Chapter 2

Chapter Two The Beginning I don’t recognize that ringtone, I think drowsily. An alarm? But I’m still sleepy. I was in the zone drawing last night and didn’t get to bed until it was almost dawn. “…ki… Taki.” Now somebody’s calling my name. It’s a girl’s voice…… A girl? “Taki, Taki.” Her voice is earnest, pleading, as if she’s about to cry. A voice trembling with loneliness, like the glimmer of distant stars. “Don’t you remember me?” the voice asks me anxiously. No, I don’t know you. Suddenly, the train stops, and the doors open. Oh, right—I was on a train. The moment I realize this, I’m standing in a packed train car. A pair of wide eyes hovers right in front of me. A girl in a uniform is staring straight at me, but the press of disembarking passengers is pushing her farther away. “My name is Mitsuha!” The girl shouts, undoing the cord she’d used to tie back her hair and holding it out to me. Without thinking, I reach for it. It’s a vivid orange, like a thin ray of evening sun in the dim train. I shove my way into the crowd and grab that color tight. At that point, my eyes open. The girl’s voice—its echoes—still whispers in my ears. …Her name is Mitsuha? I don’t know the name, and I don’t know the girl. She looked really desperate somehow. Her eyes were brimming with tears. I’d never seen the style of uniform she was wearing. Her expression was serious, even grave, as if the fate of the universe rested in her hands. Still, it was just a dream. It doesn’t mean anything. By the time I think about it, I can’t even remember her face. The echoes in my ears are already gone, too. Even so. Even so, my pulse is still racing abnormally fast. My chest is weirdly heavy. I’m sweaty all over. For the moment, I draw a deep breath. Haaaah… “…?” Do I have a cold? My nose and throat feel funny. My airways are a little tighter than usual. My chest…really is weirdly heavy. How do I put this? Physically heavy. I look down at my body and see cleavage. Cleavage. “…?” The soft mounds reflect the morning sun, and the pale, smooth skin gleams. A deep-blue shadow lies between the two breasts, like a lake. Might as well squeeze ’em, I think, without missing a beat. My hands gravitate toward them as naturally as an apple falling to the ground. …………… ………… ……? …! The sensation blows my mind. Whoa, I think. What is this? I keep kneading earnestly. This is just… Wow… Girls’ bodies are amazing… “Sis? What’re you doin’?” I glance in the direction of the voice. There’s a little girl standing there. She’s just opened a sliding door. With my hands still pressed against my chest, I give her my honest impression. “I was just thinking these feel way real… Huh?” I look at the kid again. She’s about ten, with twin ponytails and sharp eyes, and she looks like the sassy type. “…‘Sis’?” I ask the girl, pointing at myself. So that means this is my kid sister? The girl looks thoroughly appalled. “You still asleep or somethin’? It’s. Break. Fast. Time! Hurry up!” She slams the sliding door shut with a sharp thwack. Fierce little girl, I think, hauling myself off the futon. Come to think of it, I am hungry. Suddenly, a full-length mirror in the corner of my vision catches my eye. I walk a few steps across the tatami mats decorating the floor to stand in front of it. Letting my loose nightshirt slip off my shoulders and fall to the floor leaves me naked. I stare at my full-length reflection in the mirror. Long black hair flows down my back, although it’s sleep-tousled and sticking up in places. A small, round face holds big, curious eyes and lips that seem vaguely amused above a slim neck, deep collarbone, and a swelling bosom that seems to proclaim, Why yes, thank you, I’m quite healthy! Below are faint shadows of ribs, and then the soft curves of the waist. I haven’t seen one in the flesh yet, but this is definitely a girl’s body. …A girl? I’m…a girl? Abruptly, the drowsy fog enveloping my body is gone. My head clears instantly, then plunges into confusion. I can’t take it, and I scream. “Sis, you’re so late!” As I open the sliding door and step into the living room, Yotsuha’s accusation flies to greet me. “I’ll fix breakfast tomorrow!” I say by way of apology. This kid hasn’t even lost all her baby teeth yet, but she seems convinced she’s handling life better than her big sister. I can’t show weakness by apologizing! I think, opening the rice cooker and scooping a gleaming white helping into my bowl. Whoops, is that too much? Well, never mind. “Thanks for the food!” I pour a generous dose of sauce over a smooth fried egg, pair it with rice, and put it in my mouth. Oh, yum. This just might be paradise… Hmm? I feel eyes trained on me, somewhere around my temple. “So you’re normal today, are you?” “Huh?” Gran