Maybe if I had opened up to her with my problems, she would have been kind and listened. But I didn’t really want that. I insisted on looking good in front of Kiriko. So I wrote lies instead. My letters told of a fictional life of mine, so perfect and fulfilling so as not to be bested by hers. Initially, it was no more than a bluff, but it gradually became my greatest joy. I suppose I had a love of acting that only needed awakening. Leaving out anything that sounded too implausible, I wrote about the best school life I could muster without it deviating from the reality of being Mizuho Yugami. A second life created only for these letters. When I was writing letters to Kiriko, that was when I could become my ideal. In spring and summer and fall and winter, on sunny and cloudy and rainy and snowy days, I would write letters and deposit them in the mailbox on the corner of the street. When a letter from Kiriko arrived, I would prudently cut open the envelope, bring it close to my face, lie down in bed, and relish the words while sipping coffee. ---------- A terrifying situation came up five years after we became penpals, the autumn when I was 17. “I want to talk face to face,” Kiriko wrote. “Some things, I just can’t bring myself to say in letters. I want us to look each other in the eyes and hear each other talk.” This letter troubled me. Of course, I’d had the same desire to meet in person cross my mind. I would have loved to see how she’d changed in five years. But it was obvious that if such a thing were to happen, everything I’d written in my letters would be exposed as lies. Gentle Kiriko wouldn’t condemn me for it, surely. But I was sure it would disappoint her. I schemed to somehow become that fictional Mizuho Yugami for just a day, but even if I could briefly solidify all those lies, I knew I wouldn’t be able to