# 3 Kosei, You’re Too Kind Tsubaki Sawabe

It happened four and a half years ago…at the beginning of winter in my fourth year of elementary school. A cold rain was falling that day.

I, Tsubaki Sawabe, was running around in the rain, looking for Chelsea with Kosei Arima.

Chelsea is the Arimas’ pet cat. They live next door.

She’s jet-black, and I don’t think she was fully grown back then.

Kosei and I had been playing on the grounds of a shrine about half a year earlier when we found her. She’d been put in a cardboard box and abandoned in the space under the main building.

After school, a summer day when we were in fourth grade. The shrine was unattended, and I was playing on the grounds, practicing my swing and bouncing a ball against the wall. Before going out to play I’d asked Kosei to come along, but he’d told me, Nope, I gotta practice my piano. And yet all of a sudden, there he was at the shrine.

“Finished your lesson? Okay, wanna play catch?” I asked him, delighted that he’d come.

He pushed up his black-rimmed glasses and gave me a vague smile. “Well, my mom seemed tired, so I’m having a little break. She asked me to go buy something, but I thought maybe I’d stop by here and pray.”

“You mean to win at your piano competition?”

Kosei shook his head. “No, winning or losing is just the result. I want to pray that I don’t get nervous and that my practice pays off…and…”

His head sank.

“What’s wrong?”

“Uhh…nothing.”

Kosei faced the worship hall, clapped twice, and then closed his eyes, deep in prayer.

At the time, I didn’t know that Kosei’s mom—Mrs. Saki Arima—had gotten so sick that except for Kosei’s piano lessons, she had to spend a lot of time lying down and couldn’t take care of things around the house. A few months later, his mom started going in and out of the hospital, and about a year after that, she ended up being hospitalized for good.

I’m sure that what Kosei was praying for then was for his mom to get better.

“Well, since you came all the way here, Kosei, let’s play. Even just a little.”

He hesitated a few seconds about it and then agreed. “Well…okay, for a little while.”

He threw the rubber ball, and I hit it with my plastic bat, and he went to catch it.

After a few times of that, I hit the ball a little too far, and it rolled under the empty main hall.

Kosei went after it. He knelt on the stone pavement and peered into the space and grew still.

“What’s wrong? Is it too deep for you to reach?”

When I moved closer, Kosei looked back at me, put a finger to his lips, and said, “Shhh. Don’t you hear a sound coming from that box?”

Under the building was a really old, tiny cardboard box, and the ball had stopped right next to it. It seemed like the ball had hit the box. The lid was closed with a piece of adhesive tape that lightly held together just one spot at the middle of the seam.

I squatted down and pricked up my ears.

A scratching sound came from inside the box.

“What’s that?” I whispered.

Kosei reached out his hand like he’d made up his mind. “Let’s open it up and see. It’s gotta be an animal. It can’t get out from the box.”

Kosei might seem timid, but in fact he’s pretty curious, and he’s just too kind to look the other way.

“Wha—are you serious? Okay, but you don’t wanna get bitten…lemme do it.”

Kosei needs his hands for piano. If I let anything happen to them, his mom would let me have it—heck, she might kill me. I pushed him aside and pulled the box out.

Meow…meow.

A tiny voice spilled out from the gap in the lid, and we looked at each other.

“A cat!”

We ripped off the tape and opened the lid, and this jet-black cat was all crouched up like it was afraid. It wasn’t small enough to be a newborn, but nor was it big enough to be an adult.

“So cute,” Kosei said before I could make a sound. “Tsubaki, this cat must’ve been abandoned. Put here so it couldn’t break out of the box and get back home.”

“What an awful thing to do!” I got mad, but Kosei just kept gazing at the black kitten.

“I’m gonna bring it home with me.”

“For real?”

I was shocked. I didn’t think Kosei’s super-scary mom would ever allow it. She got angry when he played with me. But if he didn’t get out and have fun, his eyes got dull and gray and his face turned pale, so we always played in secret. I didn’t budge an inch on that point. We played secretly so we wouldn’t get caught.

“I think it’d be better for us to raise it here, together. Bring it food,” I suggested. “If it’d be tough for the two of us, we could rope Ryota or somebody into helping.”

Ryota Watari, a classmate of ours, was the leader of a bunch of clowns but wasn’t a bad kid.

“If an adult finds it, though, it’ll get taken to a shelter for sure.”

Saying this, Kosei stroked the cat’s back gingerly. The cat just trembled, looking like it didn’t even have the energy to resist.

“It must be hungry,” I noted. “It probably hasn’t even had any water despite this terrible muggy weather. ’Cause there’s nothing else in the box.”

I rushed over to the hand-washing basin several dozen feet away, scooped some water with my hands, and put them close to the cat’s mouth when I returned.

The cat sniffed before lapping up the water frantically.

Kosei’s face lit up, and he ran to get some water, too. We couldn’t carry very much since it dripped through our fingers, but we took turns ferrying water to the cat.

Meoww…mee-oww.

The cat didn’t seem scared of humans and purred and rubbed its face against our hands. Clearly relieved, it lay down and nodded off. Every time it breathed, its belly went up and down, and it felt warm.

It was alive.

“Yeah, I’m bringing it home with me. End of story.” Kosei picked up the box with the cat still inside.

“Are you sure about this? Your mom’s gonna explode.”

“I’m sure.” Behind Kosei’s black-rimmed glasses, his eyes twinkled. “I’m gonna ask as nice as I can if I can keep her. Mom likes animals, too. When I was little she always used to tell me about how she had cats when she was a kid. She had three of them, actually.”

Kosei started walking as he spoke.

“I’m sure it will be fine,” he whispered to the cat inside the box.

I tagged along with him, hoping we could beg his mom together. But Kosei said no.

“I’ll ask her alone. So just wait, Tsubaki, and don’t worry.”

I made up my mind that if it didn’t work, I’d ask my parents instead. There I stayed, waiting outside Kosei’s house the whole time, not going inside my own home next door.

The sun of the long summer day started to set, and evening came.

“Tsubaki, are you out there? Dinner’s ready,” my mom called, but I kept on waiting. Then, when the sky had turned a dark violet, Kosei finally peeped out from the entryway door.

“How’d it go?” I asked excitedly.

Kosei answered in no rush. “Ah, I was waiting for you, but it didn’t look like you were in your room…so I was coming to tell you.”

You can get a clear view into my home from the windows in Kosei’s house, and vice versa.

“Well? Come on, how’d it go?” I asked again. Actually, I didn’t need to. I could tell from his sunny expression.