is watching me steadily as I chew my food. “She sure was somethin’ else yesterday!” Yotsuha smirks at me. “Screamin’ all of a sudden like that.” Screaming? Gran inspects me suspiciously, and Yotsuha grins (mocking me, I’m sure). “Huh? What? What do you mean? What?!” Seriously, what’s the matter with them? It’s creepy. Ding-dong-ding-dooong. Suddenly, the speaker over the door comes alive, deafeningly loud. “Good morning, everyone.” The voice belongs to my friend Saya’s big sister (currently employed by the Regional Life Information Section at the town hall). This place, Itomori, is a dinky little town with a population of fifteen hundred, so most people either know each other or at least know someone in common. “Here are the morning announcements from Itomori.” The slow stream of words from the speaker is clipped into phrases. “Here are…the morning announcements…from Itomori.” There are speakers outside, too, all over town, so the broadcast echoes off the mountains and overlaps with itself as if it’s being sung in rounds. Twice a day, morning and evening, this disaster-prevention radio broadcast plays throughout the town. Every house has a receiver to faithfully relay the daily announcements about local events: the schedule for the sports meet, how to contact whoever’s in charge of shoveling the snow, yesterday’s births, today’s funerals. “With regard to the Itomori mayoral election, which will take place on the twentieth of next month, the town election management committee has—” Click. The speaker over the lintel falls silent. Gran can’t reach it herself, so she’s pulled the plug. She’s past eighty and wearing her usual traditional kimono, but even so, the gesture wordlessly conveys her anger. Even as I’m impressed by her chilly ire, I grab up the remote and turn on the TV without missing a beat. Picking up where Saya’s sister left off, the smiling NHK news lady starts speaking. “We’re now just a month away from a visit by a comet that appears only once every twelve hundred years. For a few days, the comet is expected to be visible to the naked eye. With the celestial show of the century just around the corner, JAXA and research institutes worldwide are scrambling in preparation to study it.” There’s a line of text on the screen—Comet Tiamat visible to the naked eye next month—and a blurry picture of a comet. Our conversation has lost its momentum, and the only noise comes from the three of us taking our meal and the NHK broadcast. Our soft clinks and clicks sound a bit guilty, like whispered chatter during class. “…Just make up with him already, wouldja?” Out of nowhere, Yotsuha says something tactless. “It’s an adult problem,” I snap at her. That’s right—this is an adult problem. Stupid election! Somewhere in the wind, a black kite gives a rather silly-sounding cry: Piiihyororo. Saying bye to Gran in unison, Yotsuha and I head out the door. The summer copper pheasants are crowing up a storm. Traveling down the narrow paved path that runs along the hillside and descending several stone-walled stairways, we emerge from the shadow of the mountain into direct sunlight. Below us is a round lake, Itomori Lake. Its calm surface reflects the morning sun, glittering and glaring as though nobody’s watching. The deep-green mountains form their ranks under white clouds in a blue sky, and a little girl with pigtails and a red school backpack skips along for no reason. Then there’s me beside her, the dazzling, bare-legged high school girl. In my head, I try adding a grand string score to the scene as background music. Ooh, it’s just like the opening of a Japanese film… In other words, we live in the boonies—very Japanese and a few decades behind the times. “Miiitsuhaaa!” After Yotsuha and I part ways in front of the elementary school, a voice calls out from behind me. It’s Tesshi, pedaling his bike and looking cranky, with Saya seated primly on the bike rack and smiling. “Hurry up and get off,” Tesshi grumbles. “I’m fine right here. Don’t be stingy!” “C’mon, you’re heavy.” “And you’re rude!” This early in the morning, and they’re already teasing each other like a married couple in a comedy skit. “You two get along so well.” “We do not!” they chorus. They deny it so earnestly it’s funny, and I giggle. My mental soundtrack switches over to a jaunty guitar solo. The three of us have been friends for a good ten years—petite Saya, with her braids and straight-across bangs, and tall, skinny Tesshi with his burr cut and general lack of style. They always look like they’re fighting, but given how their conversation is always perfectly synced, I secretly think they might make an excellent couple. “Oh, Mitsuha, you did your hair properly today.” Saya, who’s gotten off the