2

Me, All by My Lonesome

One week before the fateful meeting…

“Miss Mifu, I need to discuss something important with you. Could you come with me?”

I headed to the staff room at the behest of my teacher—but I wasn’t at school. I was at the home.

My name is Mifu Miyabi, and I live in a place called Kanro Children’s Home. It was a place where children who couldn’t live with their parents for whatever reason resided with the staff. The children’s ages ranged from kindergartners to high schoolers. There was a mix of boys and girls and a total of about twelve or thirteen of us.

We all woke up at the same time each morning, left for school, came home, ate together, and went to bed at the same time every night.

That was life for us.

Anyway, I was pretty nervous since I rarely got called to the staff room.

What was I supposed to do? Did I do something wrong? My score on my final exam for elementary school was rough… Maybe they were gonna reprimand me and say I wouldn’t be able to get by like that in junior high?

I saw cherry blossoms starting to bloom outside the window. It was spring break. Come April, I would be a first-year junior high school student.

“Excuse me…”

I stepped into the staff room gingerly, and the teacher smiled and pointed to a chair.

“Go ahead and take a seat.”

I eased into the chair slowly, and the teacher said, “Here. Our little secret,” and handed me a chocolate snack cake.

“For me?”

“Yes. Just don’t tell the others.”

Well, now I almost feel too guilty to even eat it.

She got down to business as I fidgeted with the wrapper.

“I have something very important to discuss with you today, Miss Mifu.”

“Something…important?”

“Right now, the Ministry of Welfare is launching a new initiative called The Independent Living Practice Plan for Protected Minors. Have you heard of it?”

“Protected…minors…?”

I shook my head. I’d never heard such difficult words before.

“It’s an initiative where a few children like you, who don’t have parents and live in a home, share a living space to cultivate your independence.”

“Cultivate…independence?”

“That’s right. When a child like you—with no guardian—turns eighteen and graduates from high school, you’re expected to leave the home and live independently…in other words, on your own. You’re aware of that, right?”

I nodded slowly. As if on cue, a weight settled on my chest with a thunk.

I had no parents.

On April 25, thirteen years ago, I was left as a baby at Kanro Children’s Home. Someone—likely my mom—placed a basket with me inside at the entrance to the home, said nothing, and ran off in a hurry.

So my birthday—April 25—wasn’t the day I was born, but the day I was abandoned.

Since the tag on the basket said Mifu Miyabi, that became my name.

Also in the basket was a single pale-blue, heart-shaped pendant. I usually hid it under my clothing, but I always had it on around my neck.

It was my only connection to my family… Meaning, once I graduated from high school and left Kanro, I would have no one to rely on. Even so, it was a fact of life—I would eventually be forced to go out on my own.

“Miss Mifu, living alone is much more difficult than you think. You must work to earn money for your living expenses, including rent. You must do all the household chores by yourself. When you get sick, you must take yourself to the doctor. You wake up by yourself in the morning and go to bed by yourself at night…”

I’d heard it many times before.

I wished I could cover my ears, shake my head, and say, “I know, I know… I get it, so enough with the lectures.”

I’ve never been good at articulating my feelings, so in situations like this, I just stay quiet and keep my eyes on the floor.

At the same time, darkness spread slowly in my heart: Could I really live by myself? Live alone…and die alone? When I thought of it like that, it was like I’d been abandoned in an endless rain, with nothing but mist all around me, shrouding my vision.

It was cold, lonely, and scary…

There wasn’t a single outcome in my mind where I had a happy future.

Someone who paid for my things, put a roof over my head, cooked my meals…

Someone who, no matter what, helped me out, worried about me, gave me somewhere to belong, and continued to support me…

There was no one like that in my future.

Maybe my emotions were showing on my face without my realizing it, because my teacher put her hand on my shoulder.

“I’m sure you’re nervous. The idea of suddenly living all on your own must seem impossible. Everyone feels that way. That’s why the people in the government thought independence might be something you needed to practice first.”

“…”

I stayed silent.

“Children with no family need practice to become independent. That’s why it makes sense for children in the same boat to live together and practice that independence. That’s the Independent Living Practice Plan for Protected Minors… It’s mainly for junior high students, so most call it the Junior High Independence Plan for short.”

Her tone was bright, but…I just didn’t have a good feeling about it all.

Then she began to speak even louder.

“So the government would love for you, Miss Mifu Miyabi, to participate. What do you say?”

And there it was.

I shrugged and said, “Um… Does that mean…I have to leave this place and live somewhere else?”

“It does, sweetie. I’m sorry to say that starting in April, you’ll be going to a different junior high school than the other kids as well.”

My whole body stiffened. I couldn’t imagine leaving Kanro and living in a totally unfamiliar place, with a bunch of kids I didn’t know.

Sure, I didn’t have a family, but I had the nice teachers at Kanro and friends to live with. They had kept me going all this time…

I was going to have to leave behind my best friends from elementary school, too. I couldn’t admit how anxious or scared I was or that I didn’t wanna do it… If I refused to participate in the program, it would put my teacher in a tough spot, and I might let her down, or she might think I was being selfish.

“Miss Mifu, you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. I think you’ll be fine. The other teachers here are always saying the same thing.”

Don’t just say what’s convenient for you, I thought. But sure enough, I couldn’t get the words out.

“All the details are in these papers. Could you take a look? A quick peek is fine,” she asked, taking several sheets from an envelope and handing them to me.

Makes sense…

Four kids living in an ordinary house, just like adults. It was kind of reassuring that we’d be getting a monthly stipend in addition to rent and tuition. I had to agree that it seemed like good practice for adulthood.

“If it turns out you don’t get along with the other three, you can always come back, so why not at least meet them? I don’t think it’s a bad offer. The government staff in charge are all nice people, and they really only want to make you happy—” She grew more impassioned as she went on.

That passion was almost infectious, and I realized she was slowly convincing me. So many adults were doing everything they could for kids with no family like me. They’d come up with a plan for us kids to live on our own, and they’d put it into motion.

Between junior high school and high school, I only had six years of childhood left. Sooner or later, I would have to fend for myself. If that was gonna be my fate anyway, maybe it would be better to face it head-on. If I simply sat around, thinking about how uncertain the future was and how scared that made me feel, I might not ever get anywhere.

Maybe doing this would help me grow enough to live on my own…?

Through my clothes, I touched the pendant my mom had left me, tracing the heart-shaped gem with my thumb over and over.

Watch over me, Mom, I thought, steeling myself.

“…I understand. I’ll give it a try,” I answered determinedly.

My teacher nodded with a serious look and stood.

“Thank you. I know this will work out. And you always have me in your corner, you know.”

“I know. I-I’ll do my best!” I leaped to my feet, caught up in the moment.

Flap, flap, flap!

“Aaah…!”

The papers slid off my lap and scattered all over the floor!

“There, there.” With a soft smile, my teacher helped me pick up the papers.

Sigh… This didn’t bode well. I’d always been a little bit of a klutz…

“Hmm?”

One of the pages I’d picked up caught my eye. It had a super-cute logo printed in the corner: a colorful four-leaf clover with pink, red, light-blue, and purple leaves.

Opening the path to a bright future—Quattro Folia, Incorporated.

