As the morning mist cleared, the mountains appeared crisp and new.
On both sides of the road were neat, well-tended fields. In the shimmering water, the green peaks and clear sky reflected like a painting.
"Good morning!"
Nohara Sato greeted the three Koshigaya siblings and Fujimiya Konomi as they arrived together.
"Good morning!"
Honk honk!
Suddenly, the sound of a car horn came from down the road.
"Sato-nii! Komari! Natsumi!"
A seven-seater MPV slowly drove up. Miyauchi Renge and Miyauchi Hikage leaned out the windows, waving.
The vehicle came to a gentle stop in front of the group. The figure in the driver's seat raised a hand lazily in greeting, eyes barely open as usual.
Miyauchi Kazuho, eldest daughter of the Miyauchi family, looked at Sato through her perpetually sleepy eyes. "Long time no see, Sato."
"Kazuho-neesan, did your family buy a new car?"
Sato examined the vehicle curiously.
"Oh, this? We saw it last time when we were buying farming machinery and picked it up since it looked decent."
Seriously? Who buys a car on a whim like that?
Then again, for the Miyauchi family, it wasn't that surprising...
Years ago, most of the forests and farmland in this region belonged to the Miyauchi and Fujimiya families. Both families had operated local shrines for generations.
They had declined since the Meiji Restoration, but even today, they still owned large tracts of land and forests , making them the largest shareholders in the Asahigaoka Agricultural and Forestry Cooperatives.
"I guess I should say… you're really rolling in it, huh?" Sato joked.
"Ah, come on. Your family's not doing too badly either. I remember Uncle Ginnosuke bought a whole batch of AV equipment last time, he said he was building a home theater."
... What?
Sato squinted. Why didn't he know about this?
"Alright, are you guys going to chat forever?"
A cool, slightly annoyed voice came from inside the car.
"Huh? The corner store girl's here too!" Natsumi peered inside and exclaimed in surprise.
In the last row sat a girl with long blond hair. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Natsumi. "Do I not have a name?"
Sato chuckled. "You're here too, Kaga-neesan."
Kagayama Kaede, a graduate of Asahigaoka Branch School. After failing to get into college, she took over the family's candy store, the only one in Asahigaoka.
In this quiet village, it wasn't unusual for the store to go an entire day without a single customer.
Still, even if none of their families owned a mine, they had more than enough fields and mountains to live comfortably without working a day.
Kaede raised an eyebrow. "So you're here too, huh, Sato?"
She yawned and said tiredly, "Kazuho dragged me out early this morning. I didn't want to come. I've got a store to run!"
"Well, you're all alumni. You wouldn't want to see your school shut down, would you?" Kazuho said, turning back to smile while her eyes were still barely open.
"Everyone, hop in! Hotaru's probably getting impatient up ahead."
"Can this car even fit all of us?" Sato asked doubtfully.
Three Koshigaya siblings, three Miyauchi sisters, plus him, Konomi, and Hotaru… that was clearly over capacity.
Kazuho remained unfazed. "There's always room if you squeeze. Besides, this is the countryside. No traffic cops to hand out tickets."
Is the problem really about tickets?
Sato sighed. "Kazuho-neesan, you're a teacher. Shouldn't you set an example?"
"Yes, yes! Next time for sure!" she replied with a carefree grin.
Seeing her act like a lost cause, Sato gave up and headed for the front passenger seat, only to find Suguru already sitting there, completely unnoticed until now.
"Hehe, let's sit in the back!" Konomi suddenly clung to his arm and pulled him toward the back seat.
…
Asahigaoka Branch School.
A rural school built on a hillside by the road. In one corner of the grounds stood several tall cherry blossom trees. Each spring, they bloomed into a canopy of soft pink blossoms, Sato's favorite part of the school.
Too bad cherry blossoms in Japan don't bear cherries...
The school had just one single-story building. Decades ago, the place echoed with the voices of students but now, those numbers had dwindled to almost nothing.
"Still the same as ever, huh?" Kaede said as she walked up, hands in her coat pockets. Her eyes scanned the classrooms with a complex expression.
She had graduated five years ago and hadn't visited since.
Sato felt it too, the nostalgia of returning to a place filled with memories. Every corner of this campus held traces of his past. But how much longer would the school survive?
With enrollment shrinking year by year, its closure seemed inevitable. The only question was when.
All the graduates fell silent, lost in thought.
Huff! Huff!
Meanwhile, Kazuho was already out of breath, hauling out a bunch of wooden planks from the school's storeroom and piling them in front of everyone.
Kaede's eye twitched. "Just what exactly needs repairing?"
She had thought it would be something simple, like fixing a bench leg. But this... this was a lot.
"Let's see… the roof's leaking in several places, which has rotted some of the floorboards underneath. And then there's a pile of broken desks and chairs that need fixing too..."
"That much?!"
"Well, after Sato graduated last year, no one was around to help with repairs. And it rained a lot before the new semester, so things got worse..." Kazuho explained with a helpless shrug.
Kaede: "…"