Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and The Inexperienced Me - Volume 6 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Runa might be going somewhere far away.

It wasn’t like we saw each other frequently right now, but there was a difference between being at a distance where, if something were to happen, we could simply hurry to each other if we had to and a distance that required a several-hour plane flight to traverse.

I missed her already. But for now, I had to trust what Runa had said to me.

“I won’t do anything to make you sad.”

Right now, all I could do was wait—to wait for the day when she would come to a decision in regards to something, and then tell me what that something was.

And as I spent my days trying not to think about things...

“Kashima-kun, are you free after this?” Fujinami-san—one of the editors at my workplace—asked me one day close to the end of the part-timers’ shift at work. “I have a meeting with Kamonohashi-sensei at a French restaurant in Kagurazaka in a little while. The editor-in-chief was supposed to come too, but he won’t be able to make it. Could you come in his stead?”

“What? Kamonohashi-sensei? You mean that Kamonohashi-sensei?!”

Kamonohashi-sensei was a renowned manga artist responsible for a series that had been a nationwide hit from a popular magazine for young people. It was a rather old work and had already finished by the time I’d grown old enough to become aware of things around me, but its popularity had yet to fade. Kamonohashi-sensei wasn’t drawing anything for Cromag yet, but maybe that was about to change?

“That’s right, it’s the Kamonohashi-sensei you’re thinking of,” Fujinami-san replied.

Editors didn’t normally call authors they worked with “sensei,” no matter how popular that author was. Apparently, people of Kamonohashi-sensei’s caliber were an exception.

“Sure, I’m available...but is it really okay for me to go?”

“It is. It’s hard to get a reservation at that restaurant, and Kamonohashi-sensei said it would be a waste to miss out, so I should bring someone young along.”

“Wouldn’t Kurose-san be a better choice here...?”

“Yeah, but well, girls might have things to do. Like dates with their boyfriends.”

I might have a date with my girlfriend too, you know! But sadly that wasn’t the case, so I couldn’t say it.

“Kamonohashi-sensei is a little too big of a persona, you could say. I figured it was better to bring a guy along,” Fujinami-san added with a serious look on his face.

And when I actually met the manga artist in question, I more or less understood what he’d meant.

“A guy? Really...?”

When Kamonohashi-sensei showed up at our restaurant table, the disappointment on his face was clear as day.

“S-Sorry...” I said, getting up.

He then smiled cheerfully. “It’s fine, I already knew who was coming. Fujinami-kun sent me an email earlier. You’re the new part-timer, right?”

Kamonohashi-sensei was a large man who looked to be in his fifties or sixties. His stomach protruded like Icchi’s used to—maybe he ate too many delicious foods. He was wearing a seemingly high-quality jacket. His face looked refreshed like he’d just finished taking a bath. Overall, he had a clean image.

After we sat down, Kamonohashi-sensei asked me a question. “So, you looking to become an editor?”

The three of us were sitting at an equal distance apart from each other at a round table.

“No, not really...” I replied vaguely. After all, I’d only gotten this job because Kurose-san had invited me.

Kamonohashi-sensei waved his hand in an exaggerated manner. “Then you should quit! You’re wasting your youth by working at a publisher in this day and age—it won’t get you anywhere. Just look at Fujinami-kun here.”

Fujinami-san laughed that off cheerfully. Somehow, I sensed a kind of love in the things Kamonohashi-sensei said, so even though this was my first time meeting him, it didn’t put me off.

While it was supposed to be a work meeting, Kamonohashi-sensei didn’t bring up anything specifically about work. Instead, he went on and on, proudly reminiscing about when his bestseller had been in vogue, then grumbling about the trends in today’s manga market, saying what was good or bad about the currently popular works. He even cracked jokes about his own declining body.

It was interesting to listen to him talk, and Fujinami-san’s unobtrusive comments to keep the conversation going were just right too. Listening to them was like listening to the radio, all while enjoying the rare opportunity to eat a full-course dinner in a famous restaurant. The fish meunière with its thinly foamy sauce was particularly delicious.

Fujinami-san had told me it was hard to get a reservation here, and indeed, almost all of the tables were taken. The rest of them had signs on them which read “Reserved.” There were four tables for four here, and two of the dining area’s walls were lined with tables as well. Even if you were to reserve the whole place, you probably couldn’t fit more than fifty people or so in this space. Judging by the chandelier hanging from the ceiling and the deep red carpet underfoot, this was a high-class restaurant that valued style.

