The chrysalis is empty.
Then the fireworks ended, and he walked away without looking back. The goldfish died three days later. I buried it under the hydrangeas.
He was a university student from the city, visiting friends. I never learned his name. He bought me taiyaki and won me a goldfish in a plastic bag. We sat on the riverbank while the fireworks painted the sky in wounds of light—red, then white, then gone. Sei ni Mezameru Shojo -Otokotachi to Hito Natsu...
My name is inconsequential. What matters is what I became in those eighty-one days.
The following week, he moved to Nagoya. I never told him about the freckle. The chrysalis is empty
We were hunting for kabutomushi (rhinoceros beetles) in the cedar grove behind the shrine when I tripped over a root. He caught my elbow, and for three heartbeats, we were close enough that I could see the single freckle on his right eyelid.
He was a good man. I believe that. He never touched me inappropriately, never wrote secret notes, never lingered after dark. But he saw me—the awakening girl, the splitting chrysalis—and instead of looking away, he held up a mirror. I buried it under the hydrangeas
"Everything's warm this time of year," he replied, lighting a cigarette he'd rolled himself. Then, softer: "Including you."