Another, Novel 02 by Yukito Ayatsuji

Author:Yukito Ayatsuji [Ayatsuji, Yukito]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Light Novel, ln.m-chan.org
ISBN: 9780316252768
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

August I

1

“Let’s take a picture,” Yuya Mochizuki suggested a little awkwardly. He took a compact camera out of a side pocket of his day pack and pointed it at us. “A photo to remember this by. It’s our last summer of middle school, so…How about it?”

“Why don’t I take the picture?” Ms. Mikami replied, turning toward Mochizuki.

“Uh, no. You should be in the picture.”

Mochizuki shook his head, looking a little flustered.

“Everybody line up over there. Good. Okay, Ms. Mikami, please get into the shot, too.”

We all lined up in front of the gate to the lodge as he directed. We stood centered around a bronze plaque on a blackened stone gatepost that read “Sakitani Memorial Hall.”

“Okay, I’m taking the picture!” Mochizuki said, readying the camera. “Maybe we should put the bags off to the side. Sakakibara and Misaki, could you move in a little closer? You too, Ms. Mikami…Okay, good. Ready?”

We heard the shutter click.

The “everybody” in the picture consisted of five people in total. Me and Mei, Ms. Mikami, and the mismatched duo of Kazami and Teshigawara.

All of us students were dressed in our summer uniforms—white short-sleeved open-collar shirts for the boys and a white short-sleeved blouse for the girls. Since we weren’t at school, no one was wearing their name tag. Like her students, Ms. Mikami wore a white blouse with a light brown jacket over it.

The buzzing of cicadas cascaded down from the forest that surrounded the clearing the building was in. Even so, the strident calls of the brown cicada and the bear cicada were absent. The soothing voice of the evening cicada was there, a sound so rare to hear inside a city. Growing up in Tokyo as I had, the first time I’d heard the call so long ago, I’d thought it was a bird singing.

“Okay, Mochizuki, now you get in,” Teshigawara said. “I’ll take the picture.”

“Oh, but…”

“Don’t be shy. Go and stand next to Ms. Mikami.”

“Um, okay…”

Mochizuki handed the camera to Teshigawara, then scurried over to us and took his place. Teshigawara wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm, then raised the camera and said, “Here goes!”

He raised one hand up high. The sound of the shutter followed immediately after.

“Hm-m-m. Let’s do one more. Hey, Mochizuki! You’re too far away from Ms. Mikami! Snuggle right up there. Sakaki, you and Misaki too! You stay where you are, Kazami…Okay, now that looks nice.”

What exactly was he trying to imply?…Not that I really cared.

“Here we go! Chee-e-ese!”

“Cheese”—people have been using that word to get people to smile for a picture forever…Not that I really cared about that, either. But right now that lack of interest felt strangely pleasant.

The evening of Saturday, August 8, was a slice in time when I managed to give myself over to that lack of interest ever so slightly, so I felt a certain degree of peace…

Together, we had taken the public bus to reach this spot at the foot of Yomiyama Mountain on the northern fringe of the city.

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