Seishun Buta Yarou Series - Volume 8 - Chapter 4.1

Chapter 4 - Dare to Dream

1

He and Kaede had gone to see Sweet Bullet perform on a weekend, and that was followed by the final week of February. Monday would be the first day of March. And the day of the Minegahara graduation ceremony. To Sakuta’s mind, that just meant Mai was graduating.

But even with that fated day a week out, Sakuta’s daily routine hadn’t changed at all.

Monday was business as usual, just like Mondays are the world over. The days after were no different.

Up in the morning, ready for school, leave early enough to get there on time. Pay attention in every class. Go to work when he had shifts, straight home otherwise.

Mai told him to study daily, so he did.

The only real change was that Kaede was once again going to the nurse’s office at school. And after she got home, she was pouring over the remote-learning-center brochures. On top of that, she started a self-training program with the Internet and e-mail.

On Wednesday, Mai wrapped up her college exams flawlessly, and she brought Nodoka over to hang out.

“It’s an older one, so I don’t use it anymore. It’s all yours, Kaede.”

She’d arrived with a Wi-Fi-equipped laptop. And a random spare mouse.

The bullying she’d endured in junior high had involved a lot of e-mail and online abuse, directly leading to her Adolescence Syndrome symptoms, so she was super wary about it at first. They put the laptop down on the kotatsu, and it took a good two or three minutes for her to work up the courage to sit down in front of it, and when she reached for the mouse and keyboard, her hands were shaking.

But Mai and Nodoka encouraged her the whole time, and after a few e-mails back and forth with them, she relaxed a bit, and her fingers grew steady. And each time she got a reply, her smile broadened.

Only Sakuta was left off-line and out of the loop. But he was just thrilled to see Kaede talking to both of them without him in the middle.

Eventually, Kaede said, “What are you smirking about, weirdo?” and Nodoka went, “Whatever he’s thinking, it’s dirty,” and tried to kick him under the kotatsu. Naturally, he anticipated it and dodged in time.

Mai gave him a silent thigh pinch, but that was a reward, so he was honored to accept it.

All things considered, it was a big step toward getting Kaede back online. Modern society was pretty dependent on this stuff—enough that the word IT now felt old. It would be really hard for her to keep going without it. She’d need to get over her fears eventually, and if she was going to try the whole remote-learning thing, her schooling required it.

So he took it as a good sign when she went right from e-mailing Mai and Nodoka to accessing the homepages for various remote schools. She dug into the sites for the schools whose brochures had got her attention, trying to figure out which was best for her.

He knew Uzuki Hirokawa had played a big part in making her move forward. They’d talked for quite a while after the concert, and it had made a big impression on Kaede. And Sakuta had learned a few things listening to them.

On the day in question—Saturday, February 21—Sakuta and Kaede had gone to see Sweet Bullet perform at the Tsujido shopping mall, and after the event, Nodoka introduced them to Uzuki.

The second they met up, she said, “Let’s get moving!” and led them over to the roundabout in front of the mall, to the lane for normal cars.

“Oh, there we go. That one!”

Uzuki raced forward to a navy-blue minivan, leaving them blinking in her wake. She opened the passenger-seat door and jumped in.

“All aboard!” she said, waving through the window.

While Sakuta and Kaede were exchanging glances, Nodoka slid the back door open. Then she took a seat in the third row of seats. Clearly waiting for them.

With no other options, they got in and sat down together in the second row.

“Seatbelts, please,” the driver said. She was an outgoing-looking woman, maybe thirty. Hair to her shoulders, dyed a brighter shade. She was wearing jeans and a hoodie, super casual.

She kept her eyes on the mirror until she was sure everyone was buckled in, then said, “Here we go!” and drove off. Who was this lady?

“Um…,” Sakuta said, attempting to inquire. Before he could, the idol in the passenger seat spun around and interrupted him.

“So, yeah, I’m Uzuki Hirokawa!” she said. She leaned all the way through the gap between the seats, holding her hand out toward them. It was obviously for a handshake.

It seemed rude to ignore this, so he said, “Sakuta Azusagawa,” and took her hand. Uzuki immediately reached out her other hand and put it on top of his.

“Cool beans!” she said, moving the whole hand pile up and down twice.

“…Rad,” Sakuta managed, and she flashed a smile, letting go.

“Uzuki Hirokawa!” she said, holding her hand toward Kaede.

“Er, r-right. Kaede Azusagawa.” Kaede tentatively lifted her hand from her lap, and Uzuki leaned even further in to catch it. She wrapped both hands around it and shook the stack twice.