The tagline was written in a large, luxurious font.

“Excuse me… What’s this?”

“Oh, that’s a flyer for Quattro Folia. I’m told it’s thanks to them that the government could launch the Junior High Independence Plan.”

“What’d they do?”

“Quattro Folia is a very big company. The president is extremely wealthy, and he apparently donated billions of yen not only to this plan but also to children living at the facility.”

“B-billions?!”

That was an unreal amount. Wasn’t that even more than the jackpot in the lottery?!

I looked back down at the flyer again. The sweet four-leaf clover, each leaf a different color… Staring at the logo, I tried to envision the journey the four of us were about to embark on.

I wondered what the other three would be like. Half of me felt anxious, and the other half felt ready to give this my everything.

I clutched my pendant tightly through my clothes.

Before I knew it, it was time for me to leave Kanro Children’s Home.

That morning, I woke up extra early and put on my favorite light-blue blouse.

Everyone from Kanro saw me off as I left, and I headed for the train that would take me to my new town.

I got off at a station I’d never been to, walked along a shopping street I’d never seen, and passed through a neighborhood I’d never known. Buildings, signs, bus stops, hilly roads, parking lots, fences, telephone poles, tiny fields, the smell of the soil—all of it was brand-new to me.

Starting today, life really would begin in a new house with just the four of us kids.

My nerves and worries kept growing.

I’d shipped my bulkier belongings the day before, so I only had a backpack with my valuables in it. I should have been feeling light, but something weighed on my heart.

I kept checking the map to the house so I wouldn’t get lost as I made my way through the unfamiliar town.

“At the next corner…take a left.”

I made the turn, and at the end of the road was a slightly old-looking house.

This was the house for the Junior High Independence Plan…where all four of us would live. My new home…

The map had instructions written: When you go inside, please gather in the room on the right-hand side of the first-floor hallway.

“Here we go…”

I braced myself and opened the door to the house with a ker-chak.

The foyer was on the small side, but it was clean, and the hallway stretched straight ahead from there.

There was a pile of what seemed like cardboard boxes in a back room.

Looking down, I noticed there were already three pairs of shoes. The other kids…were already here! I took off my shoes in a hurry and quickly opened the door to the room on the right.

And then…

“Th-th-there’s another me?!”

Three girls who looked exactly like me were lined up.

3

Life with Four Sisters Begins

You could have heard a pin drop.

“You’re quadruplets!”

The four of us were frozen like statues.

We had suddenly been told to live on our own, packed up our lives, and moved to this house in a completely new town…and now we’re being told we’re quadruplets.

Something like this…couldn’t possibly…

“As if!”

“What?!”

It took me a second to realize that I hadn’t just blurted that out—it was one of my doppelgangers.

The girl sprang to her feet and shouted, “Giving us a bunch of malarkey and expecting us to believe it?! You ain’t got any proof!”

She sounded just like me, save for the Kansai dialect.

“You’re Miss Nitori Miyabi, right? I do have proof. Feast your eyes!” Mr. Fujiyama said, lining up four documents on the table.

We peered at them nervously and saw four profiles: Ichika Miyabi, Nitori Miyabi, Mifu Miyabi, and Shizuki Miyabi.

Even I couldn’t tell the difference between the photos under each name. Each of our birthdays was listed as April 25, and we all had the same blood type: A. The remarks column read, DNA match and probability of sibling relation, one hundred percent…!

No way! This can’t be happening…!

I mean, twins would have been one thing, but quadruplets? That was unbelievable.

It sounded like a total fantasy, but our faces, last names, birth dates, and blood types were the exact same… Not to mention our DNA, too…! We really were…quadruplets, blood and all!

We stared at one another in stunned silence.

Ichika… Nitori… Shizuki…

Earlier, the girl with the Kansai accent had been called Nitori… But between the other two, which was which?

Mr. Fujiyama spoke up as our heads spun. “To tell you the truth, when we were compiling candidates for the Junior High Independence Plan, we stumbled upon four children with the same last name and face. There was no way we were going to put quadruplets in different facilities. I’m truly sorry we couldn’t bring you all together sooner.”

Mr. Fujiyama, who had been so cheerful, looked a little disgruntled.

“My fellow government employees were as shocked as I was. Many of them said they just had to let you four live together…to reunite you as a family. You might have already heard, but the program’s funding is being provided by a huge company. Thanks to that, even though we were told that launch would be a year out at least, we were able to get the Junior High Independence Plan running in three months.”

Desperately trying to sort everything out while my mind spun in circles, I couldn’t help but close my eyes.

“You can live together, as sisters.”

I opened my eyes with a start to find Mr. Fujiyama staring at us resolutely, his eyes sparkling. I gulped. The other three girls gulped at the same time with identical expressions. Mr. Fujiyama laughed and clapped his hands.

“Well, that settles it! From now on, the four of you will live together. I’d love to help out, but you guys are practicing independence, after all, so I won’t come back unless there’s an emergency.”

“What? Um…”

As we spoke again in perfect sync, Mr. Fujiyama beamed.

“All the details are written in the documents I gave you before. If any problems come up, I want the four of you to tackle them together. You guys got this! You’re…”

Not alone anymore.

With those words, Mr. Fujiyama left.

The four of us were standing around warily in a circle, staring at one another. Yep. They really looked exactly like me.

This was my…my…first family ever!

At first I was bursting with happiness, and then twice as much nervousness washed over me.

Because, well…I had a family! This whole time, I’d thought I was all alone, with no one in the whole world.

Thinking I couldn’t rely on anyone had been crushingly lonely. But I had sisters, and—this was the part I’d never dreamed of—I had four of them who looked exactly like me!

My fingertips trembled, and I couldn’t catch my breath. Trying to hide my excitement, I closed my mouth and clenched the palms of my hands shut.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

I glanced up in surprise at the voice, and one of the three was smiling at me.

Looking closely, she was a little taller than me and wore a mature, pale-pink long skirt that looked great on her.

“R-right! It’s a pl-pl-pleasure to meet you.”

“Ha-ha! We look the exact same, and you’re still that nervous?”

The girl to my left gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder. This was the one with the accent…Nitori. She wore a super-stylish bright-red hoodie and a short jumper.

“…”

The girl on my right stole a glance, then quickly looked away. She had glasses with black frames and slightly baggy purple clothes.

“N-nice to meet you,” I said softly, and her gaze shot down to the ground.

“Oh, right… Everyone, take one of these. There’s one per person. I got here first, so Mr. Fujiyama gave them to me.”

The taller girl passed something out. Oh, wow… A house key…!

It was my first time living in a normal house or even holding a key after spending my life at Kanro. The teachers always locked up there, meaning keys were something only adults had.

I stared at the glittering silver key, savoring the feeling of it in my hand, then looked up.

“Thank you very much, um…”

I wanted to show my appreciation, but I didn’t know the taller girl’s name. While I squirmed, she tucked her hair behind her ear and giggled.

“To think we’re quadruplets. Hee-hee. It’s hard to believe. We all look so alike that it’s hard to tell who’s who. How about we introduce ourselves?”

Cold sweat ran down my back. I-introductions?! I hadn’t thought of what to say…!

