This was real, being here in the castle, she thought, but their reality lay outside, the kind of place she didn’t want to go back to if she could avoid it.

‘But if we forget everything, isn’t that impossible? We might exchange addresses, but won’t we forget that we’ve even done it?’

‘But if a wish isn’t granted, then it might be a good idea to exchange our contact info, just in case,’ said Masamune.

‘Addresses and phone numbers?’ Subaru asked, and Masamune nodded.

At the beginning, the two of them had played video games together all the time and they’d seemed quite similar, in part, but after the summer break, when Subaru had bleached his hair, they began to seem a bit mismatched. Kokoro just couldn’t picture them – Masamune and the flashy yet so polite Subaru – together in, say, a classroom.

Our contact info – the words pierced her.

The real world, our outside contact info.

It hit home for Kokoro that so many things here in the castle were the exception.

They really knew nothing about each other.

Rion apparently was living in Hawaii, she knew that much, but she’d always felt she couldn’t ask the others where they were from, and so she hadn’t. Certainly she was dying to know, but she resisted the notion of anyone knowing anything about her.

I wonder why, she thought.

Because I want to forget it all myself.

While she was here, she wanted to be free from it all – from being a student at Yukishina No. 5 Junior High, from that class with Miori Sanada in it, from Tojo-san who lived two houses down the road.

The others may have felt the same way. They might at some point start to show some interest in Fuka’s idea of exchanging personal information, but none of them seemed ready to take that step today.

SO OUR MEMORIES VANISH – SO WHAT?

Aki’s parting words, and since then she hadn’t been back to the castle. Maybe she was being stubborn. It was possible she didn’t really feel that way, but had said it to make herself look tougher.

Those who still came to the castle had become conscious of Aki’s absence. Masamune said jokingly, ‘Doesn’t she wonder what’ll happen if someone finds the key when she’s not here?’

But they had until March, and so they didn’t feel in any rush.

It was, after all, still only October.

Hunting for the key, making a wish and losing their memories – it was still too soon for all that.

IT WAS EARLY NOVEMBER BEFORE Aki came back to the castle.

Kokoro was the first to find out she’d reappeared. Aki was in the Game Room, on the sofa, crouched in the corner and hugging her knees.

‘Aki-chan.’

She said it hesitantly, and Aki looked up from where her head had been buried between her knees.