“I can keep it!” he answered happily. “Well, if my dad says so…but dad’s never told mom no, not even once.”

“Nice! So, what do we call it?”

Kosei took a piece of candy with the wrapping paper all wrinkled out of his jeans pocket. He put it on his palm and showed it to me.

“While I was begging my mom, I guess the cat was hungry, ’cause she got out of the box, hopped on the table, and licked my candy.” Beaming, Kosei told me, “So it’s Chelsea. After the candy.”

Half a year passed.

I often visited Kosei’s house next door, wanting to see Chelsea. For some reason they wouldn’t let me in the house, but Kosei would show up holding Chelsea so I could play with her in the entryway.

He’d leave Chelsea with me and go right back inside and start practicing on the piano. He played the same sounds over and over, again and again…

On a day off from school, when a cold winter rain was falling, I visited Kosei as usual and asked him to let me play with Chelsea.

Usually he would show up right away, taking a quick break from his piano practice, but that day was different. There was a pause, and then his mom showed up.

Now that I think about it, his mom had mostly stopped showing herself to me, and whenever she did, she looked more haggard and skinnier, but I didn’t notice at the time.

“Tsubaki, I’m sorry…Chelsea is gone. Maybe she didn’t like this house…”

I can’t remember what her face looked like when she said that to me. I was just so shocked that I announced right away, “Wow, I gotta find Chelsea!”

I was about to run outside, but Kosei came bounding out. Although my memory’s a little fuzzy, I think his eyes were swollen from crying a lot.

“I’ll find Chelsea!”

He almost pushed me away, grabbed his raincoat, and ran out into the rain with his shoes halfway on.

“Kosei!” I remember clearly how his mom raised her voice almost like she was screaming. “No!! What about practice?!”

Then she crumpled, falling to her knees.

“Please don’t go, Kosei…Don’t go looking for her…Forgive me.”

I couldn’t stand seeing her like that with her head hanging.

“I-I’m gonna look for Chelsea and Kosei.”

I almost felt like I was flung out, umbrella in hand. I put it up and looked to the right and the left of the street trying to find Kosei through the rain, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Quickly trying to remember the places he might go, I ran down the school route, calling out for Kosei and Chelsea.

I went to the shrine where we found Chelsea, but no Kosei.

“He isn’t taking shelter…Maybe he went back home.”

My clothes were wet from the windy rain, and I was very cold.

I went back to my house and changed out of my wet clothes. From the closet, I took out a sketchbook that I had left over from preschool and made some flyers for a lost cat.

I drew a cat painted all black with a black magic marker.

—Missing. Name: Chelsea. Color: Black. Eyes: Gold. Female. Wearing red collar.

“Done!”

Okay, now I just needed them to let me put these flyers on the community bulletin board in the park, in convenience stores, in supermarkets, and at businesses that my friends’ parents ran.

That’s when I noticed how quiet it seemed. I thought it was because of the rain…but even when I listened carefully, I couldn’t hear Kosei’s piano, which always came faintly from his house next door.

“Kosei’s not home yet? He’s still looking for her?”

Then I gotta look for Chelsea, too. I won’t give up till I find her. I’m gonna come back with Kosei and Chelsea.

When I stepped out from my house, the cold air soaked into my body. On top of that, the rain was pouring harder than before.

I went back inside, placed the flyers in a plastic bag to keep them from getting wet, and also put some scotch tape in my pocket, after nearly forgetting it.

“Let’s do this!”

I put up my umbrella resolutely and ran out into the street in the rain.

“Kosei! Chelsea!”

I ran all over calling their names. I went to the school route again, around the school, the riverbed where we often played together, our old preschool, the children’s playground in the residential area, the shopping arcade…

On the way, I stopped at two supermarkets and three convenience stores, the dental clinic run by my friend’s parents, and a beauty salon I knew, and asked them to let me put up the flyers.

Once the rain let up a bit, I’d ask the man in charge of our community center who always came by to hand out notices to let me post my two remaining flyers on the board in the children’s playground. If they weren’t enough, I’d make more.

“Kosei! Chelsea!”

No matter where I looked, and no matter whom I asked when I put up the flyers, I couldn’t find Kosei.

“You must’ve stopped somewhere to get out of the rain, didn’t you? Or did you go home already?”

’Cause it’s so cold outside.

My resolve was wilting from the terrible weather, and it was getting darker, so I decided to go home. None of the lights were on in Kosei’s house. I wondered if his mom was out looking for him, too.

“Oh, no. He must still be out there. I can’t stay home, I gotta go.”

My mom was worried about me, but I convinced her to let me go out for a third time.

The rain was already so bad that the umbrella wasn’t much use anymore. As I shivered, I tried to come up with places where you might avoid the rain. I decided to go to the shrine again.

Kosei wasn’t there.

My heart ached. It was hard to breathe. Even my stomach was hurting from not being able to find Kosei. It was getting darker and darker. The streetlights flicked on above me as I trudged along the sidewalk.

“Where are you…”

Then I remembered the big park far away that we’d only gone to twice.

“No way…that far? That’s in the next school district…”

We were the only ones who knew about the place, having trekked there to adventure in other kids’ territory.

“If I go there…it’ll be totally dark by the time I get back home.”

They’ll be so worried, my mom and Kosei’s mom, too. I’m gonna get a real scolding.

But Kosei and I were scolded all the time, anyway. If I told his mom that I’d dragged him around looking for Chelsea, maybe she wouldn’t scold him so much. Less than me, at least.

I headed over there.

On the way to that distant place, I found Kosei in the small children’s park near Ryota’s house.

I was freezing, so I wanted to get something to drink to get warm. I walked up to a vending machine on the sidewalk opposite from the park entrance and was getting some coins from the wallet in my pocket when it happened.

I dropped a one-hundred-yen coin. I bent down to pick it up and happened to look straight ahead. Underneath a park slide shaped like a piggy, in the tunnel in the body, sat a figure with his arms around his knees.

“Hey, Kosei?”

I hurried and bought a can of hot lemonade. It was what he’d bought for me the other day when I was a little sick with a cold.

“You’re not a gorilla.”

That’s what he told me when Ryota and some other boys teased me saying even a “female gorilla” caught colds. Kosei treated me to the can of lemonade and a gentle smile from behind those black-rimmed glasses.

“You’re a girl.”

I’d felt a lump in my throat, for the first time in my life. I’d also tasted a can of hot lemonade for the first time in my life—its sourness, its sweetness, and its warmth. It’s a taste I’ll never forget.