bike, touches the area around my hair cord, grinning. My hair’s fixed the same as always: two braids looped up and tied together in the back with the cord. My mom taught me how, a long time ago. “Huh? What about my hair?” Her comment sparks a recollection of the comments that sort of got lost in the shuffle at breakfast. I did it “properly” today—does that mean it was weird yesterday? As I’m trying to remember what happened, Tesshi leans in, looking concerned. “Hey, you did get your grandma to exorcise you, didn’t you?” “Exorcise?” “Yeah, I swear you got yourself possessed by a fox!” “…Excuse me?” I frown at the unexpected remark. Saya speaks up for me, sounding disgusted. “Would you quit blamin’ everythin’ on the occult already?! Mitsuha’s probably just stressed, that’s all. Right?” Stressed? “Huh? Wait, hold it—what’s all this about?” Why is literally everybody worried about me? Yesterday was… I can’t remember off the top of my head, but I’m pretty sure it was just a regular day. …Hmm? Wait, was it really? Yesterday, I… “—And most importantly!” A deep voice from a megaphone erases my questions. On the other side of the road, with its rows of vinyl greenhouses, a little crowd of a dozen or so people is gathered in the ridiculously big municipal parking lot. Standing at its center, holding a microphone, is my dad, taller and bolder-looking than the rest. The banner he wears diagonally across his suit jacket proudly proclaims, Incumbent—Toshiki Miyamizu. He’s stumping for the mayoral election. “Most importantly, economic revitalization, in order to sustain the village restoration project! Only when we have made that a reality will we be able to establish a safe, worry-free community. As the incumbent, I intend to refine the community planning I’ve been involved with and see it through to completion! I will lead this region with new enthusiasm, creating a local society in which everyone—from our children to our senior citizens—can relax and enjoy fulfilling, active lives. I have renewed my resolve to make this vision my goal…” It’s such a skillful speech that it’s almost overbearing. It leaves me cold—this campaign address sounds like it belongs on TV, not in a parking lot surrounded by fields. The whispers I hear from the crowd—“You know it’s gonna be Miyamizu again this term anyway,” “It sounds like he’s been spreadin’ lots of cash around”—make my mood even darker. “Hey, Miyamizu.” “…Mornin’.” Wonderful. The greeting comes from three classmates I’m less than fond of. Even in high school, they’re part of the flashy “in-crowd,” and they snark at us—the “drones”—over every little thing. “The mayor and the contractor,” one of them says, shooting a deliberate glance at my orating father. When I follow suit, I see Tesshi’s dad standing next to mine, beaming. He’s wearing a jacket from his construction company and an armband that says Toshiki Miyamizu Supporter. The guy looks back at me, then at Tesshi, and continues. “Their kids are all buddy-buddy, too. Did your folks tell you to hang out together?” This is so stupid. I don’t even answer—I walk faster, trying to get out of there. Tesshi’s expressionless. Only Saya looks bothered and a bit flustered. “Mitsuha!” Suddenly, a loud voice booms out. Yeep! My breath catches in my throat. I don’t believe this. My dad lowered his mic midspeech to shout at me without the aid of electronic amplification. The whole crowd turns to look at me. “Mitsuha, straighten up!” I turn beet red. It’s so unfair that I almost start crying. I want to run, but I desperately fight back the urge and stride away instead. The crowd is whispering. “He’s even tough on family.” “That’s the mayor for you.” I hear my classmates snickering. “Ooh. Harsh.” “I kinda feel a little sorry for her.” This could not be worse. The background music that was playing in my head a minute ago has disappeared, and I remember that this town, without a soundtrack, is an absolutely suffocating place. With a sharp tak, tak, tak, the teacher writes a short poem on the blackboard. Please don’t ask me “Who goes there?” I’m waiting here for my love, in the September dew. “Tasokare, ‘who goes there?’ This is the origin of the term tasogare, or twilight. You know the word twilight, don’t you?” Speaking in a clear voice, our teacher, Miss Yuki, writes Tasokare in big letters on the blackboard. “It’s evening, not quite day or night. It’s a window when outlines blur, making it hard to tell who people are. When you might meet something that isn’t human. It’s a time when people encounter demons or the dead, and it has another name that reflects this. They say, though, that even before that, it had other names.” Miss Yuki writes the two terms on the board, but it looks like she’s just shuffling around the same letters. “’Scuse me, teacher! Question! What about half-light?” Somebody speaks up, and I think, Yeah, that’s right. I know twilight, of course, but the word I’ve heard people use to mean evening ever since I was little is half-light. When Miss Yuki hears this, she smiles gently. You know, our classics teacher is much too pretty to be teaching at a country high school like this. “I expect that’s local dialect, isn’t it? I hear the elderly people in Itomori still use ancient Japanese words here and there.” “’Cause this here’s the sticks,” proclaims one of the boys, and people start giggling. He’s not wrong. Sometimes Gran uses words that make me want to ask her what language she’s speaking. Some of her expressions were abandoned by most of the rest of Japan a couple of centuries back. Idly pondering, I flip through my notebook, and then—on a page that should be blank—I see something written in big letters: Who are you? …Huh? What is this? The sounds around me fade and grow distant, as if being absorbed by the unfamiliar handwriting. That’s not mine. I haven’t lent my notebook to anybody, either. What? “Who am I?” What’s that supposed to mean? “…zu. You’re next, Miss Miyamizu!” “Oh! Yes’m!” I stand up hastily. “Begin reading on page ninety-eight, please,” Miss Yuki tells me. Scrutinizing my face, she adds, sounding amused, “Good to see that you remember your name today, Miss Miyamizu.” At that, the whole class bursts out laughing. Excuse me? Seriously, what is going on?! “You don’t remember?” “…No.” “For real?” “Yes, for real,” I answer, taking a sip of banana juice. Gulp. Yum. Saya’s looking at me as if I’m some inanimate oddity. “…No, listen. Yesterday, you forgot where your desk and your locker were. Your hair was all mussed and cowlicky, and you hadn’t tied it back. You didn’t wear your uniform ribbon, and you were crabby the whole time.” I try visualizing what that must’ve looked like…… What? “What?! No way, are you serious?!” “Yeah, you acted like you had amnesia or somethin’ yesterday.” Flustered, I try to think back… Something really is off here. I can’t remember yesterday. Or, no—I do remember little bits and pieces. There was…an unfamiliar town somewhere? A reflection in a mirror…a boy? I try to retrace my memories. Piihyororooo. In the distance, a kite mocks me. It’s lunchtime, and we’re chatting in a corner of the schoolyard, juice boxes in hand. “Umm… It feels like I spent the whole day in this weird dream. Like…a dream about somebody else’s life? …Mm, I can’t remember much of it…” “I got it!” Tesshi shouts all of a sudden, and I jump. He snatches up his half-read issue of the occult magazine MU and shoves it under our noses, spit flying enthusiastically. “Memories of your past life! That’s what that is! Yeah, I know you’re gonna say that ain’t scientific, but if you put it another way and say your unconscious mind got linked up with a multiverse based on Everett’s many-worlds interpretation—” “You shut your piehole,” Saya scolds him sharply. “Hey! Were you the one who scribbled in my notebook?!” I erupt at almost the same time. “Huh? Scribbled?” Oh, I guess not. Tesshi’s not the type to pull a lame prank like that, and he didn’t have a motive, either. “Um, nothin’. Never mind,” I say, backing down. “Say what? Whaddaya mean, ‘scribbled’? Am I a suspect for somethin’?” “I told you, forget it.” “Whoa, Mitsuha, you’re so mean! Did you hear that, Saya? I’ve been falsely accused! Framed! Call a prosecutor, gimme a prosecutor! Or wait, maybe that’s a lawyer. Hey, which one are you supposed to get for stuff like this?” “Anyway, Mitsuha, you really were kinda funny yesterday,” Saya says, grandly ignoring Tesshi’s complaints. “Were you feelin’ sick?” “Hmm… That’s so weird. Maybe I really am stressed…” I think back on all the accounts I’ve gotten so far. Tesshi’s already absorbed in his magazine again, as if nothing ever happened. That’s one of his virtues, the way he just lets stuff go. “That’s gotta be it! You’ve had all kinds of stress lately!” She’s right. Even setting aside the election, that ritual’s tonight! Why, oh why, in this tiny little town, do I have to have a father who’s the mayor and a grandmother who’s the chief Shinto priestess at the shrine? I bury my face in my knees and heave a deep, deep sigh. “Aaagh… I wanna hurry up and graduate and go to Tokyo. This town is too cramped and too tight!” Saya’s nodding along: I know. I totally, totally get it! “My mom and my sisters have all been in charge of the town broadcasts, one after another. Ever since I was tiny, the neighborhood ladies have called me ‘the little broadcast girl,’ you know?! And now I’m in the broadcastin’ club for some reason! Even I don’t know what I want to do