Ch.121Chapter 19. Memories (2)

In Korean, the word “memory” is composed of two Chinese characters: “追” (chu, meaning “to follow”) and “憶” (eok, meaning “to think”).

While the literal translation simply means “to recall thoughts,” in Korea, what this word commonly refers to is precisely “memories.”

These are the good memories from the past that suddenly come to mind. The ones that make you smile unconsciously even during difficult times, for no particular reason.

Like terribly bad memories, these are the kinds of memories that are too deeply embedded to be easily removed.

Just as the Korean word for “memory” is fundamentally related to “remembrance,” similar words exist in other countries.

In Japanese, it’s “思い出” or “omoide.”

In Japan, this word doesn’t only mean memories. It overlaps with the word for “remembrance.” It’s like the English word “memory.” But rather than being used neutrally just for “remembrance,” it’s widely used to mean “memories,” so I don’t think the usage is that different.

Memories… aren’t something you can create just because you want to.

Everyone feels things intensely in different ways, and therefore remembers different aspects. Even when experiencing the same event together, people remember different parts.

Sometimes, simply walking with someone you like—such trivial moments—can leave a deep impression, while memories of enjoying a festival might be so blurry they’re difficult to recall.

Memories that suddenly appear when you’ve completely forgotten about them. The kind that make you narrow your eyes, smile, and say “those were good times,” leaving you lost in thought while pausing your work—these are literally recorded without your knowledge.

But that doesn’t mean there’s no way to create them.

Like everything in life, the more you repeat something, the more memories remain. If there’s someone you want to create memories with, just stick close to them, do lots of things you want to do, and enjoy things you want to enjoy.

“Hmm!”

Just before the dismissal bell rang at school, in the literature club room.

Outside the window, the sun was setting, and even the red glow of twilight was slowly being swallowed by darkness.

Normally, we would have already gone home by now.

“This looks great!”

“That was close…”

As Kaoru nodded with satisfaction, Izumi sighed deeply.

Indeed.

We had managed to submit the literary magazine just in time on the 26th of the previous week.

It was a very thin magazine. We hastily skimmed through books and wrote reviews, compiled recommended book lists, and each wrote one piece for the magazine. We added large images that came standard with word processing programs to pad the volume as much as possible.

For reference, Kaoru’s recommended book list consisted entirely of spiritual and occult-related books, while Izumi’s was all mystery-related. The rest of us had a random assortment, mainly because we had hurriedly skimmed through the table of contents and endings of books in the literature club room.

Thankfully, Koko recommended some secondhand children’s books from our home, which helped us maintain some semblance of variety.

…While it’s unavoidable that my reading volume falls short of Izumi’s, it was somewhat shocking that I read less than Kaoru, who reads occult magazines daily, or Koko, who loves children’s books. Well, thinking about it, I suppose that’s inevitable.

If there were smartphones in this world, I’d be confident in reading the most. I used to read internet novels very diligently at one point. Whether those reviews would be acceptable as book reports is another matter.

Anyway, submitting the literary magazine wasn’t the end of it.

No matter how unwelcoming our club might appear, being pushed to the top floor of an old building, we still needed to maintain appearances during the cultural festival.

I, Koko, Yuka, Kaoru, and even our club president Izumi all had plans to close the club room early and enjoy the activities set up in other clubs or classrooms, but we still needed to participate to write the report for the student council.

We copied and pasted famous lines from renowned Japanese poets and novels, added appropriate photos and images, printed them large, and laminated them. Ordering, bringing, and mounting them on sturdy boards took longer than expected, so we were only able to complete everything the day before the cultural festival.

Since we were the literature club, our own writings were interspersed among them. They looked incredibly modest compared to the Japanese literary giants, though.

“…Is this really okay?”

I muttered, looking at my haiku placed right next to the opening line of “Snow Country” by Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata.

I guess it doesn’t matter? Not many people would come all this way to read each of our sentences one by one.

I don’t think anyone will take the eleven copies of our literary magazine we’ve prepared. Well, maybe one person might take one as a souvenir.

“It’s a festival after all. It’s inevitable that some things look awkward or insufficient. I bet even the haunted house won’t be scary at all.”

“…Wouldn’t it be a problem if we got scared by something like that?”

Izumi glanced at the three of us in response to Kaoru’s comment.

We didn’t answer.

Well, after seeing a woman with a slit mouth, seeing a face with red lipstick roughly applied up to the ears wouldn’t be scary.

At this point, even if someone said “this looks wrong,” we didn’t have time to fix anything, so we just shrugged at each other and left the school.

“I’m looking forward to it.”

Kaoru said with a smile.

“Since we’ll be third-years next year, this will be our last chance to properly enjoy the cultural festival.”

Izumi looked at Kaoru with an expression of shock.

“What? Don’t tell me you were actually planning to study properly?”

“That’s mean. I study seriously during exam periods too! I even did better than you on the tests.”

“Only in some subjects! My average is higher!”

I chuckled slightly at their childish argument as I walked leisurely.

I see. Third year, huh.

