Chapter One

Thoughts on Brassieres

1

The light streamed through the window onto his face. It was uncomfortable, and Taki Tachibana grimaced, his eyes still closed.

The sensation of forming the expression set his mind rising. Waking always felt like floating up from watery depths toward the surface. Through the window, he could hear the tree branches in the garden swaying. It sounded like waves.

As he lay there, he became aware of his own weight. He felt gravity pressing against his back. If this kept up and he opened his eyes, a new day would begin whether he wanted it to or not.

I don’t want to open my eyes…

For a little while, he floated gently in a liminal state, neither asleep nor awake. This halfway point between on and off was incredibly comfortable. Ahh, I want this to last forever… Immediately following that thought, an ominous lump rose in—or rather, on—his chest.

An unpleasant jolt lanced through his drowsy mind. A verbal representation of it would have been:

Which is it today?!

He flinched on reflex. In that instant, the overpowering sense that something was wrong ran through his entire body.

A body disconcertingly lacking in flesh.

In short, his muscles failed to solidly upholster his surface. His physique was endlessly soft and unreliable, and the instability shocked him.

“Waugh!”

He couldn’t take how weird it felt. Flinging the futon cover back violently, Taki sat up.

He quickly looked around. He was in a Japanese-style room, six tatami mats in area.

By now, he’d gotten pretty used to seeing this room.

A student desk and chair sat on the tatami-covered floor. The first time he’d seen that, he’d thought, It’s like Nobita’s room. To begin with, he’d been startled to find that someone had actually put a desk on top of tatami. That said, the room was clearly well populated with stuff, unlike Nobita’s austere living space. A long rectangular mirror stood against the wall. A girl’s school uniform hung from an exposed, horizontal beam, and the pleats of the skirt had been meticulously ironed. He knew that if he opened the closet, it would be crammed full of clothes, and that putting the futon away would take serious effort.

It was a girl’s room.

The leaves waved outside the window, and the light that streamed through them oscillated, too. It made the room feel green to Taki. Not that the light was emerald-colored, but the atmosphere.

Taki tried to align the reality of his surroundings with the surreal sensation of this body by studying the room for a while.

“Again…?”

The instant he processed the situation, sweat broke out on his forehead, and his long bangs clung to his skin. The sensation bothered him, and when he shook his head, the soft touch of long hair stroking the back of his neck gave him a chill.

Lifting the palm he’d had over his eyes, he grabbed his left arm.

The flesh felt far too soft, and the texture made his heart skip uneasily. It was weird that something this soft managed to function as a proper arm. The feel of the skin, the musculature—no, the very nature of the body was completely different from the one he knew. It wasn’t a guy’s body.

It was a girl’s.

Today, once again, when he opened his eyes, he’d turned into a girl.

He sucked in a deep breath, then slowly let it out in a long sigh.

Even that was enough to remind him that her lung capacity was different from his.

What a pain.

He’d have to spend the whole day as a regular high schooler in a town he didn’t know again. Having to pass himself off as an unfamiliar girl among unfamiliar people and try his best not to destroy unfamiliar relationships: Now, that was stress.

Besides…

This body is so…

…incredibly hard to handle.

For one thing, the length of its stride was far too different, which was exasperating.

The body’s center of gravity wasn’t like his own, so he tended to stagger. Even a slight stumble would be enough to twist such delicate ankles, or so it felt.

And not just the ankles. This whole body was slender.

It made him worry that if he randomly planted those hands somewhere, he might break an arm.

He didn’t really know how far he could push it before it broke, and that was terrifying.

While he thought, Taki ran both hands all over the slim body, patting and feeling. Unless he did this—made a tactile confirmation that, right now, he was in a body that wasn’t his own—he wouldn’t be able to hang on to his sense of reality.

After he’d spent a while inspecting his physical condition, he shifted both hands to his chest. Then, after a little hesitation, through the pajamas, he slowly pressed on the bulges with his palms.

His palms met a very mild resistance, and then the slightly elastic breasts collapsed and flattened.

He curved his fingers, lightly squeezing the flesh.

Hmm.

There was quite a bit.

The breasts certainly weren’t enormous.

They weren’t the kind that bounced and swayed majestically. Nothing like that.

If he lifted them and then let go, they didn’t drop with a sensation of weight or solidity.

Even so, there was enough to warrant the thought Hey, they’re boobs and a deep nod of satisfaction.

Mm-hmm.

Quite enough.

With this much mass, touching them felt pretty nice.

His face serious, Taki massaged the breasts.

For some reason he didn’t understand, it was weirdly relaxing.

His current situation was completely insane, but he’d reached a point of being able to rationalize it as a sort of joke. Like someone was telling him to just chill and take it easy.

As he kneaded the breasts, he chanted Boobies, boobies in his head, rhythmically, and it got funnier and funnier.

Boobies, boobies.

Squeeze, release, squeeze, release.

Wow…

Boo-bies. Boo-bies.

Even he thought he was being incredibly dumb, and a smile found its way onto his face.

After he’d enjoyed himself for a while, he let go. Any more would be risky—meaning he could lose control. It felt as if beyond this point, there was a switch that shouldn’t be flipped. The red button that showed up in comedies, in a secret base or something, where a president who’s lost his mind abruptly tries to jab it with his finger and the people around him restrain him with brute force. He must not press that button. If he did, he’d trigger an outcome he couldn’t undo.

Besides, if Mitsuha found out, it would be extremely bad news.

He started feeling a little guilty. As he looked absently around the room, an alarm suddenly sounded, and he bolted upright.

The cell phone on top of the desk had rung. This model, with a full-screen face, had been released several years back.

When he picked it up, it displayed a message from Mitsuha. It was an app that delivered prescheduled texts.

Does she have this set to pop up every day just in case she’s switched with me?

It was the usual rundown of the rules:

One new item had been added to the list:

Scary!

As a reflex, Taki yanked the phone away from his face.

This wasn’t a message. It was a threat.

He’d left his own body with her, after all, and there was no telling what could happen to it while it was in her possession.

