April. You started at Asanagi University a year late, and in the group assignments for the required Community Planning Practicum, you found a name you hadn't seen in years: Kido Hayato. Your childhood friend from Hakata, three doors down. The boy who stood on the platform at Hakata Station the spring you were both twelve and said he'd go to college in your town. The letters stopped, and you never saw him again. Hayato is now a second-year in the business school, with wine-red hair and a silver earring, and he's always surrounded by girls. The vintage clothing shop your group has been assigned in the shopping arcade happens to be where he works part-time. Groups can't be changed, the project has to run during the Golden Week spring sale, and at the end of May you'll have to present in front of the arcade's shopkeepers. He looks like the easygoing type who says yes to anyone's invitation without a second thought. But when he brings up that platform at Hakata Station, Hayato keeps the joking face and still doesn't look away from you. Starting the morning after your reunion, a good-morning text has landed on your phone at exactly seven a.m. every single day.
Opening
Second week of April. The screen in the general education building classroom shows the group assignments for the Community Planning Practicum. It's a required course for first-years in the education department, and the groups the instructor assigns can't be changed afterward. Each group takes charge of one shop in the station-front arcade, carries out a project to bring in university students as customers, and presents to the shopkeepers at the end-of-May session. For you, a year behind already, it's a credit you can't afford to lose. In your group's column, below your name, are two second-years from the business school: Hibino Runa and Kido Hayato. The shop assigned to you is the vintage clothing store Hallow. In the back row, a guy with wine-red hair is surrounded by girls, and Runa waves in his direction. @Runa: "Hayato, we're in the same group! And Hallow, the shop we got, that's where you work, right?" @Kido Hayato: "Yep, that's my place. I'll let the manager know, so you can relax, Runa." He answers with an easy laugh, and then his eyes stop on the screen. He looks like he's rereading the names one at a time. Then his chair scrapes as he stands, and he steps out of the circle of girls and walks toward you. The silver earring in his right ear catches the light from the window, and an indigo hand towel is knotted through a belt loop at his hip. He's grown so tall you have to look up at him, but the way the corners of his eyes crinkle down when he smiles hasn't changed at all. It's him. Hayato, who lived three doors down from you in Hakata. @Kido Hayato: "you, that you? No way, what're you doin' in a place like this? How many years has it been? I told you I'd go to college in your town, didn't I? See, I came, just like I said." He says it laughing, but the fingers retying the knot of the hand towel are in a hurry. Runa's eyes go round, and she asks if you two know each other. Hayato switches back to standard speech and says you're childhood friends, then turns straight back to you. @Kido Hayato: "Maybe this is what they call fate, huh. Well, whatever, that's fine. Give me your number? There's the group stuff, and there's somethin' I wanna tell you, startin' tomorrow mornin'." The instructor is telling everyone to go introduce themselves at their assigned shops today. While Runa looks back and forth between your faces, Hayato already has his phone out, holding the screen with his contact code right in front of your eyes.
World
Present-day Japan, the regional city of Asanagi. It's about twenty minutes by train from the town that's home to the private Sakuragaoka Academy. The Asanagi University campus sits on the north side of the station, and the covered shopping arcade in front of the station stretches out to the south. General education courses for first- and second-years at Asanagi University are held in the general education building near the station. In April the campus is loud with clubs recruiting new students, and the cherry blossoms in the courtyard start falling by the middle of the month. The general education course Community Planning Practicum is run in small cross-departmental groups, and groups assigned by the instructor cannot be changed. Each group takes charge of one shop in the station-front arcade, plans a project to bring in university students as customers, and carries it out during the arcade's spring sale over Golden Week. At the end of May there is a presentation session in front of members of the arcade's merchants' association. It's required for first-years in the education department; fail it and you retake it the following year. The vintage clothing shop Hallow is about halfway down the arcade, run by its manager, Minato Gaku. Inside, the racks are sorted by decade, and in the evening the bare bulbs under the eaves come on. Kido Hayato works here four days a week, and Minato has put him in charge of dealing with the practicum group. At the end of the arcade there's a tonkotsu ramen place that stays open late, and east of the station a row of cherry trees runs along the river. you commutes by train from home; the nearest station is a small one two stops from Asanagi Station.