I stared at the figure again, my eyes wide open in the gloom. I was sure that was Kosei with the raincoat on.

Whew. There you are.

Holding the hot can with two fingers, I crossed the street and ran over to the tunnel under the piggy slide.

For some reason, I almost started to cry. It was really cold, and I was shivering. My legs were shaking.

“Kosei!”

I called him as I peeked into the tunnel, and he glanced at me, looking surprised for a moment. From all the rain his shoes were wet, his legs were wet, his hands were wet, and his bangs were wet, and so was his face, too. His eyes were red, and I could tell he’d been crying.

“I knew it, I knew you were here.”

No, I couldn’t have. But I knew I’d never stop looking, no matter how far I had to go.

“Tsubaki…”

“I made flyers for Chelsea. And I put up a lot of them, at shops and stuff.”

I pointed out the plastic bag that I’d put in my umbrella on the ground. Kosei shook his head hard like when a little baby doesn’t like something.

“Huh? What’s wrong?” I asked him, but he kept silent, biting his lip and holding his knees.

Then I noticed that he had a bandage wrapped around his left hand. The bandage was wet and dirty and plastered with dead leaves from the enkianthus shrubbery in the park. He must’ve stuck in his hands all over the place to look for Chelsea.

Wait a minute…Had he hurt his hand badly enough to need a bandage? Ouch. He couldn’t play piano…

“What happened to your hand?”

“It was…my fault.” Kosei put his right hand onto his left. “I was minding her too much…Chelsea scratched me…and it bled a lot.”

“Chelsea did?”

“It was my fault, not hers!”

I wasn’t sure what really happened, but it seemed like Chelsea had caused his wound. Then Kosei burst into tears.

“Chelsea…I’m sorry, Chelsea!”

“Okay…right.”

I didn’t know how to continue after that. If I said it wasn’t his fault, then it would be Chelsea’s, but I wasn’t gonna tell him it was his fault when he was suffering and crying.

“Drink it.”

I went into the tunnel and gave the hot lemonade to Kosei, who was crying so hard his nose was running.

“It’s getting dark, so let’s go home, yeah? You gotta dry yourself or you’ll catch a cold.”

Kosei sniffed his runny nose and started speaking in a choked voice.

“Chelsea was nowhere. Even in the dumpsite or under the bridge. It’s so cold outside, she’ll die if she’s out here.”

A teardrop fell—and then another—onto the bandage wrapped around his hand as he continued to hold his knees.

“I couldn’t say anything…even though I knew my mom was going out to dump her.”

Dump her—

I realized that Kosei’s mom had lied to me.

I was so shocked.

He kept talking while I was in shock.

“If I’d complained, Chelsea might still be alive…but I couldn’t say anything. I-I couldn’t say anything to my mom.”

Kosei let out a loud sob and held himself tight. His body was shaking violently.

“They’re right. I’m a doll with no heart that my mom made!”

Why would Kosei ever think that he had no heart? But he must have been told that by somebody…by many people, since he said “they.”

How terrible, who’s been telling him such things?!

For all the anger I felt, I didn’t even know who they were.

I couldn’t help being angry, though, and couldn’t forgive them.

Kosei was crying, his face buried in his knees, and I had no words for him. I felt so bitter and sad that it felt like my heart was being torn apart.

I actually didn’t see him cry often. Most of the time he was smiling, and he rarely got angry.

I can’t abandon Kosei when he’s crying so sadly. When it pains me so much. No one should shed tears like those.

I moved forward with my knees on the sandy, rough concrete.

“No, Kosei. You have a heart. There are so many great things about you. I know that. Like…”

Umm, what? When it comes to counting them…there’re just too many, or maybe too few? He’s always himself, and smiling, and it’s hard to tell what he’s thinking most of the time.

But he never lied.

He was always thinking about others. He was so kind and caring.

He was never selfish.

“Uh…okay, see? You were running around so hard. That’s because you regret what happened, right? ’Cause you wanna say sorry to Chelsea?”

His face was still buried, and he kept on crying.

If you had no heart, you wouldn’t feel sad or bitter or cry from regret. Not a chance.

“You’ve got heart, Kosei, for sure.”

He just wasn’t good at expressing himself. He smiled a lot instead.

He held back when he might say things.

“It’s just that you’ve become too good at hiding your feelings—so good even you can’t find them.”

Kosei’s skinny shoulders twitched.

My heart was breaking and in pain…I wanted so badly to see his usual peaceful smile.

“So I’ll find them for you. That way, you won’t get lost or have regrets…I’ll always be by your side.”

I sat next to him.

“I know everything about you, okay?”

I really thought so then.

Having learned that Chelsea hadn’t run away but had been left somewhere too far away, I went around taking the flyers back, lying that we’d found her.

I’d never told such a painful lie and had to look down the whole time ’cause I thought my expression would give me away.

One day a while later, Kosei was standing in his backyard, spaced out in a sunny spot in the winter sun. I was home and saw his head behind the low hedge, so I went out and spoke to him from the alley.

“Hey, Kosei, what’re you doing?”

Looking surprised, he hid something behind his back and said, “Oh, nothing. I’m gonna go out for a bit. I’ll be okay by myself.”

Strange. He was acting odd.

“Sure. See you around.”

With that, I snuck behind my house’s door. I took a moment and then looked outside. Kosei was headed for the dumpsite alone, a garbage bag for non-burnable trash in one hand.

It was obvious what was in it ’cause the garbage bag was transparent.

The red collar, the food bowl that Kosei had written Chelsea’s name on, and the cat toilet…

“Hey, wait!”

I got so angry, I ran out and grabbed the garbage bag.

“This…You’re doing this alone? That means Chelsea’s never coming back…”

Kosei avoided eye contact, looking remorseful. “I just thought you’d be sad…if you saw.”

“Don’t worry about me! Did you give up already?!”

“There’s nothing…I can do…”

He contorted his face trying to smile…his eyes brimming with tears.

“It’s…my—”

“It’s not your fault!”

Angry and sad, I snatched the garbage bag from Kosei’s hand.

“You shouldn’t be going by yourself. You shouldn’t have to do such a sad thing all on your own. I said I’ll always be with you, didn’t I? When you’re hurting, I’ll be with you, so just tell me. If you haven’t given up, then tell me!”

“I don’t wanna throw them away…But if I don’t…I get distracted. I’m always looking at them.”

“Did your mom say that?”

Kosei gave a small nod. “Then she should put the toilet and bowl away somewhere instead of keeping them in the piano room…But she can’t even do that. So I have to act sorry and put them away. ’Cause I know she regrets it, even if she doesn’t say so.”