“You’re right. For starters, how about we say our favorite food and color?” Nitori suggested. Everyone else nodded in agreement. The first to go was the tall girl.

“I’m Ichika Miyabi. My favorite food is apple pie. My favorite color is pink.”

Her voice was crisp and easy to understand. She stood up very straight, and she seemed more dependable than you’d expect from someone my age.

Next was Nitori, who had a very noticeable Kansai accent.

“I’m Nitori Miyabi. My favorite foods are okonomiyaki and chocolate ice cream. My favorite color is red!”

She spoke kind of fast and raised her hand high, giving the impression of someone who was bursting at the seams with energy.

Next was the girl standing next to Nitori… M-me…!

“I-I-I’m Mifu Miyabi! My favorite foods are curry and strawberries, and m-my favorite color is…”

My mind went blank, and my mouth froze for a second. Then my mom’s pendant and its beautiful blue color flashed through my mind.

“…l-light blue!”

Ichika nodded kindly, and Nitori smiled brightly.

I…I said it right…!

I took a small breath after I managed to finish my introduction.

The last to go was the girl with glasses.

“I’m Shizuki Miyabi…”

It was the first time I’d heard Shizuki speak, and her voice was so small, it sounded as if it might disappear. Then she clammed up.

“Shizuki, was it? What’s your favorite food and color?” Ichika coaxed her with a smile, but…

“I don’t really have a…favorite food or color,” Shizuki said in an even quieter voice and looked down.

I sneaked a sidelong glance and saw her hands were clasped in front of her, shaking slightly.

Self-introductions were seriously nerve-racking… I got stage fright myself, so I knew how she felt.

I had a feeling Shizuki and I would get along.

“That reminds me, all our names have numbers in them.” Maybe Ichika was trying to soothe Shizuki’s nerves. She said that to change the subject, looking around at everyone.

She was right. Ichika, ichi, meaning “one” in Japanese. Nitori, ni, meaning “two.” Mifu, mi for “three,” and Shizuki, shi for “four.”

“Yeah! They told me they found me in a basket with a name tag on it.”

“Really? Me too.”

“M-me too!”

“…Same here.”

“We all had the same thing happen… Maybe these are the names our mom gave us?” I muttered, to which Ichika nodded.

“I’m sure. Oh, what if they match the order we were born in?”

“The order we were born in?”

“Yes. Ichika has ‘one,’ so I’m the eldest daughter. Nitori is the second, Mifu is the third, and Shizuki is the youngest.”

“I love it! Let’s go with that!”

Nitori jumped up and down, and I suddenly felt a warmth in my heart.

I was the third daughter of the Miyabi family…! That’s why my name was Mifu!

Ever since I was little, I’d always wondered why my name was Mifu—especially the character used for the mi. It could mean “fruit” or “future,” but “three”…? I just didn’t get it.

Ichika and Nitori were my big sisters. Shizuki was my younger sister. And that was what made me Mifu.

The mystery of my name had always bothered me, but now that I understood the reason, I fell in love with it immediately.

“From now on, we’re family. Ichika, Mifu, Shizuki, nice to meet ya.”

“Nice to meet you, Nitori, Mifu, Shizuki.”

Hearing my big sisters call me by name helped it all sink in. We really were a family!

The thought sent another buzz of nervous energy through me.

“I’m very pleased to meet you.”

For some reason, I felt like I should keep speaking formally. And Shizuki stayed totally silent. It was awkward, but maybe that was normal for brand-new families.

“All right, let’s go explore the rest of the house!” Nitori shouted happily once the introductions were over, then she ran out of the room.

“Huh? Hey, wait up…!”

As we started to follow her, we heard—thump, thump, thump, thump—as she rocketed up the staircase.

“Whoa, this is amazing! There’s a balcony! Oh, there’s one here, too! Wow!”

Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump!

Nitori’s footsteps echoed through the whole house.

Sh-she has so much energy!

We gathered at the base of the stairs, staring up at the second floor, dumbfounded.

“Let’s head on up. We need to decide on our rooms,” Ichika said, and that was when it hit me.

Right. The documents said everyone would have their own room!

I’d been floored when I read that, thinking how luxurious it would be to have a space I didn’t have to share with anyone.

At Kanro, all children in elementary school or younger slept in four-person rooms with bunk beds. Even when we reached junior high school, we were put in two-person rooms (of course, with bunk beds).

“I call dibs on the Western-style room!” Nitori’s loud voice echoed down the stairs.

“Don’t run! The sound carries like crazy down here!” Ichika answered in just as loud a voice and headed up to the second floor. I followed behind her.

The stairs were a little steep. Maybe that’s just how old houses were? It felt a little dangerous.

I climbed the stairs, holding the banister…and finally reached the top.

“Wow…!”

For someone who grew up in a children’s home like me, just being on the second floor of a house was a novelty.

Straight ahead at the top of the stairs was a Japanese-style room. There was another at the end of the hallway, and to the left was a Western-style room.

The idea that any of these could be mine filled me with joy, and an elated sigh escaped me.

Drawn to the sunlight, I went into the Japanese-style room straight ahead. The inside looked like it was about eleven square meters. There was a closet on the right side, and a Japanese-style sliding door on the left. At the back I could see a sliding glass door that led out to a balcony.

Oh, there was even a tiny display alcove!

As I looked around, all excited, I heard Ichika talking to herself through the sliding door. The two Japanese-style rooms were connected through there.

“I think I might go with this one. It gets good sunlight… Plus, I can dry my futon fast.”

Oh yeah. We would have to air out our futons and stuff ourselves…

There were only the four of us living in the house—in other words, no adults. Since this was practice for being independent, we had to handle all the chores ourselves. How did you even dry a futon…?

Even if I didn’t know everything, I felt safe just having Ichika around. She seemed so dependable.

“U-u-um…!”

Gathering my courage, I slid open the door just a little.

“What is it?”

My doppelgänger peeked out.

“I—I…I think I wanna take the room next to yours. Would that be okay?”

Ichika smiled sweetly at me as I nervously met her gaze.

“Of course. Happy to be your neighbor, Mifu.”

“Same here, Ichika…!”

The heavy tension in my heart gently melted away thanks to Ichika. Before I knew it, I’d managed to stop sounding so awkward.

I…I did it! I talked to my big sister totally normally!

My room was right next to my kind, reliable big sister! If I ever felt lonely, all I had to do was ask, “Ichika, are you there?” and her gentle voice would answer from the other side, “What’s up?”

If we couldn’t sleep at night, we might whisper to each other, read books, or draw together. It might even be fun to sneakily eat a few sweets together—it’d be our little secret.

I wanted to do that with all three of them, not only Ichika. Just picturing our future lives was enough to make my heart dance with excitement.

My room definitely wasn’t shiny and new. The tatami mats were sun-bleached, the walls had tiny cracks in them, and most sounds carried over to the room next door. But I didn’t mind any of that stuff.

“Do you think everyone’s doing okay, Mifu? Nitori’s probably fine, but what about Shizuki?”

“Oh, right…! How is Shizuki…?”

We went out and peeked down the stairs to find Shizuki still standing alone in the first-floor hallway.

“Shizuki, which room do you want? Do you wanna be on the first floor?”

“…”

Shizuki glanced up at us and nodded just once.

