I first met Yoshino during the summer of the second year of junior high, well past the period when cherry blossoms bloomed.
“I’m Somei Yoshino. Nice to meet you,” she introduced herself, standing in front of the blackboard. At the sound of her unusual name—identical to a type of cherry tree—laughter broke out and rippled through the classroom, making her blush and drop her gaze to the floor.
Since her new uniform hadn’t arrived yet, she still wore one from her previous school. The sailor-style uniform was completely different from ours, which made her stick out like a sore thumb. To top it off, she’d transferred in the middle of the school year, so everyone in our class stared like she was a fish out of water.
“Well, who’d like to show her around the school?”
Our homeroom teacher glanced across the classroom before making eye contact with me. Her painted lips curled into a smile. “How about you, Hazuki?”
That was how Yoshino and I became each other’s one and only best friend.
We started high school, and even had the good fortune to be placed in the same first-year class. We were still getting into the rhythm of this new life stage, one completely different from junior high, as preparations for the school festival began. Our class, 1-C, would be running a haunted house.
“Hey!” a boy called out to us. “Can I get a little help over here?”
Yoshino and I looked up in unison. “Which one of us are you asking?” I called back.
“It doesn’t matter. I just need someone to hold this post down so I can attach it to the sign.”
Our group, which was working on the haunted house’s set pieces and scenery, was the biggest. The rule was that any work with tools had to take place outside, so students from every grade were congregating in the courtyard. The scenery group’s leader was a boy on the baseball team, and his voice carried well through the courtyard.
I stood first and headed toward the group leader, who was in the middle of completing the sign. As I hopped around the tools scattered over the ground, my skirt hem flipped up accidentally; the group leader hastily averted his eyes when he noticed.
A few classes hadn’t yet begun their prep work, but us first years had started quite early on. I pressed the post against the sign that would advertise our class’s haunted house as the group leader began to hammer it into place.
“You’re really good at this, huh?” I remarked.
“My dad works in construction, so I’ve been messing around with stuff like hammers and saws since I was a little kid.”
Our group leader seemed right at home sawing pieces of wood. Hammering away with no trace of hesitation, a couple spare nails sticking out of his mouth, he had the look of a seasoned professional. Under his direction, the scenery group was making excellent progress on the haunted house’s signs and the maze walls.
“We’ve got most of the physical pieces done, but I still have some doubts about whether we can pull all the tricks off. Since we’re working with a limited budget, I know we have to cut corners, but I don’t want it to turn out shoddy.”
As we spoke, the groups in charge of playing ghosts and working on the costumes were meeting in the classroom. They planned to use old standbys like creating a spooky atmosphere by hanging small, dim lights, and dangling clammy chunks of konjac jelly from the ceiling. Still, most school festival haunted houses couldn’t escape a cobbled-together atmosphere. The fact that the ghosts weren’t allowed to directly touch any guests would make eliciting scares even harder.
“We’ve worked so hard on these set pieces, I’d like to incorporate some kind of gimmick,” he continued. “Maybe a hole ghosts could pop out of. Something like that.”
“You should go with whatever you think works,” I replied. “Just leave the painting to us, okay?”
Yoshino and I were in charge of painting the set pieces. Yoshino sat silently using a brush in a corner of the schoolyard, far away from the boys working on actual construction tasks.
The group leader glanced in her direction. “Somei seems really good with her hands. She probably would’ve been better off working on costumes,” he murmured under his breath.
The reason Yoshino and I had picked the scenery group in the first place was because it was the biggest. We had worried that if we chose something popular, like playing ghosts or making costumes, choosing group members might come down to a lottery and we could be split up. Scenery was the group with the most openings, so that’s what we went with. Yoshino wasn’t very strong, though, so tasks like hammering and carrying pieces of wood were tough for her. Sometimes the boys asked me to help with the construction work, but Yoshino was hardly ever tasked with anything involving physical labor.
The way she crouched against the wall of the outdoor walkway reminded me of a tiny hamster hiding in its cage. The wind was strong that day. It whipped against the plastic sheets we’d spread on the ground, flipping them several times. One strong gust sent a garbage bag full of tools flying; it landed right by Yoshino’s side.
“Sorry, Somei. Could you grab that for us?” one boy asked.
Yoshino said nothing at first, then returned the bag to the boy with a barely audible whisper. Even when he thanked her, all she could muster in return was a small nod. She was a square peg in a round hole in this group consisting mainly of male students.
Because she was terrified of men, Yoshino could barely communicate with our male groupmates. All the boys in our class knew that, and no one bothered her about it—evidence of high schoolers’ maturity approaching that of adults.