“…Kosei, you’re too kind.”

I couldn’t say anything more.

Something hot welled up in my throat instead.

He smiled like he was about to cry. “See? I knew you were gonna be sad, Tsubaki. That’s why I wanted to go and throw them away by myself.”

“No…it’s not right for you to keep doing these things alone. I said I’d stay with you. I…don’t cry. I’m strong.”

I held back my tears. See? I wasn’t crying.

“Well,” he said in a little bit of distress, “when I told you the truth, that Chelsea was dumped, you looked so sad…Afterwards, I thought you were hurt worse than me.”

Dummy…

I couldn’t answer him—and just held the garbage bag to my chest.

“I’m gonna keep this for you,” I finally managed. “You’ll need them when we find Chelsea someday.”

When I turned away, Kosei let out a relieved mutter.

“Thanks, Tsubaki.”

I ran inside my house…and wept silently.

Why does Kosei have to be so kind?

The other thing happened…about three years ago. It was autumn and we were in sixth grade.

Kosei’s mom—Mrs. Saki Arima’s illness had gotten worse. She had passed away at the beginning of summer vacation that year, and this was right after the forty-ninth-day memorial.

Kosei was sitting at the piano and practicing, like always. My mom heard him playing and asked me to go see how he was doing.

I would have anyway. If he was playing more harshly than usual, or if it was the opposite and he couldn’t really practice, I’d know he was upset.

But Kosei hadn’t changed at all. He was practicing at an indifferent pace, at exactly the same time and in exactly the same way he’d been practicing for years.

The way he was behaving, I couldn’t help feeling worried about him.

I sneaked in through a window, and then into his piano room.

He didn’t seem to notice me and kept playing the whole time. He made the same sound over and over, sometimes tapping the keys strongly, sometimes tapping them softly.

I was there in the corner when Kosei suddenly spoke without even turning around.

“Tsubaki, you see that stuffed animal?”

He’d known the whole time.

“My dad found it when he was cleaning mom’s room. It’s a cat…isn’t it?”

There was a white thing lying on the floor next to a chair. I picked it up and saw it was a handmade stuffed animal. It wasn’t well made at all, and the face was drawn with a black magic marker.

“I think it was supposed to be Chelsea. My mom might’ve made it for me in secret. I didn’t know.”

“Well, this is white.”

“But I’m sure it’s Chelsea.”

I remembered Chelsea’s collar and the bowl that Kosei’s mom couldn’t throw away, and it made my heart ache. I hugged the clumsy-looking stuffed animal. Then I put my back against Kosei’s—his piano seat didn’t have a backrest—and leaned on him lightly.

I could feel the warmth of his body and the movement of his back muscles.

Without saying a word, he kept playing.

“Kosei…”

“Yes?”

“Are you gonna play in the Maiho Competition final?”

The final. It was happening next Sunday, probably.

“Yeah, I ought to since I passed the prelim.” His hands stopped, and neither stammering nor trying to sound brave, he went on plainly. “I’m terrible, aren’t I? My mom just died. But I’m more worried about the competition that’s coming up. I really am a bad person…”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. That’s just the way I was made.”

After that he said something like he was fine because he practiced a lot…but I was scared to ask more. I had a bad feeling.

Yeah, something’s wrong.

No way he’s not upset.

He hasn’t vented to anybody, anywhere.

The kinds of empty condolences that the moms in our neighborhood were offering him—“I know it’s hard, but if you cheer up and do your best, it’d make your mom happy in heaven”—nauseated me.

I happened to catch the same ladies talking about him behind his back—about how they thought it was creepy that he didn’t even cry.

So…I didn’t know what to say to him.

But I promised. To stay with him. I’ll be right by his side.

Holding the cat doll to my chest, I kept quiet and stayed there with him.

Having said his bit, Kosei, too, went back to playing again. The piece was intense.

That day, the clouds flowed swiftly and blocked, now and then, the sunshine coming in through the window.

A few days later, the final round of the Maiho Competition was held in central Tokyo.

I went to the competition to hear Kosei play.

I sat in the back of the first floor in the hall.

As one kid after another came on stage, I listened to the announcements about who was playing. I couldn’t tell how far along we were in the program just from hearing the pieces. I waited and waited for Kosei’s turn.

People started whispering when it arrived, and it made me sad. ’Cause they didn’t sound like they were welcoming him or expecting anything from his performance.

I guess Kosei had won so many times he’d become a heel.

At last he showed up on the lit stage.

He was gonna play Beethoven. He bowed and started to play, not looking especially nervous or excited—there was no expression on his face.

Kosei always practiced in small bits, but listening to the song all the way through from the beginning now, the melody was so much more intense, and his momentum and speed made it seem like he was banging the keys…It was when the piece shifted into this beautifully flowing tune that people around me started acting weird.

Like everybody was tense, or appalled, or astonished, or angry…

They couldn’t talk since the performance was still going on, but this strange mood was swallowing up the hall.

And then, on stage, Kosei suddenly stopped playing and cradled his head.

Is he crying?

…Kosei’s crying!!

The audience started murmuring, and a staff person showed up and took Kosei to the wing, pushing his back.

What happened?! Kosei, are you all right??

He’d been upset, after all. So deep inside him that he didn’t even know—but I’d noticed.

Now it had burst out all at once at the most important time.

Kosei! You shouldn’t be alone!

I really believed that, without any basis.

I had no idea what I could do for him, but I absolutely wanted to keep my promise to stay with him.

You have to keep promises. Maybe I can’t do a thing, but I can shut up and remain by his side and put my hand on his shoulder until he stops crying. That much I can do. I want to do it!

I rushed backstage.

But Kosei wasn’t there. I didn’t even know the place but ran around looking for him…

“There you are, Kosei!”

His face was all pale, and he didn’t even try to wipe his tears, he just let them spill. A woman I recognized took him out the back entrance in a hurry. She’d been in and out of Kosei’s house more often since his mom was hospitalized. This time I only saw her profile for a moment.

“Kosei!”

I called out to him, but he didn’t turn around. He disappeared behind the door of a car. I chased after them as fast as I could, but of course I couldn’t catch up to a car that was driving away…I couldn’t stay with him after all.

I didn’t know when he’d gone back home after that…His house stayed dark. But about three days later, Kosei came to school. He might’ve been staying at some other house.

“Morning, Kosei. We got these printouts in class while you were gone. And you should copy the homework now.”

