‘Are you kidding me? The sequel is fantastic!’

Fuka and Aki were seated side by side on the sofa.

Neither of them noticed Kokoro, standing at the door. She didn’t know what they were talking about, but could see some flower-shaped cookies spread out on a tissue in front of them.

The kind that Kokoro loved – marigold-shaped cookies with chocolate cream in the centre. The moment she spotted the pile, she was dying to have one.

But she couldn’t tell them that.

She turned around before they noticed she was there, and hurried off to her own room. Hoping against hope that the two girls hadn’t seen her.

When had the two of them become so friendly? Talking about things she didn’t understand, chatting and having a good time. A painful, weary feeling came over her.

She focused on distancing herself from them, walking quickly down the hallway. When she got to the foyer, her mirror was shining. A rainbow-coloured light leading to her home, where her parents were, and her real bedroom. Hoping for some respite, she gently touched the surface of the mirror.

This was the first time she had run back home from the castle.

She’d done her best, in the hope of being granted a wish, but maybe she’d reached her limit. Maybe I’m just not cut out for it, she thought.

KOKORO’S WISH.

To erase Miori Sanada.

MIORI SANADA HAD NEVER SPOKEN to her, not even once.

Her first impression was that Miori was an active, strong-willed girl, and when Miori announced she was running for class president, Kokoro said to herself, ‘So I was right. She’s that type of girl.’

It seemed pre-determined that Miori would be on the volleyball team, and Kokoro overheard her friends discussing it. Her choice, without any hesitation, of a sports team as her after-school club, must mean she was athletic. Since elementary school, it was always the sporty students who were class president, not the ones with the best grades.

These were the things going through her mind in April, at the beginning of the new school year. She and Miori were in the same class, and after they’d all introduced themselves, Kokoro hadn’t yet put all the names and faces together.

They were in Yukishina No. 5 Junior High School because they lived in the same school district, but children joined from six different elementary schools. It was a massive junior high. Even children from a neighbouring district were given special permission to attend, and Kokoro found very few familiar faces in her new class. The class was a hodgepodge of children from all over.

There were only three boys and two girls from her elementary school.

Miori, who was from a relatively large elementary school, had plenty of friends from the start. She was also at after-school juku, and seemed to have made friends with other kids there who were from different elementary schools.