What are we doing for fun tomorrow?

At that place, there are endless ways of finding pleasure. Dig in the soft dirt under the trees, and you will find a lot of rhino beetle larvae. You can skip flat stones at the dry river bed. You can play sumo in the pine tree leaves. Daruma-san ga koronda is good too.

The color ghost might be lacking when compared, as the colors in the mountains are nothing but green, light brown, and grey. Where can we find other colors?

Oh, there is that color—white. It’s the color of the dress she is always wearing.

But that white is like the towels when you take a bath: slowly changing to indigo as water invades inside.

Even if it was white, it would still vanish.

Tomorrow, to replace the white that suddenly vanished, I decided to wear a white T-shirt—within that haziness.

The Tree Hole was wide open.

It was the Tree Hole in the big tree growing behind the secret base.

Its abysmal darkness conjured a feeling it might stretch to another world.

She was there, looking.

From her eyes one could not see a single dip of emotion. For I was scared, I kept stuffing stones into the tree hole.

When this was done, everything would be fine—I thought, heaving a sigh, and turned my head around...

Through the crevice between the stones, she...Meiko was looking this way.

I was more and more scared, stuffing stones inside recklessly, for I could not throw stones at Meiko. It would have been much better if I hadn't said "I hope we could meet again" on that day.

Meiko was inside the Tree Hole.

From that day onward, she continued hiding inside, silently.

It was so hot at the end of summer that it felt suffocating. My messy bangs had grown too long, hitting against my eyelids. I had gone two days without showering, and the sweat and oil in my hair irritated me so much that I had to put it up with a rubber band.

Delving into your mind’s world and battling with the present seven deadly sins and the unknown eighth… I had used one hundred and fifty-six hours on this nonsense that seemed to come from a video game for second year students in junior high.

They had understandably deformed the female genitalia. ‘Lust’ opened and closed repeatedly with a ‘kupaa, kupaa’ sound. I killed every single one of them relentlessly, recklessly killing the summer of my first year in high school.

The cicada sang, "kupaa, kupaa." It was very hot.

What a lewd design. The thing ‘kupaaing’ on the monitor squirted weird liquid out of its centre. Trying to mentally dismiss the fact that I hadn't taken a bath, I pounded every single one of these disgusting, filthy beings with a machine gun.

"Jintan, are they Jynx[1]?"

"No.”

"But its lips are so fat. Isn't it like Jynx's ‘hatoko’?"

... 'Jintan.'

This honey-sweet voice clung even closer to my skin than my sweat and oil.

"Do you know what 'hatoko' means, Jintan? It's your grandpa's little sister's child's child, you know? So that in Menma’s case is Kii-kun!"

"..."

Most likely I had been too hungry.

To have a gap induced from boredom and hunger is unacceptable, for it will allow unnecessary feelings to squeeze themselves into it against one's will.

At these times, one has to be decisive and swiftly fill this gap.

"... Let me eat some Shio ramen[2] then."

"Wah, Shio ramen. Menma wants to eat it too!"

I went into the kitchen next to the living room and lit up the matchsticks inside. The connecting points on the gas stove seemed to have a poor contact. I ignited it by throwing some ashes into the place where the gasoline had flown, and a loud boom was heard.

I like Shio ramen. Having waited for the water to boil, I meticulously threw an egg inside so it wouldn't be stirred.

“Ah, I want the eggs stirred! I want egg flakes!”

Right. I wouldn’t stir it. When I eat it, I would lightly poke the lunar-shaped egg to let the half-boiled egg yolk ooze out, crowning the noodles. This way of eating seemed much more mature than eating egg flakes…

“Boo! The egg is getting boiled! Stir it, quick!”

“…”

I would never admit believing in unreal things, for example: UFO, UMA, MRR, or spirits.

“Si...”

I had to regulate my breathing patterns with my nose, because at some point that I was unaware of, my breathing had become strained.

If I had to deny it, I should have to neglect it from the very start. If I were to be a bit wary of it, only just a little bit, it would be the evidence that I had already accepted it as reality.

“Ah. Look! It’s expanding already! Quickly stir it… Stir—it—quick!”

Three minutes. Give me three minutes and this will be done.

Nevertheless, those three minutes that seemed to flee so fast when I played games seemed so long now.

Noodles. Please, I beg you to become cooked as quickly as possible—thus I started to pray impatiently. At this moment, the malfunctioning, tone-deaf doorbell speaker rang its out-of-tone ringtone.

“Aren’t you going to open the door, Jintan?”

“…”

I would never open the door during my dad’s working hours, no matter how many times the bell had rung. This was what I usually did.

However, the things that human beings can neglect simultaneously are finite. Perhaps this ringtone was a godsend to help me.

(Let me get an escape by this chance.)

As I gave thanks for this coincidence, I turned off the stove. Now I couldn’t cook the egg into a beautiful lunar shape, and the noodles would also get mucky. Nevertheless, I had no other resort. I then walked to the door.

“Now is the time. Stir!!”

The eggs in the pot seemed to be swished and swooshed. I felt a stream of cold sweat sliding down my back.

“Coming… Mmm!?”

When I opened the creaking door, in front of me stood the visualization of the ‘Lust’, a woman as if having its sexual organ slapped on her face.

“... Hi.”

Having lightly tanned skin, wearing tight aqua-blue suspenders, and being overly exposed—the way she deliberately showed off her immature sexiness- feeling overly carnal, she made me uncomfortable.

Splat.

“Hey. Things are going quite well for you.”

“Ah, ahah…”

What an unlucky day.

Misfortunes never come alone. Rats. How I wish to whack them away: to use the machine gun in the game to shoot everything away, including this real thing and that unreal thing, penetrating them with bullets.

Hey. Wait?

What would happen when this thing sees that?

“… Um. The class teacher told me to give you this, your holiday homework.”

The girl in front of me awkwardly stretched a pile of printouts to my face.

“Hah? Holiday homework… It’s already the end of August now. The holidays will be over after two days!”

I spoke back in reflex to this girl I hadn’t spoken to for a long time—three years of no social interaction to be exact. To my blurted doubts, she said, “It’s fine. After all, you’re always in the holiday mood. Besides, unlike you, Yadomi, I’m very busy.”

She said it with a commanding tone completely opposite to her frivolous appearance. From that tone, it was impossible for one to tell the fleeting of years, as if she had completely seen through me.

She was making me impatient.

“Then you can just dump it on me. After all, I wouldn't go to that stupid school!”

When I blurted this out, her aqua-blue suspenders seemed to have become heavier. Her lips twisted, yet she didn’t make a sound.

“Mmm…?”

Was she trying to say something? Having noticed, I involuntarily started to concentrate on something…

Then my mind became completely blank, for I had unwillingly shown my mistakes. The girl intentionally aimed at my defensive mistake and quickly lashed a fierce comment at me.

“You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“What!?”

"You should be ashamed of yourself."

My blood rose and my ears became hot. What do you know?

I wanted to argue. I wanted to hurt her with extremely sharp, impulsive words!

“Eh, who’s there?

“!...”

A sound came from the back, cooling my heating head.

I didn’t look back, trying to see the reaction of this girl—Anaru Anjo. She furrowed her eyebrows as if surprised, but that was only a reaction towards me.

So, Anjo couldn’t see her?

“What’s the matter, Yadomi? You look upset.”

The problematic matter behind me screamed ‘Ahah!’ in joy when it heard Anjo’s voice.

“This voice! I know it! It’s Anaru!!”

Her naïve voice spoke the forbidden word.[3]

“You… Don’t call her Anaru!!”

I interrupted her in reflex. Even if she was the visualization of ‘Lust’, saying this to her so bluntly was a bit too much.

“… Ah.”

Anjo’s face slowly turned into a color much more vibrant than brown.

“Ah, Ah, An… Don’t call me Anaru!”

She said the same thing as I did. But of course, she said it to me.

I see.

From Anjo’s perspective, I was the one who said ‘anus’. And she decided to completely ignore that bothersome thing touching her tanned skin and crying repeatedly, ‘Anaru, Anaru!’. No, she wasn’t ignoring it. She was…

So, this is truly…

“Waaaaghh!?”

Bam. I passed out.

I wasn’t like this back then.

In that summer, I didn’t have a problem with this heat and this painful sunlight that tanned my skin. During that summer, when we were in grade 5 at primary school, we were always seen together.

There was an abandoned, coal-burning, small house on the mountain at the back of our school. We moved a lot of useless ‘treasures’ there and called it our secret base. We played there for the rest of our summer. All my memories of summer were born there.

We were the ‘Super Peace Busters’.

‘Busters’ was a word we just knew and we just remembered, which seemed to mean strong people. We had to safeguard peace and punish evil. With this sublime wish, we gave ourselves this name.

Of course, the first one to propose it was I, the captain.

No one denied my idea. No one cared. For at that time, I was the best at everything, be it running, calculation examinations, or even calligraphy—I had even gotten a silver award.

“Heh. Busters! Though I don’t understand, it feels really cool!”

Yukiatsu was number two. Although his grade in music was better than me, he couldn’t catch up to me in all other criteria.

“The word ‘super’ feels really strong…”

Tsuruko was a girl who did things at her own pace. She was pretty good at drawing, though, she always drew princesses or fairies. If only she could draw something else, then it would be a nice décor to hang on the wall of our secret base.