I’d waited for him at the classroom entrance, and jumped out into the hallway and held the sheets and my notebook out to him. Kosei lifted his head slowly and let out, “Oh, okay…”

He borrowed my notebook and copied the homework, gave it back to me right away, and thanked me with a blank expression.

“Hey, Kosei. Do you wanna play dodgeball during lunch break? You just have to avoid getting hit. You don’t need to touch the ball. We gotta get everybody together and dash over to the gym or else the fifth graders are gonna take it. They come really early these days.”

“…Mm.”

He was absentminded the whole time, and when I talked to him, he hardly reacted or even glanced at me. But he didn’t look too depressed. He finished his lunch without leaving anything, either.

The next day, or maybe the day after that…I started noticing that the bathroom light in Kosei’s house was sometimes on, in addition to the light in his room upstairs.

“Oh, Kosei’s home.”

But not a single note came from the piano. The light in the music room was never on, either.

A few days passed, but it was still the same.

Kosei…did you quit playing piano?

But as soon as the thought popped into my head, I turned it down. That wasn’t it.

It’s because he’d cry if he played. It’s hard on him.

I remembered vividly how Kosei was on stage—sitting there with the piano in front of him under the blinding bright light, holding his head in his hands and crying.

But there are some things that you can’t let go of unless you cry and shout them out. Kosei looked like he was scared of doing that.

How might I soothe the uneasiness and sadness that he’d locked away in his heart? No matter how cheerfully I talked to him and invited him to do this or that, it was no use.

I didn’t care if he told me I was annoying.

I just talked about fun things when I was with him.

I stayed with him all the time. Even after we went home, I gazed at his house from my window all the time.

Kosei’s expression slowly went back to how it used to be, and around the beginning of the winter, he started smiling gently when he looked at me, so on the surface it seemed like he’d calmed down.

If I went to his house in the morning, he’d walk to school with me, and we’d have our usual conversations. It wasn’t like he wore the same old dirty clothes or never washed his face.

Kosei was back.

But…not his piano.

No matter how much time passed, I didn’t hear one note.

I thought maybe his hand hurt, and since we were in the same group in science class, I watched him carefully during our experiment, but it didn’t seem like that was it. In gym class, he didn’t look like he was minding his hand, either. And in home ec, he used a knife and a frying pan during cooking practice.

Before, he’d always been careful about not hurting his hands.

He’s still not himself. He isn’t the real Kosei without his piano. But…maybe playing still makes him sad and makes him cry, and it hurts him to cry.

“Did you quit piano?”

I came out and asked Kosei this, just once. He gave me a vague smile and shook his head.

Right after that, though, I saw him standing in front of the piano after music class, our sixth period. When I noticed, my feet halted by the back door, and I watched over him, holding my breath.

He didn’t leave even though it would be cleaning time soon.

The lid of the piano was open, and he touched one of the white keys around the center timidly with his right middle finger. Duum, he tapped it, making a single sound.

And he had such a complex look on his face…like he was relieved or something. Then he ran out of the room. I hurried after him but got stopped by one of my friends, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to him.

Kosei…I guess you still want to play piano?

But still no note came from his house.

His place was always quiet and there were no lights on in the living room or the kitchen, so I couldn’t even tell if anyone was home.

I wondered what he was doing, keeping so quiet in a dark house…I was worried, but it’d be rude to be watching all the time. Glancing in from my window now and then was the most I could do.

And then winter came.

Christmas evening—

While my mom and I waited for my dad to come home with warm fried chicken, we prepared for our home party. Having ordered some Bûche de Noël—a chocolate cake shaped like a log—from a pastry shop, we put it in the center of the dining table along with some glasses and a fizzy, bottled drink.

In the living room was a three-foot Christmas tree—a fake—that we’d decorated with ornaments. It was very warm inside the house. Outside, though, the first cold wave of the winter was setting in.

“Why is dad taking so long? I’m hungry.”

“He’ll be home soon. He texted saying he got to the station. I’ll bet the fried chicken shop was crowded,” my mom said, checking the taste of the pot-au-feu.

I opened the curtain and looked out through the window.

Kosei’s home was totally dark.

Of course, it’s Christmas. Kosei must be at somebody’s house having a party. He didn’t look so sad when we were coming home from school.

That’s what I was thinking when I saw something move in the dark window of his house.

Wh-What? A robber??

I hurried and told my mom. We watched together quietly from behind the curtain.

“…It’s hard to tell.”

Then my dad came home.

“I’m ho-ome. You said to get the large box of chicken, right?”

For a second I thought it should’ve been medium ’cause there were only three of us, but we quickly hushed him up—the chicken could wait.

“Next door, the Arimas’ house. It looks like they’re out, but did you notice anything strange?”

“No, why? Did something happen?” my dad asked with a blank look.

“Dad, could you go check?”

“What?? Me? By myself?”

Eventually, we geared up—I got a bat, dad took out a golf club, and mom had the broom we used for cleaning the entrance. Shining a flashlight, with dad in the front but huddled close together, we inched along our own wall. We lit the window of the Arimas’ over the low fencing between our houses.

The white face that appeared behind the pane looked surprised by the beam of light.

“Whoa!”

It was my dad who screamed.

“Kosei?!” I asked.

“What? Is it you, Ko??”

My mom noticed too after I shouted out his name. It was Kosei with a blanket over his head in the dark. He was staring our way.

“You’ve been home by yourself? What’re you doing? Let us in!”

My mom and I rushed to the Arimas’ entrance, and waiting impatiently for Kosei to unlock the door, we barged in.

It was very cold in the house. The heater didn’t seem to be on. I had to grope around in total darkness to find the light switches for the entryway and the hall.

We prodded Kosei, who still had the blanket on, and proceeded, turning on all the lights on the first floor. The place wasn’t exactly a mess, but some bags of burnable garbage were piled up near the backdoor in the kitchen. The see-through bags were full of empty bento boxes from convenience stores and packages from other ready-made meals.

Most of it was sandwich wrappers. There were seals on them that had the logo of a bakery in the shopping arcade. All the labels said “Egg Sandwich.”

Egg sandwiches…Kosei’s favorite. It got me thinking that maybe the bento boxes were what his dad had eaten, while Kosei had just been eating sandwiches.

“Oh, Ko…Why? And with the lights and heater off.”

My mom hugged Kosei like she was jumping him and sounded like she was gonna cry. He murmured his reply like he didn’t know what to say.

“I get scared when it’s bright…’Cause I can tell that no one’s here…”

“Isn’t it scarier in the dark?” my mom asked.

At this, Kosei fell silent and bit his lip. Watching from behind my mom, somehow I felt like I understood.