The second-years went on a school trip to Hawaii. That’s probably because this is an expensive school in many ways, but also because third-years don’t go on school trips.

It’s like compensation, you could say.

“Study properly next year to improve our school’s advancement rate,” is how you might summarize it.

“Next year…”

Yuka murmured, looking up at the sky.

It’s already the end of November.

Next month would truly be the “end of the year.” If we get through the final exams at the very end, we’ll be a year older.

“We still have two years left.”

Yuka said.

She must be talking about graduation.

Right. We’re just finishing our first year. Actually, by Japanese standards, we still have one more semester left.

Her eyes, which had been looking at the sky, turned to me.

“I hope we’re in the same class next year.”

“…”

Same class.

I see.

For the first time, Yuka had attended two semesters without transferring to another school.

It’s not strange for her to have such expectations.

…I wonder why Yuka didn’t transfer and stayed.

In the original work, this wasn’t clearly depicted.

People who read the novel at the time speculated online that it was because of Sasaki.

Not simply because she liked the protagonist.

It was because of Sasaki’s blood.

Here, we haven’t even caught the Agui yet, and I was here too.

Ah, I see.

If Yuka is the person I trust most, that means she’ll be near me in that final moment.

“…Why? Don’t you like the idea?”

Perhaps because I took too long to answer, Yuka asked somewhat anxiously.

I shook my head.

“No, just…”

After thinking for a moment longer,

“I think it would be fun.”

That’s how I answered.

Yuka smiled shyly.

Yes. It would be fun.

With Mako, Fukuda, and Yamashita in front, and Yuka behind.

With Koko sitting next to me.

If we could sit like that, it would really be fun. Going home together after school every day, meeting on the way to school.

Maybe I could even get the three members of Mako’s going-home club to join the literature club.

…

Maybe I’ll quit my part-time job next year.

It’s a bit sad not to see the manager often, but I could still visit frequently as a customer.

“Koko, what do you think?”

“Whoa?”

When I suddenly passed the baton to her, Koko’s eyes widened.

“About being in the same class as Yuka next year.”

Yuka’s gaze also turned to Koko, looking somewhat anxious.

“Hmm?”

Did she not understand?

I was briefly considering whether I needed to explain the concept of changing classes, when Koko tilted her head and spoke.

“Can’t I be with Mako and her friends?”

“…”

Ah.

I see.

It was so natural for me to think of us being in the same class that I hadn’t realized Mako, Fukuda, and Yamashita could also be separated if classes changed.

In Japanese manga, strangely, the same classmates often stay together until the third year, but I’m not sure if that’s normal or truly random. It seems like teachers decide, though.

In my case too, there were kids who stayed in the same class for all three years of school, and others who were separated when we moved up a grade.

“I think it’ll be fine.”

I decided to think optimistically.

In a light novel, classes are likely to stay the same. If that happens, there’s a possibility Yuka won’t be able to join our class, but…

Since we don’t know yet anyway, does it matter what we think?

“It’s common for students who were in the same class to stay together.”

“That’s right, that’s right.”

Kaoru said.

“We’ve been in the same class since middle school until now.”

That’s quite surprising.

Now it was Yuka’s and my turn to look at those two.

Kaoru was standing with her chest puffed out as if this was something to be proud of, but Izumi rolled her eyes as if it was ridiculous.

“Thanks to that, I can’t escape when Kaoru wants to do something after school.”

“It would be the same even if you were in a different class.”

Kaoru countered Izumi’s comment with a smile.

That’s nice.

They might not have extremely wide social circles, but I think having one lifelong friend is quite wonderful.

Things might change again when they go to university… but somehow, I had a feeling these two would choose the same university and the same department.

“…I hope so.”

“Huh?”

“Just saying, I hope we’ll be in the same class.”

“R-really?”

When I confirmed once more, Yuka smiled broadly with joy.

That smile is pretty.

It would be nice if everyone at this age could smile like that.

Without worrying about yokai or anything else.

I imagined Yuka living normally, with no yokai or strange phenomena in the world.

In my imagination, Yuka was smiling.

I wasn’t beside her.

Well, that makes sense.

If there were no such anomalies, we would never have met like this.

…Just like our memories.

That’s the peculiar thing about memories.

They’re all traces that remain.

*

The next day.

“…”

While walking to school early as usual, I suddenly stopped in front of the school gate.

The gate looked different from what I usually saw.

Well, it had been like that for several days.

For the cultural festival, students had decorated our school gate lavishly. They covered the elegant stone gate with thick hardboard and created a splendid “entrance” on top of it.

Well, it didn’t look like something made by professionals. But the hand-cut colored paper and balloons that were inflated to create shapes gave it that “cultural festival” atmosphere.

For reference, our school’s cultural festival was called “Hanakōsai.” It doesn’t have any special meaning; it’s just an abbreviation of “Hanagawa High School Festival.”

Since Hanagawa is just a family name, there’s no need to deeply consider its meaning, but perhaps because of the image conveyed by the character “花” (flower), all the pictures drawn at the gate were bright flower illustrations. Unfortunately, it’s already a season when most flowers have fallen.

