‘And I was … wondering if maybe that game console you had before was something that hasn’t gone on sale yet?’

‘Eh? Oh … that one.’

Masamune held Kokoro’s eye for a second.

‘You must mean the one he asked me to be a tester for.’

‘What do you mean by tester?’ Kokoro asked.

‘It’s like a test drive. He gave me a new console to play the game on, even though it’s still being developed. He wanted to see what kids think of it, as well as adults, whether we notice any glitches or anything.’

‘Wow – you’re so lucky!’ she couldn’t help saying. Masamune was a junior high student like her, yet he had adult acquaintances. It made him seem suddenly more sophisticated.

‘That’s wicked,’ Subaru said. ‘When Masamune told me, I was stunned.’

‘So, like, I think going to school is pretty pointless. I mean, I’m going to work in gaming myself someday, so I’m not using the ordinary path. My friend said he values my opinion, and even invited me to work for his company in the future.’

‘Invited you …?’

In the future. That left Kokoro even more dumbfounded.

Masamune was on a roll. ‘This one I’ve brought today is version two. I have a version three, of course, back home. I was asked to be a tester for version four, but it doesn’t work with this old TV. The terminal’s different.’

Kokoro didn’t understand the technical side of it, but marvelled all the same.

Masamune seemed quite satisfied with this over-reaction. ‘The four should blow you away,’ he laughed. ‘So you play games, even though you’re a girl?’

‘Yeah,’ Kokoro said, ‘loads of girls do.’

A couple of her friends from elementary school came to mind.

‘Really?’ Masamune said.

Yeah, but wow, Kokoro thought. The whole thing was so astonishing she was speechless. Parents telling their child there’s no need to go to school? Or rather, he didn’t have to go, and that if he couldn’t get on at school it was the teachers’ fault. Her parents would never think that way.

I just asked because I figured if you were going to school, we wouldn’t have much in common.

He was telling her it’s OK not to go to school. A sort of roundabout, impolite way of saying it, sure, but this was the first time anyone was positive about her not going to school.

‘Is it the same for you, Subaru-kun? The same as Masamune-kun?’

She hadn’t meant to ask, but she did anyway. ‘Yeah, something like that,’ Subaru said, nodding. He didn’t go any deeper, but his troubled expression told her he’d prefer her not to probe.

She was dying to hear more about these two. And about the other kids, who hadn’t come over yet today, and what they were dealing with.

Kokoro realized she’d misunderstood.