He’d been put on notice. He couldn’t do anything careless.

Mitsuha owned this body.

If he started trying to explain, he’d never finish (and it wasn’t something he could explain anyway), but Taki Tachibana, a high school guy living in the sixth district of Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, periodically switched personalities with Mitsuha Miyamizu, a high school girl from the town of Itomori in Z. County, Gifu Prefecture.

Basically, the two swapped minds from time to time.

For anyone thinking, What the heck? I don’t get it, just watch director Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Exchange Students or read Hisashi Yamanaka’s I’m Her and She’s Me. You’ll totally get it.

The swaps happened randomly, about two or three times a week. Falling asleep triggered them.

In the mornings, Taki’s mind awoke in Mitsuha Miyamizu’s body, while Mitsuha’s mind took over Taki Tachibana’s body, and they’d stay that way until they fell asleep at the end of the day. Once they’d drifted off again in bed, the next thing they knew, they’d be back to normal.

An afternoon nap didn’t seem to be enough to trigger a switch or a return. They’d learned this firsthand by napping during class.

The first time they swapped, Taki just thought he was having some sort of lucid dream. He assumed he was dreaming that he’d turned into a girl he didn’t know in his sleep and was living somewhere new, but…

It was way too real for that.

The unfamiliar scenery was far too vivid. The sounds were way too clear. Objects had well-defined textures, and the supporting cast was too autonomous.

It was so bad that he’d actually diagrammed the various interpersonal relationships on a two-page spread in a notebook just to keep it all straight.

He had this dream—the one where he turned into a girl named Mitsuha Miyamizu and lived as her for a day—over and over again.

If that was all it was, the situation might have warranted nothing more than a simple: “You’ve had a bunch of pretty crazy dreams in a row now. Do you want to meet with a counselor, just to be on the safe side?” He wished that had been the case.

When he realized that these dreams were accompanied by a full day’s memory gap, though, he started thinking, Y’know, maybe I should worry about this.

When he had a Mitsuha Miyamizu dream, Thursday followed Tuesday.

He’d discover that he’d made mistakes at his part-time job that he never would have made.

A full days’ worth of content from his classes would be missing from his memories. More precisely, he wouldn’t even remember being there at all.

It felt like watching the next installment of a TV show after missing last week’s episode.

If that had been the extent of it, a recommendation of “Maybe we should find a hospital that specializes in this sort of thing?” might have covered it. He really, truly wished that had been the case.

But he had notes from those classes he didn’t remember attending, taken in handwriting he didn’t recognize.

Actually, that wasn’t quite true. Technically, Taki had seen it before. In his dreams.

It was the same as the writing in Mitsuha Miyamizu’s notebooks.

She probably noticed the handwriting about the same time I did.

The clincher had been records of the apparent events of his “missing” days as entries in the journal app on his cell phone. Really exuberant entries.

The signature beneath them all read Mitsuha.

One morning, when Taki woke up in his own room, he found the name Mitsuha written on the inside of his left arm in permanent marker. It seemed almost weird that there was no has arrived! scribbled under it.

Once things had gotten to that point, they couldn’t help but notice each other.

In other words, this wasn’t a dream.

Mitsuha Miyamizu wasn’t some sort of delusion from a fantasy land.

Both she and her world existed in real life. Without realizing it, his consciousness found its way into her body, and while he was there, Mitsuha Miyamizu’s mind lived in him.

Taki Tachibana’s initial reaction was, basically:

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!!”

For her part, Mitsuha Miyamizu’s first message to him through his cell phone’s memo function pretty much summed it up:

Taki immediately typed I’m not a pervert! below the memo. If he’d intentionally snuck into a girl’s life, you couldn’t have called him anything else, but this was completely beyond his control. Like anybody’d actually ask for this kind of drama!

He’d objected, entering the letters with quick flicks of his fingers, but…

You’re doing whatever you want with my body, so you are obviously a pervert!!

…came the blunt reply that awaited him the next time they swapped.

What the—? “Doing whatever I want with her body”?

Does she not get that that’s pretty racy?

It was around that time that, despite the limited information he had to draw from, the vague outlines of Mitsuha Miyamizu’s personality began taking shape for Taki:

This girl’s kind of a freak.

He put the futon away, then stripped out of the pajamas and dropped them on the tatami. Taki felt guiltier taking off her clothes than he did when squeezing her breasts. He put on the uniform hanging from the beam. It never ceased to terrify him that this “skirt” was secured only by means of a hook and fastener with no belt. So this is what it means to have a waist, huh? He was also strangely impressed at how easily he could slip into the thin, tiny white shirt and feel the buttons fasten properly.

All these little details surprised him.

He pulled his hair back into a ponytail and tied it with an elastic. The real Mitsuha might do something more elaborate with her hair, but this was the best Taki could manage.

Once he’d donned the accessories, he had no choice but to get fired up.

All day today, somehow, I’ll manage to act like a girl.

If he didn’t psych himself up, he’d lose heart.

Who are you?

It felt like someone might seriously ask him that out of the blue, and the prospect scared him. If anyone actually said something like that to him, his heart was sure to stop.

Having observed the reactions of the people around him, he’d acquired a vague idea of how Mitsuha Miyamizu talked.

Though he may have understood it, keeping it up for an entire day was tough. He was bound to start messing up before lunchtime. Without noticing, Taki would slip back into talking like a guy, making everyone at school do a double take. He always reviewed his mistakes, but even then, he couldn’t seem to correct them.

A bit more fine-tuning might be required.

“Oh, right.”

He realized he had a perfect textbook right under his nose: the memo Mitsuha had left on her cell phone. It was practically Mitsuha Miyamizu’s own voice. All he had to do was learn to say this naturally.

He gave it a shot.

“…Seriously! Do not mess around with my body!”

Even Taki thought it came out stilted. He sounded like a performer from an amateur theater group.

“—Also, I’m sure you know this, but…! If you go into the girls’ locker room, I will make you pay for it somehow!”

