That makes things easier, he told himself, but it’s dull, too.

The Walkman he’d been using clicked off. The sixty-minute A-side of the tape had finished. Subaru put his pencil down on the table and flicked the tape over to its B-side. He usually preferred the radio, but it was harder to work to.

The thing his father had given him which he most appreciated was his name – Subaru, which meant the constellation of stars called the Pleiades.

Kokoro told him the association with the stars gave his name a fantastical feel, but most people told him it reminded them of the pop song sung by Tanimura. But that was fine, he thought, since the song itself was inspired by the constellation, also known as the Seven Sisters.

The second thing he liked that his father had given him was the Walkman. A new model had become available that year, but his father had given him the old model. Subaru had thought it was cool to listen to music while walking around the castle, but the others hadn’t really noticed.

Subaru much preferred thinking about these new ways of listening to music than about schoolwork. His father said he’d pay whatever fees were needed, so he thought he’d take whatever exams necessary to get into high school, as long as he could study something he actually enjoyed.

He wondered what everyone else was going to do.

He wanted to talk it over with them, but it felt against the rules to do so in the castle.

‘Well, I’m off to help out with the Ladies’ Group,’ his grandmother announced.

‘OK.’

After she left, the mirror started glowing.

The other kids all have mirrors in their own bedrooms, he thought, but I have a grandma’s mirror. He rested a palm on the old-fashioned mirror, draped with a purple cloth.

I’ll go to the castle.

Everyone will be there.

In Subaru’s world there was no Free School, no Ms Kitajima.

They all seem pretty happy, he thought, with their own bedrooms, their own parents at home.

They have people who really care about them.

Subaru didn’t feel angry or jealous, or like making fun of them. He simply made the observation. They don’t know how good they have it.

And here I am, not really caring what happens to me.

Today I’ll probably stop by the castle, but tomorrow I should hang out with my brother’s friends, he thought. He didn’t care one way or the other, but his brother had told him one of the guys wouldn’t give him back his manga, so he was going to knock him around a bit to show him he shouldn’t mess with him. So you come with me, his brother had said.

Whatever.

I mean, in ten years or so the world might end anyway.