The opening ceremony’s one thing, but I thought Coming-of-Age Day would be the same for everyone.

‘So back in Aki’s time they hadn’t yet linked holidays with weekends? I’d heard that that’s how they used to do it.’

‘Is that really what happened? They moved the holidays?’

‘Yeah. It’s the Happy Monday System …’

‘Happy Monday?!’ Aki exclaimed, then burst out laughing. ‘What a silly name. Kokoro, are you playing games with me?’

‘No, I promise I’m not! I didn’t make it up. It really exists!’

Kokoro wasn’t used to being laughed at, and rose to defend herself. But at the same time she thought, Good – Aki’s quickly getting back to her feisty old self again.

‘One more thing – back in your day, Aki and Subaru, you went to school on Saturdays, didn’t you?’ Fuka said.

Kokoro was startled. The system of two days off per week.

Until third grade in elementary school, Kokoro’s school had every second Saturday off. And she’d really enjoyed having an extra day off every other week.

Once Aki had mentioned how she and her boyfriend had been stopped by a truancy officer while they were out in town. Kokoro had thought it was because they looked as if they might have been about to cause trouble, but the real reason was that in Aki’s time they still had lessons every Saturday, and she should have been at school.

When it came to this, Aki and Subaru’s reactions were different.

‘What? Saturday is going to be a day off?’

‘Yes,’ Aki said, ‘that’s what they said – one Saturday a month would be off, but I haven’t been to school much so I wasn’t really thinking about it.’ She carried on thinking aloud. ‘So in the period you’re in, Kokoro, you never go to school on Saturdays? Wow – so we really are living in different times.’

‘Yeah,’ Kokoro nodded, and suddenly had a new thought. ‘For you people, are there still No. 2 and No. 4 junior highs in Minami Tokyo City?’

‘What do you mean?’

Fuka answered, ‘They aren’t there any more, because the number of children in the area has dropped.’

When Kokoro had made the visit to the alternative School, the teacher in charge there had said the same thing.

She’d said that after the cosy, relaxed atmosphere of elementary school, there were plenty of kids who had trouble fitting in when they started junior high. Especially with No. 5 Junior High, since it had grown so huge due to the reorganization and merging of schools.

Back when Aki had mentioned possibly repeating a year, Kokoro had asked if she planned to move to another nearby school. And Aki had said, You mean, like No. 4 Junior High? At the time it had struck Kokoro as odd, since there wasn’t a No. 4 school any more.