We ate for a while, and as I was enjoying the main dish—a Japanese Black fillet—while feeling comfortably full, the door opened, and a new pair of customers was led in by a waitperson. A man and a woman sat at an empty table by the wall. I looked at them for no particular reason, but there was something about the woman that felt off to me, so I did a double take. Then, my eyes became glued to her.

It was Tanikita-san.

Over the two years I hadn’t seen her, her aura had changed a little. She had been a fashionable gyaru with a unique style, but now, it felt like her outfit and hairstyle were even more girly than before. But when I looked at her face, she was unmistakably Tanikita-san.

The man with her was an adult with an air of composure, looking to be in his thirties or forties. I couldn’t see his face well because he had his back toward me, but the back of his suit didn’t even have a single crease. He seemed high-class.

Was he her boyfriend?

It wouldn’t really have been strange, but somehow, I felt a distance between the two of them.

“Thank you,” Tanikita-san said when he passed her the drink menu.

Maybe he was her boss? But then again, she’d gone to a two-year program at a technical school for stylists, so she must’ve still been a student...

“Aha ha! Well, what do you think?! It’s money! It’s all money!” came Kamonohashi-sensei’s loud voice at that point.

I hadn’t been following the conversation at my table, but he seemed to be in good spirits and pretty drunk on red wine.

Lured by Kamonohashi-sensei’s voice, Tanikita-san looked our way for a moment too. Finding this development undesirable, I instinctively averted my eyes. But even after I waited for a while before glancing her way once more, I found her staring at me with a frozen expression.

“What’s wrong, Ayaka-chan?” asked the man across the table from her.

“Ayaka”? So it’s not Tanikita-san?

“Oh, it’s nothing... This aperitif is great.” said the woman in a monotone way.

It had undeniably been Tanikita-san’s voice.

***

Our so-called “meeting” with Kamonohashi-sensei that’d actually just been us eating together ended after exactly two hours.

“Well, I’ll be going now. My nights have been crazy recently, and in more ways than one. Ha ha ha!” With that, Kamonohashi-sensei got into the taxi parked directly in front of the restaurant. He was gone moments later.

“Was that how you wanted this meeting to go?” I asked Fujinami-san.

He smiled awkwardly. “He doesn’t want to draw manga anymore. But maybe one of these days during our occasional meetings, he might get a whim to draw something, and then he could ask me, you know?”

“So that’s part of an editor’s job too, huh...”

“Pretty much. At the end of the day, this industry is built on relationships between people. Though that probably goes for any kind of work.”

We continued to talk as we walked toward the station.

“So you don’t want to be an editor?” Fujinami-san asked me.

“Well, no, I actually just took this job because Kurose-san practically begged me to... I didn’t really think things through.”

“I think this job suits a guy like you, though.” Fujinami-san smiled at me calmly. “Writers and manga artists may seem like they all have different personalities, but at their core, they’re all sensitive people who are easily hurt. Some are stoic or hard to please, but as long as you’re polite to them, it’s pretty rare to run into one who’s impossible to get along with.”

“Huh.”

“It’s the same as with stories—you have to analyze people. Look at their works, their ways of thinking, their personalities, and imagine what kind of life they’d led up to that point. You get to understand their characteristics as writers and artists, and that’s when you first become able to suggest that they make something that they themselves don’t yet realize they want to make.”

“Sounds like work with a lot of depth to it,” I said.

“Then again, I myself am still far from getting to that point.” After having said all that in a serious tone, Fujinami-san put on a foolish look to hide his embarrassment. “By the way, what kind of relationship do you have with Kurose-san? Are you two dating, maybe?”

“Not at all!” I really didn’t want him to misunderstand the situation, which led me to involuntarily raise my voice. “Her twin sister is my girlfriend.”

Fujinami-san didn’t seem to doubt me. “Oh, I see. Huh... That’s nice... If they’re twins, her sister must be very beautiful. I want a girlfriend like that too...”

“Did you know Kurose-san is looking for a boyfriend?” I said as if instigating him.

My question seemed to throw Fujinami-san off. “Huh? What do you mean?”

“She keeps pestering me to set her up with someone nice. So I’d like her to get a boyfriend already...”

