‘Yada yada?’ Kokoro said in surprise, and Tojo-san’s eyes sparkled mischievously.

‘I couldn’t care less,’ she explained. Compared to the last time they’d caught up with each other, Kokoro found her way of speaking now more direct and cool.

‘Of course I look down on them. All those girls think about is love and what’s right in front of their eyes. They might be strong personalities in our class, but their marks are lousy. Ten years from now, who’s going to end up on top, I was thinking.’

Tojo-san sounded tough, even caustic. Kokoro’s eyes widened. She’d had no idea that Tojo-san had the same negative view of Miori Sanada as she had.

‘Wow …’

‘What?’

‘Moé-chan, I’ve never heard you speak like that before.’

‘Well, it’s true!’ Tojo-san sighed, and leaned back into the sofa. ‘Have I put you off?’ she asked, a look of worry in her eyes, and Kokoro shook her head.

‘Not at all. I’ve been thinking the exact same thing. I could never talk to them either.’

‘And the way Mr Ida said, You’re pretty mature, as if he’s analysing everything, makes me sick. He’s wrong anyway – it’s not that I’m so mature, those girls are just childish. That’s why I was thinking that if you ever came back into school, Miori and her group would have tried to be friends with you.’

‘No way! Why do you think that? After they did those hideous things to me.’

‘Doesn’t matter. Right now the person they want to cast out is me,’ Tojo-san declared. ‘Since they’ve now done that, if you came back you might be friends with me again. So they’d probably get all chummy with you to freeze me out even more.’

‘No way …’ Kokoro was speechless.

She remembered the note inside her slipper cubbyhole at school. Wasn’t that a sign Miori Sanada was trying to get back in with Kokoro? Was it a way of ensuring Kokoro and Tojo-san would not be friends again?

She’d been in agony all those months, certain she was going to be killed – and those same kids would forgive her just for that?

She was stunned.

‘Forgive’ – what is that, anyway?

I did nothing wrong, and it’s me who’s not going to forgive. But there I was unconsciously expecting to be forgiven by them, which is so stupid.

Tojo-san looked at Kokoro. ‘It’s only school, after all.’

‘Only school?’

‘Yes.’

The phrase whirled in her head. She’d never, ever thought of it that way.

School was everything to her, and both going and not going had been excruciating. She couldn’t consider it only school.