“The sign’s ready, Yoshino,” I said, carrying over the freshly constructed sign so we could start painting it. “They told us to make it look really cool.”
Our group leader was very particular about his creations, and he wanted us to cover the sign with a base coat before working on any details. We were in the middle of covering our rollers with the base coat when a voice called down on us from above.
“You’ll get your uniforms dirty if you paint like that.”
When we glanced up, a boy was peeking from under the railing of the walkway connecting the school buildings. His backpack was slung over his shoulder, so he was probably on his way home. He likely wasn’t a fellow first year, since I didn’t recognize him.
“You should probably get changed,” he continued. “Do you have your gym sweats?”
“Um, we didn’t have P.E. today,” I replied.
I’d interacted with students from other classes before; after all, we were all working in the courtyard. Still, having someone I didn’t know speak directly to me was nerve-racking.
“How about I lend you mine?” the boy suggested. “I had P.E. today, but I only wore a T-shirt. My sweatshirt should still be clean.”
“B-but…” I immediately tried to protest.
“If you were a boy, it wouldn’t matter, but I’d feel bad if a girl got paint all over her uniform,” he insisted.
He pulled his sweatshirt out of his backpack and handed it to Yoshino. It was light blue, confirming my suspicion that he was a second-year. Then, completely disregarding our obvious nervousness about the situation, he chased after the boy walking ahead of him and grabbed his sweatshirt too.
“Here’s another one. It’s so big that it might be awkward to move in, but at least it won’t matter if you get it dirty.”
“Thanks.”
“Also, make sure you wear work gloves. It’s hard washing off paint. You don’t want to have to use harsh astringent to remove it and damage your skin.”
With a quick goodbye, he chased after the boy whose sweatshirt he’d borrowed. From the snippets of casual conversation I picked up, I guessed they were probably classmates.
“If our class doesn’t start working soon, we’ll be in a world of trouble,” one said.
“We need to decide what we’re doing next time we have homeroom. Make sure you weigh in too, Riku,” replied the other.
“Whatever it is, I think I want to be in the group that makes the scenery. Working outside looks relaxing and fun.”
I figured they must be students from 2-A, the only class not yet represented in the school courtyard.
Yoshino and I exchanged surprised glances at that turn of events. Yoshino quickly unfolded the sweatshirt she’d received, glancing at the kanji embroidered on the fabric.
“This one belongs to…Tono-senpai,” she said, then hesitantly pulled it over her head. “Are you sure this is okay?”
“It’s fine,” I reassured her. “They lent them to us, so it’d be rude not to wear them.”
Yoshino froze up whenever she talked to boys, but she didn’t seem to balk at wearing their clothes.
I unfolded the other sweatshirt, then gasped at the name the fabric revealed. “Hey! This is Chiaki’s!”
“Chiaki…? You mean your big brother?”
My brother was a year older than me, and we attended the same high school. As I peered again at the boys from earlier, Chiaki turned around and waved at me. Well, that solved the mystery of why the boy had been so friendly with us. I was sure Chiaki was behind it; I even understood exactly how it must’ve played out. He’d seen his little sister working and mentioned it to his classmate, who probably thought messing with us would be funny.
“I’ve always wanted a sibling. I’m so jealous,” Yoshino murmured.
“Don’t be. All we do is fight, usually. He’s just trying to look good at school.” He and I were only a year apart, so we acted more like twins than regular siblings.
I slid on the sweatshirt, which had the same fabric-softener scent of my own clothes. The sweatshirts were so big on Yoshino and me that their sleeves kept slipping down whenever we tried to paint with the rollers.
Each time they did, Yoshino re-cuffed her sleeves diligently. “We can’t let these get stained,” she insisted.
“Want me to take them both home and give them to Chiaki? It’d be awkward to return them to a second-year classroom ourselves, right?”
The first- and second-year classrooms were on the same floor, but the upper and lowerclassmen had a rigidly defined sense of territory. We weren’t at liberty to use the same staircase they did, and there was even an unwritten rule that the bathroom on our floor was for second-years only. If first-years needed to use the restroom, we had to use a different one.
“That’s probably a good idea. It’s not like I’d even be able to thank him.” Yoshino smiled weakly. She knew better than anyone how intense her phobia was. She couldn’t even talk to our male homeroom teacher properly, let alone male students in our class. She could tolerate being around guys she was used to, but she’d never initiate conversation with them.
She sighed, running her slender, pale fingers over the embroidered chest of her borrowed sweatshirt. “If only I’d grown up with a brother.”