“Cool beans!”

“Uh, nice to meet you?”

Kaede was totally bowled over. Overwhelmed.

He’d thought this while watching her onstage as well, but Uzuki’s idea of appropriate distancing was definitely a bit unusual. She just started right up close.

And she didn’t let go of Kaede after the shake. She was looking from one to the other.

“Hmm,” she said. Then rattled off, “If you’re both Azusagawa, then Sakuta’s the older brother, and Kaede’s the younger sister, right? I’m the same age as Nodoka—which means we’re equals! First-name basis it is! That work for you?”

She was hard to keep up with.

From the seat behind them, he heard Nodoka let out a sigh, half exasperated, half just tired. Real “she’s at it again” energy. Maybe just not sure where Uzuki got this much pep right after a show.

“Er, um…,” Kaede said, gaping back at her. She looked at Sakuta for help.

“I’m gonna stick with Hirokawa,” he said.

“I’ll go with Uzuki,” Kaede said, her voice tiny.

“Aww,” Uzuki said. “You can call me Zukki if you want!”

“I do so in my heart,” Sakuta admitted.

“Great!” she said, cackling. “Same for Doka?”

That was Nodoka’s nickname.

“Obviously.”

“Don’t!” Nodoka’s voice came from behind.

He turned around to find her sitting in the center of the rear seat, scowling at him.

“Toyohama,” he said.

“What?”

“I see France.”

“?!”

She let out a voiceless shriek.

She had on a short skirt and boots and had taken off her jacket when she stepped into the car, leaving bare thighs all the way up. The skirt was black, so that patch of light blue stood out.

“Oh, you totally can!” Uzuki chimed in.

“Yours are equally on display, Uzuki,” the driver said. “You’re in a miniskirt! Keep those legs together.”

“But if I don’t brace myself, I can’t turn around.”

“It’s hardly safe! Face forward right now!”

They’d just stopped at a red light, so the driver grabbed Uzuki’s collar and sat her down.

In the rearview mirror, he could see Nodoka putting her down jacket on her knees. Her glare stabbing into the back of Sakuta’s head. It wasn’t his fault he’d gotten an eyeful, but clearly she blamed him anyway. Kaede was radiating silent protest, and the driver seemed to be enjoying this awkward silence.

As they pulled out, Sakuta said, “By the way, Hirokawa…” like nothing had happened. It seemed silly to dwell on this subject for long.

“Whaaat?” she said, somehow making even that word over-the-top.

“This is important.”

“Oh? Asking me out already?”

“Who’s this lady?” he asked, jerking a thumb at the driver and completely ignoring her assumption.

The driver kept her eyes on the road, driving safely.

Uzuki slapped her on the shoulders. “Lady? She’s my mom!”

“Don’t—I’m driving. Stop that!”

When they cleared the curve, she flicked Uzuki’s forehead, then glanced into the rearview mirror.

“But I am Uzuki’s mom.”

Their eyes met, so he bobbed his head. She did not look like she had a daughter in high school.

“How old are you?” he asked, putting his query in words.

“How old do I look?”

“Never mind, then.”

It was not worth dealing with that response.

“I had Uzuki when I was eighteen,” she said, laughing. So she was in her midthirties. Her hair, clothes, and friendly disposition all conspired to make her look younger. Despite her daughter’s age, it kinda made sense.

“Didn’t you wanna ask about school?” Uzuki’s mom prompted, sensing they weren’t getting anywhere.

“Oh, right! Kaede, ask away!” Uzuki said, attempting to turn around again. Her mother caught her midturn and forced her back in her seat.

“You stay put! You’re not a child!”

“I am, though!”

They certainly seemed close. Sakuta and Kaede didn’t even live with their parents, so it was dazzling to watch.

“……”

Kaede was just watching them without a word. Probably thinking the same thing he was.

The whole bullying thing had caused her Adolescence Syndrome, and then her dissociative disorder had taken her memories. One problem after another had whittled away at their mother’s confidence. Living together had proved inadvisable, and that had not gotten better.

And Kaede blamed herself.

“Kaede, if you’ve got questions, better ask them,” he said, shaking those feelings off.

“Oh, uh. Mm, I just…”

“If you’re going, ‘But Hirokawa is nothing like me,’ well, nobody’s like anyone else, so pay that no never mind.”

“Wow, your brother’s a smart cookie!”

