As she said it, she realized how much she’d been hoping to tell someone what had happened. When she got caught up in Miori Sanada’s crush on Chuta Ikeda.

The incident with Chuta at the bicycle parking area.

And the bullying in school that all started because of it.

As she told them her story, Kokoro felt the sweat trickle down from her armpits, and her ears burn.

She didn’t really know these two girls, didn’t even know where they lived, and it surprised her that she wanted to open up to them like this.

‘Those guys came to my house. I was doing homework, waiting for my mum to come back …’

THE DOORBELL RANG.

Who could it be this late? Probably a delivery. ‘Coming,’ Kokoro called.

‘Kokoro Anzai!’ a voice bellowed.

It wasn’t Miori’s voice.

It was a girl’s voice Kokoro didn’t recognize. She knew her face, and that she was a class president, but that was it. The girl was a friend of Miori’s.

She suddenly found it odd that they knew she was at home. A chill rose upwards from her ankles. The front door was locked, as her mother always insisted when she was alone, and beyond it she sensed the presence not of one or two girls, but of a crowd.

Someone began pounding on the door.

‘Come out! We know you’re in there.’

‘Go around the back. We can see her through the window.’

Kokoro’s flesh began to crawl.

‘Let’s teach her a lesson,’ someone said.

Teach her a lesson. Kokoro didn’t really know what it meant. But when they went into junior high, Kokoro and a friend had worried about it, and talked about what they should do to avoid getting taught a lesson by the older kids.

Lesson – like in school? Or more like punishment? The two ideas spun around in her head, painfully, absurdly – and she started trembling. And these weren’t even older kids, but girls the same age as her.

Girls no different from her.

She raced back to the living room. She had to close the curtains in all the rooms as fast as she could. She had no clue if she’d do it in time. It was still light enough outside for her to see several silhouettes. And the shadows of their bikes.

Tojo-san. It must be her.

One awful scenario after another bubbled up in her mind.

She makes me totally sick. She’s such an emo, let’s teach her a lesson.

Moé-chan, you live near her, don’t you? Show us where she lives.