He’d done his best to sound menacing, but this voice didn’t do “forceful” very well.

He read through the message two or three times but quit when it started feeling stupid. Suddenly, he sensed a nearby presence. His eyes wandered a bit, and then he noticed the slightly open sliding door and a little eye peeking at him through the crack. The eye blinked, then rolled.

“Whoa!”

He’d used his real voice, not the playacting one. In a gloomy, traditional Japanese room, what he was seeing looked straight out of Seishi Yokomizo’s folk horror world.

It was Yotsuha, the little sister. She and Mitsuha were several years apart, and she was still in elementary school. Beyond the cracked sliding door, the grade-schooler’s mouth twisted, a single eyebrow raised, and she backed away hunched over like a shrimp, gently closing the gap. She hadn’t said a thing, but if her expression had been translated into words, it would have been Yikes.

* * *

Taki left the house as if time were hustling him along. He walked part of the way to school with the little sister (so he didn’t get lost), but after they parted ways, there was only one road, so he had no trouble.

This little town of Itomori was built all the way around Itomori Lake. The lake occupied a basin in the mountains and wasn’t all that big. It was a fantastical sight: an abrupt pool, deep in the mountains. The lake was completely encircled by hills, which meant all the land around it sloped. The houses and roads had been built on level areas created artificially, either by carving away or building up the ground. As a result, the road ran in a rough ring, and whether you were coming or going, you wound up at about the same place.

Taki glanced at the scenery on his left.

The trees growing on the hill below the road suddenly ended, revealing a distant view. The wind kicked up ripples on the surface of Itomori Lake, glittering like cut glass in the morning light.

The mountains beyond it were completely covered in green trees and complex shadows. Faint and pale in some places, dark and deep in others.

As Taki ran his eyes over the mountains’ intricate appearance, something like deep emotion welled up inside him.

Was this what people called nostalgia?

Taki had been born and raised in Tokyo’s twenty-three wards—on the inside of the Yamanote railway loop, at that—and as he didn’t have a rural hometown, he’d never gone back to visit one.

That meant he didn’t really understand what it felt like to be homesick, but the emotion tickled him all the same.

Abruptly, Taki stopped and stood still, gazing fixedly at the scenery. He took in as much as he could, trying to burn the entire view into his mind.

The glinting light danced on the surface of the lake. The wind blew down from the dark, silent mountains, teasing and tugging at his hair.

The wind had a scent to it. It was very faint, as if the mere presence of water and earth and trees had been sealed into microscopic, transparent capsules that rode on the wind and burst against his cheeks.

In this town, Taki had experienced this sweet-smelling breeze for the first time.

He had a premonition.

From now on, whenever I think about nostalgia, I’ll probably remember this view.

This scenery…

Had the gods given Taki this opportunity to experience “hometown,” since he didn’t know what it was like to return to one?

He hadn’t fully processed the sensation in so many words, but he did feel it.

“Why are you lookin’ gloomy this bright and early in the mornin’?”

Behind him, someone hooked a chin over his shoulder. When he turned, he found Sayaka Natori standing there, pigtails swaying.

Katsuhiko Teshigawara, with his big frame and burr cut, came up after her, pushing his granny bike and yawning.

According to Taki’s observations thus far, Mitsuha had grown up with these two since they were tiny. Their families were friends. At school, the three of them almost always went around together. In the words of the locals, they were cater-cousins.

Initially, Taki’d worried, It’s a bad idea to spend a lot of time with people who know Mitsuha really well, but he realized almost immediately that this wasn’t the case. Both were relatively laid-back, so they weren’t quick to second-guess Mitsuha’s behavior (or the reasons behind it). Sayaka in particular would ask “What’re you doin’?” whenever Taki did something a little strange, which meant he could correct it right away. Frankly, that was a lifesaver.

Given that was the case, Taki’d decided to stick with these two as much as possible at school. It seemed like a more natural thing for Mitsuha to do anyway. To really sell it, he’d have had to call them Saya and Tesshi, but not wholly comfortable being so familiar, he fudged it with things like Um and Listen instead.

“Your hair’s all mussed again. Your skirt ain’t rolled up, either.” Sayaka Natori lightly pinched Taki’s (or rather, Mitsuha’s) hair, which he’d pulled back into a simple high ponytail. “Did you sleep late?”

“That too, but… This is the best I could manage.”

Taki’s face warped as if he were going to cry. His resolve to talk like the real Mitsuha was already crumbling. “The skirt and stuff… This is the best I can do.”

Taki couldn’t begin to fathom how much grit the high school girls of the world had to have in order to wear skirts this short. As an onlooker, the short skirts simply delighted him, but when he was the wearer, there was nothing more terrifying.

Sayaka dubiously cocked her head to one side. “But before, you were talkin’ about how long skirts were ‘a blot on the esprit of high school girls.’”

“She said stuff like that?” Taki muttered to himself under his breath.

“Once we get to school, want me to do your hair for you?”

“Nah, it’s fine.” After turning her down, Taki murmured another aside. “I’m not sure I could undo it on my own.”

“That way’s good, too, though,” Teshigawara cut in. “You look like a master swordsman from a period drama. Like from Shingo’s Twentieth Bout or somethin’.”

“Did you just call that a topknot?” Sayaka scowled, elbowing Teshigawara. “And what’s that, anyway? A movie?”

“Hashizo Okawa.”

“Who?” Sayaka and Taki gaped in unison. The glance they exchanged was equally symmetrical.

2

Mitsuha Miyamizu’s high school grounds were excessively spacious. First, the lot itself was just plain big. In addition, the school buildings were small, and there weren’t many other facilities, which made it seem sprawling. On top of that, the hills encircling it lent an air of desolation.

When they entered through the side door, Taki was startled by how few shoe cubbies there were. There were only two classes per grade here.

By the time they reached the classroom, about half the students were already there. A group of two girls and one guy occupied seats by the sliding door. When Taki came in, they glanced at him for a moment, then looked away and began whispering and giggling about something.