“Er, um, Uzuki, why—?” Kaede was interrupted by the blare of a passing car horn.

But nobody here—not Sakuta, Nodoka, Uzuki, or her mom—tried to rush her. They just waited for her to try again.

“Uzuki, what made you choose this school?”

Kaede finally got it out as the car hit the coast road—Route 134, headed for Kamakura.

Uzuki didn’t answer right away. She made a bunch of thinking noises, though.

As they reached the next light, she said, “’Cause Mom found it for me?” like she was asking the question. Maybe asking herself.

“Don’t answer questions with questions!” her mom snapped.

“Uh, but that’s kinda it? I’d stopped going to school entirely, so you gave me that brochure and said, ‘Quit that dumb place and go here.’ Oh, did you know I started at a regular school?”

“I know what you said in the video.”

Uzuki had been the capper on the PR film shown at the orientation he and Miwako had attended. She’d talked about failing to make friends at her original school and gradually attending less and less. It didn’t sound like she’d had problems like Kaede; no mean e-mails or messages. Just passive indifference.

“I didn’t start skipping in high school, either. It was in junior high—around when I started the whole idol thing. All these lessons we’ve gotta do—I never had time to hang with classmates.”

“And if you turn too many invites down, girls stop inviting you at all,” Nodoka chimed in. It sounded like she knew from personal experience.

“I know, right?!” Uzuki said.

Sakuta glanced over his shoulder as she did. His eyes briefly met Nodoka’s, but she soon looked away.

He’d heard before that she didn’t really fit in at her fancy girls’ school and wasn’t exactly enjoying her time there. But she kept going because her mother wanted her to. To whatever extent she could, Nodoka wanted to please her mother. She might’ve been bucking against her, to the point where she’d left home and was living with Mai instead, but deep down, there was still love there.

“I hoped I could do better in high school, but…summer vacation ended, second term began, and I just gave up. Everyone had spent that vacation doing stuff together, and I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about.”

Her tone stayed upbeat, and her phrasing cheery. But behind her words was an undeniable sense of regret, which she was trying to plaster over with empty half smiles.

“At first, I only meant to take one day off. But then I took the next day off, and the day after…and just never went back.”

She broke off, lost in memory, eyes on the window. Enoshima was on their right. The sun dipping lower in the west, turning the sky orange. It was a view that could sell a million postcards.

Gazing at that, Sakuta found himself asking, “And how did that make your mom feel?”

His question must have seemed like it came out of the blue, but Uzuki’s mom didn’t bat an eye.

“Honestly, I was kinda at a loss.”

She made it sound jokey. Her eyes momentarily caught Sakuta’s in the mirror.

“At the time, I’d been a mom a good fifteen or sixteen years but sure hadn’t dealt with a dropout before. Didn’t know what to say to her, and anyone I could have asked would have just spouted conventional wisdom back at me. I didn’t know what to do with her. Total wit’s-end scenario. And I didn’t really do much of anything. Maybe that makes me a bad mother.”

“I don’t think it does,” Sakuta said, before anyone else could.

If he hadn’t seen what happened to his own mother, he might still have thought they were omnipotent. Creatures capable of solving all their kids’ problems without breaking a sweat.

But Uzuki’s mother had it right. You could be a parent as long as your kids were old and still come across new issues. Overcoming these one at a time, growing with their kids—that was how moms became moms and dads became dads.

And some of those problems weren’t overcome. Parents had their limits, too. Sakuta’s parents had taught him that. Just as deeply unfair things could happen to kids, deeply unreasonable demands were placed upon their parents.

“It was way easier on me that she never tried to make me go back. I don’t think she said a word about it.”

“Not like I was huge on the place myself. I may not look it now, but I had my wild years.”

“Don’t worry, you totally look it.”

Sakuta was just being honest.

“You’re a fun one, Sakuta,” she said, laughing. And then she got serious again. “But, well…part of me thought, ‘There’s no point going to school if you don’t wanna be there.’ But another part of me felt like I should at least get her to graduate. Me and my man ain’t gonna be hung up on no diplomas, but you can’t make a living as an idol your whole life, can you?”

“I will!” Uzuki said, leaning in.

“Basically, parents are gonna worry,” her mom said, pushing Uzuki’s face away.

Every interaction these two had proved how tight they were.

“Nodoka, your mom worries, too!”

Nodoka made a noise somewhere between an “Ugh” and a sigh.

“Are you at least visiting?”

“I stopped by over New Year’s. She wouldn’t quit texting me.”