“If we use this name, we will have to really safeguard peace seriously. Can everyone do it?”

Anaru was abnormally serious and did things according to the rules. For example, she would go sweep the secret base when no one told her to. She would even get angry when I wiped my nose with the collar of my jacket. She was exactly like the lady next door.

“Mmmahh! It’s super cool! Jintan!”

Poppo, though small and timid, would take off his pants sometimes, which was very fun; hence, I liked to bring him around to play.

“Then it’s decided. Is it, Jintan!”

Then there was Menma.

Menma’s honey-sweet voice had always given me energy. She always cried, and when she did, her eyes looked like glass pearls filled with water from the ocean.

Her grandfather seemed to be a foreigner, and she seemed to be a quarter mixed. Her soft milky hair looked like sunlight could penetrate it. If you smelled closely, you might even smell faintly an unknown fragrance of flower from her…

Every time I heard Menma’s voice, I would rush to her, showing off the coolest side of myself.

Yes. As the captain, I had to run in front of everyone else. I could never trip and have an ugly side.

If I were to trip, I would rather fly away.

This was such an immature way of thinking, but I indeed had this feeling back then.

But the one to fly away wasn’t me.

Buzz…

The flapping sounds of B29 came from afar.

‘Super Peace Busters’ decided to investigate wars for the summer’s free investigation. With this vague investigation topic, we asked an old man nearby who had a problem walking.

“Ahah. I was just around as tall as you guys at that time. I escaped into the air-raid shelter, holding my little brother at my arms. My brother held my thighs tightly. It was a very warm scene…”

I looked at my own warm thigh.

“!...”

A thin leg was pressing my thigh tightly.

She took my arms as a pillow, and slept near my shoulders. She had promisingly long eyelashes on her sleeping face. I lightly smelled the air—a faint fragrance of flowers.

“I… must have gone nuts.”

Buzz, the electric fan kept swinging its head, denying with its might anything in front of it. Although I had never noticed it before, it actually was quite gentle.

At the moment, I was in a seriously acute situation.

This fragrance of flower and this sleeping face were once registered in my mind, yet I don’t remember them, because…

“Mmm…”

From the chest part of the dress, I could see the white bulging part that had the power and beauty to make every color lose their brightness. I looked at her tipsily. Everything I knew about her shouldn’t have been mixed with the feelings I had towards her now.

There was also that leg that bluntly pressed on my lower abdomen. It was like a fleshy, slick, bright carp. Her kneecaps bent into an acute angle. Even her skirt was curled up. Under that, though I could not see from this perspective, I thought it would be like…

“…”

If I don’t get away with the heaviness and the wriggle on my lower abdomen, things will get dismal.

I could never allow my sexual impulse in my puberty to rush out in this abnormal situation. Lightly and meticulously, I took away my wrists.

“Mmm…”

My heart thumped. I stiffened, not daring to move an inch. The wrecker blinked her eyes, bringing her long eyelashes into motion.

“Ah… Morning, Jintan.”

A soft smile then bloomed at me. This soft smiling face… Ahah.

It was the same as in my memory, making me dizzy.

“That’s great. You just fell over. I thought you would be dead.”

“…”

I thought… you would be dead…

“Wu… Wuaghhh!!”

I cried, jumped up violently, and ran away.

“Ji-Jintan!?”

Crack crack crack… Boom!

I rushed into the washroom, closed the door, and locked it, but this was not enough to make me assured, so I held it tightly with my hand.

“What’s the matter? Jintan!”

Bong, bong, bong. The door quaked.

A few months back then, when I entered high school for not even a week, I escaped outside and ran back home.

Everything was peaceful as long as I hid at home; however, I couldn’t believe that even in this state there would be an intruder.

The place that could accommodate me had become narrower and narrower. My helplessness has grown to—If I were invaded even here, then I had no place to escape. This was my last defense: I had to protect it.

“Poo pooing? Hey, are you poo pooing?”

Can’t you even allow me to think seriously?

I would never admit unreal things. I don’t believe in anything pertaining to spirits, but if she really is real…

If she really is Honma Meiko…

Then why had she grown a bit from back then. Why… why?

“W-Why do you have to come to my place?!”

“Heh?”

My voice was trembling. I realised even my kneecaps were trembling. What a shame. Nevertheless, this was an emergency situation. I was not the one to be blamed.

“Are you a spirit?!”

“Yeah, should be?”

“Not should be, but be! Why until now… besides, you’ve grown, why do you have to come to my place?!”

“Mmm… Even if you ask me I won’t know.”

“…”

She said she didn’t know.

This was an accentuation of speech that an anime character used in a hit anime. From this relieving tone, the trembling of my legs stopped without my noticing.

“But, let me guess. Menma probably wants to make a wish come true!”

“Wish… right. What wish?”

“Umm. I don’t know!”

How calm you sound. The tone of your voice sounded exactly like you wanted to gain pleasure from the situation I was stuck in.

“Ah. Jintan, come out!”

Although I was still afraid, my mind seemed to have become more stupid.

The situation I was in was too strange. If she were a spirit, she would have the look of a spirit and scare the hell out of me. Otherwise, this actually was…

“… It can’t come true.”

Menma cocked her head, making a little ‘eh?’ doubtful sound.

I rebuked her loudly, “If you don’t even know what’s your wish, how can you make it come true?! What do you want? You!”

“Ahah! Your saliva is spurting out! Bother! Look at my defensive wall! Eh~ Wait for a moment…”

Menma put her hands under her chin, posing a face of contemplation.

“Yeah… a wish. A wish that could only come true when everyone is back together!”

“Everyone…?”

“Right! Everyone is everyone! Super Peace Busters!”

Ah… There seemed to be something squiggling at the depths of my throat. This was a memorable, painful sound.

Super Peace Busters.

“Let’s first go get Anaru’s help! We didn’t make a good greeting just then…”

I quickly interrupted her to stop her from saying anymore.

“As you can see, she’s not the Anaru you know anymore.”

“Heheh? Isn’t Anaru, Anaru?”

She looked to have grown older, yet she was still a child inside—completely the same. She didn’t even hear what I had been saying.

“I was saying! She isn’t the Anaru back then. Even if you find that bimbo, she wouldn’t help!”

“B-bimbo?”

“That means a dumb woman! To put it short, she’s not our friend…”

“No!”

I freaked out looking at Menma. Her eyes with pale colors were welling with tears, like glass pearls filled with water from the ocean…

“No… I hate Jintan who would say bad things about Anaru!”

“… Menma.”

“Hey. Let’s go find Anaru again, okay? Let’s go seek her for her help, Jintan!”

That spirit forced me to find the past pals.

She forced me with dropping tears. This situation was too amusing. However, her tears were in sync with something for no apparent reason.

Right. Maybe this girl wasn’t a spirit.

It was my psychological pressure, my trauma… my sense of guilt. It was a visualization of all that heat that lashed on me in the summer.

When I put it this way, the reason why Anju couldn’t see Menma was convincing.

This was because the Menma who stood in front of me now was only my own hallucination.

It was the hallucination I created of that summer to reproach myself at this summer.

“…”

Fu. I heaved a long sigh.

I puffed away all the surprise, wavering, and perhaps some of my edited over-sweet scenes from my stomach, puffing them out all in one breath.

“I understand. I’ll leave it to Anaru to help your wish come true."

“Jintan!”

With still some tears in her eyes, Menma bloomed a soft, delightful smile.

That’s right, I only have to ask for her help.

Then Menma and also ‘the I back then’ could accept it.

It wasn’t only Anaru that had changed, every other thing also did.

The heat outside was even of a higher level than that in my home.

The dusk of late summer—how ashamed it was for these words with such beautiful pronunciation. The asphalt road had been heated soft. The back of my shoe stuck on the floor, unable to get a step out of the house. So, I didn’t leave a step.

It definitely wasn’t because I was scared.

“Jintan, aren’t you going to greet your neighbours?”

Menma, walking in front of me, noticed the whispers of the ladies nearby who were looking at me.

Let me think. At this map—in front of my house’s door—these people as enemies were ones that could be easily fought. I didn’t need to be sneaking around. I only needed to look ruthlessly back at them, and they would quickly avert their eyes in apology.

There was no need to be afraid. These guys had absolutely no menace to my life. That’s right, I don’t need to abstain from their sight. But this might be a bit bad for dad, as he had never reproached me who had been squandering life. But if I was attacked, I could only defend.

I had completely used all my energy to fight off these small fries.

“Eh? Jintan. Shouldn’t we head this side for Anaru’s home?”

I was choosing which way to go. I wanted to choose a road that most students in my same school wouldn’t walk on. However, no matter which way I went, the roadside scene seemed to be the same. Everything was mountains, mountains, and more mountains, for this was the basin. Be it the supermarket or the park, the background was always mountains.

So there were many mountains. Could I ask for a mountain to vibrantly self-destruct or collapse? There’s no way of escaping at this rate.

It was only me who locked myself in a place. I rejected all the feelings of the outside world and hid in a corner, for I hated this city.

“Anaru’s home. I hadn’t gone there for a long time. Very long time poo poo?”

Menma, the mixture of my trauma and psychological pressure, the hallucination created by myself back then to reproach ‘the present I’, was in a good mood.

“Anaru dragged Jintan into the house when Jintan suddenly fell down on the floor with a splat. After that, she even covered Jintan with a blanket!”

