could this all mean?
Why was the Wolf Queen doing this? Kokoro couldn’t fathom it.
We are all kids going to the same junior high.
Or more precisely, who should be going.
They’d always avoided the subject of school. She’d never imagined they were even living so close.
‘Oh!’
Fuka, the next to come into the Game Room, let out a little yelp. She had also caught sight of Aki’s uniform.
By now they were no longer surprised.
✦ ✦ ✦
THEY WAITED FOR LATE AFTERNOON, when Rion would appear.
Fuka and Ureshino had displayed the same reaction: What the—?
When Rion arrived, they understood he would be the one exception, but that riddle, too, was soon solved.
When they told him that they should all be attending the same junior high, Rion looked taken aback. ‘That’s …’ he began. ‘That’s in Minami Tokyo City.’
‘Yep!’ they said in near unison.
He took a deep breath. ‘I was due to go there, too.’
They stared, speechless.
‘The plan was for me to go there, if I hadn’t gone abroad.’
‘So then, is this what it means?’ Aki asked, arms folded. ‘That we’re all kids who were supposed to go to Yukishina, but actually aren’t going? Is that the common factor that’s brought us together?’
‘I guess so. But …’ Fuka wrinkled her nose in puzzlement. ‘Aren’t we quite a big group?’ she asked, to no one in particular. ‘Are there really this many kids who’ve dropped out of the same school? I always thought it was just me.’
And I thought it was just me, thought Kokoro.
Kokoro, Rion and Ureshino were in the first year of junior high.
Fuka and Masamune were in their second year.
Subaru and Aki were in their third.
Kokoro hadn’t been aware Rion and Ureshino were from the same school as her, let alone in the same grade. Rion’s situation was different, but the incident with Ureshino must have taken place in a classroom very near her own.
Kokoro remembered overhearing her mother talking to the head of the alternative School.
Elementary school is such a pleasant, comfortable place for most children, so it’s not at all unusual for many to have trouble fitting in when they make the transition to junior high. Especially with a junior high like Yukishina No. 5, which has grown so large, what with other schools merging.
She remembered how repelled she had felt when she’d heard this, turned off by the thought that she was being so easily classified as one of those who had trouble fitting in.
‘Isn’t it because Yukishina No. 5 has so many students? We can’t be expected to know everyone,’ she said.
Fuka inclined her head. ‘I wonder. I mean, each grade has about four classes, doesn’t it? That’s not so many.’
‘Really? Is that true of second year?’
‘Yeah,’ Fuka nodded.
‘But third year has eight classes?’
‘That many?’ Fuka was surprised.
‘There’re six classes in second year,’ Masamune corrected her. ‘Fuka, how long’s it been since you stopped going to school? Maybe your memory’s a little hazy.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Fuka seemed unconvinced, but Kokoro, too, thought that what Fuka said didn’t sound right. There were about the same number of students in the second year as in the first. As Masamune had pointed out, Fuka may not have attended school much in her first year either. Maybe she’d never gone at all.
‘Which elementary school did you go to?’
Yukishina No. 5 Junior High was in a district made up of many elementary schools. Compared to junior high, these schools were relatively small, and if they’d come from the same elementary school, they were bound to be aware of each other.
‘Elementary School No. 2,’ Masamune said sulkily.
‘I was at No. 1,’ Fuka said.
‘Oh!’ Kokoro said.
Fuka caught her eye. ‘You were in – the same school?’
‘I was.’
Yukishina Elementary School No. 1 had two classes in each grade. But probably because they were in different grades, Kokoro had no recollection of Fuka.
On top of which, Fuka wasn’t exactly the type who stood out. She didn’t seem about to star at track or swimming meets. Nor did Kokoro, so it wasn’t strange that Fuka had no memory of her either.
Nevertheless, she still felt there was something odd.
To think that she went to the same school as me!
