Chapter 19

“Hey, Yu… If you had to choose between saving me or saving Sawa, which of us would you choose?” It was two years ago, during the summer vacation of their fourth-grade year, when Minagi Sano (aka Nagi) asked Yuuma that question. Yuuma had gone to the Yukihana Elementary School pool to swim that day with his twin sister, Sawa, and Nagi, their next-door neighbor and childhood friend. Even though they had grown up in a landlocked prefecture without beaches, the three friends were excellent swimmers. They had already done five laps of the twenty-meter course when the lifeguard, who was a classmate’s father, told them to take a break. Sawa went to use the bathroom, while Yuuma and Nagi sat side by side underneath one of the poolside awnings. Clear sunlight sparkled on the surface of the water. Yuuma was staring absently into space, surrounded by the incessant chirping of cicadas and the joyful screams of other children, when Nagi suddenly leaned in close and asked the question. Just the other day, the three of them had taken a course in pool safety, during which the lifeguard had told them a story about a child who had drowned at a nearby school. Yuuma assumed Nagi was thinking of that story, but he wasn’t sure how to answer her question. He stared at her silently instead. A strand of hair poked out of Nagi’s blue swimcap, a drop of water hanging off the end. She gazed back at Yuuma with her lightly colored eyes. Yuuma took a deep breath. Why was his heart suddenly racing so fast? He couldn’t remember if he had answered her, or if he had just stayed quiet. Nagi never asked him to make a choice like that again. But every now and then Yuuma remembered the buzzing of the cicadas, the smell of chlorine in the air, and the way that drop of water had clung to Nagi’s hair. And whenever he did, his heart skipped a beat.