Is this for real…

“Then, she also turned off the stove, took the mucky noodles, and stored them in the fridge!”

That was way too much…

“Oh and, when she dragged Jintan into the room, she said, ‘it stinks!’”

If I had known earlier, I would have taken a bath.

“Anaru is really gentle! Ah, but Anaru she…”

“Stop.”

I still interrupted her reflexively despite the fact that obviously no one could see her or hear her.

“She… Um. Could you stop calling her Anaru? Call her Anjo or Naruko.”

“Eheh? Why?”

When I was small, I gave her this nickname without much deeper thought. I called her Anaru by taking out ‘An’ from Anjo and ‘Naru’ from Naruko and combining them together, for I thought back then that everything was the coolest when making abbreviations. For example, referring Super Mario as ‘Sumari’, Final Fantasy ‘Fifa’.

Children are such deadly and lively creatures. If I had known what it meant, I would have given her a much more meaningful name than Anaru… however.

“Ah! Dandelions!”

“…”

She didn’t hear a word I was saying.

‘The Traumatic Pressure Reproaching Menma’ was picking dandelions leisurely. This scene was overly natural—the flowers that bloom at this time are Common Dandelions—mum taught me this fact when I was small. I could still remember it vaguely.

“Here, BCG!”

Liquid oozed from the scar on the pinched flower. Menma put the scar side on my hand, the white liquid spread on my hand, printing the section of the side of the scar of the flower.

“This is…”

“Jintan seems to be feeling unwell, so I’m giving Jintan medicine!”

The reason why I’m feeling unwell is because of you—though I wanted to tell this to her, I swallowed my words as soon as I saw her natural smile, a smile so normal it was almost perfect.

“Ah, there are also some here! There are also dandelions here. Dandelions, dandelions, dandelions?” Menma sang arbitrarily while picking the dandelions. She would pinch the flowers with her thumb, and ‘prack!’, tearing the flower part off, taking the dandelion life away naively.

Indeed.

Menma was a hallucination I created to reproach myself.

She didn’t say she hated me, nor did she use any power. She only used a bit to whack me, to tell me, to show me, that she wasn’t here anymore.

“Jintan. Look!”

Ahah. Why would I so calmly accept this abnormal situation? Had my brain malfunctioned or stopped operating due to this summer heat?

Perhaps tired of the dandelion massacre, Menma turned to crawling onto the wooden face on the roadside, jumping along the fence.

My head still felt heavy... I stared blankly at Menma’s bare white foot. It wasn’t a foot of a small girl but a woman.

Speaking of which, she wasn’t wearing any shoes. Why would she appear like that when even her legs had grown? Perhaps it was because of the lack of experience in my trauma that ‘the I back then’ couldn’t imagine the styles of shoes that young women would wear.

“Ah…?!”

Menma suddenly screamed. My heart thumped. My mind became completely blank.

Menma was swaying on the fence, unable to keep her balance. She then slipped on the ten-centimeter-wide square safe zone of that fence.

“Mmm..?!”

That day, at that moment, I came to my senses.

I didn’t see the accident.

However, this scene repeatedly appeared in my mind, no matter how I wanted to forget it. It was like I was the one that had experienced it—even the smell of mosses and the touch of the soil were in my memories.

That day, I went home alone. Normally, I would still be together with everyone playing, but I got angry and ran away. When I think of it, that day I ate miso ramen instead of shio ramen. And from that day on I hadn’t eaten it anymore. But actually, I like miso ramen more than shio ramen.

My dad’s car was parked at the door. He potently swung the door open. I felt a sense of aberrance. He opened the door in a flurry. Incoherent sounds of footsteps and the expanding aberrance added together.

“Jintan! Menma, she…”

I couldn’t hear what he was saying.

No. I didn’t want to hear. Yet, even when I had tried to terminate my ability to think, a scene flashed upon my eyes, a screen that forcibly filled my vision.

‘Menma, she…’

There was a trough slightly below the secret base.

‘slipped’

Connected to the trough was a slope which led to a place with rotten pine cones, a vast, deep place with swift currents…

‘and fell down.’

“Wuuarrghhh!!”

I dashed to her.

I wanted to catch Menma; I wanted to catch Menma who was now falling from the wooden fence; I wanted to change the ending that day. However, my hands couldn’t reach her.

“… Jintan?”

Menma looked at me, as if she was freaked out. Perhaps she jumped down according to her falling direction.

Besides, she was just my own hallucination. She wouldn’t really die. Nevertheless, what was I agitating for? Feeling relieved, I felt a rush of bitterness and despise.

“What are you doing?! You…!!”

It was at this moment when I couldn’t help myself from roaring-

“… What are you doing?”

-that a male voice completely different from mine was heard from my back.

It was an unfamiliar and low voice, but that voice seemed a bit familiar nevertheless. My heart thumped greatly, going out of control.

The man standing right there had the uniform of the high school I wanted to enter.

He was the number 2 of Super Peace Busters, Matsuyuki who lost to me a little bit in everything. Standing beside him was Chiriko who did things at her own pace…

When was I caught by them?

Were you so strong back then?

Or was it I who tripped and fell?

“What are you doing? Are you all right?”

“Ah! Ahah… No.”

There wasn’t anything, and I wasn’t sure what was happening. I knew deeply that I used the Japanese wrongly. I averted my eyes and put on my hat.

I had to get out of here, quick.

“Wuaghh! It’s Yukiatsu and Tsuruko!”

Menma screamed in joy, running towards them, not paying any heed to my feelings—was it a part of reproaching me?

“Hey. Let’s get out of here, Menma!”

Words slipped out of my mouth due to my irascibleness.

Matsukyuki’s face froze instantly.

“Hah? Are you saying ‘Menma’?”

Matsuyuki’s lips trembled lightly. Chiriko, feeling unpleasant, gazed at Matsuyuki and me repeatedly.

What came lashing out at me was blatant anger.

“You. Are you still talking about that until now?”

“Stop, Matsuyuki!”

Chiriko glared at Matsuyuki with her eyes slant, but Matsuyuki didn’t care and continued, “I heard that you didn’t go to school, Yadomi.”

“!!”

It was very hot under the nylon hat. It’s about to boil.

Why would you know… No. Why would the captain be despised by number two?

Noticing the subtle atmosphere around us, Menma, who had been shouting in joy just now, calmed down and looked at me worryingly.

“Having entered the worst school here and become a shut-in and at last would only call Honma Meiko’s name. Have you gone nuts?”

“Matsuyuki, stop saying it… Ah!”

You don’t have to tell me! I turned away and left.

“Jintan!?”

Menma’s voice came from behind. “I hate Yukiatsu who would say bad things about Jintan!!”

I didn’t run. I just accelerated my walking pace.

I didn’t want to be reckoned as escaping, nor did I want them to see me getting away difficultly. Having turned the street corner, I finally escaped from their sight. At that instant, my sweat came popping up.

No, I had already let them see myself getting away difficultly. The inside of the nylon hat was filled with sweat and felt extremely itchy. Not only my head, but my whole body was itchy, for I hadn’t taken any baths, even my blood vessels also…

“Jintan. Wait for me!”

Menma’s voice sounded from behind, but I didn’t turn back. I just stopped and stood still.

Menma’s bare foot had not a bit of a bruise. I understood now. I understood now what you wanted to do.

The young me was reproaching the present me.

The thing that hurt me, that completely fought me down, that let my heart be filled with past regrets… you wanted to see this kind of me, don’t you?

However, Menma, after all this had happened...

“After all this had happened, you should understand now. Everyone has changed… No.”

I staggered, then continued in a low voice, “and the one who changed the most is me.”

“Eh…?”

“It’s about it. Let me go.”

“!!”

I turned around and faced Menma. For the back light of the setting sun, I couldn't clearly see Menma’s face. Nevertheless, I could see that her foot was small and had no bruises.

I wanted to smile, but my face muscles only formed a strange arc. But, I couldn’t not laugh, for if I did, the past me would be unsatisfied.

Would the past me laugh his head off when he saw me having such a difficulty in laughing? It didn’t matter anymore. Go ahead and laugh. But…

“Let go of me… You may not understand, but I also had a tough life… after that…”

“Jintan…?”

“Yes. Really tough… So, I don’t want to…”

I didn’t know what to say about something I didn’t want to happen again, so I kept silent and turned around and ran away. Even if she saw my forlorn back while running away, it didn’t matter anymore.

Not only because she was a hallucination I had created, for even if she really were Menma, it didn’t matter for her to see me like this.

Back then I endeavoured to show her my greatest and coolest side.

Menma didn’t come to chase me.

I entered my dark room, turned on the lights… Pat. All the hidden things in the dark were shown.

The blanket was still left there; the electronic fan kept swinging as usual. I stepped on the on/off button with my foot and turned it off with my toe.

The mucky ramen was left in the fridge. It wasn’t an edible thing anymore, so I just left it there.

“…”

I heaved a sigh and lay down flat.

Entering the sight of my eyes were the prizes hanging on the wall of the room: calligraphy exhibition, endurance running, writing competition… this was the graveyard of my past glories.

Why—why had I become like this?

I flunked my examinations and entered an annoying high school… No, these things didn't really matter. These weren’t the real cause.

In the shrines lay my mother’s photo. Mum who lived long in the hospital died when I was primary six. It was the summer of the year right after Menma’s death. And thus the nearby ladies always gossip, “for he lost his mum in such a sensitive period”. They didn’t know a thing. This wasn’t the real cause either.