The first floor had a Western-style room, too—the one we’d all met up in earlier. But…

“I wonder if that was really what Shizuki wanted…?”

I fretted, but in the end, Ichika and I took the Japanese-style rooms on the second floor. Nitori took the Western-style room on the second floor. And the Western-style room on the first floor was left to Shizuki.

“Next is…unpacking.”

When Ichika pointed that out, Nitori grimaced.

“Ugh… Wow…”

We had gathered in the Japanese-style living room connected to the downstairs dining room. In front of us stood a massive wall of cardboard. This was going to be tough…

The four of us couldn’t help but sigh as we stared at the mountain of stuff.

“Well, we’ve got four people. If we work together, it’ll be done in a flash.” Nitori did a victory pose and grinned. Her smile was infectious and got me kind of excited about this pain of a cleanup.

4

We’re the Same, but Different

Two hours later…

“Phew…”

We’d finally finished unpacking. I flopped down in my room and looked up at the wood-grain ceiling.

It was interesting to think about…

We were sisters but had totally different amounts of stuff.

Ichika had four boxes. I had four, too. Shizuki had just one box. And Nitori’s things filled twelve whole boxes!

Why was there such a gap? We’d only just met, but I was already starting to see our unique personalities shine through. We were quadruplets sharing the same genes, with the same face, but when I thought about it, our personalities weren’t alike at all.

“…We’re the same, but different, I guess.”

The more time passed, the more curious I got about my sisters. What other differences would we discover?

I stood up and headed downstairs.

“Ah… I’m starving.”

When I heard that, I peeked into the living room and saw Nitori sprawled on the floor. It was no wonder she was tired after unpacking twelve whole boxes.

She noticed me, stretched with an “oof,” and rolled over.

“Oh! Let’s order delivery. What do you want, Mifu? I’ll get tempura soba.”

“Huh?!” I gasped, startled.

I had never ordered soba for delivery before, but it sounded pricey…!

I blinked in silence, and Ichika, who’d been cleaning the kitchen, came over and folded her arms with an exasperated look.

“Are you kidding? There’s no way we’re ordering delivery. We’ll cook for ourselves. We’ll buy the ingredients at the supermarket.”

“What?! We’re cooking?” This time, it was Nitori’s turn to blink in shock.

We invited Shizuki, too, and the four of us left the house, headed for the store nearby.

“What’s on our menu, then?”

“Let’s see. Cooking rice takes time… How about kitsune udon? And rolled omelettes made with dashi.”

“You can make those, Ichika?!” I shouted.

The only time I ever made food was during cooking class at school. I remembered struggling with a kitchen knife; I wasn’t very good.

“My foster parents taught me.”

Foster parents…! That meant she grew up in a normal home, not a children’s home like me!

Unfazed by my shock, Nitori just said, “Huh,” and kept the conversation going like it was nothing. “You lived with foster parents? What was that like?”

“Hmm… Two or three kids stayed in the same house, so we all took turns doing chores…”

“Wow, that’s amazing!” I could hardly believe it. I’d assumed everyone else had grown up in facilities like me. Ichika had lived in a foster home and managed chores; she was becoming even more dependable in my eyes.

“I’ve got high hopes for this meal.” Nitori linked arms with Ichika and giggled.

“I can only make basic stuff.” Ichika gave a shy smile. “Were you in a facility, Nitori?” she asked, and Nitori replied with a light shake of her head.

“Nope, I wasn’t. At first, I lived in a facility in the Kanto region, but when I was four, I was adopted by the Ikeyas in Osaka.”

“Adopted?”

“Sure was. Until not long ago, my name was Nitori Ikeya, not Nitori Miyabi. On paper, I was my mom and dad’s real kid. Of course, things are different now.”

Sh-she was their real child, officially?! She had a family…unlike me. They may not have been related by blood, but she had a mom and dad…!

I went silent, even more stunned than before.

Then Nitori joked cheerfully as ever, “Sure, I’ve made my grand Kanto return, but I dunno if I can shake my Kansai accent at this point. You know what they say, the soul of a child at age three is the same at a hundred. Or was it four? There’s four of us, so maybe we’ll go with four.”

When we were unpacking, Nitori had twelve boxes. I was sure those boxes were filled with clothes, toys, and comics that her adopted family had bought for her.

She must have been very loved…like a real daughter. And yet…

“You finally got adopted…and had a mom and dad. And now you’re stuck living with us… Are you really okay with that?” I asked timidly.

Nitori’s face immediately darkened. Her lips were pursed, and her brow furrowed deeply.

Wait…did I just make her mad?

But she snapped right back to her usual jokey self, grinning and bursting with even more energy.

“Duh-doy, I’m okay with it! We’re quadruplets, right? It’s gonna be interesting for sure. I even texted them, ‘Thanks for everything, Ma and Pa. I’m gonna live with my sisters now!’”

“Really? Are you sure you’re not lonely?” Ichika seemed worried.

“Not even a bit!” Nitori swung her and Ichika’s joined hands back and forth wildly. Then she stopped and asked mischievously, “Are you sure you’re not lonely, Ichika? You did just leave your foster folks, after all.”

“I-I’m not.” After a short pause, Ichika looked ahead sharply. “There’s someone I look up to. They started living alone this spring and became fully independent, so I thought I had to try my best, too. That’s why I decided to participate in this program.”

I wonder what kind of person Ichika looks up to. Oh, maybe she—…

“What? Who’s this person? Spill the beans! Is he your boooyfriend?!”

“Shush. It’s not like that. It’s none of your business.”

They stopped walking and eyed each other dubiously—but the only thing staring back at them was the exact same face.

“Pfft.”

Maybe they thought, She’s not intimidating at all or It’s like staring into a mirror.

My big sisters burst into laughter at the same time and started walking again like nothing had happened. I was glad they didn’t wind up fighting… I guess looking the same had its perks. I let out a relieved sigh and giggled, too; I couldn’t help but find it funny.

“Right, so what about you, Mifu?” Nitori’s attention had turned to me. “Where were you before you came here?”

“Oh, um, I always lived in a facility…”

“A facility, huh? Did it ever get lonely there?”

I looked away from Nitori as she cocked her head curiously.

If I was being honest, I’d say…I still felt kind of lonely. This had all happened so suddenly. I’d had to leave the town and home I’d grown up in. I’d had to say good-bye to my school friends, and my kind teacher, too.

But…

“I…liked the facility. But it was sad being on my own, and I felt so unsure about so much…then I found out I had real sisters—a family—and I was just so happy!”

Thinking back to the moment I met the three of them made me feel like my chest was gonna burst. That joy overflowed, spreading to each and every part of my body.

“So I’m just so, so happy right now!” I smiled from ear to ear and squeezed Ichika’s hand tightly. “So happy.”

“Yeah, same here!”

They both smiled back at me. Having a family really was heaven.

“Hey, Shizuki? Were you in a facility before?” Ichika turned around and asked Shizuki, who was trailing about a meter behind us.

The look in her eyes made her seem lonesome as she watched us holding hands, and she whispered, “I was always in a facility, too,” in a voice so small, it seemed the wind might carry her words away.

Then there was silence.

“You’re…just like me,” I said, trying to smooth things over, but there was no reply.