Fujinami-san was a sincere man who didn’t seem like he’d be the type to cheat. I myself was out of options for who I could set up with Kurose-san, so all I could do was look for someone in her vicinity.

“I see... Then again, she’s a student and a part-timer...” he mumbled to himself, but he didn’t look unhappy with the idea. “Anyway, I’ve got some work left to do, so I’ll head back to the editing department. Thanks for coming with me today,” he said once we reached the station, and then he walked past it.

“Thank you for treating me,” I said.

Now alone, I was about to head to the ticket gates, but...

“Kashima-kun!” came a voice from behind me.

Turning around, I found Tanikita-san there.

“Huh? Weren’t you eating at that restaurant...?”

“This is important, so I had to leave early. Forget it all.”

She was making a scary face. Looking at her now, she felt like the same person she’d been back in high school.

“Are you planning to tell Runy and Mia what you saw earlier?” she then asked.

“If you don’t want me to, then I won’t tell anyone I saw you today.”

What’s this about...? I wondered, choosing my reply carefully.

“Just so you know, I don’t do otona,” she added.

“O-Otona...?”

“You can get five to twenty thousand yen just for dinner. And you don’t have to pay for it either.”

I hadn’t the slightest idea what she was talking about.

“I-Is that some kind of job you have? I thought you were going to be a stylist?”

“What’re you talking about? There’s no way you can put food on the table working as a stylist right off the bat.” She glared as she threw words at me with the same energy she’d had back in the day. “There’s dreams, and then there’s reality. Though I guess a guy of your level wouldn’t know that.” Having said everything she’d had on her mind, she turned her back toward me. “Anyway, that’s how it is,” she added before heading back uphill.

“What was that about...?”

Unable to figure out what Tanikita-san had meant with all that, I stood in a daze in front of the station for a while.

On the train home, I looked up the meaning of “otona,” and the result was as follows:

Having a sugar daddy with sex involved.

“Having a sugar daddy...?” I involuntarily let out.

No way, right? I mean, this is Tanikita-san we’re talking about.

I recalled how, in our second year of high school, she’d suspected Runa of having a sugar daddy and that she had come to talk to me about it.

“You’d expect to see a lot of gyaru at hostess clubs and other places where women coax guys into giving them money, but I’ve got no interest in being a hostess or having a sugar daddy.”

She’d once said that, and yet...

I wondered what in the world had happened to her over the past two years.

***

Kujibayashi-kun asked me out to lunch.

“Kashima-dono. I am honored you would accept my invitation.”

We’d met up at an Italian family restaurant next to our university. I had a fifth-period class later that day.

“It’s not often you ask me out somewhere,” I said.

Whenever we met up outside of having lunch at the cafeteria, it was usually after I’d invited him first.

“Well, um, how do I put it...” His reply was evasive, and he looked at me as I sat across the table from him. “I was too ashamed of my behavior from the other day.”

“Huh?”

Is this about that time he talked to Kurose-san about Mori Ogai for two hours? Has it been bothering him all this time? What a conscientious guy.

“Don’t worry about it. I doubt Kurose-san still thinks about it, anyway.”

I’d said that jokingly, but Kujibayashi-kun looked unsatisfied. He didn’t talk much after that, even once our food came.

“I am truly sorry,” he said. There was a plate of steaming hot Milan-style doria in front of him, but he wasn’t picking any up with his spoon.

“It’s fine, seriously.” At this point, I was starting to feel like I should apologize. “Actually, I’m sorry too. I knew you didn’t want to meet girls and I set you up with one anyway. So thanks for doing that, but really, don’t let it bother you.”

I wanted to eat my chicken, but couldn’t start eating all by myself.

“—though...” he said quietly.

“Huh?”

I couldn’t hear what he’d said very well.

“It is not as though...I had no interest in meeting girls,” he said, hanging his head and fidgeting. “Only...I expected one who was a little more ordinary...”

“Huh? Was Kurose-san really that weird?”

I did think there were some slightly odd things about her, but someone who’d only just met her surely wouldn’t be able to notice that much.

“No. I mean...she was too cute,” Kujibayashi-kun said quietly, dropping the literary talk for a moment. He kept his eyes down, and his cheeks were a little red. “The moment I laid my eyes upon her, my sanity left me. I felt the need to put my excellence on display to maintain superiority. For it was the only way I could so much as sit in front of her...”

