Chapter 8Her desk was empty, abandoned. It wasn’t unusual for kids to skip cram school, Miki reflected, no one wanted to attend a cram school, even if they later said they did.
“Language is what we use to claim mastery over moments and ideas that we are afraid of,” the loud voice of her teacher echoed about the room.
Miki’s eyes remained fixed upon Momoka’s empty seat, unable to turn her attention to the blustering form of the English teacher with the wild hair at the front of the classroom. All she could think of was Momoka’s absence, the cassette in her hand, and the later boast that she had listened to it, and she still wasn’t mad. Had she been passing it on, she wondered, because surely she must have listened to it by that point.
Starkly, she realized she would never know now.
“Whe