It was utterly impossible to find one thing to explain the real cause.

But there was one thing I was sure of.

During that summer, everything became different.

We had been the Super Peace Busters.

We protected the peace of everywhere. I was the captain, of course, for I was number one in everything.

Matsuyuki… Yukiatsu, Tsuruko, Anaru, Poppo, and also Menma all agreed to this. Everyone followed at my back, trotting—following behind me at all times.

Yes. That day was the same.

“Jintan… Do you like Menma?”

Everything started with a question Anaru asked.

“Hah?”

I was suffering from this unexpected blow.

This question was exactly strangely delicious bait. Everyone started to heckle with, “we want to know!” “Does Menma like Jintan too?” All kinds of thoughts popped up. I was filled with a mysterious pleasure, and blurted in anger, “You idiots!”, and thinking I would get away with it…

“Tell the truth. Super Peace Busters should not hide things from each other.”

Yukiatsu told me with a serious face.

“Tell, tell… tell, tell?”

Poppo also racked things up with his stupid voice, the voice that was in sync with the rhythmic heat and the songs of cicadas. With a red face, Menma said, “ehhhh! How would this...” and got embarrassed.

As a captain, I even got forced by them to confess.

I was a bit angry. If things went on like this, my respect as a leader would be all gone. To put an end to this messy situation, I blurted something out.

“Who would like such an ugly girl!”

The racked up chorus ended in an instant.

The cicadas was still singing… At the moment I cried it out loud, something in a corner of my heart told myself that things would turn totally bad.

I thought she would cry.

For Menma was such a crybaby, but…

“… Hehe.”

Menma smiled—soft and a bit troubled…

What was this kind of smile like?

The embarrassment hidden within the anger expanded quickly, and thus I escaped.

“Ah… don’t run away, Jintan!”

Menma chased me. Stop! Stop coming! If you come won’t we become even more suspected? So stop coming!

Menma fell down, but that didn’t stop me from running away. It was not something Menma raised, yet it pertained to Menma, hence my embarrassment and anger. That was what I thought back then.

Because Menma… she smiled.

I apparently tried to make her angry and hurt her.

Yes. I felt shameful of myself.

However, I could not put forth my feelings and speak them out. I only wanted to cry.

Dad would come back for a moment, and then go to the hospital to visit mum. Placed on the short table of a house, illuminated by the setting sun was a bag with miso ramen. Beaten eggs and chopped onions were put in a big bowl wrapped over with a preservative film. Using these to deal with my dinner, yet paying much attention to the details—it had the style of my dad.

I turned on the television, letting it sit there, and boiled the noodles, hearing “Yooh”[4] from behind, and also “ayoo, thank you for waiting everybody”[5].

Idling around and looking at the egg sinking down into the pot, I made a decision.

Tomorrow, I would suddenly jump at Menma from behind and bind her neck with my arms. She certainly would fall down, and then at this time I would get a hold of her steadily to prevent her from falling down. Let me pull such a prank.

And then, I would cry out loud, “My dear Menma[6]!”

I had even devised the tone of my cry and the details of binding her. This idea sounded nice, even I thought so myself.

It was even funnier than the jokes on the television.

However, after long practice, I didn’t have the chance to employ it. I couldn’t apologise.

Menma had already died.

The Super Peace Busters.

As its name implies, we busted the perfect peace and became poles apart from each other without knowing it.

Was it because of Menma’s death?

No, even if Menma hadn’t had an accident, we were a lot far from each other originally. Be it our hobbies, the colors we liked, or the jokes we liked—all of them were different.

It was only because we were too small that we didn’t notice this decisive disparity… and got together by luck. So, separation was inevitable.

“…”

What had I been saying about “it’s about it, let me go”?

Sure, I had been having a tough life. Five years had passed since Menma’s accident, but when I thought of Menma, the place near my stomach had a feeling of clutching together.

However, I didn’t reckon that I had atoned for my sins. For it was of my cause that Menma would… even if my trauma didn’t find me trouble—even if I was not reproached—I would still be clung with an impulse to destroy myself.

Yet, why would I see Menma?

Jintan.

At that time, she would always call me with such a honey-sweet voice. She was a crybaby, yet she smiled at that time.

On that day, I really wanted to apologize… to say sorry to her. Indeed.

I wanted to say I was sorry to Menma.

“!!”

A stream of current went through my spine. I couldn’t wait any longer. I rushed out the door with an impulse that couldn't be left waiting any longer.

At the instant I grasped my shoes, the door opened. Dad had gotten off work and returned.

“Ah. Eh. Jintan, where are you going?”

“Just for a round!”

I got past my dad and dashed outside.

Go… to the vicinities.

The roadside scene faded away with the sounds of my heavy breathing.

Compared to the dashing speed and the pleasure of fighting with wind that my mind created, the real me was worn out quite soon, my legs becoming soft, about to collapse. After that, I couldn’t stop myself from screaming out, “If I were to trip, I would rather fly away!”

I had always wished.

I had always wished for the day after that day—the day I could apologize to Menma.

Yo, yo. Welcome. Do you want coffee?”

“Okay, sure. Thanks.”

It had been a week since the visual impact Matsuyuki gave us on that night in the secret base.

The days and nights after that felt short.

Mornings with Meiko around, and nights also.

Meaningless chats continued endlessly. Everyone played games and fooled around joyfully, sleeping once tired. Days like this, with the starting point and the ending point on the same day, were extremely refreshing.

The normal weekdays, though, when compared, became exceptionally long.

Even if I wanted to go to school, my legs wouldn’t heed to my request. Nevertheless, I didn’t want to let Meiko know I hadn’t gone to school, so I wandered around the whole day—there was only one bookstore, not a single manga restaurant, even the arcade centre was shut down—in this boring old town, where I could go was certainly limited.

Having nothing to do, I started to hide in the secret base three days ago.

I was a bit reluctant at first, but Popo was the same old guy I knew, and it was much breezier up in the mountains than down below. Ventilation was great and soothing too. Although I knew I was a coward for not going to school, it was already improvement compared to idling at home.

I sat flat down on the sofa in the secret base, shuffling some dust out.

“Hey, how does Meiko feel like?”

“Hmm, normal.”

There wasn’t anything normal to this, yet I deliberately replied in this way.

Meiko was back.

And she lived casually like the way she did back thn.

All the members in super peace busters believed she was back, yet none of them came to my house.

There wasn’t anything like “Meiko, let’s go play.”

To this unusual phenomenon, they might still be trying to acclimatise, which was justifiable, as even I was at a bit of loss when I first encountered it.

And the most important thing was that only I could see Meiko, but none others.

“Hold it.”

Popo was handing me the mug Tsurumi gave. In these mugs of various sizes, Popo had, since sometime, reckoned that this mug was ‘for my exclusive use’. Whenever possible, he would definitely use this mug to brew coffee for me.

And since sometime, I had unwarily called him by his nickname Popo, just like those days.

“Hey, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time thinking over this.”

“What’s up, Popo?”

Popo suddenly faced me straight and formally.

“Meiko’s wish...we must seriously, dedicatedly grant it for real!”

“Eh...”

To grant her wish for real.

“So you didn’t think of granting her wish for real before?”

“Ah, no! I didn’t mean that...but...”

Popo became a bit lost for words. Of course, I could understand his thoughts.

Until now, granting Meiko’s wish in Popo’s heart had the same feeling as presenting a flower when cleaning the grave. The more the heartfelt thoughts for Meiko, the more one wanted to present to her more beautiful flowers. At the same time, it was an act of assuring oneself.

But since feeling Meiko’s presence in reality, the thought of granting her wish had become to do something for her instead...albeit they could do nothing for her on that day before her leave, they hoped they could do something now with these new given circumstances...

“After all, everyone had believed in Meiko’s existence. Why don’t we call Tsuruko and Yukiatsu to come by...”

“Yukiatsu...”

At this instant, both of us ceased our movements.

A scene flashed through my mind—that figure making a strong impression, conjuring a mixed feeling of undesired sympathy, comedy, and horror.

No, I knew I must not laugh at him, and I didn’t at that time.

But truth be told, I often think of that figure throughout this week when I take a shower, go to the toilet, or eat with Meiko. Whenever this happened, sophisticated feelings would stirr from the bottom of my heart.

Something was telling me Yukiatsu wouldn’t work this out with us.

Because he was seen with that figure...

“Normally speaking, it would be difficult for him to get his spirits back up...”

“Yeah, it’s impossible, normally speaking.”

“Definitely impossible.”

Popo and I nodded our head deeply together, our brows furrowed clearly.

Normally speaking, it was impossible.

Yet things worked out the opposite from what Jinta and Popo surmised, for Atsumu was now having his supreme life casually and comfortably. He talked with prompting girls with ease, handed his homework swiftly, and ate scrambled eggs with shrimps in the cafeteria, and not ordinary every-day-switched lunch sets like udon or fried pork with fresh ginger.

“Shocking.”

Chiriko left her short, precise comment.

“Yeah, I’m shocked too. What happened back there must be because I was haunted.”

“So you say, but you seemed fully prepared for this? Even your thigh hair was shaved.”

“I didn’t bear much hair from the start, for my male hormones are little.”

“What shocked me wasn’t that perverted behaviour; it’s how you could return to your everyday life as if nothing happened.”

