OUR CHERRY BLOSSOMS BLOOMED on a day when the last remnants of winter snow fell.
“There it is!” I gasped in astonishment, clutching my entrance examination slip in one mitten.
Large snowflakes floated down from the clouds hanging over the students milling around the campus bulletin board. The school grounds were full of prospective students who’d taken the school’s entrance exam. Each one scanned the posted list for their examinee number and, if they found it, yelped in delight. Depending on their results, their faces reflected delight or despair.
“My number’s there!”
That one especially loud scream made my heart tremble. Someone with the same mittens as mine flailed her hands up and down in an exuberant celebration, not caring one bit for the stares of others.
“I did it! I passed! I got in, Hazuki!”
“Me too, Yoshino!”
Yoshino threw her arms around me in a big hug, jumping up and down in her sheepskin boots. My head bobbed with her movements, causing snow to land and melt on my eyelids. Yoshino took off her mittens to wipe what looked to be tears of joy from her eyes. Her fingers were covered with some of the biggest calluses I’d ever seen.
“All the studying was worth it!” she exclaimed. “I’m so excited that I can go to the same school as you!”
When Yoshino first chose the high school she wanted to attend, her homeroom teacher told her not to overexert herself, suggesting she aim for a lower-ranked school. We’d made a pact to attend the same high school, though, so she devoted Christmas and New Year’s to studying. That ultimately paid off, and she passed the entrance exam at her first-choice school.
“Now we can be together all the time, right, Hazuki?”
Neatly trimmed chin-length hair accentuated her small face. I nodded, feeling as though I was being drawn into her large, loquat leaf-shaped eyes.
“Of course! Even in high school!”
My hair—which was cut the same length as hers—was hidden inside my hood, but Yoshino and I wore the same earmuffs. Our mittens, cream-colored scarves, caramel-colored duffle coats, and sheepskin boots were identical as well.
Everything around us began to turn white as the snow fell even harder. It had been melting steadily until just recently, but the world was now once again transforming into a winter wonderland.
“Those are cherry trees,” Yoshino murmured excitedly. She gazed at the trees surrounding the school grounds, which were quickly becoming dusted with snow. “They won’t flower in time for the entrance ceremony, but it’ll be great to see them in full bloom when we come to class.”
The tightly sealed buds probably wouldn’t blossom until late April. I could already picture the two of us going to school. We’d walk together, wearing the same uniform, with the same keychain dangling from our bags. We wore our hair in the same style, and our skirts at exactly the same length. We were around the same height and had similar figures, so we looked just like twins.
Yoshino and I had two hearts that beat as one. We were two beings bound together by a common destiny.