Kokoro felt she had to ask something, so she said, ‘What’s he like?’ to which Aki simply replied, ‘He’s older. Twenty-three. He’s going to take me out on his motorcycle next time.’

‘How did you meet?’

‘Well, it’s kind of a long story.’

She deflected the question, probably intentionally.

Aki didn’t keep her story for the girls only, but hinted at it with the boys as well.

‘That’s weird,’ Masamune said once, when Aki wasn’t there. ‘A girl who’s a senior in junior high and a twenty-three-year-old man? What the hell’s that guy thinking?’

‘I know,’ Subaru said, ‘but my brother’s friend Mitsuo, who’s nineteen, has a girlfriend who’s in second year in junior high.’

Masamune clammed up in a huff.

Unlike Aki, Subaru didn’t say things because he enjoyed making them feel uncomfortable, and Kokoro felt just as awkward as he did.

After Subaru had bleached his hair, there was a distinct distance between him and Masamune that hadn’t been there before.

Subaru didn’t come over to the castle as often as before, and even when he did, he’d often just sit by himself on the sofa in the Game Room and listen to music on his earphones.

‘What are you listening to?’ Kokoro asked him once.

‘When I’m at home, most of the time I listen to the radio,’ he said, ‘but I can’t get any reception here.’

That’s how Kokoro found out there was no radio signal at the castle. Come to think of it, except when they used the TV for video games, they couldn’t watch TV either.

‘This player was broken once, and I went to Akihabara to see if I could get it fixed, but they told me it’d be better to just get it replaced. I didn’t know what to do, so I searched the back alleys and found a shop that could fix it for me.’

The music player his father had given him was clearly a prized possession. ‘I see,’ Kokoro nodded, and Masamune looked up from his video game and murmured, ‘So you’ve been to Akihabara?’

Kokoro was curious.

She had no idea where Subaru and Masamune lived. But since Subaru had gone to Akihabara, it must mean he lived in Tokyo. So he must live close enough to go there alone? Or did someone else take him?

Other than Rion talking about Hawaii, this was the first time any place names had come up in their conversations. Kokoro prepared herself for more details about where each of them lived, but Subaru just nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said.

An unnatural silence descended and their chat died away.

IT WASN’T JUST SUBARU WHO had begun to mention things outside the castle. Aki did too, and often.