anymore!” “Saya, once we graduate, let’s get out and go to Tokyo together! Even when we’re grown up, in this town, we’ll still be stuck with the school hierarchy! We’ll never be free of these moldy old traditions! C’mon, Tesshi, you’re comin’ with us, right?” “Hmm?” Absently, Tesshi looks up from his magazine. “…Were you even listenin’?” “Mm. I don’t really, uh… I think I’ll just live here for the rest of my life.” HAAAAAAAAH. Saya and I sigh again. This is why he isn’t popular with girls… Although it’s not like I’ve ever had a boyfriend myself. The wind whispers gently. When I turn to look after it, there’s Itomori Lake below us: placid, calm, and completely disinterested. This town doesn’t have a bookstore or a dentist. There’s one train every two hours, buses come through only twice each day, we don’t get weather reports for our area, and we’re still a mosaic on the Google Maps satellite photos. The convenience store closes at nine, and it sells things like vegetable seeds and high-grade farming equipment. On the way home from school, Saya and I are still in “griping about Itomori” mode. There are no big chains like McDonald’s or MOS Burger, but we have two sleazy “snack bars.” There’s no work, no girls come here to find husbands, and the daylight hours are short. Gripe, gripe, gripe, gripe. Most of the time, we actually find the town’s sparse population refreshing. We’re almost proud of it, but today we despair in earnest. Tesshi’s been pushing his bike along after us, off in his own world, and he irritably cuts into the conversation. “Geez, y’all!” “What?” we ask crossly, and Tesshi gives a creepy grin. “Forget about all that stuff. Wanna stop at the café?” “Huh…?” “Wha…?” “Wha…?!” “A café?!” we chorus in perfect unison. A metallic kachonk! melts into the calls of the evening cicadas. “Here.” Tesshi holds out the cans of juice from the vending machine. With a motorized whine, an old man riding his electric scooter home from the fields crosses in front of us, and a passing stray dog sits down and yawns as if to say, Yeah, why not? I’ll keep you company. The “café” wasn’t exactly what springs to mind. It wasn’t Starbucks or Tully’s or one of those fantastic, fabled spaces that serves pancakes and bagels and gelato. It was just a neighborhood bus stop out in the middle of nowhere with a vending machine and a bench with an ice-cream sign from about thirty years ago plastered to it. The three of us sit side by side on the bench, sipping our juice, while the dog rests at our feet. We don’t feel like Tesshi tricked us. It’s more like, Well, sure. What else would it be? “Okay, I’m headin’ home.” I bid my farewells to the two of them after participating in an exchange I could not have cared less about—“I think it’s about a degree cooler than it was yesterday.” “No, I think it’s a degree warmer”—that lasted as long as it took to finish a can of juice. “Good luck tonight,” says Saya. “We’ll come by and watch later,” promises Tesshi. “You seriously don’t have to! Actually, don’t you dare!” I warn them, but inside, I’m sending a prayer in their direction. Do your best to turn into an actual couple, you two! After climbing the stone steps for a while, I turn back, looking at the pair of them as they sit on the bench with the sunset-colored lake in the background, and I softly layer a lyrical piano melody over the scene. Mm-hmm, y’all really do look good together. Tonight, I must perform my awful duty, but I hope you can enjoy your youth. “Awww, I wanna do it, too,” Yotsuha grumbles. “It’s too soon for you yet, Yotsuha,” hushes Gran. The constant click of spherical weights knocking together echoes in a workroom big enough for only about eight tatami mats. “Listen to the voice of the thread,” Gran tells her. Even as she speaks, her hands don’t pause in their work. “If you keep windin’ threads that way, before long, emotions will start runnin’ between you and the thread.” “Huh? But thread doesn’t talk.” “Our braided cords—,” Gran continues, ignoring Yotsuha’s objection. All three of us are wearing kimonos, and we’re finishing up the cords that we’ll use in tonight’s ceremony. Braided cords are made of thin threads plaited together into a single rope. It’s a traditional folk art that’s been handed down for a very long time. The finished cords are cute and colorful, with all sorts of designs braided into them. That said, the work takes quite a bit of skill, so Gran’s making Yotsuha’s for her. Yotsuha’s spending the time doing assistant work, winding thread around the ball-weights. “Our braided cords hold a thousand years of Itomori’s history. I tell you, that school of yours really should put priority on teachin’ this sort of town history to you children. Listen, two hundred years