The pressure I felt exuding from him was nearly overwhelming. “Superiority...? Why not just be equals?” I asked.

He shook his head firmly. “You know full well that in the animal kingdom, it is in the male’s nature to want to display his excellence in front of his desired female.”

“Oh, o-okay...”

He was speaking in a roundabout way, but I felt like I was gradually coming to understand what he’d wanted to tell me after calling me here.

Kujibayashi-kun had always made fun of “normies” as well as himself, but it wasn’t like didn’t have any interest in romantic relationships either. That’d been why he’d accepted the offer for him to meet Kurose-san.

However, she’d proven to be simply too beautiful for him. And because she was his type to such an extreme degree, he’d freaked out, and in his desperation to get her attention, he’d ended up talking about Mori Ogai for two hours. That seemed to be what had actually happened.

So he wanted to explain himself?

Even Kujibayashi-kun probably realized he’d messed up. He wasn’t so obtuse about people’s feelings to not notice that Kurose-san’s mood had quickly deteriorated. However, it seemed that given his lack of experience, he’d been unable to correct his course partway and ended up pushing through with the whole thing instead.

As far as I could tell, he probably hated himself for it, and he’d been obstinate on the subject for a while. It was only now that he was finally managing to be honest about it.

“I would like you to convey my apologies to Kurose-san for that day. And to let her know that my name is Kujibayashi Haruku.”

“O-Okay... I’ll tell her.”

It was hard to tell him here and now that Kurose-san had already put him behind her.

“Incidentally, what would her name happen to be?” he asked.

“Kurose Maria. Written with the kanji for ‘sea’ and ‘love.’”

“Huh. The name of the Madonna?”

Who...? Ah, he means the mother of Jesus. Talking to Kujibayashi-kun sure requires using your head sometimes.

“That’s right. She’s my girlfriend’s twin, so their names form a pair.”

“And what is your girlfriend’s name, may I ask?”

“Runa, written with the kanji for ‘moon’ and ‘love.’”

Kujibayashi-kun raised his eyebrows, looking impressed. “Interesting. A moon and a dragon, is it...? Quite the pairing. One too miraculous, if you ask me.”

“Huh?”

Sure, the kanji for “dragon” and “moon” were in my and Runa’s names, but I couldn’t follow his train of thought here.

“Both are something indistinct. A moon shines faintly without showing its outlines. A dragon is a fictional creature, and therefore its true form is unknown. That is why when you combine those two kanji, you get the kanji for ‘indistinct.’”

Really? Damn. I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t know that, despite being a humanities student.

“So...is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked nervously.

Kujibayashi-kun shook his head calmly. “That is beyond me. But at the very least, I find it moving.” He then gazed intently at me. “I feel something of a fateful bond in your names.”

I went silent at that.

The love between me and Runa had been anything but fateful. Had she not borrowed my pencil that day... Or had my score on the test been worse than Icchi’s or Nisshi’s... Had anything gone differently at all, Runa and I would have surely still been practically strangers with a great distance between us.

But... When I’d been born into this world, if the one gift I’d received was a future bond with Runa, then maybe, no matter what kind of life I’d lived, I would’ve ended up with her in the end, one way or the other.

And when I thought of it that way...was it really a big deal if she went to Fukuoka? No matter how great the physical distance, it couldn’t separate us.

Because fate was on our side.

“Thanks, man,” I said, looking with gratitude at my friend who’d given me courage. “I’ll tell Kurose-san what you said earlier.”

At that point my phone vibrated—Kurose-san had messaged me at just the right time.

Maria: Fujinami-san said dinner’s on him after work today. Do you want to come too?

So he’s finally made his move...

Since I’d spurred him on, I wasn’t about to get in his way.

Ryuto: I’m eating with a friend today. Say hi to Fujinami-san for me.

If things went well between her and Fujinami-san, there would never be an opportunity for Kujibayashi-kun to improve his reputation with her.

“Is something the matter, Kashima-dono?” he asked, oblivious to the dilemma in my head.

“Sorry, it’s nothing.” I then stabbed my fork into my chicken at last. It was already getting cold.

***

At work the next day, I looked for a good opportunity to talk to Kurose-san.

“How did things go yesterday?” I asked.

“Huh?” For a moment, she looked puzzled. “Oh, the food was great. I wish you could’ve come too.”