“Then what should I do to meet your expectation?”

“Be the second social recluse in the super peace busters, the first one being Yadomi Jinta.”

“It seems you are a genius at annoying me.”

Atsumu and Chiriko was spending their noon break leisurely behind the school building, leaning on the white walls of the new school building. Passing female juniors would cast glances at them from time to time, and whisper whatnots to each other. Glances casted at Chiriko were all but enmity.

“Look, I’m always being glared at because of you.”

“Well, those glares would vanish if I give them the photos of you dressing up as a girl.”

“Certainly.”

“It’s such a wonder to see what will become of you when your poker face is torn apart.”

“Now I think about it, I was in my worst condition after all.”

“Hmm?”

Even to someone as strong and tough as Atsumu, it was terribly embarrassing when his other side was exposed to the super peace busters.

A hair clip started it all. It was a hair clip he gave to Meiko, but rejected. One day, he saw an oddly familiar hair clip. Almost as if by instinct, he bought it, even when he knew Chiriko was right by his side, looking at him with disbelief. When he returned home, he put the hairclip on himself, feeling this act pathetic.

It was, however, a ritual to approach Meiko, a vital ritual to supersede the image of Meiko rejecting him, a process of visualising what would have happened if she accepted it.

To reinforce this visualisation, he concentrated on every shard of Meiko he could collect in his memory and infused it into himself. Looking at himself in the mirror, he repeatedly spoke of the words he wanted to hear from Meiko on that day. This meaningless ritual had turned tremendously meaningful eventually, and he became obsessed with harbouring the feeling of he himself being the sole knower of the present Meiko. Since Meiko had left the world, the Meiko he created was the closest existence of her. He was deeply convinced he was the only person in the super peace busters able to think of and visualise the most existing Meiko; hence, these thoughts made up of Meiko and her remains.

But he was completely devastated when Jinta called to grant Menma’s wish. It shattered him. It threw him into running around like a freak in the night dressed as a girl. It was only natural for him, as Chiriko stated, to turn into a social recluse or fall into total despair, but he didn’t. It soothed him. He now knew that Meiko’s existence had grown too large to be embedded in his own thoughts or feelings.

“How’s the white sundress?”

“Still here.”

“Are you still clinging to it?”

“Trash spirits would come out if I dumped it.”

If that trash spirit were Meiko, and if she had come to his house and not Jinta’s…a thought flashed through his mind.

“Oh, forget it then. Let’s leave that aside.”

Popo and I decided to leave Matsuyuki’s affairs aside for the moment.

It would be a nice pause to abstain from thinking of that appalling image of coarse thighs floating over the flying sundress, the apparent masculine features strongly remarking their presence on the thighs.

“Aren’t there any traces or hints on Menma’s wish? Something like a diary?”

Hearing Popo’s suggestion, I raised my head abruptly. Popo seemed too to have remembered what I was having in mind, and we said almost in unison, “The Exchange Diary!”

Indeed we had forgotten of it till now: in the period before summer, during those rainy days, we began to write a daily dairy.

“Let’s start writing exchange diaries!”

Anjo ran and started the idea ecstatically. She even prepared a notebook printed with an anime character I didn’t know.

“I heard that all best friends do this! Every kid in Tokyo! I saw it from the nicola magazine!”

“Too troublesome.”

All the boys felt it troublesome, save Matsuyuki who immediately replied, “I want to write! I want to write!” And Meiko said, “Well, that sounds fine.” Heck, thinking about it now, I found it too easy to know their respective reactions. We then started to exchange diaries. Anjo wrote meticulously with small font as if it was a book report for summer assignment. Because it was too sleep-inducing, I skipped what she wrote. For Popo’s diary, because of his bad handwriting and hence impossible to read, I skipped it as well. Matsuyuki’s were used as a reminder for what to be brought to school the day after, so it didn’t help me much either. The most normal diary was probably Tsurumi’s, where she even drew the animated version of heads of our class teacher and the headmaster, causing us to laugh our heads off. For Meiko’s part, what she wrote was dull stuff. To be honest, I don’t remember much. Left in my memories were only her special round characters. Yeah, nothing was quite left in my memories, as it ended quite in a rush. The deepest thing that carved into me was that—was that I was the one who ended the diary exchange.

I managed to get away with it for the first several times, but it became more and more tedious and tiring as Anjo and Tsurumi intiated their waves of reprimanding.

“Jintan, you stopped writing the exchange diary, didn’t you?”

“I have no idea. Wasn’t it Popo?”

“N-No. That isn’t me. I can swear: it isn’t me!”

Hearing my forced rebuttal, Meiko looked into me, her eyes wide. And though I know she knew it, I feigned ignorance since I did not plan to write anymore.

It happened that it was just the two of us returning home from school. Others had stuff to do or had a sick-leave. There wasn’t much to play for just two…well, maybe it was because of being alone with her that suggested some kind of uneasiness and embarrassment. So I decided to return home without doing anything else. While we were walking, vertically aligned, along the narrow passage beside the fields, she spoke from behind, “Hey, Jintan.”

“Yes.”

“You have the diary, haven’t you?”

“I don’t know. I said it might be at Popo’s…”

“I wouldn’t get mad. I’ll keep this a secret. So may you give it to me?”

I didn’t know what she meant at first.

Looking at me puzzled, Menma repeated slowly, “So may you give it to me?”

“Wuaghh! Is it really at your place? That’s terrible, Kintan! That’s absolutely insincere of you!”

Unlike those times, Popo, having grown big and strong, barked, his breathing heavy,

“It’s a sin of the past. Let it go.”

“I’ll let it go if you give me a ticket for a happy meal. One piece is now the featured item for the happy meal!”

“Okay, I know.”

“Hey! You have to wait for me, Hancock!”

Now that I think about it, why would Menma want to keep the exchange diary? Did she foresee her death? Did she want the memories of her pals to be at her side?

…of course that’s silly.

“Anyway, is the exchange diary at Menma’s place?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“So why don’t we pay Menma’s mother a visit?”

“What…”

I didn’t attend Menma’s funeral.

In fact, I couldn’t. My father persisted to bring me to Toshimaen. Whenever he had a day off, he would bring me to hospital to visit my mother. I declined to go, for I heard from school that Menma’s funeral would be held on the same day. “I want to go to the funeral! I want to go! I want to go! Please let me!” I frantically insisted. My father was first silent for a while, but then he acquiesced. He laid his hands on my head and said softly, “Jinta, you have to do your best”—that was what my mother usually said.

Allowing me to wear black short pants, my father then went to the funeral with me. What was I thinking on the way there? I was quite emotional towards Menam’s death. Yet at that time I had no deep understanding of what it meant to attend her funeral.

This understanding was slapped onto me very soon. Near the entrance of the funeral, I saw a relative lifting Menma’s mother by the shoulder, who was all in tears. She didn’t put any makeup on, and perhaps her hair was not even cared for for the least bit. At first glance, I thought she was Menma’s grandmother. Unbelievable it was to see her aging so much.

When we were noticed, quite a few adults looked at us with caution. Menma’s mother, her face still wet with tears, lifted her head up to look at us—how she looked at us was so stunning that I couldn’t forget even till now. I believe what we call devils would bear such a look. On her face was nothingness created by complete lost of strength, yet filled subsequently with a convergence of all the dark hatred found in the world.

“Why are you here?” Her voice sounded like stabbing icicles into my back

Step by step, she approached me.

The relatives quickly pulled her by the shoulders. At the same time, she spoke of devilish spells. Although I knew she must have said something, I was deaf at that time; all I knew was fear, and all I could do was stand there, frozen. My father gave a big bow to those people, grabbed me, and took me away hastily.

The sounds of the cicadas, the sobs of Menam’s mother, and the murmurs of the monk combined into a form, chasing me, yet my legs were so stiff it seemed they didn’t belong to me anymore.

No one in the super peace busters attended her funeral. I believe they were stopped by their parents like me.

This was a small town, and there were times I came across Menma’s mother on the road. In spite of this, I had never dared to look at her. Did we turn away our gaze subconsciously? Or did her lowered her head while walking since then?

“To visit her mother…uh.”

Popo’s suggestion reminded me of those past memories. I couldn’t help lowering my head. For sure it was possible to acquire the diary through her, as she wouldn’t throw away the things her daughter had left, but…

“Just leave it!”

“Eh?”

A loud voice came to my ears, and turning around, I happened to see Anjo.

“What! W-When were you here?”

“You’ve been to the washroom for too long, Anaru.”

“Because there isn’t one around!”

“Oh my, don’t tell me dug a hole at the back of the mountain for that purpose.”

“That’s impossible! I got down the mountain and did it at the public toilets on the bridge!”

Anjo was wearing her school uniform. Looking up at the clock on the wall, I found that it wasn’t even yet noon.

“Anjo, did you skip school?”

“Eh? I…I didn’t really want to go to school this morning.”

“This person here even came to invite me to go to your place to visit Menma or something.”

“Gah! Didn’t I tell you to keep it a secret! You bastard!”

“It’s better to be honest, Anjo.”

I was actually a bit excited to see her face red and puffy. We were still wary of the future, but we knew in our hearts we still care for Menma: those that care of her had gathered here.

“Look, this is what I said would happen.”

“Eh?”

Anjo suddenly responded to my unconscious murmur.

“Ah, no. Nothing.”