It’s more painful than scary—to see things as they are.

His house had been dark the whole time.

He’d been home alone the whole time.

“You must be freezing, Ko.”

“Yeah…but I’m okay. It’s just me here anyway.”

“What are you talking about? Of course you’re not okay. You’re gonna catch a cold. It’s Christmas, let’s go to our house and have dinner together. Right, Tsubaki?”

Mom was right. I was almost crying, too.

Being alone in a cold house with no lights on for Christmas…

“Yeah, good idea. My dad went and bought too much chicken, so you gotta help us finish it.”

Stupid Kosei. You were even gazing longingly at our bright dining room. Why are you doing this to yourself? I told you so many times I’d be with you and to let me know when you’re hurting. Why can’t you be honest and rely on me? Why are you always worrying about bothering other people?

My mom and I dragged him over to our house—the Sawabe residence.

First, we put him in the dining room, and my mom spoke to my dad in a low voice out in the hallway.

“Is Takahiko on another business trip? He could’ve just asked us to take care of Ko. Sometimes there’s a note in our mailbox saying he’ll be gone for a few days so would we please look after his son. Why didn’t he let us know on such a cold day? Did I do anything to make him feel like I expected something in return?”

I heard that Mr. Arima—Kosei’s father had to go out of town a lot for his job.

My mom would worry and invite Kosei over, but Kosei always refused like he’d be bothering us.

“Ah,” my dad said, “when I went out to get the paper this morning, I think I saw a note or something on top, but when I took the stuff out of the mailbox, the wind blew it away.”

“That was it! Pay attention.”

When we went back into the dining room, Kosei was sitting on a chair and looking warm and relaxed, which relaxed us, too. His pale cheeks were turning pink. His lips were getting their color back as well.

“Kosei, do you want some pot-au-feu? It’ll warm you up.”

I put some into a stew bowl from the pot. I went a little heavy on the sausages. This wasn’t lunch duty at school, so no one would tease me or complain.

“Is this…”

Kosei looked a little surprised.

“That’s right, Ko. You remember the smell, don’t you? Your mom gave me the recipe. I think that was around when you entered preschool. There was such a delicious smell coming from your kitchen, I had to ask your mom to share her secret family recipe.”

That was news to me.

So it was Kosei’s mom’s recipe.

He must’ve thought he’d never be able to taste his mom’s cooking again.

It made me excited to think how happy he’d feel. I finished serving everybody’s bowl and placed some side dishes on the table. Then I put the chicken on a big plate, too. My mom cut up the log cake.

“Ko, you can have the big one.”

“No, that’s mine!”

“I’m okay with a small one, Mrs. Sawabe.”

“C’mon, Tsubaki, don’t be so greedy.”

“Whaaat. Fine, Kosei’s like my little brother.”

All festive, we sat down around the table.

My dad popped the fizzy drink. It made a loud sound, and the cork hit the ceiling, landed between Kosei and me as we covered our ears, hit the corner of the table, and bounced onto the floor.

“Merry Christmas!” we toasted.

Kosei bashfully clinked his glass with mine.

I watched him as I ate my cake, hoping to see him love the pot-au-feu. Kosei ate his cake and the chicken my dad offered him but didn’t make a move for the bowl.

“The pot-au-feu’s really good,” I said, scooping some of the soup, jam-packed with the rich flavor of vegetables, and bringing it to my mouth, just to make Kosei try it too. “It was stewing for half a day. I helped make it—well, I peeled the onions. Mom used celery in the bouquet garni to make the stock, but you eat celery, right?”

“What’s wrong, Ko? Don’t be shy,” my mom urged.

“Okay…”

Kosei seemed to stifle a sigh. Finally he scooped some and tasted it.

He frowned, like he was in pain, but in the end he gulped it down. When he brought another bite up to his lips, he turned pale.

He dropped his spoon, covered his mouth with his hand, and ran out of the room.

“Kosei?!” I yelled.

“Ko!”

“Poor Kosei…”

We ran after him, but he darted into the bathroom…and didn’t come out for a long time.

“W-We did something awful to Ko. We were forcing kindness on him,” my mom muttered very sadly.

My dad looked really serious, too. “It hurts him to remember his mother…not being able to get back what he lost. His mom’s cooking, the piano, all of it, is just too much for him to take. Bright rooms, welcoming homes, happy families, all of it.”

“Kosei…This sucks. Is there nothing I can do? Mom, dad.” I couldn’t help clinging to my parents and shaking them. “It’s not enough just staying with him, I gotta do something. Something…” There was no way I could leave Kosei as he was. “He doesn’t want what people should want most, like warmth, tasty stuff, and bright places? Is he never going to be able to accept any happiness? It’s not right.”

Maybe he couldn’t stand up on his own. It wasn’t enough just to watch over him. I had to reach out and pull him up, to help him get up.

“I thought so too,” my mom said. “But…if it’s counterproductive, maybe just looking over him would be best. If it’s just self-satisfaction, it’s unfair to him.”

“It isn’t self-satisfaction!”

But mom and dad got more and more lost in thought. We all went quiet and hung our heads for a while.

What do I do?

About half an hour passed. Kosei didn’t come out no matter how long we waited. No sound came from the bathroom, even when we stood close.

“This isn’t good…He didn’t pass out, did he?” my dad said.

Warning that he was opening the door, he turned the knob. It wasn’t locked, maybe because Kosei had been in such a hurry.

As expected, Kosei had passed out—on the lid of the toilet after closing it.

“Kosei!”

He looked so pale, and the area around his mouth was a little dirty. He’d thrown up. His glasses and handkerchief were on the floor.

“Oh, no. Call an ambulance!”

At my mom’s loud voice, Kosei opened his eyes.

“I’m sorry…I think I fell asleep. I can’t sleep well at home…I guess this house feels comfy…”

He tried to stand up but staggered. He groped to find his glasses, so I handed them to him.

“Kosei, stay overnight. Here, rinse your mouth.”

I took him to the washbasin, filled a glass with warm water, and gave it to him. He rinsed his mouth and washed his hands…but then said, “I can’t anymore,” like he was gonna fall asleep right there.

“Oh, geez.”

“I’ll carry him,” my dad said, but I told him no. My chest felt tight as I lent a shoulder to Kosei, who was barely awake, but I took him to the guest room, where my mom laid a futon.

He’s a boy, so how come he’s so thin and light? He hasn’t been eating well, I bet that’s why. He must only be eating egg sandwiches, apart from lunch at school since our class goal is zero leftovers. Dummy. Take better care of yourself.