“Right...” That wasn’t what I’d wanted to ask, though. “What did you and Fujinami-san talk about?”

“Just work, I guess? Ah, he did tell me about his love life a bit, though.”

“What?! R-Really?!”

I was shocked, but Kurose-san looked rather indifferent.

“He said he hasn’t had a girlfriend for years. And that even when there was a girl he was good friends with, he was stuck in the friend zone every time. I told him I knew what it was like, and that seemed to depress him a bit. Is it such a big problem for him?”

“Huh...”

It didn’t look like Kurose-san saw him as a member of the opposite sex. Perhaps that would be good news for Kujibayashi-kun.

“Say... Remember Kujibayashi-kun, the friend I set you up with earlier?” I asked.

“Ah, the Mori Ogai one? What about him?”

“He said he never introduced himself. It’s ‘Kujibayashi Haruku.’ His name has the kanji for ‘clear’ and ‘sky.’”

“I see.” Kurose-san didn’t look very interested. “Forget about him, though. When are you going to give me someone else?”

“S-Sorry... I’m having some trouble on that front...”

Things were too hopeless here, so I wanted to change the topic. At that point, I remembered Tanikita-san.

“By the way, since we graduated, do you ever see Tanikita-san?”

“Akari-chan? Sure. We used to hang out a lot—sometimes even a few times a week.” Her expression finally returned to normal. “I haven’t seen her since the start of the second semester, though. She said she’d be busy looking for work, so I didn’t think I should ask her to hang out. She hasn’t called or messaged me either since then... Maybe it’s about time I got in touch with her.”

“Huh...”

“Why do you ask?”

I immediately got flustered. “W-Well, I was just wondering if she’s doing all right...”

“Really? That’s unexpected.” Kurose-san opened her eyes wide. “I thought you weren’t good with girls like her.”

“Huh?”

“Even I found her a bit overwhelming at first...” She smiled awkwardly and lowered her eyes. “She may not look like it, but she’s actually pretty fragile. It’s humanizing, and I kinda like that part of her.”

She is?

Just as Kurose-san had pointed out, I did find it a bit difficult to deal with girls like Tanikita-san. But what she said surprised me.

No matter what I did, I had Tanikita-san on my mind for the rest of the day.

“There’s dreams, and then there’s reality. Though I guess a guy of your level wouldn’t know that.”

Her words were lodged in my chest like a lead bullet. No matter how you looked at it, she’d been higher than me in the social hierarchy back in high school. I couldn’t imagine it had changed now, so what made her think otherwise? And why would she have sugar daddies?

I opened LINE and scrolled through my friend list. Finding the airsoft group chat, I tapped on the member named “A.T.” and sent them a message.

***

“So, why’d you bring me to a place like this?”

When I met up with Tanikita-san at a family restaurant the following afternoon, she had a sour look on her face.

“W-Well, it’s just, I was wondering what that was all about...” I said. “What I saw the other day, I mean...”

“I told you, we were just eating together. I don’t do otona,” Tanikita-san replied shamelessly, folding her arms. “We went our separate ways at the station, and I made ten thousand yen that day. Satisfied?”

“But that means...” I paused for a moment, gathered my resolve, and continued. “You’re...involved with sugar daddies, right?”

Tanikita-san held her breath for a moment. Then, staring fixedly at me, she awkwardly said, “Yeah. And?”

“Why?” I asked impatiently, remembering that time in high school. “Why would you...?”

“Because I want money. Why else would anyone do it?”

“But even then...”

“Everyone needs money to live,” she said while sighing and then unfolded her arms. “Even I had a normal job at first—I worked at a café. But when you’re still young and you go selling off your time in little bits like that, all one hour gets you is a Frappuccino and some gum. It costs too much for girls to live fashionably in Tokyo. You can forget about ever getting that brand-name bag you want. And with how many assignments I have at school, I can’t work a lot of shifts.”

“But if you graduate and become an actual stylist...”

Tanikita-san looked away, looking hurt. “Yeah. If that was what I wanted, maybe I would still be giving it my all.” Raising her eyes all of a sudden, she looked around the café.

On this weekday afternoon, this family restaurant was pretty full of people eating a late lunch or a snack. When I’d asked Tanikita-san where she’d like to meet up, she’d picked Shibuya—maybe she had another date with a sugar daddy coming up after this.