ago…” Here we go again, I think with a wry little smile. It’s Gran’s favorite speech, and I’ve heard it over and over in this workroom, ever since I was small. “A fire began in the bathroom of Mayugorou Yamazaki, the straw sandal–maker, and it burned up this whole area, including the shrine and all the old records. It was what people call—” Gran glances at me. “‘The Great Mayugorou Fire,’” I answer smoothly. Mm-hmm. Gran nods, looking satisfied. “What? They named the fire after him?!” Yotsuha exclaims, startled. “Poor Mr. Mayugorou,” she mutters. “Havin’ his name stick around ’cause of somethin’ like that.” “Thanks to that fire, we don’t know what our dances or the patterns in our cords mean anymore. All we have left are the forms. Still, even not knowin’, we mustn’t ever let the forms disappear. The meanin’ in those shapes is bound to resurface someday.” Gran’s words have a unique rhythm to them, like a traditional ballad, and as I braid my cord, I mouth the words along with her, silently reciting them from memory. The meanin’ in those shapes is bound to resurface someday. Here, at Miyamizu Shrine— “Here, at Miyamizu Shrine, that’s our solemn duty. And yet…” At that point, Gran lowers her mild eyes, sadly. “And yet, that foolish son of mine… As if abandonin’ the priesthood and leavin’ this house weren’t enough, he had to become a politician…” Gran sighs, and I sneak a small sigh of my own underneath it. Even I don’t really know whether I love this town or hate it, whether I want to go somewhere far away or stay with my family and friends forever. When I remove my finished, brightly colored cord from the round stand, it makes a soft, lonely click. I think the sound of the wooden Japanese flute that drifts from the shrine in the darkness would probably terrify city folks. It sets the mood for some sinister event, like in an old murder mystery novel. For a little while now, I’ve been performing a ceremonial shrine maiden dance, feeling gloomy enough that I wish a killer like Jason or Jack the Ripper—anybody really—would just put me out of my misery. This time every year, the Miyamizu Shrine holds its harvest festival, and Yotsuha and I have the misfortune of being the stars of the show. On this day, we wear crisp shrine maiden outfits, paint on bright-red lip rouge and wear jingly hair ornaments, go out in front of the standing audience at the kagura hall, and dance the dance Gran taught us. It’s one of the traditions whose meaning was lost in the fire, and it’s performed by two people, moving in sync. We’re both holding bells with colorful cords tied to them. We ring them, twirling around and around, making the cords flare out and trail behind us. During my last spin, I spotted Tesshi and Saya out of the corner of my eye and got even more depressed. Those little— I told them and told them not to come, and they’re still here?! I’ll hex them with my shrine maiden power! I’ll text them tons of curse stamps with Line! That said, the dance isn’t the part I hate. Sure, it’s a little embarrassing, but since I’ve been doing it since I was little, I’m completely used to it. No, it’s not this. It’s that one ritual. The one that’s more embarrassing the older I get. That thing I have to do right after this. The part that seems intentionally designed to brutally humiliate women. Oh, for the love of— I don’t wanna! Plagued by these thoughts, I move my body, and then all of a sudden, the dance ends. Agh. Here it comes. Munch, munch, munch. Munch. Munch, munch, munch, munch. I’m intently chewing rice. I shut my eyes and keep chewing, trying not to think, trying not to sense flavor or sound or color. Beside me, Yotsuha’s doing the exact same thing. We’re kneeling formally, side by side, and a small wooden box rests on a stand in front of each of us. And of course, beyond that, a diverse audience of all ages and genders stares at us. Munch, munch, munch. Munch, munch. Agh, I swear… Munch, munch, munch. I’m going to have to do it soon. Munch, munch. Arrrgh. Munch. Giving up, I raise the box in front of me. I bring it close to my lips, attempting to veil my mouth with the sleeve of my kimono. And then. Aaagh. Puckering my lips, I spit the rice I’ve been chewing into the box. The mixture of grain and saliva dribbles from my mouth as a thick, white liquid. I feel as if I’ve heard the crowd stir, muttering. Waaaaaaaaah! I sob internally. Please, nobody look at me. Mouth-brewed sake. It’s the oldest type of sake in Japan. If you chew up rice, mixing it with saliva, then just let it sit, it ferments and turns into alcohol. Then it’s offered to the gods. Long ago, I hear places all over the country used to make it, but I don’t know if any other shrines still do this sort of thing now, in the