#1 Prologue

The foot of Ryūsui Mountain overlaps with the foot of Aogiri Mountain, like the hem of a kimono.

I’m pretty sure Ryūsui Mountain is in back. So, the one that starts from the front should be Aogiri Mountain.

When spring comes, a pleasant breeze carrying the scent of flowers wafts in from between the two mountains.

The sign that the wind is coming is that the brook flowing before the mountains raises waves like pleats facing this way.

I stood up and opened the classroom’s glass window, which was shining bright.

Right on cue, the wind came in. The faint scent spread in a burst throughout the classroom.

You can’t see it, but I feel like this wind must be pink, you know?

“Niihara, you mustn’t stand up on your own.”

Our homeroom teacher, Ms. Minase, warned me.

“Yes, I’m sorry.”

I apologized obediently and sat down in my window-side seat.

But if I see the <sign the wind is coming>, I plan to open the window anytime throughout spring.

“Now then.”

Ms. Minase paused for a breath and put on a smile.

“Starting today, there’s someone who will be a new member of this grade.”

At that, everyone began to buzz.

Whether the kid was a girl or a boy, what kind of face they had.

A boy sitting on the hallway side, Sayama-kun, stuck his head out the window toward the corridor to try to see what kind of kid it was.

“Hey, Sayama, can you see? A beauty or a dud?”

In a deep voice, Ōishi-kun, who sits next to me, asked.

Sayama-kun kept swiveling his head for a while, and then at some point he lowered his head carefully.

It looked like he was bowing. Then he quickly drew his head back and, “She’s a super pretty girl!” he shouted.

The boys let out a whoa~ of cheers. Almost all of them.

Ms. Minase watched the whole thing with a cheerful smile.

When the commotion settled down, Ms. Minase brought the new girl into the classroom.

She whispered something in her ear and had her stand on the dais.

The girl, red as a beet, was looking down, but eventually she slowly raised her face and began to introduce herself.

“Uh… I’m Yamabe Yuri, from Aoba City. Pleased to meet you.”

Ōishi-kun asked a question.

“Sensei, how do you write ‘Yamabe’?”

“‘Mountain’ and the ‘edge’ of ‘frontier’ for the surname, and the given name is ‘Yuri’ in katakana.”

Saying so, she smoothly wrote “山辺ユリ” on the blackboard.

Then the teacher assigned Yamabe-san the rearmost seat by the window.

When I casually glanced back, Yamabe Yuri-san was hunched up and somehow looked painfully fragile.

Before I knew it, Ōishi-kun was also looking toward Yuri-san and in a loud voice said, “She’s like a red lump,” he said. When everyone tittered, Yuri-san shrank as small as could be.

She looked so pitiful that I smacked Ōishi on the back as hard as I could.

Doing at least that much won’t bring any curse down.

During class.

I thought many times about turning around to look toward Yamabe-san.

But if I made her any more nervous, she might not be able to come to school. So, I decided to wait until recess.

The insensitive boys, however, were looking at Yamabe-san more often than at the blackboard.

If they were serious types, it’d be fine, but with louts like Ōishi-kun—just a lump of blockheads—there was nothing to be done, and I fretted the whole time.

The reason my heart was pounding like this was actually because I, too, had been a transfer student.

It was about a year and a half ago, but I remember how the clumsy gazes from all sorts of people hurt.

Well, I fit in quickly so it was fine, but I wonder if Yuri-san will be, okay? She seems a bit delicate.

When school ended, everyone cheerfully burst out of the building.

Along the river there’s a small embankment, and kids going home first climb up it and then split left and right to head home.

Both sides of the embankment are thickly overrun with bindweed, and the bindweed on the school side looks as if it’s steadily encroaching on the schoolyard.

I secretly hoped she’d be going the same direction as me.

My way home is to the left.

Yamabe-san turned left.

The left leads toward the station, and it’s lively.

To the right there’s basically just a supermarket, and mostly houses.

I felt a little happy and followed after Yamabe-san.

“Yamabe-san!”

Yuri-san turned around as if startled.

Her hair, which reached to mid-shoulder and had gentle waves at the tips, swayed.

“…Niihara?”

“That’s right.”

Yamabe-san and I naturally started walking side by side.

“What’s your name?”

Yuri-san asked.

“Hazuki. Because I was born in August.”

In the old calendar’s reading, the eighth month is Hazuki.

It’s so simple it’s almost annoying.

“That’s nice and easy to remember. Your birth month’s clear from your name.”

“Is it?”

For some reason I ended up sounding a bit sulky.

Cherry petals drifted along the river’s surface.

Where the current was gentle and narrow, petals clogged together as if forming a weir.

While I was completely absorbed, I carelessly tripped on a moonflower vine and fell.

“I really do trip a lot, you know.”

I covered my embarrassment.

“Hehe, do you?”

If you keep along the embankment, there’s a gentle slope.

Go straight down this slope and it leads to the station roundabout.

“Whereabouts is your house, Yuri-san?”

“My house is one stop farther into the mountains from this station.”

After that, chatting about where we used to live and such, we headed for the station.

We hit it off pretty well, so I thought maybe we could become good friends.

I thought about saying that, but saying it out loud felt kind of weird, so I didn’t.

Our conversation flowed, and before we knew it we’d reached the ticket gates.

“See you. Until tomorrow.”

“Bye-bye.”

Yuri-san started walking away, but then at one point she spun around.

“Starting tomorrow, can I call you Hazuki-chan?”

I couldn’t help but giggle.

“Nobody calls me Hazuki-chan. They call me Hazu.”

“Okay. Then I’ll call you Hazu. If you don’t mind, could you call me whatever you like? I can’t really”

“Decide for myself.”

“Okay. Bye-bye.”

—

The title doesn’t have much to do with the content ι(´Д｀υ)

(I haven’t figured out what to do about the ending yet, so, I don’t really have a title to give it.)

It just so happened I was listening to Utada Hikaru’s “For you,” so

I went with this.