There was a chill in the spring breeze, and it whooshed around the four of us.

Maybe Shizuki was still nervous after all…?

The conversation trailed off, and then…

“Well, we’re here.”

…we arrived at the large supermarket.

The automatic doors slid open, and cheerful music poured out.

“No splurging, okay? We only get a fixed amount every month.” Ichika gave us a quick flash of the wallet with our money.

“Got it!” Nitori gave a peace sign and made a beeline for the candy counter.

“Geez…” Ichika picked up a shopping basket with a practiced hand.

A basket! Right, you had to carry a basket when you went shopping.

I tried imitating her and holding a basket myself. Just doing that made me feel like a grown-up.

Shizuki seemed confused by the store, cautiously looking around.

Hee-hee-hee, I never knew the supermarket was such a fun place.

All right, time to shop!

“Ugh…some eggshell got in.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

“The green onions are only cut halfway. They’re still connected.”

“Sooorry…”

After we went grocery shopping, the four of us went home and made lunch together. The kitsune udon and rolled omelettes tasted great. But…as I’d feared, everyone except for Ichika, who was in charge of seasoning, failed miserably at cooking,

Still, none of it mattered after we all ended up eating together.

We decided to take a break after we practically licked our bowls clean, when Nitori suddenly took out four gifts.

“Ta-daa!”

Each of them was cutely wrapped with pretty wrapping paper and slender ribbons.

“What’s this?!” Ichika and I cried out in unison. She sounded startled, while I sounded excited.

Even Shizuki’s eyes seemed to widen a little.

“Open them!”

I gently unwrapped the package that Nitori gave me…and out came a light-blue hair clip.

Ichika got a pink one. Nitori’s was red, and Shizuki’s was purple.

“We all match! Wow. They’re so cute!” I wasn’t expecting a present at all; it felt like all the glee and excitement were going to spill out of me.

“You bought these at the supermarket without us noticing? Geez, when did you…? How much were they?” Ichika shot off a bunch of questions, looking troubled.

“It’s fine. I paid for them with my own allowance.”

“That’s not the problem here! You have to learn proper spending habits if you want to be independent!”

“You’re gonna call this splurging, right? But it’s not that at all.” Nitori brushed her off.

She looked down and grinned.

“I’m just so happy to have sisters. So…this is a li’l something from the heart!”

Light blue was my favorite color. She’d remembered it from when I introduced myself…and not just mine—she remembered Ichika’s, too.

Shizuki was the only one who hadn’t said her favorite color when she introduced herself. But the purple hair clip that Nitori had chosen for her perfectly matched her reserved personality.

Matching hair clips for the four of us, each one in a different color…!

They must have been imbued with the joy we felt at becoming a family—proof we were sisters.

Happiness welled up deep inside my chest.

“Thank you, Nitori. I’m happy, too. Really happy!”

I gave Nitori a tight hug from behind, easing the tension over worries about our budget.

“I’m…I’m happy, too.” Ichika held the hair clip carefully in both hands, and her expression softened.

5

Together at the Entrance Ceremony

It was finally here, finally here, finally here… Hee-hee!

From the moment I opened my eyes that morning, I was as excited as could be. Today was our long-awaited junior high entrance ceremony!

“Shizuki, have another slice of rolled omelette. You don’t wanna feel sick during the ceremony.”

“Yep-yep, you need a hearty breakfast. Mifu, gimme seconds!”

I wondered if Ichika and Nitori were looking forward to the entrance ceremony as well. Even during breakfast, they seemed kind of fidgety. Shizuki seemed tired, but maybe that was because she’d been too nervous to sleep much last night.

I was nervous, too. But I was a hundred times—no, a million times more excited!

“Thanks for the food,” we all said in unison once we were finished with breakfast. Next, it was time to change into our brand-new clothes: sailor uniforms colored an elegant blue gray with a white trim.

“Whoa…! This is so cute!”

I used our big mirror to check myself out from every angle—front, side, back.

I looked stylish and grown-up. I hardly even recognized myself.

“Today, I’m a junior high school student!” I twirled around, and my skirt fluttered around me like a ballerina’s. Every little thing made me happy.

“Hee-hee-hee.”

No matter how I tried to hold it in, my incessant smile gave me away.

“Oh, Mifu.”

“Ha-ha, why are you so giddy?”

My big sisters laughed at me. But instead of getting embarrassed, I twirled around to face them with a flourish.

“I can’t help it! Today’s our school entrance ceremony. Ichika, Nitori, Shizuki—we’re all together!”

Right.

It was the first time I would get to go to an entrance ceremony with my family!

Back in kindergarten and elementary school, entrance ceremonies weren’t the only time I was alone. There were also Parents’ Day, Sports Day, the Culture Festival—any event where families came to visit.

A mom warmly watching me raise my hand and give a presentation on Parents’ Day.

A dad cheering me on until his voice was hoarse on Sports Day.

Grandparents applauding with tears in their eyes at the Culture Festival play.

I was always jealous of kids who were surrounded by their family’s love as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

But today, I would be with my family, too! I was thrilled; I felt like hopping around nonstop in my white knee socks. I wanted to brag to everyone at school, “See? I’ve got a family!”

I couldn’t overdo it, though. After all, I was a junior high schooler now!

I figured I should double-check to make sure I had everything I needed.

“Hey, Ichika, have you seen my bag—?”

“I’m Nitori.”

“I’m Ichika.”

“Oh, sorry…”

The four of us looked even more alike now that we were wearing matching uniforms. We were sisters, and I still got confused.

“It’s fine. But we really can’t tell who’s who like this.” Ichika put her hand to her cheek like she was pondering solutions.

If my own sisters couldn’t tell us apart, there was no way anyone at our new school would be able to.

Maybe the uniforms are actually a little inconvenient…?

Just as that thought came to mind, I heard a dramatic “Heh-heh-heh” seep out.

“This is exactly what these are for!”

Nitori proudly took out her red hair clip. It was from the matching set she’d bought for all four of us when we went to the supermarket.

“Oh, right! The colors are different, so they’d be perfect to differentiate us all.” Ichika then put her hair up into a ponytail with the pink hair clip. Somehow, she seemed even more like my big sister now.

“See? Totally worth it, right?”

Nitori swiftly tied her hair into pigtails using the hair clip. It was a style that matched her bright, energetic personality.

“Ichika, Nitori, those look great on you!”

We were identical sisters, but with closer examination, each of us had our own unique charm.

Ichika was three centimeters taller than me and had a more grown-up figure. Her long, slender limbs were toned like an athlete’s.

Her eyes were so sharp and full of determination that it might be a little scary if she glared at you. Her voice was gentle as a spring breeze, though, and it made me want to let her spoil me.

Nitori was about the same size as me, but we were completely different. Her nails were neatly polished. Her hair was silky smooth. Her skin and lips were glossy. Her clothes and belongings were trendy, but she never came across as stuck-up.

She was like an amateur model in a fashion magazine.

“Mifu, you’re third in line, so why don’t you do braids?”

“Oh, um, that might be good.” I tried styling my hair like Nitori said, but…

“Ha-ha-ha, Mifu, your braids look like ropes!”

My reflection showed a plain girl with two tightly plaited braids drooping on either side.