“You know she was at the concert today?”

“I saw her from the stage.”

Nodoka’s tone made it clear she couldn’t just be happy about that. But she had noticed.

There’d been something like three hundred people there. It wasn’t easy to find one person in a crowd that size. So if Nodoka had found her mother, she must have known she’d be there, and Nodoka had looked for her. And she was acting grumpy because she knew what a contradiction that was. And was ashamed of it.

“But we’re not here about me! Sakuta, eyes front.”

He didn’t want to derail this any further, either, so he turned around.

“Uh, so back to the point. I figured if we could find a school Uzuki would want to go to, she should. So I looked into remote learning, part-time education, overseas schools… I gave you a bunch of brochures.”

She turned on her right blinker. When the oncoming traffic slowed, she spun the wheel and pulled into a parking lot by the shore. It looked familiar.

“You handle the rest. I’ll be waiting in the café there.”

When the car stopped, she engaged the parking brake and got out. He didn’t even have time to go, “Here…?”

And so he reluctantly clambered out. The girls followed.

“Of all the places,” he muttered.

The parking lot faced the ocean. The same ocean he saw every day. For good reason. It was the lot right across from Minegahara High.

It was the off-season, so there were only a handful of scattered cars, a dozen yards or so apart.

“Wow, Zukki. Living up to your rep for cluelessness.”

“Mm? What, is something wrong?” Uzuki asked, blinking at her.

Ignorance could cause mishaps like this.

“I told you!”

“What?”

Nodoka flung an arm over her shoulders and whispered in her ear, which made Uzuki go, “Augh!”

This was loud enough that a nearby couple spun around in surprise. Kaede flinched and hid behind Sakuta.

“Sorry, Kaede!”

Uzuki slapped her hands together, bowing as if in prayer.

“Seriously, totally my bad! Augh, Mom’s already in the shop.”

“I-it’s fine! It just startled me. But less than you’d think. And…”

Kaede peeled away from Sakuta and faced the ocean. The same view you saw from the windows of the school. The beach at Shichirigahama.

“I wanted to see the beach here.”

“Really? Then should we hit the sand?”

“I-I’d like that.”

“Come on, come on!”

Back in good spirits, Uzuki led the way down the stairs. Nodoka followed, grumbling in Kaede’s place.

“Not your fault, Nodoka!”

“It never was!”

Sakuta and Kaede followed after them.

“You’re sure about this, Kaede?” he asked, still concerned.

“I did want to see the beach. I swear, I wanted to come here.”

She was being pretty forceful.

“Well, good.”

He looked back ahead and saw Nodoka and Uzuki struggling with the heels of their boots in the sand.

“Don’t fall,” he said.

“I’m! Doing! Fine!”

“We can handle it!”

Neither answer was remotely convincing. He watched, half-lidded…

“Ack, whoops!” and Uzuki lost her balance.

She caught Nodoka’s arm for support, but Nodoka didn’t have herself braced enough for that, and they both landed on their butts.

“Don’t drag me into your catastrophes!”

“Idols are ride and die!” Uzuki said, apparently having the time of her life.

“This isn’t fun!” Nodoka said, brushing sand away.

“Well, the school I’m at now is,” Uzuki said, not getting up. She turned, looking at Kaede over her shoulder. A delighted smile on her face.

There was basically no transition there, but apparently, she’d jumped back to the earlier topic.

“At first, honestly, I was not into the idea. At all. Mom had to drag me to the orientation. I mean, does anyone have a positive image of remote learning?”

Uzuki did a patented flashback smile. Like any second now she’d say something about how young she’d been.

“I was so young then!”

She actually did.

“But everyone’s like that,” Nodoka agreed.

“Everyone’s like what?” Sakuta asked.

She glared at him. Clearly a “you know, so don’t ask” look.

“Bracing themselves when they hear remote learning or part-time education,” she said, reluctantly spelling it out.

Kaede was certainly nodding. Those opinions were a major concern. That’s what everyone else thought. Uzuki’s classmates had accused her of never reading the room, but even she’d been aware of it. That was simply proof of how widely held that sentiment was.

Biased perceptions and feelings can take root in the soil of social spaces.

Normal, ordinary, majority-side people just assume that their position is always right. They just prefer it that way. That makes things easier for them, and by putting down anyone different, they in turn feel safe. This was how people convince themselves their position is secure.

They don’t even realize they’re looking down on anyone. None of them have any clue their biases hurt others. Because everyone does it all the time.