I even started feeling angry.

He’s doomed at this rate. He’s gotta eat more, at least. If he doesn’t, where’ll he find his energy?

I made up my mind.

I’d make him eat whatever he could. You gotta eat to live.

Right after that, we went on winter break.

When school was off, there was no school lunch. We couldn’t let Kosei eat egg sandwiches three meals a day.

I tried really hard to remember his favorite food.

“He likes beef stew, rice omelets, and curry…but who doesn’t. Uhhh, besides that, sweet-and-sour pork? That has to have pineapple in it…”

Eating some toast for breakfast at the dining room table, I was muttering to myself and taking notes on the back of a supermarket flyer. Mom started laughing.

“Aren’t those all your favorites, Tsubaki?”

“It’s okay! I know Kosei eats anything. Anyway, do we have green peppers? I’m gonna make sweet-and-sour pork!”

Wait a minute. Didn’t he avoid the pineapple when he had it at school?

Well, whatever.

I was the one doing the cooking, so I was gonna cook how I liked.

After I finished breakfast, I got right to it. Eyeing the recipe my mom had cut out from a magazine and kept in a scrapbook, I started on the sweet-and-sour pork.

…Sort of.

“Why’s it so hard to cut a green pepper? I mean it’s slippery and trying to run away from me.”

“I’m never cutting onions again ever! I can’t see anything from the tears.”

“Raw meat feels all flabby when I touch it. Gross.”

“Aaagh! I cut my finger!”

“Ack! Smoke’s coming outta the oil!”

“Stop, Tsubaki! Are you trying to burn the house down?”

I was gonna put the pork chunks (that I didn’t wanna cut into smaller pieces) covered with potato starch (figured out later that I’d used rice flour…) into the fryer, which was giving off a lot of weird smoke. It was really hot, so first I was gonna add some water with a bowl when my mom noticed and, with a frantic look on her face, dashed over and stopped me. She turned the stove off, too.

“What are you doing?! You’re gonna get burned badly from the splashing oil! Whew, thank goodness you’re all right…Oh, look at your fingers with all those bandages.”

Fed up with me, mom let out a big sigh.

“I’m gonna cook for today, Tsubaki, so just help me, okay?”

In the end the only thing I did was to serve it. I wrapped the plate with plastic wrap and put it on a tray to bring it to Kosei’s house. It was exactly lunchtime.

“Kosei, here’s your lunch. Eat it.”

“Thanks. But I don’t really have an appetite,” he declined with a vague, put-upon smile.

“No, you gotta eat. There’s no school lunch. You’re gonna get hungry and pass out.”

I thrust the tray at him, but he pushed it back. “I’m okay, I have my egg sandwiches. I can eat those.”

“You gotta eat other things, you know. I cooked this! So eat it.” I wanted him to take it so badly that I lied. “You’re saying you can’t eat food that I cooked?”

“N-No, I never said that.”

We ended up kind of arguing, but he still wouldn’t take the tray, and I wondered if the idea of having it alone was making him sad. “Okay, then let’s eat together. Don’t say no to me. I’m having lunch with you, at your house!”

The school lunch—he does go for that when everyone around him starts digging in.

“Sure,” he nodded.

I thought he was on board, but he took the tray from me and retreated into the doorway.

“I’ll have it with my dad for dinner. I think he’ll be home early today. Thanks.”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” I said, blinking my eyes, and the door shut.

Should I leave it at that?

The next day, early in the morning, the intercom in our entrance rang.

“Good morning. It’s Takahiko from next door.”

I opened the door and saw Kosei’s dad standing there, dressed casually. He was holding our tray, and on it was the plate for the sweet-and-sour pork, washed clean.

“Good morning,” I answered.

“Morning, Tsubaki. I heard you’re the one who made this. Great job, it was really tasty. Thank you so much.”

Mr. Arima sounded like he felt bad. I felt bad too ’cause it was really my mom who’d made it.

“You’re welcome…So it was to your taste?”

“It was really nice of you to make enough for both of us. Kosei told me he had his portion for lunch.”

“Uh…”

I’d meant for Kosei to have it to make up for his school lunch. No way had there been enough for two people.

Kosei didn’t have any, did he?

As I took the tray, I was so mad.

I’m so gonna make him eat my food—one look and his mouth is gonna water!

That’s when my struggles began.

While my mom was at her part-time job, I’d cook all by myself to bring Kosei lunch.

My goal—to make Kosei enjoy my food and make him smile like he used to.

First I tried rice balls…which ended up a mess. How come when I balled the rice it squished out between my fingers and stuck all over my hands?

Then I tried vegetable stir-fry…and burnt it to a crisp.

I tried hamburger steak…which came out raw on the inside and charred on the outside. I thought that was weird, and when I cooked it some more, it exploded. Like with the rice balls, using my hands to bunch the ground meat grossed me out, so I’d put it all in the frying pan as one big piece. I’d figured I could cut it up while it was cooking.

Next up was deep-fried chicken…It came out all raw, too. Hmm, the meat is supposed to be covered in some kind of batter, and you flavor it before you cook it??

Miso soup…It was a little thin so I added some salt, but oops, that was sugar. I couldn’t believe how it tasted. Plus, the hefty helpings of daikon weren’t cooked—maybe I’d cut them too big. The komatsuna wasn’t sliced through, so the leaves were still linked.

Next I made an omelet…burnt black, again.

“Yuck…even I can’t eat my food.”

I nibbled on my charred omelet and was put off by how hard and bitter it was.

“There’s no way I can give this to Kosei.”

Maybe I should quit?

The thought of giving up crossed my mind.

But then I remembered how Kosei had worn a blanket over his head in a pitch-black room, and it just broke my heart.

Am I doing this to make myself feel better?

No.

Not true, I told myself.

The next day would be New Year’s Eve, and I still hadn’t gotten any better at cooking.

In the morning, I was on my way to the supermarket, thinking hard about what dish I should work at next, when I saw Kosei going into a convenience store.

“Found him!”

Deciding to ask point-blank what he wanted to eat, since I was at a dead end, I followed him inside.

“Kosei!”

“Tsubaki? Thanks for the food the other day. Dad was so happy about it.”

He had that same old gentle smile…the one that made it hard to tell what he was actually thinking.

“I cooked it for you, okay?!”

“I had some. You added pineapple ’cause that’s how you like it, right?”

I knew he was a “no pineapple” person. I’m definitely for it, and I’d gone to the trouble of hiding it under the pork. I guess he’d checked the dish out at least that much.

“Thanks for the comment!”