“Hey, that’s mean. You’re the one who said I should do braids in the first place, Sis…” I pouted and turned my face away but couldn’t help a smile. Saying “Sis” made me a little happy.

“Ha-ha, sorry! Here, let me try.”

Nitori undid my braids, ran a comb through my hair, and redid it. After loosening a few thin strands to balance the look, she finished with a quick mist of hair spray.

“Wow, not bad.”

Ichika blinked; it was no wonder. My new braids had loose, soft sections here and there that gave it an effortlessly chic vibe. It couldn’t have been more different than the first one and matched my stylish school uniform perfectly!

“Wow…! Nitori, you’re amazing. Thank you!”

“Right? Doesn’t it look just like Eve’s? I nailed it. I’m a total talent!”

By “Eve,” she meant Eve Atami from the idol group Swallowtail. Nitori was a big fan of theirs and was always humming one of their songs.

“Hee-hee, just like Eve’s, huh…? Now that you mention it, you’re right!”

We giggled and played around in front of the mirror.

My clothes and hair were different now that I’d become a junior high school student. It was exciting, like I was gradually transforming into a new me.

“Now it’s Shizuki’s turn.”

Shizuki flinched a little when Nitori called her over.

Shizuki’s skin was so fair that I couldn’t help but stare. She was a size smaller than me and my big sisters. Her eyes were always half lidded, and she looked a little sad…but that only made her long lashes and dark eyes stand out more. She seemed like a doll, sleeping in a big, empty mansion.

Our little sister, Shizuki.

“What do you wanna do? If there’s a hairstyle you like, tell me, and I’ll whip it up lickety-split.”

Nitori held out the purple hair clip and smiled, but Shizuki looked down.

“…No, thank you,” she declined in a nearly silent whisper.

“What? Why not? Shizuki, you’ve got a purple towel and pencil case, right? I figured purple was your favorite color… Do you not like it?”

“Um…” Shizuki opened her mouth to speak as Nitori stared, but—

“…I said, no thank you.” She turned Nitori down even more firmly, the sad eyes behind her glasses revealing very little.

Why didn’t she want her hair done? Maybe she was too shy to match with us? I didn’t know what to say, so I just toyed with the ends of my braids.

“Well, it does help differentiate us, but if you don’t want to wear one, that’s cool, too,” Nitori assured her.

“Oh no, look at the time!” Ichika pointed out. “Get your bags. Does everyone have everything? We’ve gotta hurry.”

The atmosphere had gotten a little awkward for a moment, but we finally left the house, hurried along by my big sisters.

The weather outside was beautiful and perfect for a ceremony. A gentle breeze blew, and white clouds hung in the blue sky like veils.

Shizuki would’ve looked adorable with her clip in… I couldn’t help but feel it was a shame as I gazed up at the sky idly.

But there were always kids who didn’t fit in right away.

I’ll wait a little longer until she’s ready to open up, I decided, gripping the handle of my bag firmly.

Our new school, Ayame Junior High, was a fifteen-minute walk away from our house. Each grade had six classes, and there were over six hundred students in total across three grades. Ayame Elementary and Ayame High were attached to the junior high school grounds, so when you combined the elementary, middle, and high schools, the whole campus was pretty big.

“Geez, there’s so many people…!” I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Tons of parents had come to the entrance ceremony, so the area around the gates was jam-packed. The first thing we did was check the class assignment board, our eyes darting around frantically as we searched for our names.

“Miyabi… Miyabi… Oh, there we are!”

Ichika was in Class 1. Nitori was in Class 2. I was in Class 3. Shizuki was in Class 4.

“They split us up,” Ichika said sadly.

“Oh well, what’re you gonna do.” Nitori clasped her hands behind her head.

“Yeah…having the four of us in the same class would be a mess,” I said, imagining it.

For example, if the teacher called on us during class…

“Next question…Miss Miyabi.”

All four of us would stand and respond in unison, “Yes!”

Our classmates would burst out laughing and say:

“There are four Miyabis in the class, miss. You have to use their first names!”

“Right…let’s see…” And our teacher would compare the four of us to the class roster, but we looked exactly the same.

Even the teacher wouldn’t be able to tell us apart!

Hee-hee-hee, that cracked me up!

“What are you giggling at, Mifu?”

“Welp, this is where we split up. See you guys later!”

“Oh, um, Ichika, Nitori…!”

Startled, I turned around to see Ichika and Nitori disappear up the stairs to the third floor. My class was on the second floor. Shizuki’s was on the second floor, too—Huh? She’d disappeared without me noticing.

“Haaah… Alone after all…”

We were supposed to stay in our own classrooms until the ceremony started, but I didn’t know anyone in this new school other than my sisters.

I…wasn’t that great at making friends. But I wasn’t brave enough or confident enough to handle being alone.

“…”

I pretended to read a printout and organize my pencil case. I toyed with the penguin charm attached to my bag. I curled into my seat at the very back of the classroom, feeling nervous.

“Hold on a minute…,” a loud voice piped up.

The sudden voice sent an electric shock through my body, and I snapped upright.

Nervously, I turned to face the source of the voice…and locked eyes with a boy who was staring at me, his mouth agape.

“Hey, you were singing that Swallowtail song in the hallway before. Are you new in town? Wait… Did you change your hairstyle?” He came closer and closer, speaking in a cheerful tone. “I swear I saw you on the third floor…” He cocked his head, his eyes glistening with curiosity.

“Oh… Um… Well… That was probably my big sister,” I stammered in reply. A Swallowtail song could only mean Nitori.

“Your big sister? Ah, I get it, you’re twins.”

“U-um…”

“Oh, my bad, I’m Minato. Minato Nomachi. My seat’s right next to yours. Nice to meet you!”

He had floppy, kind of long hair, and his wide-open eyes made him look smart. The way he wore his uniform just like the rules stipulated, not trying to show off one bit, gave him a kind vibe. His smile beamed dazzlingly like the sun.

He held out his hand to shake mine, and I found myself moving instinctively.

“!”

I squeezed his hand.

My heart leaped, and my body leaped up with it.

“I-I’m Mifu Miyabi! Nice to meet you!”

I’d jumped to my feet without thinking, and my chair crashed to the ground.

I quickly let go of Minato’s hand, but I could still feel his touch. His angular hand reminded me he was a boy… Ugh, I was too nervous.

“Mifu, huh? That’s a cute name. Twins are super cool. You two look just alike!”

My cheeks were on fire after he complimented my name. My heart felt full, like it was crammed with sweet candy.

I wanted to correct him and say we’re actually quadruplets, not twins, but I couldn’t get the words out.

“Oh yeah! I like doing photography; would you let me take some pictures of you sometime? I bet I could get some interesting shots with twin sisters as models.”

“Er, um… Well…” I finally managed to speak up. “I’m not a twin…”

“Hey, aren’t you in Class One? You had a pink hair clip, right?” A tall girl interrupted our conversation.

“Huh? You were in the bathroom before, right? The girl with glasses?”

“You braided your hair. It looks super cute!” Some flashy girls with their skirts rolled up short joined in.

“Wait, what? What’s going on here?” Minato blinked rapidly.

Before long, the rest of our classmates began to crowd around, wondering what the commotion was.