“In my first year at school, a graduate got me a job as a stylist’s assistant. It was horrible. You have to iron dozens of borrowed clothes to make them wrinkle-free and run around at work from morning to evening. They constantly shout at you too. Once you’re done, you have to go return all the clothes... And it’s not like you get to sleep at night either. I had to go three days without showering. You may be working in fashion, but there’s nothing fashionable about the job. It paid worse than my café job too. You basically don’t have human rights in a job like that.” Tanikita-san looked down at the clothes she was wearing. They were more girly than what she’d worn in her high school days—it felt like her style had grown a bit closer to Kurose-san’s. “These clothes, and this bag... They won’t suit me when I’m old. This is the only time I’ll be young. And I’m supposed to waste such an important time of my life on exhausting work without even getting to wear anything fashionable...? I can’t bear it.”

“Weren’t you looking forward to working as a stylist, though?” I asked.

“That was because I didn’t know what it was really like. If I did, I wouldn’t have idolized it.” Smiling in self-deprecation, Tanikita-san once again averted her eyes. “The world I admired was completely different from what I expected. And when I found that out, I didn’t know what I was working hard for anymore. That was when a classmate invited me to work at a lounge.”

“A lounge...? What kind of lounge are we talking about here?”

“I guess it’s like a high-class hostess club. I don’t really get it either. Apparently, there are a lot of girls who are of a higher level than those at regular hostess clubs,” Tanikita-san explained briefly. “So, like, that classmate I mentioned? She always wore dazzling, fashionable clothes. She also had many brand-name bags that I wanted. She said a girl like me could easily earn that much money, but it was a bit scary to think about going straight to working in the nighttime entertainment industry... And since I couldn’t make up my mind, she offered to connect me with a sugar daddy who was looking to have dinners with girls, and that’s where I started.”

“Ah, I think I know how that feels.”

Tanikita-san frowned at my sudden claim. “Excuse me?”

“I have a part-time job as a tutor. I wasn’t confident that I could suddenly hold proper classes, so I got a job where I could teach one-on-one.”

Tanikita-san’s expression relaxed. “Oh. I guess maybe that’s kinda the same, then.” She lowered her eyes and smiled in a relaxed way. “You look ordinary, but you’re actually kinda weird, you know that? Though it was the same in high school.”

“R-Really?” I didn’t think what I’d said was all that strange.

“Then again, I guess if you were really just some plain old guy, you wouldn’t be able to date Runy. And look at you now—you go to Houo. Runy sure has a good eye for guys.” Tanikita-san hung her head and smiled. “I’m jealous of her. If I had a boyfriend like that, maybe I could’ve treasured myself more.”

“What about that K-pop band you rooted for?”

“They’re on hiatus because they’re all doing their military service,” she said with a stiff look on her face. “There aren’t any other bands I’m interested in, and I’m too busy to go looking.”

“Military service...”

That was an intense term for us Japanese. I could only go silent.

After that, our conversation ended up being all small talk. Once we finished our drinks, we headed to the register.

“Oh, right,” said Tanikita-san with a look of realization on her face when it was time to pay.

She searched her shoulder bag—the luxury brand logo on it was one that even I recognized.

“It’s been a while since I had to take out my wallet when meeting with a guy,” she said, looking filled with emotion as she had her eyes on the wallet she’d taken out. It was from the same brand.

“Oh, sorry.”

I asked her to meet me, so I probably should’ve at least paid for her drinks.

“Nah, we’re friends, so let me pay. I’d feel guilty to Runy otherwise,” she said with a smile. The look on her face was much more gentle compared to when we’d arrived.

We paid the bill and headed out.

Opening the door, Tanikita-san said, “High school was fun, you know? We all hung out and did lots of stuff.”

“What about Icchi? Are you over him?” I asked after resolving myself.

She shook her head without a word. “Of course not. He’s too much my type.”

“But then...”

“I’m still stalking him online.” After saying such a scary thing without any hesitation, she bit her lip. “I can’t see him in person anymore... Not with what I’m like now.”

As we walked down the streets of Shibuya, we passed a group of three high school girls in their uniforms. They looked at their phones and giggled a lot.

“I wanna go back to high school...” Tanikita-san said, watching them go by. “I liked who I was back then. Even if I didn’t have pretty clothes or brand-name bags.”

Her voice disappeared into the cloudy sky of this slightly cold March day.