“I didn’t really realize it until it became the plan, you know? Then the realer it got, the more uncomfortable I was. Like I didn’t want anyone knowing about it. And that made it hard to, like, talk to anyone about it.”

“I think not having to go to school every day sounds just about perfect,” Sakuta said.

“The last thing anyone who can actually do that gets to say,” Uzuki said, dramatically pointing at him, like a referee calling a foul.

She seemed so outgoing it was easy to forget, but that response made it clear just how rough her relationship with schooling had been. He’d caught a brief glimpse of something he couldn’t laugh off.

“Fair enough,” he said, taking it back.

“I mean, it’s sweet that you think that,” Uzuki said, grinning. All trace of reproach was gone. Whatever problems she’d had were over and done with now.

“Going to the orientation really turned me around,” Sakuta said. “They made it clear that my preconceptions were way off base.”

“I know! That did it for me. Not even kidding, that totally changed my whole idea of what school could be.”

“Oh yeah. Definitely.”

Including his ideas about conventional schools.

“I thought school meant a set time and place, same people, same classes. Everything set in stone, and you had to join in.”

“…Is that not true?” Kaede asked, like this was all new to her.

“It’s not wrong! That’s how conventional schools do it, and I never even questioned that. ‘Everyone else does just fine with that, so it must be my fault that I can’t.’ And that was suffocating.”

Kaede’s eyes never left Uzuki. As if sympathizing with that feeling, she clamped her hands together. To Sakuta, it looked like she was enduring that same “suffocating” sensation.

“But the orientation my mom dragged me to—they said it didn’t have to be that way. That conventional education techniques were not the only right answer. That we didn’t have to shape ourselves to our schools but could find a school that fit us, that let us make our own choices. So I was like, ‘That’s too good to be true.’”

“Same.” Sakuta nodded.

“I thought that, but I also felt like it was up to me what I made of it. If mean, if I can study when I want, where I want, then I don’t have to skip school for idol stuff, and that sounded ideal!”

“Every break we take leaves us further on the fringe of class,” Nodoka growled. Clearly a thing she’d long since given up on.

“So you decided to enroll after the orientation?” Sakuta prompted.

She had to think about that one. Like she was feeling out her own emotions, hunting for what she wanted Kaede to hear.

“I think I made up my mind in the car going home. Part of me was like, ‘It might be cool,’ and another part was still going, ‘But remote learning?’ But then my mom was like, ‘When I got knocked up, everyone around me said I shouldn’t have you.’ That wasn’t some TV show, but everyone was actually like, ‘Kids can’t raise kids!’”

Normally, pregnancy was cause for celebration, but slap the word teenage in front of it, and it sure hit different. The world did not approve. And like with Uzuki’s mom, lots of times, no one gave their blessings. Probably most times.

Teenage or not, some people would make good moms, and some people wouldn’t. Age was not the only dividing line. Remote learning, teenage pregnancy, or anything else—popular opinion was often based on preconceptions and prejudice and was so distorted by prevailing mores that nobody could see the truth.

“But she did a pretty bang-up job raising you,” Sakuta concluded.

“Mm!” Uzuki nodded enthusiastically. “Everyone was against it, but Mom had me anyway and brought me up just fine. And that got me thinking about the definition of everyone. I got super serious and asked her, ‘Who is everyone?’”

“And what did your mom say?” Nodoka asked.

Uzuki was grinning before she even answered. “‘Uzuki, your happiness isn’t dictated by everyone. It’s what you say it is.’”

“Your mom’s a badass.”

“I know! She’s too cool for school.”

In the car, she’d said she didn’t know what to say when her daughter dropped out of school. But what she’d actually said was so deep. The words of a mother who’d had Uzuki at only eighteen and been a mom ever since—they weren’t merely convincing. Sakuta could feel them sinking deep inside him.

“Wish I had a mom like yours,” Nodoka muttered. “You’re so close.”

“Yeah? But your mom’s lovely! All elegant. My mom was still dying her hair blond when I was in grade school, rolling into Parents’ Day in a tracksuit and sandals. So cringe.”

“Ugh, yeah, wouldn’t want.”

Nodoka about-faced quick.

“See? And she can’t cook at all.”

“Should you be telling us that?” Sakuta asked.

Uzuki spun toward him. “Don’t tell her I did! I’ll get no dinner.”

She sounded genuinely alarmed. Like that had not been an empty threat and she’d been punished that way before.