“What’s the deal?!” the class clown shouted.

“I think she’s a twin,” an athletic-looking boy replied.

“Something seems off, though,” one of the flashy girls called out.

“Oh, I totally saw her twin. She had a ponytail!”

“I saw her, too! In Class Two. She had pigtails.”

“She was in Class Four, too. The mature girl with glasses.”

The whole room was buzzing with chatter in no time.

“Hey, hey.”

“What’s going on?”

“She’s a twin?”

“How many are there?”

I was getting backed into a corner of the room bit by bit.

Explaining it to them one at a time would take forever.

Ah, geez…! Whatever happens, happens!

I shut my eyes and raised my voice as loud as it would go.

“I-I’m a quadruplet!”

“Whaaat?!”

A wave of excitement rippled through the whole class.

Eek… My heart felt like it was gonna do a flip!

I cracked my eyes open timidly and saw everyone in the class frozen in shock.

The sight… Hee-hee. It was suddenly funny.

Hee-hee-hee! Being a quadruplet rocks after all!

The entrance ceremony had started in the gym. Students in their uniforms filed in one by one, and as always, I didn’t have anyone in the parents’ seating section.

But in the new students’ section, I had two big sisters and one little sister.

A family!

My elementary-school entrance ceremony…had been lonely, and I’d cried. Whenever people around me talked about their moms, dads, siblings—their family—I’d thought how nice it must be and been overcome with envy.

I’d wanted a family all this time…!

I felt tears come to my eyes as I reflected on those painful memories.

It was one thing to cry at graduation, but crying at an entrance ceremony felt a little weird. To calm myself down, I gripped the heart pendant that my mom had left me.

I’m a junior high student now. And…I’m not alone anymore, Mom.

The entrance ceremony was over in a flash. Then after homeroom, it was time to go home.

I ran out into the schoolyard the moment the farewell greetings ended. My school-uniform skirt was flapping, but I paid it no mind because I had three people waiting for me up ahead.

We’d planned to meet under the cherry tree by the school gate to go home together.

I ran so fast, I was nearly skipping.

As I waved my hand and called out, “Everyone!” I noticed a tall figure near my sisters and stopped dead in my tracks.

It was…

“Mr. Fujiyama…?!”

It was the massive, bearlike man we’d met when we first came to the house. He turned around slowly, beaming as if he had just embraced his own grandchild.

“Heya, Mifu! Congratulations on starting school! I’m super happy for you guys!”

Whoa, keep your voice down! I can hear you!

His booming voice startled the people around us, and they kept glancing back at us.

“Are those kids the twins?”

“They’re triplets?”

“I heard there’s four of them.”

“Wow, so they’re quadruplets.”

“Whaaat?”

“Wow!”

“Yeah, definitely quadruplets.”

“Is that big guy their dad?”

Oh, this was bad! We were drawing too much attention!

I felt eyes all over me and sneaked over next to my sisters.

“Oh, geez, why’re you here, mister?” Nitori said.

“Yeah, you said you weren’t going to come anymore,” added Ichika.

“But it’s your entrance ceremony!”

Ichika didn’t seem convinced. “That’s not an answer.”

My two big sisters looked angry.

They didn’t seem to like Mr. Fujiyama very much.

I remember Ichika saying something like “Anyone who calls themselves a government big shot is so sketchy.”

And Nitori agreed, saying, “I can’t keep up with that vibe.”

I didn’t dislike Mr. Fujiyama…but I didn’t really know him well enough to say I liked him either.

“Now, now, where’s the harm? It’s a happy occasion. Make the most of your upcoming junior high school years—make the most of your youth!”

“Yeah, yeah. If you’re done, then go home.”

“Ha-ha-ha, come on, don’t be like that, Nitori. I came to give you these. Gifts for the beginning of the school year!”

He held out a paper bag with four brand-new smartphones in it. The attached covers were pink, red, light blue, and purple. Our colors!

“Phones?”

“The newest ones, too!”

“W…wow!”

We took the phones out of the bag, our eyes glistening with excitement. Even Shizuki, who was keeping her distance, was intrigued.

“Thanks, mister!” Nitori said excitedly.

“Don’t mention it.”

“But…don’t you have to pay for the service plan…?”

Ichika’s words brought me back to reality.

Right…smartphones cost money every month. That was Ichika for you—always dependable.

But Mr. Fujiyama smiled.

“Don’t worry, the Independent Living Practice Plan Executive Committee is footing the bill. Well, there is a catch, though…”

“What is it?”

“Once a week, the Independent Living Practice Plan Executive Committee will send you tasks through those phones. Stuff like ‘work together to clean your rooms,’ or ‘do the laundry together as a group!’ Basically, they’re like missions to further your independence. When you complete them, reply via the designated form. Don’t forget to attach a picture!”

“What the…?”

“You’re giving us homework, too…?”

My big sisters didn’t seem super thrilled.

“This is a duty for everyone participating in the Junior High Independence Plan.”

He raised a finger, and they responded in unison with a reluctant “Fine.”

I didn’t share their reluctance one bit. If anything, I was over the moon! It was my very first phone—and it matched my sisters’. I could get in touch with them or my friends from school whenever I wanted.

Plus, saying that it was our “duty” as participants in the Junior High Independence Plan made it sound super grown-up. I thought it was cool!

I was happy to be treated like an adult. It meant someone was recognizing my growth.

“Also, could I take a commemorative photo of you girls?”

Before we knew it, Mr. Fujiyama had readied his camera.

“Okay, line up! Everyone, gather around the entrance ceremony sign!”

His booming voice echoed. If we dawdled too long, we’d keep drawing attention.

Flustered, we did as we were told.

“Okay, say cheese! One more! And another! Hmm…”

I wondered what was wrong. Mr. Fujiyama tilted his head like there was a problem.

“It’s just coming out dark. I can’t get a good shot.”

Mr. Fujiyama fiddled with the camera.

“Um, that’s a DSLR, right?” A cheerful voice rang out.

“Oh, Minato!”

“Mifu!”

Minato approached with a kind smile. “You seemed like you were having some trouble, so I thought I’d offer some help. Umm, so for this kind of picture, you need to press this button to set the white balance to ‘cloudy’…” He examined Mr. Fujiyama’s camera and started teaching him the ropes.

“Like this?”

“Yes. Next, try increasing the exposure. It’ll brighten things up!” Minato’s smile looked livelier than ever. You could tell how excited he was. Come to think of it, he’d said his hobby was photography; it made sense he’d be good with cameras.

On top of that, he’d approached and helped a stranger. He seemed pretty outgoing… He was cheerful and kind to everyone he met. I couldn’t help but stare, dazzled, as he effortlessly did things that were way too hard for me.

“Got it! Okay, I’ll just do this… Oh, it worked!”

Mr. Fujiyama readied his camera again.

“Sounds like we’re in business. Let’s take this thing!”

Without warning, Nitori pulled all of us close together.

“Eek!”

“Whoa!”

“…”

I’d nearly bumped right into Ichika, who managed to support Shizuki as she teetered close to the ground.

“That was dangerous.”

“My bad, my bad!”

Ichika’s disapproving face. Nitori’s mischievous smile. Shizuki’s obvious surprise.