Hearing her say that, I immediately remembered Anjo being named by Menma as someone from a planet of naught, and laughter came from my heart.

“Hmm? What should that mean, Yadomi; it’s gross!”

Menma, you really are not isolated.

Meiko walked on her bare feet.

At night, the asphalt road still had traces of the heat of the setting sun: it was a bit warm, a bit moist, and very serene and tranquil.

Walking on this road, I stepped on it with my foot and rubbed it against my foot. I felt a slight pain from under my foot, a vague pain as if punched on the cheeks when dreaming while sleeping.

(Where had Menma gone until now?)

Because of this vague pain, Meiko started to become numb to time. She couldn’t remember anything. The only thing she knew was that a long time had passed since then.

Meiko reminisced about the instant she vanished from the world.

(Did it hurt?)

At the instant she tried to remember it, a sharp, cold pain like a piece of glass slicing through her back shot right through her.

She wanted to fulfill a wish.

That wish could only be fulfilled when everyone in the Super Peace Busters was together.

Every time she thought of something about herself, pain would crawl over her whole body, but this didn’t. This was the only fact that wouldn’t hurt when she thought of it.

She wanted everyone to know how each other felt, just like back then.

However, because of her adamant thoughts…

(Jintan…was hurt because of me.)

Jinta’s leaving scene kept running through her mind.

Jinta said that he had had a tough life after that, and that everyone had changed.

Meiko wanted to deny this fact. She wanted the Super Peace Busters, including Jinta, to return to how they were before.

She knew, however, practically nothing of after she passed away. As such, she wasn't fit to make decisions for others…she was aware of this.

“Arghahahahaha!!”

A coarse laugh interrupted Meiko’s hesitation.

(Eh…?)

“Arghahaha! Naruko, you really did go there—to Yadomi’s house. You’re fabulous!”

“Eh. Yeah. It’s so troublesome!”

Naruko and her high school friends strolled in front of the station.

If they hadn't had a special destination, McDonald's would have been a great choice. Or, they could have spent a bit more and gone to a family restaurant to kill time. However, they chose to gather in front of the station and chat there. This was to flaunt their equipment to the pedestrians.

She was wearing a newly bought lace bra, and had had her fingernails coloured aqua-blue last night.

“Ahaha…!”

When did her laughing voice sound so loud? Naruko sometimes would even think this inconceivable.

Since the autumn of grade 2 in middle school, she would wear super-short skirts. By the summer of grade 3 she even started to wear high-heeled shoes.

Naruko was thinking about Jinta. She had seen him today, but it had been a long time. The last time dated back to the opening ceremony of the school.

(How does he think of me?)

After Meiko’s incident, the Super Peace Busters drifted apart. Gradually, Jinta’s attitude changed. To sum it up in one word, it was the word ‘sullen’.

There were quite a few children around here who had to face the examination of promotion to high school. They entered the same high school, yet every time they met in the corridor, Jinta would always turn away, pretending he didn’t see her.

Naruko wanted to catch Jinta’s attention.

Would he say anything to her after she had taken off her glasses?

No, he didn’t.

Would he say anything to her after she had worn super-short skirts?

No, he didn’t.

There was only once, during the third year of middle school, that she caught Jinta saying something when they met.

“…like some straw.”

At that time, Naruko bought hair dye and tried dying her hair for the first time, but she messed up the bleaching time and made her hair bleach too much colour.

Nevertheless, it was enough to excite her.

To see Jinta leaving and shouting like this was exciting and joyful.

‘What should I do now? Time’s up.”

Naruko’s friend’s voice pulled Naruko back to reality.

“Ah. Yeah.”

“There aren't any good ones here. Let’s just play around a bit and get out of here.”

Naruko and her friends agreed to go to sing KTV with boys from other schools later. KTV partying, chatting in front of the station, or buying a one-hundred-yen snack if starving…going to Tokyo for shopping via the express at the holidays to buy exclusive things there—this was the vanity they were submerged in.

They spent their time with a serious attitude after lessons were over in their rural school.

They left their beverage cans on the bench they had sat on and left.

This was their everyday life.

“…”

Naruko imitated their behaviour.

This was difficult for Naruko, who loved to clean things up. If she were to walk forward a few steps and throw it into the trash bin beside the vending machine…she really wanted to do this, but…

“Naruko?”

“Ah, sorry. Wait for me!”

She left the can alone. She didn’t have time to care for the different thoughts in her mind. She only had to focus on what was happening before her: there was no need to care for abandoned things.

Naruko began to wonder when she had turned into such a person.

At the same moment, Menma stared at the person Naruko had now become.

(Anaru littered…)

Menma was a bit shocked, not because she wanted to reproach her for littering, but because the person Naruko once was would never have done such an act.

She did everything according to the rules and loved to clean things up. When Meiko was eating a sweet cone, she would even pick up the scraps that had fallen beside her.

(Anaru looked like she didn’t really smile…)

Her pink chin painted with lipstick was a triangle, an expression of smiling. Even her eyes were bent…but that was not the smile Meiko knew.

Having confirmed that Naruko and her friends had left, Meiko picked up the can and threw it into the trash bin. The can knocked on the bottom of the bin and made a clear crackling sound.

The leaves of the persimmon tree she was familiar with rustled in the night wind.

Meiko had gone to the family that raised her.

She had a feeling that there wasn’t an urgent need to come back here. Meiko, who had a vague memory, didn’t have a strong sense of belonging to this place. This place occurred to her as a place she had been just yesterday. This feeling scared her for no reason.

(What should I do...)

Should she enter? She was scared to enter, but she didn’t know why.

Her thighs tensed, and her thumb curled and opened unconsciously. Suddenly, a rich, nostalgic scent flew into Meiko’s nose…

“Curry!”

Meiko blurted.

It was Meiko’s favourite curry. Mashing the sweet corn grains with a mixer into a mush, and then putting a lot of other things into it makes honey-sweet curry. Her brother Satoshi liked it a lot, and her dad would also eat it with Worcestershire sauce[1]…

When she thought of this, her confused perception of time was eased, and she regained some sense of belonging.

At this moment, the doorknob Meiko was holding onto…

“Good evening…”

She pushed it a bit, creating a little gap for her to spy inside and have a look at the living room.

“!!”

Meiko’s shoulders shivered.

When Meiko once again saw Jinta, Naruko, Chiriko, and Atsumu, all she felt was pure happiness.

But when she saw her own family members in the living room…

Her dad had grown a lot of white hair. Satoshi had grown a lot in a short time, looking like a young man. And her mum…had wrinkles on the corners of her eyes.

Changes. Everyone would change. Jinta and the others changed. Nevertheless…

(Ah…ne? What the...)

Everything was different. It was not the Honma Home she had in her memory.

They didn’t talk: dad was reading the newspaper; Satoshi was playing the DS. On the table were dishes of curry surplus…Back then, mum would say in a lively voice, “The dishes have to be put to the sink!”.

But now, mum was placing a small bowl of curry into a shrine that was installed here after Meiko's death.

Then, she rang the bell and clasped her hands, maintaining an upright sitting position, her thin socks pressing softly against the skin of her feet.

“…”

Meiko stopped moving.

She didn't remember seeing this shrine before. Suddenly realising what that meant, she refrained from approaching it—she also refrained from approaching her beloved mum.

“Mum, can you stop giving the shrine a bowl of curry every time we have curry?”

(Satori…?)

Playing the DS, Satori complained, without even the slightest intention to lift his head and look at mum. “It looks very troublesome.”

“You shouldn’t say this.”

Mum wore a face Meiko had never seen.

“Because your sister is a bit muddle-headed.”

It was as if the smallest and lightest ripple induced by the wind crossed her face. She seemed to have held back her tears, yet she nevertheless seemed to be crying…

“So, your sister may not even be aware she has passed away.”

The words of Meiko’s mother gave Meiko the creeps, making her shiver.

Following her shivering, the cup beside her was swept to the floor, making a bang sound.

“Satori. What are you doing? Go pick it up.”

“Hey. It wasn’t me!”

Satori was falsely accused by her father again. However, Meiko wasn’t even feeling the urge to protect him. She just murmured absent-mindedly.

“I know it…”

She knew little about this present world, but this was home. This home wasn’t the Honma Home she once knew, and thus she was more alarmed of this unpalatable truth.

“Menma knows that she has already passed away.”

When she got outside, the warm night wind blew against her.

The fact of her passing away was perhaps painful…much more painful than having to accept the Japanese encephalitis vaccine[2].

Yet she wasn't a member who shared this memory. Her mother and other family members, on the other hand, were. They must have accepted this memory and this pain for her, bearing it for her ever since.

(Sorry…)

She uttered secretly in her heart.

Phew, so boring.”

Meiko was playing the DS console she borrowed from Jinta. The screen quality improved a lot compared to five years ago, but soon after she was captivated by its freshness, she grew tired of it.

The blazing sun still shone at the white sky outside, but there was not a single window in the living room to let fresh light hop in, rendering the atmosphere dull. It was when night came and the fluorescent lights were on that her joyful laughter would feel more lively.

She could tell Jinta didn’t go to school, and she understood why. Carelessly she once told him that perhaps her wish was for him to go to school, which burdened him greatly. She felt the same towards the affairs with Atsumu and her mother. It was her “careless existence” that injured them. She could apologise if it were Jinta, but she couldn’t do even this much to Atsumu. Why could she?

