Kokoro gulped down her tea, its sweet-sour liquid warming the pit of her stomach so deliciously.

‘It’s a total pain,’ Fuka said.

‘It’s like they think any girl will do. Like they’re making fun of us.’

Then Fuka said, ‘He had a chat with me. Kokoro-chan, he came to ask whether he should check if you’re all right after you didn’t come to the castle for a while. He wondered if he went through your mirror in the foyer, he could get to your house. You can’t just turn up in her room, I said, and also, it’s against the rules. And after that, he just switched to me.’

‘Fuka really kicked off at him,’ Aki said.

The thought of Ureshino passing through the mirror and invading her bedroom gave Kokoro the creeps, but she never imagined that Fuka would stand up for her like that.

‘Thank you,’ Kokoro said.

She tried to be sincere about it, and Fuka replied uncomfortably, ‘No problem.

‘Anyhow,’ she went on, ‘you can’t go through someone else’s mirror. I tried to stop him, but Ureshino held his hand out to try it—’

‘What?’

‘But it wouldn’t go through. He said it felt like a normal mirror, just a hard glass surface.’

Kokoro had thought how awful it would be if one of them went through someone else’s mirror by mistake, but now she knew she needn’t worry. She breathed out, greatly relieved, and Aki chuckled.

‘Fuka went a little too far when she spoke to Ureshino. She got all emotional and told him he’s mad to think love is everything. You can live without it, she said, so stop behaving like a sulky child. But those words stuck in that guy’s weird antenna.’

‘Antenna?’

‘He said, Fuka, when you say you can live without love it makes me think you’ve never been in love? That’s so adorable!’

‘You are joking, aren’t you?’

Aki’s imitation of Ureshino’s way of talking was spot on. Kokoro was beyond surprised – shocked, even. She couldn’t work out at all what qualities Ureshino was looking for.

‘He thought that you two, Aki-chan and Kokoro-chan, were out of his league, but me, he could win over. Ureshino – he just makes fools of us.’ Fuka said this to herself, and sighed deeply.

Kokoro felt secretly elated though, because Fuka had called her Kokoro-chan for the first time. So she doesn’t dislike me after all, she thought, and she felt her legs about to buckle.

‘I know I’ve already said this, but – thank you,’ Kokoro said.

‘What?’

The two girls turned in unison towards her.

‘Because I’m – no good when it comes to dating and stuff. I had an – awful experience.’