twenty-first century… And seriously, doing it in shrine maiden clothes is just over the top! I mean, what’s the point?! Mentally sniffling, I pick up another pinch of rice and put it in my mouth like a trooper. Then I chew again. Yotsuha is doing the exact same thing, her expression cool and composed. We have to do this over and over until the tiny boxes are full. Dribble… I spit saliva and rice again. Inside, I’m crying my eyes out. Abruptly, my ears catch familiar voices. Feeling a bad premonition like a faint ripple, I raise my eyes ever so slightly. Curses. I want to explode and take the shrine with me. I knew it: It’s my three flashy “in-crowd” classmates. They’re watching me with smirks on their faces and gleefully gossiping about something. There’s too much distance between us for me to really hear them but I feel as though I’m hearing them loud and clear. Eeeeee, I could never, ever do that! and That’s kinda obscene, and Man, how can she do that in public? Nobody’s ever gonna marry her now. I make a very, very firm resolution: When I graduate, I am leaving this town and going far away. “Cheer up, Sis. Who cares if people from your school saw you? And anyway, what’s got you so shook up?” “It must be nice being a carefree, prepubescent little kid!” I glare at Yotsuha. We’ve changed into T-shirts and just left the shrine office entrance. After the harvest festival, to close out the night, the two of us attended a banquet for the local men and women who helped with the festival. Gran was the hostess, and Yotsuha and I poured sake and made conversation. “How old are you now, li’l Mitsuha? What?! Seventeen?! I see… Havin’ a sweet young thing like you pour for me makes me feel young again.” “Yessir, go on and roll the years way back! Here, go ahead—drink some more!” We entertained almost desperately, wore ourselves out, and they finally turned us loose just now, saying, “You kids can go on home.” Gran and the other adults are still at the shrine office, carrying on with the banquet. “Yotsuha, do you know what the average age was back there, in the office?” On the grounds, all the lights on the shrine approach are out, and the cool sounds of insect songs echo all around us. “I dunno. Sixty?” “I did the math in the kitchen. It was seventy-eight. Seventy-eight!” “Huh.” “Now that we’re gone, it’s ninety-one in there! They’re pushin’ a hundred. They’re in the final stage of life. The underworld might send a reaper for the whole place!” “Hmm…” What I’m trying to get at is that we should bail on this town ASAP, but Yotsuha’s response is terse. She seems preoccupied with something else. Well, she’s just a little kid. She wouldn’t understand her big sister’s agony. Giving up, I look at the sky. The vast expanse of it is filled with dazzling bright stars, shining transcendentally, as if human lives on Earth are none of their concern. “…That’s it!” As we descend the shrine’s long stone stairway, side by side, Yotsuha suddenly cries out. She’s wearing a triumphant expression, as if having found a cake someone hid from her. “Sis, why don’t you chew up a whole bunch of that sake and use it to pay your way to Tokyo?!” For a moment, I’m speechless. “…You’ve got quite the mind to come up with that.” “You could send snapshots and ‘makin’ of’ documentary videos with it and call it ‘Shrine Maiden Sake’ or somethin’! I bet that’d sell!” Should I be worried that my nine-year-old sister sees the world like that? Still, I realize Yotsuha is actually concerned about me, in her own way. Aw, she really is cute, I think, a little more fondly than before. Okay then, maybe I’ll give this sake business idea some serious thought… Wait, can you just sell sake on your own like that? “Well? What do you think, Sis?” “Hmm…” …And that’s all I have to say. “…Wait, no! It’d be against the liquor laws!” Wait, was that the problem? I wonder, and when I come back to myself, I’ve broken into a run. All sorts of incidents and feelings and prospects and doubts and despairs are jumbled together inside me, and it feels like my heart’s about to explode. I run down the steps, taking them two at a time, slam on the brakes under the torii gate on the landing, and suck in a huge lungful of chilly night air. Then I expel the cluttered mess in my chest along with it. “I’m sick of this town! I’m sick of this life! Make me a hot guy in Tokyo in my next life, puhleeeease!” Eeease. Eeease. Eeease. Eeease… My wish echoes around the dark mountains, then disappears as though drawn into Itomori Lake below me. The words came out on impulse, and they’re so dumb, my head cools right down, as does my sweat. Oh, but even so. Gods, if you’re really there… Please— Even if the gods really do exist, I still don’t know what to wish for.