Taking a fountain pen, she flipped a page in a diary and started writing, but the words she wrote vanished slightly above the paper.

Meiko could embrace Jinta and eat ramen, but why couldn’t she write or voice her thoughts to everyone?

I really am isolated.

Jinta once told her that she wasn’t an isolated person, yet this feeling kept lingering. When she returned home where her parents and her brother live, she accidently broke a cup. This mere accident threw the whole family like a pebble into the pond, stifling it with sinister atmosphere.

There was things in this world that could never be left, and she was one of them—a person isolated.

Evil, am I?

Meiko, again, began to remember the time when she first joined the super peace busters.

For her different hair and eye colour, she was referred to as an outsider in kindergarten. She knew nothing of what the word outsider meant, and she asked her mother. Her mother answered her, with a hint of loneliness in her smile, that there was no need for her to think about it at that time. It per se was an answer, but it didn’t answer her question. Not long after, she knew outsiders meant foreigners, and was taken literally as “outside people”. According to this word, she could imagine such a scene: in the freezing winter night, she was kicked barefoot outside the door. And as if receiving someone’s goodwill, she would hold some kind of pocket that would hold rice backpackers take along, the only things are sesame sprinkled on top of the rice. Warm orange fluorescent lights would seep out from the windows; laughter would crawl out from within. But she couldn’t join their circle. The doghouse was where she could sleep in. As her house raised no dogs, she would have to borrow a dog house from their neighbour. The dog residing in was a scary dog that howled frequently at her. Could she be in good terms with the dog? Would it bite her? She would imagine herself in this state and naturally fall in tears.

Before she met Jinta and the super peace busters, she was always the outsider. But they were the turning point for her: they treated her like they would to anyone else.

She could empathise with Jinta’s feeling of resistance to go to school, for Jinta now was too an outsider in school. But she couldn’t bring Jinta back to their circle, for she herself had become the outsider in this world.

Jinta treated so kindly to her, yet she couldn’t do anything in return.

Everything would have been better if she was alone from the very beginning. She wouldn’t have been so lonely now had she not gone through a roller costar of emotions. It was because she experienced the joy in living with the super peace busters that pained her so much when she returned to loneliness. The sultry feeling doubled and even tripled

“Jintan, come back sooner.”

Ding dong.

What was that?

Wind coursed in from the open windows. Listening to the crisp bell sounds, Meiko turned around, only to see Jinta’s mother staring silently at her. It was the picture of the deceased placed on top of the shrine, looking as though she was staring at her from that small window.

Ding dong, ding dong…

“Menma.”

It was an ever-present memory.

The breeze embodied the softness of lukewarm water mixed with BATHCLIN soap as well as comfortable humidity, caressing the curtains ever so softly. Jinta’s mother was stroking Meiko, who went to visit her all by herself. Her fingers were extremely skinny and out of place; countless injection scars stirred one’s sympathy; yet Meiko felt her touch gentle and caring.

“Actually, I have something I want you to help me with, Menma.”

“Yes, what is it?”

Meiko’s vision started to blur.

Wasn’t it she herself that embraced some kind of hope?

Passing through the bridge that connected the secret base, we came to some place in the shopping district. I didn’t know why I started going back home with Anjo. Disturbing sounds of crackling high-heeled shoes incessantly hit me from behind. Her height was similar to mine, yet her pace was totally different.

Women are such troublemakers.

I could do nothing but to decrease my pace as much as I could. Under the setting sun, Anjo’s shadow showed the contours of the two sides of her bundled hair swaying. This shadow seemed to want to tell me something.

Hell, women are such a trouble.

Suddenly, the shadow danced to a completely new beat.

“Hey! I-I…”

“Eh?”

I followed Anjo’s gaze, happening to see a washing shop. An old lady walked out from the shop, holding a basket full of clothes. Though I say her an old lady, she looked pretty delicate. Her back was straight, and she wearing an elegant long dress that went over her knees. If you look at her by her contours, she was no old lady but a young woman. If you ask why she would look like an old lady, it was because of her complete and not dyed white hair.

“!!”

She was Menma’s mother. Why, why in this moment I had to be with Anjo? Although I would imagine she would avert her eyes the way she normally did when we come cross each other, the little difference today created a subtle effect…

“Jinta, and Naruko?”

Seeing Menma’s mother straightforwardly approaching me, I got tensed up all of a sudden, cold sweat instantly pouring throughout my body.

“Ah, h-how are you?” My voice changed by my over-nervousness. Menma’s mother, despite noticing my nervousness, managed a smile easily.

“Please take a seat, although it’s a bit messy around.”

How did it end up like this?

We were invited passionately by Menma’s mother to go to her house and have tea.

“Menma must be overjoyed, for you two always come by.”

Liar.

We had always been frightened by Menma’s father. Even when we politely talked with him, he would still put out a dull face and continue reading his newspapers, telling us to go away to play or something. So, in total we had only came twice…wait, probably thrice. But why did Menma’s mother had to lie?

“Could you two greet Meiko?”

With that said, Menma’s mother threw a glance at a corner of the room. A shrine was placed there, along with Menma’s photo of her big smile. It wasn’t the Menma before me now that had grown slightly, but the one completely consistent with my memory. For there were no discrepancy, it looked more like a smile by another girl, placed there alone.

“…”

Feeling a pain of something grasping my heart, I couldn’t help but avert my eyes. I believe Anjo experienced a similar thing. The strong emotion wave from our backs hit us through air. It seemed I had become sort of companions with Anjo.

There was no humbleness of remembering the deceased embodied in the action of closing the hands and ringing the bell. It was all simple and habitual. Menma’s mother brought them out, the only sense in her being the constant supervision over us.

“Um, I actually have something to give you two,” she said, then smiling, but her smile was painted apparently with colours of declaring war with us.

“Please hold on for a moment.”

The room she brought us to was an empty orange room. It wasn’t orange because of its wallpaper, nor was it of any furniture, for there was none, not even curtains on the windows; it was because of the setting sun’s glow that shone in every corner of the room.

Affected by these tones, sweat oozed throughout my body—cold sweat, maybe.

This was Menma’s room. I wouldn’t believe this was her room if no one had told me.

Scarcely had I been here that I could have any strong memories of this place, yet I remembered there were all kinds of toys and plushies originally placed in this room.

But in this striking scene, I could not bring myself to remember. My body was hot, yet no sweat really came out.

Anjo and I looked at each other, knowing nothing to do. We only prayed for time to pass faster.

Menma’s mother, having rummaged through the wardrobe for a while, said, “Everything is inside here.”

With that said, she placed a small cardboard box and placed it in the centre of the room.

“,,,”

Probably this was what you call being struck speechless.

In that cardboard box were several photo albums, Menma’s drawings, and some miscellaneous stuff like her reading reflections.

Everything, as I quote from Menma’s mother, that showed Menma’s evidence in this world was stuffed in this small cardboard box.

“Her father said we shouldn’t let her stuff to stick around, “ Menma’s mother continued with her calm smile, “I want to keep this, but it also belongs to you, so I guess it’s better to give it to you.”

Menma’s mother took something out from the box.

Should I call it coincidence? What she took was what we were looking for—our exchange diary.

Anjo and I returned straight to the secret base and reported everything to Popo.

Popo said we had to get everyone to agree before we could start reading, so he sent emails to the others.

“They probably won’t come anyway. We’ll read first.”

“No way. It’s bad luck!”

“How’s this bad luck? Besides…”

Matsuyuki wouldn’t even come. That was what I thought, but…

“

“Yo, thanks for the effort.”

He came.

Matsuyuki and Tsurumi had just arrived to the station, wearing the uniform of the prestigious high school I hate.

“I heard you guys found the exchange diary.”

Despite this being his first appearance after his embarrassing incident, he threw condescending glances at us. I thought of giving him a good luck by pretending to hold on to my laughter, but I let it go.

“Everyone’s here now! Let’s start reading the exchange diary.”

Popo flipped the diary with his big fingers.

Nervousness coursed through the secret base, but unable to read the air, Popo continued his own business.

On the first page of the diary were crowded scribbles. Popo commenced with a joyful tone, “Oh! Anaru’s the first one hitting the bat!”

“Don’t put it in such a weird way!”

“What is this? I don’t get you. Even if there are painful things in my life, I still want to celebrate on my birthday, because…”

“!!”

Fluttered, Anjo quickly flipped to the next page.

“What do you mean?”

“Th-There’s nothing there! Now read Menma’s!”

Anjo fingered the diary in a flurry. Not long, Menma’s iconic round letters appeared.

They were what Menma wrote.

“Okay…”

Everyone was drawn in by Menma’s letters before they had even read what was on it, for the illusion that Menma had leaped through time and space was so strong in those letters.

Even I who had recently been used to Menma’s presence was thrown off.

“Yes! It was fun today playing in the secret base.”

Anjo read aloud the lines Menma wrote.

“We went digging taros today. It was interesting.”

“What she wrote was not entirely stupid, but it wasn’t anything worth reading.”

Anjo continued reading the lines Menma wrote on the diary in the following days, but…

“Everything is fun or interesting as long as those lines go.”

“She isn’t really good at writing.”

The difference of we looked at the diary now compared to the past ripped us of our strength. I bet we treated this diary routine really serious back then.

“Okay, this is a bit different! When I played with everybody today, I fell down. It hurt.”