Irritating. Taki didn’t remember the trio’s names. He could find out by retrieving his notebook and checking his homemade class directory and relationships diagram, but he didn’t even want to.

Apparently, these three were part of the flashy local “it”-crowd but as far as Taki was concerned, they didn’t seem the least bit sophisticated. He found it a little curious that they carried themselves as “worldly” despite that.

Just as Taki put his bag down at Mitsuha’s seat, the three of them began making snide remarks, pointedly directed at no one in particular.

“He called her ‘young miss.’”

“Wait, what?”

“The old guy next door. That’s what he calls girls from this one family that’s connected with somethin’ religious: ‘young miss, young miss.’”

— Huh?

— Pfft! “Young miss,” in this day and age. Paaathetic.

— They stopped treatin’ shrine families as village leaders before the war, right?

— All that kowtowin’ gives some folks the wrong idea, too. I mean, y’know, she flutters and dances around in public, up there above everybody.

— Does she think she’s a celebrity or somethin’?

— Nah, probably an idol singer for the geriatrics.

— That makes no sense. (ha-ha)

Sayaka Natori’s face had gone tense. Taki, perfectly expressionless, eavesdropped absently, as if he were half listening to a radio show. The loud conversation continued, its intended audience still deliberately nonspecific.

— Besides, there was that, y’know. That thing at the festival.

— Oh, that. Uh-huh.

— Where she chewed up rice and barfed it.

— Disgusting.

Teshigawara started to stand, ready to go ballistic, but Taki put a hand on his shoulder and held him down. He appreciated the chivalry, but intervention by a third party would only make things messier.

“Man… This again, huh?” he silently muttered to himself.

Something similar had happened a little while earlier. These guys never learned.

There were parts Taki didn’t totally get, but apparently, this was all about Mitsuha.

Mitsuha was the granddaughter of a shrine family with a long history, one that had most of Itomori’s residents under its protection. Her grandmother was the chief priestess, and Mitsuha and Yotsuha were shrine maidens. For her, being a shrine maiden involved far more than selling ceremonial evil-averting arrows from the shrine office at New Year’s. She was more of a professional, someone who played an important role in festival rites. She was full-contact clergy. Miyamizu Shrine was only the local tutelary shrine at this point, but long ago, it had had its own territory, not unlike a feudal lord’s. Even now, faint echoes of that history remained. On top of that, Mitsuha’s father was Itomori’s current mayor.

As a result, Mitsuha stood out, and that rubbed these kids the wrong way.

All right. It’s a shame to cut in when they’re having such a fun little chat, but…

Taki switched his brain to combat mode.

…I’m not wired to ignore stuff like this, sadly.

Very, very slowly, Taki strolled over. The two girls had their backs to him. Spreading his arms wide behind them, he suddenly embraced them by the necks.

To anyone watching, the pose would have suggested three girls with their arms companionably hugging one another’s shoulders, but in reality, he was practically choking them. “Wha…?!” the girls exclaimed, starting to struggle, but Taki kept them pinned and lowered his face right next to their ears.

Then he remarked, “You’re saying some real interesting stuff over here.”

His unblinking eyes were fixed on the trio’s third member, the guy in front of him. He continued slowly so the two girls trying to extricate themselves from his arms could hear him clearly as well.

“I didn’t catch all that. Could you say it again? C’mon, tell me what was disgusting.”

The girls were silent. The guy’s eyes started darting around.

“Go on. Talk.”

None of them spoke. Besides few weak ahs and ums, none of them uttered anything intelligible.

“Nothing? Okay then, we’ll talk about something else. None of this anonymous crap—let’s hear some names. Who’s this old guy, and where was he? Who was he talking about? What did he say?”

“No, uh…,” the guy faltered.

“Look, jerk—I mean, listen, I want the facts. I’m just asking you what exactly you want to hear from me.”

“We don’t really—”

“Oh? You aren’t saying anything. You don’t have anything in particular to say to me?”

Nobody answered.

Taki lowered his voice. “Then just keep your mouths shut.”

He let them go.

When he returned to his own seat, he realized that everyone in the room was silently staring. He clapped his hands twice and barked sharply, “Okay, show’s over.” Instantly, sighs went up here and there, and the tense atmosphere diffused.

Taki sat down and rested his chin in his hands, pushing his cheeks up with his fingertips. He thought about the owner of this body, Mitsuha Miyamizu.

This sort of bald-faced innuendo seemed routine. Apparently, Mitsuha Miyamizu had always silently turned a deaf ear.

He knew this because backbiting was always directed at people who didn’t retaliate. Since these guys obviously wanted Mitsuha to hear their nasty comments, it meant she never called them out.

He didn’t get it.

Somebody was talking smack about her so that could hear it, which meant all she had to do was grab and threaten them. Hey, let’s you and me go have a little talk.

Just thinking about it irritated Taki. Not at the harassment itself, but at Mitsuha Miyamizu’s tolerance of it.

Suddenly, Sayaka smacked his right knee. Without realizing it, he’d put his right ankle on his left knee to sit with his legs crossed like a statue of Buddha.

I really wish they’d gimme a break.

The last remnants of his irritation still clinging to the edges of his mind, Taki stood on a stairwell landing. The classrooms nearby were completely unused, and the area saw almost no traffic. He was there because he was in charge of cleaning it. He was the only one, but not because everybody else was slacking off. The school didn’t have many students to begin with, and the building itself was small enough that just one was assigned to each area for cleaning duty.

Flicking a broom around apathetically, Taki thought, It’s tough enough being stuck in a body I’m not used to. I don’t need a bunch of interpersonal nonsense on top of that.

What a pain in the butt.

He didn’t want heavy stuff going down when he couldn’t make his body do what he wanted. It doubled the stress. At least pick one or the other.

Mitsuha’s reach was just a hair short. When he tried to pick up a pen or anything like that, something just felt off.

When he walked somewhere he knew, it usually took more steps than he expected to get there.

