Every child born into the world inherited half of their genes from their mother and half from their father. There were all sorts of genes, and they influenced a person’s every quality, from their physical characteristics to their personality, athletic ability, and intelligence. Supposedly, as much as 70 percent of a person’s academic achievement came down to genetics. Rukana’s parents were both as average as could be, but by some lucky happenstance, their genes had come together to form a miraculous combination. Thus did greatness spring forth from the loins of mediocrity.
Itoha’s circumstances were similar. Her father worked for a freight company, and her mother was a caregiver. The two of them were serious, hardworking people who couldn’t draw a picture to save their lives. They didn’t have the superlative memory that allowed Itoha to memorize the names and traits of countless butterflies and moths. They didn’t even appreciate how talented she was. The only one who’d ever understood her was her grandmother. She, at least, always told her granddaughter that she was remarkable—though every time, she would append the same phrase.
“Honestly, who do you take after?”
Night after night, Rukana would climb into bed, roll herself up in her sheets, and think until she drifted off. She’d wrap her arms around the thing, which crawled under the covers with her, and let her imagination run wild.
Rukana had a favorite fantasy—one that she hadn’t told Itoha about. In it, she and Itoha had been sisters in a previous lifetime. Rukana didn’t really believe in past lives, of course. If humans reincarnated, then why was the Earth’s population constantly changing? The idea was inconsistent with reality.
She knew that her fantasy was simply a product of her imagination—but in it, she and Itoha were tightly bound together. They were reborn as sisters over and over, in all sorts of places and eras. Sometimes they’d be split apart, but even in those lives, they’d always find their way back to each other.
The longest a human could possibly live was about a hundred and twenty years, and most people didn’t last past their eighties or nineties. Rukana knew that, and she understood that plenty of people died much younger as well. As such, the sisters in her fantasies always met a fatal end. Sometimes Rukana died before Itoha, and sometimes it was the other way around. Their parting was always tragic—always painful—but in the end, they were always reborn to meet again.
Rukana hadn’t told Itoha about her fantasy yet, but she believed she would someday. It was nothing more than a flight of fancy, a means of whiling away the time until sleep overtook her. Rukana and Itoha weren’t siblings. They’d never been reborn. Rukana didn’t believe in the cycle of reincarnation, or in heaven or hell, or in the pure land. She believed that when you died, that was it—the end.
The two of them would die someday. That single parting would separate them for eternity. Once one of them was gone, the other would never see her again. That was just how reality worked. But that was what made their meeting so significant. If they had to be torn apart someday, then at the very least, Rukana wanted to value every moment of time they had together. Someday, she wanted to explain that to Itoha.
Rukana and Itoha were in their fifth year of elementary school. Rukana wanted to tell her soon—but when? Before summer vacation started? Or would it be better to wait until their vacation was in full swing?
Four days before the semester ended and summer vacation began, a group of girls from Rukana’s class invited her out to play during their afternoon break. As she stepped out from her classroom, however, a boy named Marihiko Kogarezawa stopped her. “Do you have a minute, Shizukudani?” he asked.
Rukana was shocked. So shocked, in fact, that she was even shocked by how shocked she was. “Huh? What? I have to go to the gym now actually,” she babbled, more quickly than she’d intended to. Her body was growing noticeably hotter.
Rukana couldn’t even look Kogarezawa in the eye. He was well-known at their school for his good looks, and the girls loved to gossip about how much he looked like a certain popular entertainer. Furthermore, unlike the rest of the loud, rambunctious boys at their school, Kogarezawa had a calm and gentle demeanor. People said that instead of watching cartoons, reading comics, or playing video games, he spent his time reading the books he found in his father’s study. Supposedly, he was a natural charmer.
That spring, Rukana had ended up walking beside Kogarezawa during a school trip, purely by coincidence. She’d talked with him just like she talked with everyone else and hadn’t thought much of it, but he seemed to feel differently. “You’re a mysterious person, Shizukudani,” he’d said.
Kogarezawa asked if Rukana would meet with him at a nearby park after school to talk. Without a good reason to turn him down, she agreed. When she arrived, six or seven of her classmates were gathered nearby. They were there to gawk, but none of them got too close to the bench where Rukana and Kogarezawa sat down.
Kogarezawa explained, in an oddly detached tone, that he’d taken an interest in Rukana. He told her that he thought about her so much, he could barely sleep at night. “Please go out with me,” he concluded.
“What would we do if we went out?” Rukana asked without thinking.
“That’s a good question…” Kogarezawa furrowed his brow, unsure of how to reply.
The next day, Rukana went over to Itoha’s house, and before Itoha started working on her drawing, Rukana told her about what had happened with Kogarezawa.
“In the end, I said I’d try dating him,” she said. “When I asked what we’d do if we went out together, he thought about it for ages and ended up telling me that we’d ‘get to know each other better.’ What does that even mean? I actually cracked up.”
“…But you said you’d go out with him anyway?” Itoha asked. Her arms were planted on the table, and she was leaning forward, eyes down. Something about the way she was acting seemed strange. It was like she was gritting her teeth, trying to bear some incredible pain.
“I just thought it might be nice to get some experience. That’s all…” Rukana could feel the blood draining from her face. It felt like she’d made some terrible mistake, even though there was no way that could be true. “A few of the other girls in our class have boyfriends, right? Not that any of them actually do anything—I mean, they’re elementary schoolers. I don’t like the idea of starting to date really early, but I don’t want to wait too late, eith—”
“What if it wasn’t Kogarezawa?” Itoha asked, cutting her off.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If someone other than Kogarezawa had asked you out, would you have still said yes? Like Kaiyama, or Yachihama, or Kukita?” Itoha listed off several boys in their class. Kaiyama was the fastest runner in their grade, Yachihama wanted to become a comedian, and Kukita had publicly declared that he’d never miss a question on a test and told his classmates to call him Mr. Perfect.
“I’m not sure,” said Rukana. She thought about it for a moment but quickly decided that any further thought would be pointless. “Probably not.”
“Why?”
“Kogarezawa is…well, he’s handsome, right? And he’s not obnoxious like the other boys. I guess I don’t mind being around him.”
“That’s it?”
“I only agreed to try going out with him once, you know?”
“You’ll just try going out with him.” It was like the words were a deep, dark mass of foul air that she’d spat out onto the table. Itoha sighed, muttered, “Well, okay,” then fell silent. She wouldn’t respond verbally, no matter what Rukana said—she’d just nod or shake her head. She didn’t even draw.
From then until the moment Rukana left Itoha’s house, the two of them didn’t look each other in the eye even once.