“It’s different here as well? Let’s go to hospital today to visit Jintan’s mother…”

“Mm!”

Jintan’s…mother?

“Visiting her, uh?”

“Yeah, we used to meet together for the visit.”

We did visit my mum when her condition wasn’t that bad.

I don’t even have to mention how worried I was.

But I had no particular feeling towards death in those days. Hospital was only a place to go, an extra spot to play apart from the nearby playing ground. And there was a desolate pig farm close to the hospital that we could go to. We would cry to those pigs, “So big!” “It stinks!” “Wugh…” and the like. It was a good time for me.

My mother always greeted us smiling. My mother’s condition worsened in only two months, so we had no idea why she had to stay put in the hospital.

“Um, when can Jintan’s mother get out of the hospital?”

On the road back home, Anjo raised this question. It was responded swiftly by Menma’s suggestion, “Why don’t we write letters to the gods? We can ask them to make Jintan’s mother better!”

“Writing letters to gods?”

It was a weird suggestion, but we agreed. When we were small, we just attribute these unexplainable and faraway matters to the territory of gods.

“But how do we send them?”

While everyone was paining their heads, Popo stood up and said, “Jintan, use that!”

He pointed to a poster on an old display board for the annual dragon fireworks ceremony in this town. These fireworks weren’t the flowery beautiful types but the old traditional types that fire out a massive amount of paper-made snowflakes.

“Hm! Okay, I remember.”

On a whim, I snatched the diary from Popo and flipped through it.

“Jintan?”

“Everyone decided to make fireworks. It’ll be difficult, but I’ll work hard.”

“Oh that!”

“I can remember too. We thought of writing letters to gods and sending them by throwing them into fireworks directed to the gods!”

Upon hearing Tsurumi’s words, Popo jumped up.

“Oh! Wonderful! Hey, Jintan! I think this is it! This is Menma’s wish!”

“…”

“Right! We thought of doing that, but we couldn’t make it. Yadomi…”

They were all made for my mother.

Looking at the line ‘It’ll be difficult, but I’ll work hard’, I couldn’t help stroking the paper, as if I could feel her warm prayers through my fingers.

If this was what she wished—no, even if this wasn’t. Menma, as well as everyone, embraced such feelings for my mother.

“You guys are sure getting worked up. But sorry for raining the parade, this won’t work.”

I lifted my head abruptly to Matsuyuki’s cold remark.

Matsuyuki, who had been playing around with his smartphone, showed me the phone with a website on it. On it was information on using fireworks and the like.

“Here. Read it. Fireworks belong the category of explosives and can only be used by those over eighteen with a national license.”

“What, really?”

“Of course. We might get by if we’re going to have toy fireworks, but even those need licenses.”

Dejected, Popo threw himself on the floor.

“It makes sense though. You would need a license to use fireworks…”

“Still…”

“What’s up on your mind, Yadomi?”

“If this is really Menma’s wish, I contend to make it come true.”

I said them on a whim.

I could feel eyes landing on me, my cheeks heating up.

“Um…no…how do I put it. I know it’s technically impossible, but I…”

When I tried to hide my embarrassment in a panic, Popo came in, his head straight and forward, “So that’s what it means!”

“What do you mean? You’re not making sense.”

“I found this half a year ago while cleaning things up.”

Popo rummaged through some pile in the room and lifted a ruffled piece of rough paper.

“Here, this is it!”

“The instructions on how to make a rocket firework?”

We rolled out the paper. On it were badly-written, crowded characters and illustrations on the rocket firework. Matsuyuki said with a frown, “Are you serious?”

Tsurumi readjusted her glasses and perused it.

“Gather a large amount of fireworks, extract the explosive contents and then converge them back together...”

“Stuffing them into the toilet paper roll → impossible because it will burn…okay, this person is being captain obvious.”

“Nasty. Ideas kids come up with are nasty.”

While we entertained ourselves with the ridiculous ideas on the paper, Matsuyuki murmured, “Well, we sure thought that would work before.”

“Yeah. I thought that would let those fireworks fly.”

Drawn on the paper was a crooked rocket.

It looked as huge as a real one, though its shape not even close to one.

Still, it appeared more triumphant than the fireworks used in the festival. It looked it was capable of shooting through the clouds into the sky, to where the gods resided…well, at least that was what we had once believed.

“Highschoolers sounded like omnipotent people to us back then.”

“Yeah, it sounded as if they were capable of almost everything.”

We felt beaten by our childhood innocent hopes; everyone remained silent, staring at the illustration on the paper.

Popo was the one who broke silence.

“Let’s do this!”

“Eh?”

“I know an old man from my workplace who lets off fireworks in the festival. I can ask him!”

“Really?”

Popo’s suggestion revitalised the atmosphere.

“Wait. Yadomi, I think it’s better if you first ask Menma about this.”

Matsuyuki’s comment made the atmosphere sultry again.

“Asking Menam about this?”

“Yeah. Even if we were able to have a professional to help us and let out real fireworks, it would only be a waste of energy if this wasn’t that Menma’s wish you’re talking about.”

Matsuyuki showed a malicious smile.

I didn’t know how to answer him. I didn’t want myself or him to get hurt if I say something wrong.

But now that I had read the words written by Menma when she was small and understood her feelings, I decided not to think too much.

“Let’s go to Menma’s place next time, then.”

“Geh!”

“Menma have long wanted to see everyone. She’s lonely.”

“…”

No one made an immediate answer.

After a while, Popo cheerfully said “You’re right!” Although everyone had reached a consensus on ‘the past Menma’, no one could agree on a way to treat ‘the present Menma’.

“I don’t mind going with you to Yadomi’s place.”

Hearing Chiriko’s offer, Matsuyuki couldn’t help looking down. They were walking along the small slope from the secret base. Unlike the summer, the buzzing sounds of early autumn bugs would cover the sounds of the flowing river.

“It’s fine to go and play at a friend’s house even if the guardian isn’t around.”

“By friend you mean Yadomi?”

Matsuyuki was poked at a weak spot, and though he wanted to rebuke, his disarrayed thoughts gave him no strength to do so.

Matsuyuki just remained silent, and Chiriko pursued no further.

The melancholic woods in the night were filled with various memories. The infinity sign drawn in the night sky during the BBQ, for one, had been deeply engraved in Matsuyuki’s heart.

It was the sign of the super peace busters, the proof that they were forever friends.

Matsuyuki was no longer doubtful of Meiko’s presence.

He could feel the infinity sign existing in the long line of the white dress. One day he would be led, by his strong stubbornness, to the ‘real Menma’.

He was sure this would happen.

That was why he was afraid of going to Jinta’s house.

If he came too close to Meiko, probably the next one to follow Meiko’s disappearance was himself—his intuitions told him.

“Fu…”

Right after arriving home, Naruko flew herself below her blankets.

She regretted she had left the exchange diary at the secret base, but she couldn’t propose to them that she would take care of the diary.

Originally, she had completely forgotten what she had written on that diary, but when she saw a glimpse of that page, all of her memories were brought back from the grave.

“Even if there are painful things in my life, I still want to celebrate on my birthday.”

…because birthday cakes are delicious.

They always give me warmth and satisfaction.

The inventor of cakes must have been a great person.

He must have been a nice person.

It was a weird entry for a diary, but it was something that demanded a lot of her determination to write. It was a love letter that hid strong will.

Reading those lines vertically—it was something she learnt from a shoujo manga.

If you pick up the first letter from each line in that diary entry, you would end up with “I love Jintan.”

She wrote it, thinking that it would be great if Jintan would notice it, but it ended up being completely ignored.

She first thought no one in the secret base had discovered, but Chiriko’s wicked smile at her gave her an impression she had known.

I really want to teach my childhood self a lesson. How could I have fallen in love with that social recluse?

Whenever Naruko thought of Jinta, she would be yapping social recluse again and again as if it was a spell.

If she didn’t do this, however, her past feelings would come back to her—she feared this.

Just why did this happen?!

The stuff she had used to attract Jinta’s attention, including dying her hair, painting her fingernails, had somehow become tools to alienise herself from him.

Yadomi might hate me, because I don’t even like how I am now. So it might have been all the better to stay the same.

Her phone below her bed was ringing.

On the screen was her high school friends. She didn’t really enjoy their constant messages, but she still picked up the phone so she wouldn’t think too much about Jinta.

“Hey, what’s up?”

Karaoke music and boisterous voices came from the other end of the phone. Today was a party, but Naruko didn’t feel like joining.

“Hey, Hiroshi is already here waiting. You can come anytime now.”

“Eh? I told you I’m not coming.”

At this moment, a coarse “Drag her in!” line came from some rude man afar. It certainly was scary.

Probably to suppress what was said, her friend lowered her voice.

“Say, Naruko, aren’t you being a bit left out recently?”

“Eh…”

“If you overdo it, you’d get hated. You have to show up from time to time. I say you should come.”

“…”

Her friend’s voice penetrated her body.

After ending the call, Naruko was still at a loss. When she was talking with Jinta and other members at the secret base, she didn’t need to care how others would think of her or what would happen. She could speak her heart.

But this was impossible with her new friends.

She could never face them with her real self, for the self she showed was forged difficultly.

Naruko heaved a sigh and opened the wardrobe. Although it was past eight, she still had to show up at the party.

It was all to make herself a person Yadomi would definitely hate.