This vague dissonance was trouble. Since it was only slight, it hit him when he got careless. It was rough on the nerves. A big difference wouldn’t have nagged at him this much. His mind would have prepared itself for that.

The lack of strength also made him feel off.

The fuel economy’s good, though.

In his regular body, Taki sometimes felt so hungry he was practically starving, but apparently this never happened to Mitsuha.

In addition, maybe because her muscles were soft, her joints were very flexible.

This body moved quickly, too, possibly because it didn’t weigh much.

If he got acclimated to it, this physique might actually be pretty fun.

It was similar in a learning to ride a unicycle might be fun kind of way, but Taki thought so nonetheless.

He tossed the broom aside and tried snapping his fingers. He missed on the first two or three attempts, but soon a crisp, pleasant noise rang out.

He snapped his fingers, striking a rhythm, and swayed.

Quietly, he hummed a bass line.

Then, as an experiment, Taki danced through the intro to Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal.”

Strike a pose, freeze.

Take a few short steps. Freeze and snap your fingers.

Spin, freeze.

At one point in middle school, for some reason, copying Michael Jackson’s dances had become abnormally popular among the members of the basketball club. That’s when he’d learned these moves. The obsession had turned into a competition with no real winner to see who could dance it best, using a video site for reference. All of Taki’s former fellow club members could do this.

Mitsuha’s body was too light for Taki, and the choreography came out shaky. Not being able to stop exactly where he wanted was frustrating.

He messed up the steps and came close to twisting an ankle a few times.

However, these knees were incredibly limber. They weren’t very springy, but they were capable of complicated gyrations that his own couldn’t even begin to pull off.

He was getting more and more accustomed to the way this body moved.

There was the bit where he formed a gun with his fingers and took aim…

Then the moonwalk.

And freeze.

As he danced, he developed a feel for the body’s center of gravity and the length of its limbs. With a little more practice, he probably wouldn’t have to worry about randomly falling over anymore. On the days he had Mitsuha’s body, substituting dance every morning in lieu of calisthenics might not be a bad idea.

It felt as if his mind and his motor nerves had finally managed to connect.

Now that he was moving it in earnest, this body was fun. Its flexibility was the best part. If he tried doing yoga, no doubt he’d be able to pull off some jaw-dropping poses.

After one more long freeze, he exhaled and relaxed. He slackened his arms so they hung limply at his sides. As he did, from farther up the stairs, he heard voices marvel, “Ooh.”

When Taki looked up, three girls were watching him. Their lips were set in silent wows, and they were applauding soundlessly with their fingertips.

Taki didn’t recognize their faces, which meant they weren’t in his class. They might be from the next class over, or a lower grade. That said, that didn’t necessarily mean they weren’t acquaintances. Everybody at this school seemed to know one another by sight.

“Whoa, what was that?! How cool!”

The trio called to him as they came down the stairs.

“I never thought I’d see you doin’ somethin’ like that, Miyamizu. You startled me.”

“Is that what you’re really like, Mi?”

Taki only responded to the latter question. “No. I dunno what this girl’s really like.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

3

That was about all that happened at school that day. In the evening, Taki went back to the Miyamizus’. Since it was Mitsuha’s turn to cook, he made dinner. The tomatoes were starting to get wrinkly, so he peeled them and stewed them with chicken. The side dishes were a green-pea-and-spinach sauté and bok choy consommé. These were simplified versions of stuff he’d learned to make by watching the chefs at the restaurant where he worked. At this house, farmers from the neighborhood just wandered up to the porch and left vegetables on it, so they never ran low on cabbage or bok choy. For dinner, he also put out precooked, boiled hijiki seaweed, julienned vegetables in sugar and soy sauce, and rice. Yotsuha commented, “Those don’t go together,” but Taki ignored her.

Without taking a bath (he couldn’t), he took off the uniform, hung it neatly on a hanger, and went over the skirt with a lint brush. There was a white shirt just back from the laundry, so he ironed it. Then he changed into her pajamas. He considered touching her body for a while to wrap up the day, but fearing possible reprisals, he refrained and went to bed instead.

Once he lay down, he sank into the vortex of sleep before he knew it.

The next “swap” happened three days later, after the weekend. Before he had time to enjoy drifting pleasantly, he was rudely jostled awake by the reminder app’s alarm.

When Taki grabbed the cell phone, that message was on the screen.

A new line had been added to the Don’ts List:

Without context, the phrase was so utterly incomprehensible it was fascinating.

Taki added that comment at the end of the message, did some boob-kneading, then got changed and headed to school as usual. Again, he met up with Sayaka and Teshigawara on the way, made a little small talk, and whenever the things they said didn’t mesh, he plowed through by feigning juvenile amnesia.

Sayaka Natori peered into his face as if she felt sorry for him: Are you okay? If that was the question, then no, this occasional body-swapping definitely wasn’t “okay.” There was no point in saying that, though, so he responded rather absently, “I’d say I’m probably fine, wouldn’t you?” That might have made her worry even more.

He sat through class absently, too. He took notes mechanically, only to avoid an angry phone memo from Mitsuha.

His gaze wandered vaguely around the room, but then the schedule posted on the wall caught his eye, and Taki abruptly leaned forward.

…Phys ed?

No matter how many times he looked at it, the next period said phys ed.

He sneaked a peek at the contents of the messenger bag hanging from the hook on the side of his desk. Mitsuha had apparently prepared it the night before, and he’d brought it just as he’d found it. It did indeed hold a set of gym clothes made out of jersey fabric.

Mitsuha’s threat immediately rose to mind.

If it was a question as to whether or not he wanted to go into the girls’ changing room—he did. Just a little. It wasn’t like he was wholly devoid of urges… But on second thought, no, he didn’t. Forget trustworthiness. Just the idea of sharing space with a crowd of girls who were stripping and getting dressed as a matter of course was way too scary a scenario.

That said…

I guess going into the guys’ locker room and stripping…probably isn’t an option, either.

Obviously not.

The instant the period ended, Taki hurried out of the classroom, hugging his bag. If somebody like Sayaka Natori herded him to the girls’ locker room, he’d have problems.