By the way, about 100 days before the cultural festival, students had made a countdown sign on top of the school building. On the portable blackboard set up at the gate entrance, the number “0” was drawn as elaborately as possible with chalk.

“Kotone?”

Koko asked me, as I was looking at the scene instead of going straight through the gate as usual.

“Koko, let’s take a picture.”

As I took out my phone, Koko nodded enthusiastically with a bright “Yes!”

We stood as close as possible and faced the phone camera, but unfortunately, the photo was filled just with our faces.

“Kotone! Koko!”

And then, with perfect timing, Yuka appeared.

“Yuka, let’s take a picture.”

As soon as I saw Yuka, I skipped the greeting and blurted that out.

Yuka also skipped the greeting and smiled broadly at my words.

As we were taking turns taking photos in pairs,

“Oh my.”

Once again, with incredibly good luck, Ms. Suzuki, who was passing by, spotted us.

Ms. Suzuki wasn’t coming into the school from outside but was going out from inside.

“Hello.”

Having grown up in a Confucian country, I didn’t skip greetings with teachers. When I greeted her, Koko also politely greeted her, and Yuka bowed respectfully.

“Taking pictures? Shall I take one for you?”

“Thank you.”

Ms. Suzuki said with a smile, and fortunately, we were able to stand together and take a photo of all three of us.

The small phone screen was filled with the school gate, which was somewhat excessively decorated for the cultural festival.

The three of us were posing in the middle.

There was no need to worry about looking natural. Koko and Yuka were smiling brightly.

I also had a smile on my face.

…Yes, what are memories if not this?

They’re all traces that remain.

“Well then, enjoy the cultural festival.”

Ms. Suzuki said that and handed the phone back to us.

Then she walked away somewhat hurriedly.

I guess she might be going to buy tape or something. On days like this, people often run out of supplies while making last-minute preparations in the morning.

“Shall we go?”

When Yuka said that, I nodded.

Koko still had a bright smile on her face.

*

Hanagawa High School is a school that actively encourages club activities.

In fact, some club activities can be good talking points when applying to universities. The girls’ track team was already famous. Well, it seems they’ve had various incidents this year that have caused problems, but Kaoru, who had already quit, didn’t care.

However, even though club activities are encouraged, the main part of school life is still the classes in the classroom.

If clubs have prepared cultural festival content, classrooms have also prepared content, and the morning of the first day of the cultural festival revolves around that.

That’s not to say that club activities are looked down upon. It’s just that classroom activities tend to be larger in scale, so they are prioritized in the morning.

Each class has different club activities.

If the class students don’t have much enthusiasm for doing something, they might just conduct a simple survey, have a few students guard the classroom, and the rest go enjoy other classrooms. Even in busier classrooms, students take turns enjoying the festival.

By the way, our class was doing a haunted house.

We brought blackout curtains and hung them on the classroom windows to completely block the light, and we also hung torn black plastic bags at the classroom entrance to make it look somewhat like an abandoned school.

The overall atmosphere was cheerful. While I still wasn’t close with everyone in the class, after spending about two semesters together, you naturally learn faces and names.

At first, they seemed to think I was a delinquent because of my tremendous number of absences, but nowadays some kids approach me in a friendly manner. Being close to Mako seems to have helped quite a bit.

“Per~fect!”

And, it seems I had a significant influence on our class choosing the haunted house theme.

Well, with two Sadakos in the class, it would be a waste not to use them.

By the way, since it became known through Mako’s trio that I was active in the literature club, our activity time was set until just before lunch.

It was a natural progression for a sign saying [Time-limited! Really, really scary ghost costume!] to be posted in front of the class.

Yes, honestly, even with the same costume, it’s not very scary when Fukuda does it.

Fukuda would probably be much scarier crouching in the corner of the classroom with something like a baseball bat on his shoulder.

I can’t say that to him though.

“Alright~ turning off the lights?”

The lights that had been kept on during preparation were turned off with those words.

And then.

“Ohhh!”

Such cheers erupted throughout the classroom.

It was the sound of satisfaction from the students seeing Koko and me.

“Wow!”

And Koko also shouted excitedly.

“Koko, no.”

Fukuda said. With a flashlight under his chin, the atmosphere was somewhat there. Still, he was scary in the sense of looking like a thug you might meet on a dark street.

“No ‘wow’ when you’re trying to scare people.”

“Hmm?”

“No ‘hmm’ either.”

Fukuda was trying to look stern, but he didn’t appear very serious, which suggested he actually thought it would be fun if Koko made such sounds.

“…The hair is so long and in the way.”

“Ghosts shouldn’t complain like that.”

Mako said with a smile to the complaining Yamashita.

Yamashita lifted the wig that was hanging over his face with his hand, looking annoyed.

Yamashita, who was scheduled to act as a ghost in the afternoon after Koko and I left—

Honestly speaking, he looked more like a beautiful woman with long hair than a ghost.

Well, a not-at-all-scary haunted house is also part of the charm of a school festival.

Though this is actually my first time seeing something like this.