Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura

Author:Mizuki Tsujimura [Tsujimura, Mizuki]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781473578470
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2021-04-21T14:00:00+00:00

AT THE CASTLE CHRISTMAS PARTY, Rion arrived with a cake. The group gave a ‘Wow!’ when they saw it.

‘It looks so delicious!’ Kokoro chimed in.

It was a chiffon cake, with a hole in the middle. The icing was uneven. It didn’t look as though it had been bought in a shop. The fruit decorations on the top were a little irregular too, but that gave the cake its charm.

‘Is it homemade?’ Masamune asked.

‘By a girlfriend?’ Aki asked, and Kokoro’s heart beat fast for an instant. All eyes were on Rion.

Boys who played football were always popular with the girls. Maybe that was why he was studying abroad. They hadn’t talked about it, but it certainly would make sense if he had a girlfriend.

But Rion shook his head.

‘Nope. It’s my mum’s,’ he said. ‘She bakes one every year. She came over for Christmas, stayed in my dorm and gave it to me, so I brought it.’

‘Can she stay in your dorm?’

‘Yeah. Parents can stay for a few days. They have rooms with kitchens for them.’

Kokoro glanced at the clock on the wall and vaguely considered the time difference.

It was midday in Japan. So in Hawaii it would be the late afternoon of the previous day. It was Christmas Day in Japan, but for Rion it probably still felt like Christmas Eve.

Kokoro had the impression that it was more usual for people from other countries to spend Christmas as a family than in Japan. Kokoro’s family was the same – they’d gone out for a meal the night before, but today, Christmas Day, her parents had, unusually, gone out together, which allowed her to come here.

‘Rion,’ she asked, ‘are you – coming back to Japan for the break?’

It wasn’t as if she was asking to meet him outside the castle, but his living so far away in Hawaii made it impossible for them ever to meet outside, and just the idea that he might come back to Japan, and be somewhere nearby, made her happy. But Rion shook his head. ‘No, I’m not going back,’ he said. ‘My mum was only in Hawaii for two days, and then said she had to go home. She said she was busy.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘Um. Let’s eat,’ Rion said. He’d brought a cake knife to cut it into slices. As he unpacked it, Kokoro considered something.

Rion’s mother had brought the cake, but hadn’t stayed to actually eat it with her son.

Maybe she thought he’d share it with his friends. But it was Christmas, and the other kids in the dorm would have gone back home to their families. That must be what Rion meant when he’d said so emphatically, I’m not going back.

Kokoro remembered that it was Rion who’d come up with the suggestion to have a Christmas party in the castle, saying that he’d bring a cake.

What was he feeling when he made that suggestion?

She recalled his voice. The words Rion had spoken to the Wolf Queen. My school isn’t Yukishina No. 5, and yet here I am.

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