He stalked the halls, holding his gym clothes. His search for somewhere as deserted as possible led him to the social studies prep room at the edge of the building’s third floor.

He couldn’t sense anyone inside. It didn’t seem like anyone was approaching, either. Actually, the room appeared wholly derelict. It had been completely converted into a storage closet.

He’d have no complaints about using this room, but of course, it was locked.

Taki shucked off one of his school shoes and gave the doorknob a good, hard whack. He heard the lock release, and when he twisted the knob—ta-da!—the door opened. Taki knew that doorknobs with old, cheap push-button locks buckled easily if you hit them hard with something like a rubber-soled shoe. He’d learned that from a crime prevention program on TV. Was it okay for them to be spreading knowledge like that around?

He changed into his gym clothes and left the social studies prep room. As he closed the door softly behind him, Taki heaved a big sigh. He couldn’t have looked more like a burglar.

Phys ed was basketball, Taki’s specialty. He’d quit playing in high school because he wasn’t tall enough, but in middle school, he’d been just a little bit famous.

About the time he sank his third shot in a row, he started to enjoy himself. The feel of the ball hugging his palms really took him back, and it made him happy.

He started wanting to see how much he could do with Mitsuha’s body.

He attempted three-pointers, one after another. He tried out about ten different feints. He picked up rebounds from absolutely perfect positions. He got carried away, juggling the ball behind his back and trying to score that way.

Hearing the ball swish through the net behind him, he punched the air.

This was fun.

Having moved around so much in this body, the cramped, unfamiliar sensations were almost gone. Now that he was all sweaty, it was as if he could finally breathe the fresh air. He felt great.

The whistle signaled the end of the game, and he left the court, wiping his sweaty face with his forearm. Almost all the guys standing around the edge of the next court were watching him.

He flashed them a thumbs-up, but…

Hmm?

Their response was weak.

Sayaka ran up to him and pulled at the sleeve of his gym clothes. Her face was serious. “C’mere, over here.” She whispered, “What’re you doin’?”

“Huh?”

“What are you doin’?”

“What do you mean, what?”

“…Aren’t you wearin’ your, um…?”

“Huh?”

“Everyone’s starin’ like crazy.”

Registering the situation, Taki gasped. Then—and it startled even him—he reacted exactly like a manga character. In other words, he covered his chest with both arms and twisted his body away.

Then he glared at the boys, swung his fist around, and yelled:

“Hey! Idiots!!”

The next time they swapped, the phone alert woke Taki, as usual.

Scowling, he crawled over to the desk and grabbed it. A message like a scream jumped out at him.

It was written in extra-large letters.

When he scrolled down, there was more.

So what exactly was he supposed to do?

For starters, he kneaded his breasts a bit, then whipped off his pajamas and discarded them on the floor. Gingerly, with one cheek warped in a grimace, he pulled open the bottom dresser drawer. It was filled with orderly rows of neatly folded brassieres. Having no other choice, Taki took one, but not without a truly reluctant wince.

He hadn’t been wearing a bra because he didn’t know how to put one on.

More accurately, deep down, he didn’t want to know. If he submitted to learning to put something like this on without putting up a fight, would it spell the end for him as a guy? It felt a bit like a fundamental component of his self-image—his masculinity—was being shaken. He was on the brink of a crisis. However…

It doesn’t feel right using somebody else’s body to make stupid guys needlessly happy.

He deftly ignored the fact that he himself was one of those stupid guys. First, Taki examined how the bra was put together.

Mitsuha’s bras were unexpectedly loud. The one Taki had extracted was a bright, trendy green, what people might call mint. He didn’t know why, but its vibrant color frightened him. It’s somewhere nobody’s ever gonna see it… Why bother? The thought made him feel as if someone had pulled a gun out of their jacket and targeted him.

Clinging to the dresser drawer, he took a look at the other bras, but nearly all were candy-colored. He glanced around quickly for an ordinary white one but didn’t see any. Taki figured he’d probably manage to find one if he searched carefully, but that was out of the question. The mere act of rummaging through the neatly packed array would probably be enough to provoke retaliation. Besides, there was no way he’d ever get the one he was holding folded properly and returned to its place.

Apparently, Mitsuha liked trendy, brightly colored underwear. It was pointless information, but now he knew anyway. Taki had always assumed that colored underwear was cheap stuff, but this material seemed pretty high quality, and as it appeared fairly solidly manufactured, it might actually be pretty pricy.

The shape of the cups was noticeably three-dimensional. It didn’t seem possible to fold the thing into a square or iron it. Knowing that he wouldn’t have to do either of those was a relief. Taki wanted to avoid such trials as much as he possibly could.

He touched the outside of the bra with a finger. It was fairly stiff and hard, but the inside was fluffy and soft. When he pushed at it, it was pretty thick, but he could tell the thickness wasn’t meant to exaggerate the size of its wearer’s chest. It had to be that way to preserve the cups’ unique shape. After pressing and releasing it for a while to see how it felt, he understood the structural necessity. Soft as it was, though, it wasn’t likely to save your life if someone stabbed you in the heart.

So why did they wear things like this? He didn’t get it. Or, well, he did—but he didn’t want to understand it too deeply. The modest touch of stiff lace decorating the outer edges was both understated and very elegant at the same time. The springy inner wire was flexible but sturdy, and this was what convinced him that it hadn’t been a bargain bin purchase at the local shopping center.

When Taki’s examination reached that point, he sensed a presence and spun around. The sliding door was open about ten centimeters, as usual, and Yotsuha’s face was on the other side. She was in the shadow of the door, so it was hard to tell, but her eyebrows seemed dubiously skewed, and her whole expression projected the word suspicion. Taki froze, holding his breath.

She stared at him steadily.

For a little while, time passed in tense silence. Finally, unable to stand the strained atmosphere, Taki put the bra over his eyes and wisecracked: “Glasses!” He immediately thought, Man, that was bad even for me. Just kill me already, and that was when the door slid open and Yotsuha came in. Striding right up to Taki, without a word, she smacked a palm onto his (Mitsuha’s) forehead.

