Aki dressed differently now. After summer she often arrived in tiny hot pants, in white or a dazzling neon. Even Kokoro was a bit uncomfortable at the display of her long slim legs.

‘Last Saturday,’ Aki announced, ‘my boyfriend and I were almost picked up for hanging around on the street. Christ, I freaked out. The guy caught up with us and my boyfriend told him, Oh, she’s seventeen. She’s already graduated from junior high.

‘So what do you think?’ she asked Fuka and Kokoro. ‘Could I pass for seventeen? Maybe a bit too easily?’

With her dyed hair and glitzy clothes, Aki did indeed look more grown-up, a fact that Kokoro found daunting.

‘Sorry,’ Aki said. ‘You girls are quite sensible, so you probably find all this boring.’

‘No, I wouldn’t say that.’

The word ‘sensible’ made it sound like she was making fun of them, and neither Kokoro nor Fuka knew how to respond. It wasn’t that Kokoro felt jealous, but the whole thing left her uneasy.

So what sort of relationship did Aki and this man have now? The fact that Aki had a life in the world outside weighed on her, and made her anxious.

EVERYONE’S CIRCUMSTANCES WERE DIFFERENT.

She’d thought this before, but after hearing Ureshino’s story, it hit home even more clearly.

And she started to wonder what Rion, this ordinary boy who was studying in Hawaii, thought about the rest of them.

‘Rion-kun, what do your parents do?’ Kokoro ventured one day.

‘Hm?’

‘I was thinking, since they had the idea of sending you to Hawaii, maybe they worked in something related to that.’

‘Oh,’ Rion nodded. He took a breath and said, ‘Well, my dad works for a large company, and my mother doesn’t work. I heard she used to work in the same company as my dad, but she gave it up when I was born.’

‘Oh.’

‘What about your family, Kokoro?’

‘Both my dad and mum work.’

‘Really?’

‘Do you have any brothers or sisters? I’m an only child.’

‘I have one older sister.’

‘Is she in Hawaii too?’

For some reason, Rion’s face looked a bit troubled. ‘Japan,’ he replied. ‘She’s in Japan.’ He suddenly became serious. ‘I wanted to ask you – have you dropped out of school too?’

Her chest ached at the question. Even though she herself had brought up the subject, this was the first time someone had asked her so directly. And of all people it was Rion, who was going to school.

‘Yeah,’ she managed to say.

‘So did something happen, like with Ureshino?’ he asked.

‘Um – sort of.’

She was struck by a sudden desire to tell Rion all about it. About Miori Sanada, and all they’d done to her.

But Rion didn’t ask. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Must be tough.’ And with that their conversation ended.