Chapter 14: Lecture Days

On Monday morning Nagi walked Akari to the milestone in the dark.

The sky over the cedars was the colour of a bruise, and the road was cold under their feet.

Akari wore her hoodie and carried her backpack on both shoulders.

Nagi wore the white robe and nothing on her feet, and she did not once say she was cold.

"Tonight is Monday," she said at the stone.

"Yes."

"I will see you on Friday."

"I'll text Sayo's shop when I get in. She can tell you."

"Sayo cannot see me."

"She can hear the priest, though. He'll pass it on."

"That is a good plan," Nagi said, in the voice of someone agreeing to a plan.

The bus came round the bend with its lights on.

Akari turned and put both arms around Nagi's waist.

She had to stretch to do it.

"May I come home on Thursday night?" she said.

"You do not have to ask."

"I'm asking anyway. It's our thing."

Nagi's hand settled on her head, warm and unsteady.

"Yes," she said. "Come home."

Akari got on the bus.

She did not look back until the road bent, and when she did, Nagi was still standing at the stone with her hair moving in no wind.

The city was loud and bright and smelled of trains.

Akari's room was a rented six-mat room above a bakery, with a window onto a wall.

She sat through two lectures on child development without hearing a word.

At lunch a girl from her course dropped into the next seat with a rice ball and asked why she kept smiling at her phone.

"I'm not," Akari said.

"You are. You have the face."

"What face?"

"The face of someone who's seeing someone."

Akari looked at the phone.

It showed a photo from Sayo of the shop's noticeboard, and nothing from the river.

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