Ch.345IF Side Story: Seems I’ve Arrived a Bit Early (42)

I thought it would be boring in a rural school with nothing to do after classes, but that wasn’t the case.

Well, honestly, compared to Tokyo, there weren’t that many things to do. There weren’t any delicious franchise restaurants, and the town itself wasn’t that big—you could walk from one end to the other in no time.

But it had its own charm.

Even without franchise stores, there were local shops run by townspeople. The menus were quite different from what I was used to, and the taste was different too, but different doesn’t mean bad.

All the adults in town were either parents or relatives of my classmates. It wasn’t like the entire village was related by blood, and there were outsiders like us moving in, so it wasn’t too small of a town. But compared to Tokyo, people here knew each other much more.

Just like I wandered around the alleys with Harumi and Yuu, here we explored the village and the nearby mountains.

When it rained, we’d put on yellow rain boots and raincoats, running around to look at frogs, and of course, we caught cicadas too.

At dusk, or sometimes in the morning, beetles like rhinoceros beetles would appear under the lights of public restrooms.

In my previous life, I had kept one as a pet when I was young after begging my dad, but seeing one in the wild was completely new.

“Wow…”

Despite Mako’s quiet demeanor, she didn’t particularly mind insects. Unlike Harumi and Yuu who were terrified when they first saw cicadas.

“Look at this! It’s super strong!”

Mako showed me the rhinoceros beetle clinging tightly to her arm.

“Yeah, it is.”

I answered while gently trying to pull the beetle off Mako’s arm. I didn’t pull too hard though. From my experience raising them as a child, I knew they wouldn’t hold on tight enough to lose their legs, but still, I felt a bit sorry tugging on an insect.

“What do they eat?”

“Tree sap.”

A child who had followed us up the mountain answered.

“If you want to keep it, just feed it jelly.”

Though they don’t live long anyway.

There was a time when I thought I had killed stag beetles or rhinoceros beetles by raising them incorrectly, but apparently they live much longer as larvae and don’t survive long after becoming adults.

Besides, since this one was caught in the wild, we couldn’t know how long it had already lived.

But I didn’t mention that. Having lived as an elementary school student, I knew how stubborn they could be.

And Mako was surprisingly stubborn about these things too.

“Jelly… okay, got it.”

Mako nodded.

So, that rhinoceros beetle stayed at Mako’s house for a while. It eventually died before the year was over, but it lived its full three months as an adult beetle, so we couldn’t say Mako killed it.

Mako was sad, but she got over it quickly. True to her character, she studied about it on her own without me having to tell her.

In some ways, I thought she might be much stronger than me.

*

Anyway, by the time the rhinoceros beetle had moved into Mako’s house, summer had already arrived.

Like me, the children became increasingly restless as summer vacation approached. As the weather got hotter, and with no air conditioning in the classrooms, even the teachers started speaking with less energy, and despite being adults, they seemed to be secretly looking forward to the break too.

The sound of cicadas could be heard outside the window.

Unlike my previous school in the middle of the city where car noises were constant, here we couldn’t hear such sounds at all.

Maybe that’s why. Time seemed to move more slowly here, and I felt strangely excited.

The clouds drifting leisurely across the blue sky looked delicious. Had my thoughts become childish from spending time with children?

…But that wouldn’t be so bad.

It definitely wouldn’t have been a problem.

“…”

As I was about to turn my gaze back to the front, I met Mako’s eyes as she was quietly watching my face.

Blink.

Her eyes blinked behind her glasses.

Was she trying to gauge what I was thinking?

Our briefly crossed gazes diverged again. I turned my head toward the teacher who was writing various things on the blackboard and reading from the textbook without much enthusiasm. I listened to the lecture absentmindedly with little interest until the end of class.

Hot, humid, and with only fans making noise instead of air conditioning in the classroom.

But somehow, I quite liked that relaxed atmosphere.

*

Summer vacation in the countryside was a little different from Tokyo.

We didn’t try to go far for fun. There was flowing water in the countryside too, and it was clean enough to put our feet in and play.

Well, people from the city do come all the way to the countryside for recreation. It’s not strange that we enjoyed playing in the nearby river.

We could play a little before the water rose due to the rainy season.

When children start wandering outside the village, the streets become lively. With fathers gone to work, children staying with their mothers alone or with siblings would play in the yard or run around in groups with neighboring kids.

Even though there wasn’t anything particularly exciting, Mako and I naturally blended in among those children.

This was entirely thanks to Mako.

Mako was the first child I became friends with when I first came to school, and she showed friendliness because we both came from Tokyo.

After all, Mako had also just arrived here not long ago.

Somehow, I felt comfortable being with Mako, and as we played together, Mako would play with other children too.

When I watched from a distance, Mako would turn her head to look at me and wave.

After seeing that smile, I had no choice but to join in. What could I do? I couldn’t pull Mako away from the other children either.

Though not as much as when I hung out with Harumi and Yuu in Tokyo, I ended up making quite a few friends to play with here.

“Hehe.”

Kagami, who had been somewhat overprotective of me since we came here, seemed to relax when Mako came over to play.

When we were playing, Kagami would cut watermelon for us. Since the sun was hot and we got warm from playing, we would sit side by side and enjoy the watermelon.

That one thing was better than in Tokyo.

Taking Harumi and Yuu to my house happened long after I met them. Even then, it wasn’t me who invited them first—they were the ones who wanted to visit my house.

Even when they came over, my place was too small to do anything special, and in summer, we’d end up going to Harumi’s or Yuu’s house.

But here, everyone lived pretty much the same way.

Property values couldn’t all be the same, but everyone lived in similar single-story or two-story houses, hanging laundry in the yard, turning on fans in summer, and sitting on the porch eating watermelon—that kind of neighborhood.

It was the same when I went to Mako’s house. Well, Mako’s father was rarely home during the day.

I’m not being generous here. The real caretakers of this house were Kagami and my uncle, and this house wasn’t even really ours—it belonged to someone else.

But even so. I felt comfortable.

“Kotone.”

“Hmm?”

After eating watermelon and feeling a bit full, we were sprawled out on the porch.

The sunlight was harsh, but we didn’t mind. It was hot everywhere anyway. And somehow, we both felt like going inside would be admitting defeat.

“You’ll go to the festival with me, right?”

“Yeah.”

Although Mako had many friends, she only asked me to go to the festival with her. We’d probably run into others there anyway.

…Well, only Mako would know the reason. Maybe she thought I was her closest friend.

“Hehe.”

Mako laughed at my answer.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Mako fell silent for a moment, then spoke.

“I think this is the first time I’m going to a festival with a friend.”

“…Huh?”

“Since my dad moves around a lot, I rarely got to go to festivals. Even when I did go, I wasn’t really close with anyone. I never knew people long enough.”

To be fair, we’ve only known each other for a few months too.

We just spent a lot of time together because we had plenty of free time.

…I see.

I suppose even if she had made friends for a few months like this before, she might not have had the chance to go to festivals with them.

Elementary school friendships sometimes become lifelong friendships—but sadly, that’s only possible if you remember each other through middle and high school.

If someone transfers away, you might keep in touch a few times at first, but eventually contact breaks off, and you never reappear in each other’s lives.

“…”

Would I become such a person in Harumi and Yuu’s lives?

I wasn’t sure.

“…Let’s have fun.”

“Yeah!”

In the end, I couldn’t think of what else to say, so I just said that.

But Mako liked that too.