“But, uh, in a roundabout way, it was your mom who convinced you to try this school,” Nodoka said, getting the conversation back on track.

“But also you, Nodoka,” Uzuki said, turning to look her right in the eye.

“Huh?” Nodoka just blinked at her, totally lost.

“You and everyone in Sweet Bullet. Even when I’d quit school, you were all there for me. You and the fans.”

Uzuki shifted to face the ocean, thoughts running to people not present.

“I couldn’t get on with the kids at school. But I had the other group members, my fans, and my mom with me. And having all those things made it possible for me to try this new school. Mm. I know that’s true.”

She was looking out at the horizon. From average standing height, that was only three miles out. Closer than you’d think. Uzuki was sitting on the sand, so it was even less. Close enough to walk to. Sakuta thought that was a good length. It was tough to go chasing a goal you couldn’t see. Much better to run toward something you could. Just make it to the next telephone pole. Keep doing that, and eventually, you’d find yourself beyond that horizon, somewhere you’d never seen before.

Uzuki had wrapped things up by convincing herself of her own answer, but when nobody else said anything, she leaned in, whispering in Nodoka’s ear.

“Did that answer Kaede’s question?”

They were sitting close enough that everyone heard.

“With extra credit,” Sakuta said.

Kaede nodded.

“Really? I don’t get these things, so tell me if I’m off the mark! Anything else you wanna know? Ask away!”

“……Then just one more?”

“As many as you like!”

“Which…version of yourself do you like better? When you were at a normal school, or this one?”

Kaede sounded a bit tense. She clearly wanted the latter answer and was expecting Uzuki to say just that. But Sakuta saw a different answer coming—and knew that was a good thing.

“I like ’em both the same!” Uzuki said, not even wavering. Her eyes on Kaede’s. “What the old me did made me who I am now.”

That made Kaede gape. She might have looked stunned, but he knew that was the face she made when the needle dropped. As proof, she closed her jaw, then smiled like it all made sense.

“Oh. Right.”

“Right!”

“Uh…thank you,” Kaede said, bobbing her head.

“You’re welcome! I sure talked a lot. I think I figured some things out myself here! So thank you.”

Uzuki held out her hand. Kaede hesitated for a moment but wound up shaking Uzuki’s hands for the second time that day.

After that, they’d hit up the café where Uzuki’s mom was waiting, warmed up with hot beverages, and talked more about the specifics of Uzuki’s school.

Uzuki pulled out her phone and played back some of the videos and showed off the chat logs from one of the morning homeroom sessions—as well as some club stuff also done in chat rooms and some promo videos that students had made to recruit club members.

All of this was on the tiny screen of her phone. But you could feel the warmth of the students involved.

A school in the palm of your hand. In there were teachers, students, lessons, classmates, and friendships.

They just weren’t in the same physical location. And if you thought about it, as online as everything was these days, that was hardly strange.

Yet he could feel himself instinctively balking at the idea that this was high school. Without him ever realizing it, the bias against that idea had been drilled into him.

Naturally, not all remote-learning schools operated like what Uzuki had shown them. But the school she went to matched his ideas of what a school was. The feel of the students convinced him of that.

“The declining birth rate means the number of schools is just gonna keep on shrinking,” Uzuki’s mom said. “More and more students will be stuck without a school close enough to them. By the time all of you have kids in high school, taking classes on phones and computer screens might be mainstream.”

“I’m attending the school of the future,” Uzuki added. She winked playfully, but she also sounded proud.

And that enthusiasm, combined with everything they’d talked about that day—it had all meant a lot to Kaede. It had all spoken to her.

And that was why, on Friday, February 27, only two days till the month changed over—

“Sakuta.”

“Mm?”

“I’d like to go to the orientation here.”

He’d just stepped out of the bath and found Kaede waiting with a brochure in hand. The same school Sakuta and Miwako had gone to visit—in other words, the one Uzuki attended.

“I’ll ask Ms. Tomobe when the next meeting is.”

“I checked their homepage. There’s one every Sunday in March.”

She pulled the laptop across the kotatsu, showing him the screen. They had orientations on the first, eighth, fifteenth, and twenty-second.

“The Internet sure is a time saver.”

“Mm.”

“But the first is graduation… Can it wait till the eighth?”

“Mai’s graduating, so I’m not about to insist we gotta go then.”

She looked annoyed he’d even suggest that.

“But I’ve got you reserved for the eighth!” she said, clearly pleased with herself.

“Okay, okay,” Sakuta said, grabbing a sports drink from the fridge.