‘So you two don’t remember each other?’ Subaru asked. Kokoro shook her head. ‘I bet, if I tell you where I went to elementary school,’ he said, ‘none of you will have ever heard of it.’ All eyes were on him now. ‘I went to Nagura Elementary. It’s in Ibaraki prefecture, but when I went into third year at junior high I moved to my grandparents’ house in Tokyo. The two of us, my older brother and I.’
‘The two of you?’ Masamune asked, and Subaru nodded.
‘What about your parents?’ Masamune asked. He and Subaru seemed to get on fine, but it wasn’t until the summer break, when Subaru dyed his hair, that he told Masamune he had a brother. Subaru insisted he hadn’t been hiding anything.
‘My parents aren’t around. When we were still in Ibaraki my mum left us, and my dad remarried and is living with his second wife. That’s why my brother and I went to our grandparents’.’
Masamune’s face dropped. The rest of them gasped.
‘My older brother and me,’ Subaru went on. ‘At first I didn’t really want to go to school. I didn’t know anyone there. If you wanted to fit in, April was the month to go, when the school year started. It’s not that I was pushed out, or that anything serious happened, so unlike all of you I just dropped out because I’m lazy, and it makes me feel guilty.’
Hearing him say this made Kokoro feel contrite.
Maybe it was true nothing serious had happened to Subaru at school, but she imagined his troubles had started earlier in life. He could put on a brave face when he talked about living with his grandparents, but was he really smiling inside?
Summer break. Subaru said he went on a trip with his parents. He was given a music player by his father. These things now took on a significance.
‘Aokusa Elementary.’ Rion’s voice rang out in the silence.
Aokusa Elementary lay in the opposite direction from Kokoro’s Yukishina No. 1 school, with the junior high situated in between. So Rion hadn’t gone abroad at that stage, but had been living very near Kokoro.
Ureshino suddenly shook his head. ‘You’ve got to be joking,’ he said.
‘About what?’ Rion said.
‘I went to Aokusa Elementary too!’ Ureshino said, looking shocked. Rion, too, looked back at him in astonishment.
‘You’re in the first grade of junior high, aren’t you, Rion? So we were in the same grade in elementary? Are you kidding me? You weren’t there, were you? I used to be at school every day. Were you really there? Really?’
‘I went every day too …’
Rion looked confused.
‘You didn’t know Ureshino either?’ asked Subaru.
‘I don’t remember him. He might have been there, but I don’t think I ever played with him.’
‘How many classes per year were there? Is Aokusa Elementary big?’
‘Three classes.’
Kokoro felt a little pained listening to their back and forth.
Unlike she and Fuka, who had been in different years at school, to be in a school that small, and in the same grade, and not remember each other, they must have lived in very different worlds.
‘I went to Shimizudai Elementary.’
The last to pipe up was Aki. Her school district was the furthest away from Kokoro’s house, but still within walking distance. They all lived really close.
All of them were now at Yukishina No. 5 Junior High, and each had passed through the mirror in their own bedroom to come here.
‘So you live near Careo?’
Aki must live near Careo and the shopping district by the station. Careo was where Kokoro was heading the day she had her panic attack. This was the most happening area around, so it somehow made sense that Aki, with her dyed hair and outlandish outfits, went to the elementary school there. Had Aki gone to the video arcade in Careo as well?
Aki looked puzzled, so Kokoro went on.
‘I’m thinking maybe you bought Fuka’s birthday napkins from one of the shops there?’
She was about to tell her how she’d thought of looking for the same napkins when Aki shook her head.
‘I bought those napkins at Marumido in the shopping centre,’ she said. ‘The hairclips, too.’
Kokoro had never heard of that shop. But Subaru exclaimed, ‘Marumido! Wow, now that’s a real local shop. You must really live in the neighbourhood to know it. Weird, but I’m so glad to hear that. So where do you usually hang out, Aki-chan? The McDonald’s near the station?’
‘I go there sometimes, yeah.’
Kokoro lived nearby, but it had been a while since she’d been to the shops near the station. They’d built a McDonald’s?
‘So there’s a McDonald’s there now,’ murmured Fuka.
Kokoro was a little relieved. She wasn’t the only one who hadn’t cottoned on.