You didn’t actually have to eat any of it to notice.

I grabbed Kosei’s collar and wringed his neck, and he flailed his arms and legs.

“But I did have some! And I thought, She got me. ’Cause I ate a bit of pineapple by mistake.”

“Is—that—true?”

I glared at him. Kosei was so honest that he turned his eyes away.

“Uh…probably.”

“What do you mean, probably?”

I flung him away.

I’ll cook something he’d wanna eat. I’m not gonna give up until he tries my cooking!

My heart was still pounding as Kosei got closer to the refrigerated section where they had sandwiches and rice balls. He reached for an egg sandwich right in front of me.

“Argh! That, again? Oh wait…you always get it at the bakery, don’t you?”

I was talking about the one in the shopping arcade. It’s small, but they have tasty stuff.

“Yeah, but it’s closed from today till the third.”

“Okay, then why don’t you choose a different one? Seriously, what do you wanna eat? I’ll do my best.”

“I’m fine. It must be a lot of trouble. All the effort, and the money, too.”

He said it so casually that I got super-mad.

“Trouble?! It’s way easier than worrying about you being in a cold, dark house all alone. And money’s no problem—I got my New Year’s gift allowance in advance. I wanna do it, so it’s nothing you need to worry about!”

“Thanks, Tsubaki. I need to pay you back someday.”

He smiled and walked toward the cashier like none of this had happened. Next to the register, there was a big pot filled with oden stew simmering away. The pot’s heat-resistant glass lid wasn’t fully on, so steam and the aroma of the broth wafted out through the gap.

“Smells good,” I muttered without even thinking.

Kosei gazed melancholically at the steam. “I feel like I wanna offer some to my mom.”

“She liked oden?”

He put down the egg sandwich at the cashier and turned and glanced at me. Behind his glasses, his eyelashes faced down.

“It was about a year ago…I think,” he said. “At the end of last year, when my mom got released from the hospital temporarily, your mom gave us some oden. She said she’d made too much. Did you know that?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

It wasn’t because she’d made too much—she’d made extra for his mom. I’d helped peel the eggs and cut the radish into big chunks (mom peeled it) and tied the seaweed into knots.

Opening his wallet and looking for some coins, Kosei went on wistfully.

“Mom looked so happy when she was eating. At the hospital, she couldn’t have anything that’s so hot you have to blow on it. She tried different ingredients little by little…I guess they’re called ingredients, right? The different things in oden, like radish, fried fish balls, and flat fish cakes? She ate a bit of each, laughing and saying she had such bad manners. I ate what she left.”

I got choked up imagining it, and all I could do was nod.

“She said, ‘A good neighbor is better than a faraway relative.’ She really appreciated it. Thanks for that, Tsubaki.”

He’d already finished paying for the egg sandwich.

“I got it!” I grabbed his right wrist. “I’m gonna make oden. Kosei, you can choose what I put in it, okay?”

I tugged him all the way out of the convenience store.

“W-Wait, Tsubaki, I didn’t even get my egg sandwich!”

“Who cares?”

“I do!”

I made him choose all of the ingredients at the pasted products section in a supermarket. He was surprised to see there were so many kinds to choose from.

For the simmering broth, mom volunteered to supervise because she didn’t want the kitchen messed up. She did also check the taste.

It was okay to cut the radish big for this. The same went for the other ingredients. Maybe it was the perfect dish for me to cook.

“Okay, Tsubaki, now you have to watch so it doesn’t get burned, and just let it simmer on the lowest heat. It’s because you try to hurry and make the fire too strong that it ends up raw inside and charred outside. Just be patient.”

I let it simmer all day long like I was told, checking the radish to see if it was cooked, and on the morning of New Year’s Eve, I brought the whole pot over to Kosei. Then mom made some osechi New Year’s dishes, which I arranged in double boxes and delivered in the evening.

The Arimas were in mourning, so there were no New Year’s decorations hanging on the door. Still, Kosei’s dad looked so happy about the osechi.

Fast forward to the evening of New Year’s Day.

The three of us had just come back from our shrine visit. At the entrance, the oden pot I’d brought to Kosei was sitting in front of the door, with the lid on tight.

When I lifted it, it was heavier than I expected.

“They didn’t eat it?”

I went in and got the lid off in a hurry. The pot had been washed thoroughly, and inside, there were five shiny red apples.

“Apples?”

“Right,” mom said, “Saki told me once that she had a relative who lived up north. They sent her apples that she shared with us a few times. That was a long time ago…when Saki was still fine. It was even before…Ko started playing piano every day.”

She took the apples from the pot with a nostalgic look on her face.

At the bottom was a note in Kosei’s handwriting.

—It was delicious. I could see how you were in the kitchen the whole time. It was piping hot and tasted just like the one from last year, really good. I gave some to my mom, too. Thank you so much. These apples are from her. They sent us a whole box, but you know, just me and dad and mom can’t eat so many all on our own.

He ate it, this time.

—The chikuwa was so chewy. I didn’t know it could be so fluffy and chewy.

“That wasn’t chikuwa but chikuwabu. They’re totally different. He thought it was chikuwa when he picked it out. Oh, Kosei.”

Laughing, I quietly wiped away the tears falling down my cheeks with my fingertips.

“I’ll go tell Kosei that we can make apple pie before they go bad if they have more,” I said to my mom, opened the door, and dashed out.

It’s only fifteen steps to our neighbors’ door.

A few months later.

Now we were in middle school, where we had to wear a blazer uniform.

From behind, Kosei looked one size bigger as he walked in his uniform under cherry blossom trees.

Still no piano from the Arima residence. It was just as silent as before.

But sometimes, simple melodies came from the music room after class. Gentle notes, played by Kosei.

I decided to join the softball club. At an away match, I learned from an older student that placing the rice in plastic wrap and rolling it, like you did with mud cakes when you were little, was a good way to make rice balls come out fine.

Out in the schoolyard, drinking water to stay hydrated during breaks in practice, I could hear it when I strained my ears.

Kosei playing the piano.

Unlike before, when he played classical music and constantly repeated the same phrases, it was always trendy J-POP with a light touch.

But it only happened once in a while, really…

So I suppose Kosei couldn’t totally forget about it.

Even after a somewhat halting piano sounded from the music room after school, the one at his home remained silent. Since that never changed, I figured that was where he was.

How many more years would he be like this, up in the air and lost? Would the Arimas’ piano never get played again?

I was unsure for over two years—until the first day of school in April, at the beginning of our third year, at the assembly when my classmate Kaori Miyazono suddenly said something…