“…It don’t feel like you’ve got a fever.”

When Yotsuha turned on her heel and left, Taki sighed deeply as if purging his murky feelings. Then he decided to deal with the reality he’d been avoiding. Basically, he just had to wrap this thing around his chest, fasten the hook, pull up the straps and adjust the length, right? He knew that.

4

Then things got rough again. How did the women of the world manage to put these on every morning? For starters, he couldn’t fasten the hook behind his back. He couldn’t even reach. Even when he got his hands close enough, he couldn’t tell what the hook was doing. The left and right sides of the bra hung down the center of his back, dangling uselessly in space.

He strained his back at least twice.

It took quite a few tries before, completely by accident, he got the hook fastened. When it caught properly, he was so overcome with emotion that he involuntarily hid his face in his hands.

By the time he got to school, his shoulders were already stiff. This was less from wearing the bra itself than from the desperate struggle earlier.

They had phys ed that day, too. Taki whacked the doorknob of the social studies prep room, went in and changed, and by the time he came out again, he was smacking the palm of his hand with his fist. Getting to play basketball meant he’d be able to burn off a little stress. He actually muttered, “Teacher, I wanna play basketball” out loud, in spite of himself.

After running all over the court in gym, he happened to glance at the court where the guys were playing. About half of them were looking his way, and nearly all were visibly disappointed. A couple had put hands to their foreheads and were shaking their heads with expressions like anguished philosophers.

Completely forgetting for a moment that outwardly he was Mitsuha, Taki swung his fist around and bellowed at them.

“You’re seriously ticking me off, losers!”

“You’re a big hit with the guys these days, Mitsuha. That happened real fast.”

As Teshigawara spoke, he speared a piece of fried chicken with his chopsticks. It was noon recess, and Taki, Teshigawara, and Sayaka were eating lunch by the trees planted on the side of the athletic field. The three of them sat on the pile of old desks and chairs that had been dumped there, watching a game of mini soccer unfold on the field as they ate their box lunches. From what he’d heard, eating lunch together in this spot was a tradition Mitsuha had started. Taki’s fundamental policy here was to do his level best not to interfere with that sort of tradition.

“Lately, it’s like you’re somebody else every few days.”

“Huh?”

The observation was Sayaka’s, and for a moment, Taki was startled. Almost immediately, though…

Well, yeah, I guess that’s true.

…he took it at face value, scratching behind his ear.

No matter what he did, his true colors showed through. Frankly, the only times he even remembered to put up a pretense were when he was consciously reminding himself that he was Mitsuha. If people told him he seemed like a different person, there was really no helping that.

Still…

Why would me being Mitsuha make the guys like her better?

He asked about it very casually.

According to Teshigawara, Mitsuha’s popularity with the guys had jumped dramatically for various reasons: “You’re real frank and open, and they like that.”; “You’re less guarded.”; “Your comebacks are sharper.”; “It’s sort of like they can understand you now.”; “Are you teasin’ them or somethin’?”

“What’s that supposed to mean…?”

The corners of Taki’s lips curved as he spoke, but he thought he understood the bit about being easier for them to understand. She’s mentally a guy right now, so of course they can understand her.

“A few of ’em went over to talk to you and get closer.”

“Is that right?!” Sayaka twisted to face Teshigawara.

“They came back all deflated, though. I dunno why. You don’t remember?”

“Oh, come to think of it…”

He did recall two or three guys abruptly visiting his desk and talking about stuff that made no sense.

He’d responded candidly to their sudden interest (“Huh? Who’re you again?”), and they’d trudged off dejectedly.

When he told them about this, Sayaka smiled faintly and murmured, “Poor things…” She felt absolutely no sympathy for them. Her indifference struck Taki as funny, and he laughed.

And then he suddenly started brooding.

Did that mean the original Mitsuha Miyamizu was the opposite of what Teshigawara had described?

Mitsuha Miyamizu wasn’t frank or open. Maybe she was kind of gloomy. Her comebacks weren’t snappy. She was hard to understand, and there was nothing provocative about her. She wasn’t that popular with guys.

Why is that? Something felt vaguely off.

“Hey,” Taki said.

“Yeah?” Teshigawara responded.

“How does— I mean, how do I usually act, as a rule?”

“…Okay, listen…”

Sayaka interrupted. “If you’re askin’ other people how you normally act, you’ve got a problem right there.”

“Well, yeah, but…”

He had an itch where the bra straps crossed his shoulder and was fighting the urge to scratch it through his clothes as he bungled his reply.

“Hey, hold on.” Sayaka Natori pinched a little of his blouse at the waist and pulled. “C’mere a sec. Just…c’mere. ”

Ordering Teshigawara around as if he were a dog (“You look that way. Don’t listen to us.”), Sayaka pulled Taki into the shade of the trees a short distance away.

“Seriously, what’s the matter with you?” Sayaka hissed fiercely.

“Huh?”

“It’s not hooked right.”

“Um?”

“Oh, honestly!” Sayaka smacked Taki’s arm. “The top and bottom of the hook are latched funny. Plus, it’s twisted. You can see it right through your clothes.”

“Huh? Ah, who cares?”

“Everybody! What’s the matter with you? You’re usually a whole lot more together than this.”

“Am I…?”

“You’re always desperate to do things proper.”

“Desperate?”

“Yes! Never mind, just turn around. I’ll fix it for you.”

“Through my clothes?”

“Yes.”

Sayaka maneuvered behind Taki, dexterously unhooked the bra through his blouse, straightened out the twist, and refastened it properly. Taki thanked her and sighed, exhausted.

“You’re sighin’ a lot lately,” said Sayaka.

Taki looked ready to cry. “This is a serious pain in the butt.”

“Don’t say things like that. You’re a girl, aren’t you?”

“Y’know, I think I might not be a girl anymore.”

“Excuse me?”

