‘Really.’ Masamune nodded, but he kept his gaze down even more than usual.

Kokoro could not read how he was feeling.

The whole thing must have turned him off.

Dyeing your hair and getting a piercing clearly wasn’t something people did in Masamune’s world. But he seemed determined to pretend to be calm about it. Kokoro felt the same, and she was sure the others did too.

‘Really now,’ a voice said. Kokoro turned and saw it was Aki.

There was an awkwardness in the air; Aki was the only one who confronted Subaru over what he’d done.

‘But won’t the teachers tell you off? They always get so stressed at the end of the semester, yelling at us not to come back from summer holiday with our hair dyed. Aren’t you afraid they’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks?’

‘Sure, but I won’t let it bother me.’

‘Lucky you. You know, maybe I should try that. With my hair.’

‘Wicked. You’d look so great, Aki-chan.’

‘Maybe I’ll get Fuka and Kokoro to do it too. But – there’s somebody who’d get all upset if I make Fuka do it.’

Aki looked straight over at Ureshino and chuckled. Ureshino blinked his little eyes and stared at her in surprise. Fuka simply ignored it all.

Beneath the bleached hair, Subaru’s cheeks looked transparent; all his facial features seemed to have altered. He was the same Subaru, and it surprised Kokoro that something as minor as this could make her so unsettled. Watching how Aki calmly talked with him, she sensed something she hadn’t felt before. Something that made it harder to approach him.

My brother and his girlfriend, Subaru had said.

Kokoro knew they were different from her, the sort of people she would not usually seek out. The kind of brash kids who dropped out of school and casually hung around instead at video arcades and shopping malls.

Just then, a loud voice: ‘Hey, listen!’

It was Ureshino.

‘I’ve got something to say.’

‘What is it?’ Aki asked teasingly.

His face beetroot red, Ureshino scowled at her.

‘Starting next semester, I’m going back to school.’

Aki’s eyes widened. Ureshino could not look any more serious, and his face had now turned an even darker crimson.

‘I was worried about telling you, that’s why I waited until now,’ he said. ‘None of you people are going to school. You can’t, right?’

Kind of late in the day to bring that up, isn’t it? Kokoro thought. Wasn’t that pretty obvious?

But then she thought of something. Whenever Masamune and Subaru discussed how it wasn’t worth going to school, and when Aki joined in and it all got a bit uncomfortable – it was usually in the morning, when Ureshino wasn’t there. She hadn’t really ever talked about school with him.