“The insects.” We are still laughing but the subject turns serious as I recount when my cousin came over back in November and I noticed a dead creature that had fallen out of my closet, which meant there were probably more nesting in there somewhere. We had to go to the supermarket to buy the dreaded white powder I’d hoped I’d never have to buy. “I’ve always been lucky with not having too many bugs, so I guess it’s to be expected that I would find one big one before —” Oops, I can’t tell them I’m leaving. “Before the school year ended,” I say hurriedly.

“Ah! So … your cousin … saw a big insect … was it mukade?”

“We weren’t sure. It was really long and had lots of legs … but it was kind of a pinkish-white colour?”

“Oh! So dangerous!” Fumiko exclaims. “Did you kill it?”

“I think it was sleeping,” I admit. “Because it didn’t move until we got a big piece of paper and tried to push it into a Starbucks bag so we could run outside and throw it in the rain gutter — you know, the ame doi? And then, as we were pushing it in, even though it was slathered in mukade powder it started twitching, like it was starting to wake up, and it was like ‘Huh? Wha? What’s going on …?’” I half-close my eyes and flop around, imitating the insect. My students shriek with laughter. I conveniently leave out the part where my cousin threw the bug, the bag, and the paper off the balcony and slammed the window shut. We were relieved to see that the bag and paper had landed neatly in the rain gutter, and not on someone walking by. “So, yeah! Long story short, I will not miss the insects here.”

I feel that there’s something else I’ll miss … but I can’t remember what. I had this talk with my family before they left, and it was made very clear (mostly by Mom) that I’ve done everything: I ticked off clubbing, capsule hotels, Mount Fuji, watching a sumo match, and participating in tea ceremony years ago. In the past couple of weeks, I squeezed in Mario Kart racing, fugu, and feeding the Nara deer with my family. So, what else is there? What am I missing?

What else will I miss?

“Ah, that’s right, Cybelle-sensei! I had a dream. I remember, I write …” Fumiko flips through her notebook excitedly. “Wait, no, maybe I didn’t write. Never mind.”

“You had dream?” Miyoko asks. She looks just as excited, too. “A dream, about Fuji-san?”

“No, not Fuji-san. Something else. But, no Fuji-san.” Fumiko draws a single invisible tear down her face.