When they got back to the pile of desks and chairs, Teshigawara drawled, “Come to think of it…bra-leasin’ was real big back in middle school.”

Sayaka slapped him on the arm. “I told you not to listen!”

“What’s bra-leasing?” Taki leaned forward. “Do you mean going around behind a girl and unhooking her bra through her shirt?”

“That’s the one.”

“I’ve only ever seen that in manga. Is it even possible?”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Once you get the hang of it, you can do it one-handed.”

“Don’t be dumb!” Sayaka looked utterly disgusted.

“You can seriously do that? How?”

“And you! Why are you so into this?”

Before he went to sleep that night, in a sudden bout of curiosity about what Teshigawara’s revelation, Taki hung the bra on a hanger and checked to see whether it was really possible to do that one-handed. After about ten minutes of trial and error, he gave up and went to bed, forgetting to put the garment away.

On the morning of their next swap, Mitsuha’s message read:

The pointed brevity was frightening.

5

The sun had set, and night had fallen outside completely. Taki (in Mitsuha Miyamizu’s body) was kneeling formally on the tatami mats in an inner room of the Miyamizu house.

Taki had never knelt like this for longer than five minutes, but now he was holding the position as if it didn’t bother him at all. Apparently, Mitsuha’s legs had been trained to withstand it.

Mitsuha’s grandmother and little sister had adopted the same posture. They were both dressed in kimonos, but unable to put one on by himself, Taki was still wearing his school uniform. Old wooden tools that seemed to play a role in fabric-making sat in front of each of them.

Mitsuha’s grandmother was weaving a single thick cord out of several threads of varying colors, combining them in an intricate pattern. Yotsuha was twisting threads together.

Apparently, they expected Taki to do something similar, but having no idea how, he opted for complete defiance.

“I forgot everything about that.”

“Oh my.”

The grandmother’s eyes widened as she spoke, but she didn’t seem terribly surprised.

Taki leaned toward the little sister at his side. “Yotsuha, sweetie, show me how?”

“‘Sweetie’?”

Yotsuha drew back with disgust.

Despite her reaction, she retrieved weaving implements from the corner of the room and set them up in front of Taki.

One thing he’d learned while swapping with Mitsuha was that if he panicked and hesitated in a situation, he ended up looking suspicious. It was better to be openly insolent. If he adopted an attitude that said Got a problem? when he didn’t know things Mitsuha really should have, people around him bought it no matter how oddly he behaved. They figured, I guess that’s just how it is, and he managed to get by.

Taki bulled his way through almost every situation he encountered in Itomori by being insubordinate.

Once he’d figured out this trick, he relaxed just a little, and now, he was able to live as Mitsuha Miyamizu with his guard down.

Well, actually…

He had the sense that he was often truer to himself in her body than in his own.

Switching personalities with somebody else was an insane experience, but if you saw it as an opportunity to step out of yourself for a little while, it provided a kind of freedom.

This was Taki’s train of thought as Yotsuha taught him the ABCs of thread winding. However, suddenly…

I wonder if she’s experiencing the same kind of thing over on my side.

He began worrying about Mitsuha, who at that moment was inhabiting his body in Tokyo.

The situation was sort of like a game. She had to get through a whole day passing herself off as a high school boy named Taki Tachibana. Was she successfully plowing through with that same boldness?

Taki’s imagination ran wild, making him nervous, but when he really thought about it, there was nothing to worry about. After all, when they’d swapped for the very first time and she’d wound up in Taki’s body, Mitsuha Miyamizu had calmly reported to the restaurant where he worked, managing to carry out his waiter duties before returning home, even if she’d messed up quite a bit.

Normally, you’d just skip work or something…

What incredible grit.

The whole reason he worried was because the Mitsuha Miyamizu from Itomori struck him as terribly unreliable.

How did you explain that gap?

Not long before, a girl a grade below Mitsuha’s had (out of the blue) given Taki homemade cookies and said, “Um, I…I think I finally understand you, Miyamizu.”

It struck Taki as strange, hearing that from someone who must have known her since middle school—maybe even grade school.

After the “Smooth Criminal” incident, he’d gotten a bit friendlier with the witnesses. When they passed one another, the girls would make impromptu requests (“‘Billie Jean’!”), and he’d snap, “I’m not Billie Jean!”

He wished they wouldn’t go around yelling the name of a terrible woman every time they saw him. He wondered how on earth Mitsuha reacted to that.

Every little thing he did prompted remarks from those girls and others: “So this is who you really are, Miyamizu.” “I had no idea.” “I thought you were quiet and reserved.” “So you weren’t a meek honor student after all.” “People look at you differently now.” Et cetera, et cetera…

The image of “the real Mitsuha Miyamizu” that those comments evoked was…

…someone who hardly ever asserted herself.

But that couldn’t be true.

Just thinking about her memo app—the one that practically made him hear shrieking from the phone screen—made that clear.

In Taki’s mind, Mitsuha Miyamizu was an unbelievably offbeat girl who plunged into completely unfamiliar work environments, somehow got the job done off the cuff, guessing and going with the flow, and—when she messed up—managed to skillfully ride it out with a winning smile.

There was a striking gap between her outward demeanor and her inner self.

An old, full-length mirror stood against the wall of the traditional room.

Taki, whose fingers were twisting thread and whose mind was elsewhere, had let his eyes wander without really paying attention, and abruptly, they met Mitsuha’s eyes in the reflection.

In the glass, the girl’s face was pale, oval, and completely without affectation.

Taki studied that face closely.

The face studied him right back.

It seemed to be truly, terribly worried about something, and Taki began having trouble breathing.

It felt as if this girl’s face—a face that belonged to him, too, right now—was pleading with him for something.

What in the world…

What sort of person are you, really?

Taki realized he was intensely curious about this girl.

As he gazed into the mirror, Taki muttered to Yotsuha, “I wonder if your big sister’s okay.”

Yotsuha tilted her head to the side, considered Taki skeptically, and said, “I was just wonderin’ the same thing.’”