My sisters, who looked just like me!

Being close to them made me self-conscious and shy all over again, but I was still so happy, I thought I’d explode.

“Hee-hee-hee.”

I grinned and squeezed everyone tightly.

“Okay, say cheese!”

Click!

“Great, I got a good one! The Ministry of Welfare and the CEO of Quattro Folia will be thrilled! Thank you, girls! You were a big help. Well then, see you!”

Mr. Fujiyama trotted off, waving his arms around vigorously, a satisfied pep in his step. The four of us were left dumbfounded.

“You’re welcome!” Even Minato got carried away and shouted as he saw Mr. Fujiyama off.

“Mifu, do you know that boy?”

“Y-yeah, he’s in my class…”

Minato turned around and smiled before I could explain things to Ichika.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Minato Nomachi. You must be Mifu’s sisters.”

“Pleasure. I’m the eldest, Ichika.”

“I’m Nitori. Nice to meet’cha.”

“…”

Shizuki was frozen with embarrassment.

“U-um… This is Shizuki. She’s the youngest.” Shizuki awkwardly bowed her head as I introduced her.

“Thank you for your help earlier.”

Ichika thanked him on our behalf, and Minato scratched his head shyly. “No worries. Just doing a good deed. Was that big guy your dad?”

“No, he’s a relative. Our uncle.”

Ichika’s lie was so natural, it took the other three of us by surprise.

“Wow.”

“Huh?”

“…”

But…maybe it was a good idea for us to call him our uncle for now. We’d only just met Minato, and if we told him the truth, he might be weirded out.

Besides, I’d been waiting for today for a long time; I wasn’t in the mood to explain the whole story from the top. Nitori and Shizuki must’ve felt the same, because they both played along and said nothing.

I decided to follow their lead.

“Oh wow, your uncle, huh? He must be a big deal. He was talking about ministers and CEOs earlier.”

“Oh, that? Hee-hee. That’s one of his usual jokes. He’s a normal office worker. Our mom and dad had to leave early, so he took our picture for us,” Ichika explained, giggling. Her acting was so good, it very well could have been the truth.

“Ha-ha, oh, I get it. Still…” Minato took another good look at the four of us.

What was he staring at?

“You guys really are perfectly identical! That’s amazing!” He gave me the same sunny smile he had when we first met.

Hee-hee, we did. It was amazing, wasn’t it?

His smile was contagious.

“Yep! This is my super-awesome family!”

Just as the words left my mouth, a spring breeze passed through, and the cherry blossom petals danced on the wind.

6

A Woman Who Looks Like Me?

It was Friday afternoon, the beginning of my first weekend as a junior high schooler, and I was excited.

“Today, we’re having simmered Hamburg steak and daikon miso soup! ” I chimed to myself while stirring the pot.

At first, I’d been an awful cook, but I had been improving little by little with Ichika’s advice. The daikon was tender, and the dashi had melted in. All that was left was to add the miso…

“Cooking’s kinda fun once you get the hang of it,” I murmured to myself just as Nitori popped up from behind me and peeked into the pot.

“That looks seriously yummy! Restaurant-quality miso soup. Teach me how to make it, too. What’s the next step? Anything I can help with?”

“Next is… Wait, huh? Nitori, weren’t you working on the baked potatoes…?”

Nitori had searched up a baked-potato recipe online before we started on dinner and had gotten all fired up about it. “These are super trendy! I wanna make ’em!”

Had she already finished? Right then, I smelled something burning.

“N-Nitori!”

Ichika quickly shut off the oven the moment she noticed.

“Aaah!” Nitori screamed, and the instant she opened the oven…

Fwoom!

…Yikes, black smoke came pouring out!

“Cough, cough… Ugh, they’re burned to a crisp.”

Nitori peeked into the oven, and her shoulders slumped. Maybe cooking wasn’t her forte. She couldn’t sit around for too long without getting antsy.

“Phew… I’m glad we didn’t have a fire on our hands.” Ichika sighed.

I’d have to be more careful, too…

I heard a thunk and looked next to me to see Shizuki setting out bowls for the soup.

“Thanks, Shizuki.”

“…No problem.” She quickly turned away and busied herself with the rice bowls next.

She probably still felt shy. But she was helping out, so I was sure we’d grow closer soon enough.

Meanwhile, Nitori could hardly wait. “I’m starving. Let’s eat!”

I poured the miso soup into bowls, dished out the rice, and lined them up with chopsticks and teacups. I was just about to take my seat, but…

“Ha-ha-ha, slow down, Mifu! You mixed up everyone’s chopsticks and rice bowls.” Nitori looked at the table and burst out laughing. “Ichika’s rice bowl is here. The red one is mine. You swapped your and Ichika’s chopsticks, and my and Shizu’s teacups are switched, too.”

“Oh! Sorry…”

Now I’d done it. I hurried to set things right.

“It slipped my mind; everyone had the same color rice bowls back at Kanro.”

“I get it. Facilities don’t really assign the kids their own bowls, huh.”

“Exactly. It’s just a habit,” I answered Ichika, when something hit me. “Huh? Ichika, you’ve been at a facility before?”

“Oh…” Ichika stopped helping me, clammed up for a bit, then continued after a short pause, “Yeah. I started out in a children’s home. Then I moved to my foster family.”

“That makes sense.” I returned to my seat, nodding.

Nitori was adopted, so living with a family was normal for her. That’s why the idea of having your own tableware was so matter-of-fact to her.

Did…Ichika have her own chopsticks and rice bowl at her foster family’s house?

We were quadruplets, but we’d grown up separately. We might look the same, but we weren’t the same inside… That’s just how it was. A mix of joy and sadness passed through me.

Anyway, it was dinnertime. I couldn’t waste all the good food we had!

I took in the meal in front of me. The simmered Hamburg steak was topped with a thick demi-glace sauce and looked really delicious. Steam wafted gently from the piping hot white rice and daikon miso soup. I found myself gulping because my mouth was watering.

“Let’s dig in! But first…”

Snap! I took a picture on my phone and sent it.

We’d completed this week’s independence mission: cook and eat dinner together.

I gave a hearty, confident laugh. Then…

Ding!

…a text came through.

“Oh…!”

It was from Minato. We’d exchanged contact info, but it was the first time he’d messaged me, so it made my heart pound…

“Sorry for the sudden message. I figured I should let you know, Mifu. I stayed after school a little late today, and a strange woman came up to me on my way home and asked if I knew the quadruplets. I said I didn’t, just to be safe, but she kind of looked like you…”

“Huh?”

A woman who looked like me?

A restless breeze, like the air before a summer storm, tore through my heart. My heart thumped steadily, gradually getting quicker.

I hadn’t noticed how tightly I was gripping my phone.

“What’s wrong, Mifu?”

“Food’s gonna get cold.”

“R-right…”

With both my big sisters pressuring me, I put my phone on the corner of the table and pretended nothing was wrong.

The Hamburg steak and miso soup were delicious. My sisters and I all had seconds—even Shizuki, who was normally a light eater. But even as I smiled and mentioned how good dinner was, Minato’s message weighed on my mind.

After we finished, I grabbed my phone and hurried back to my room, immediately opening my texts.

“Could you tell me more about what happened?” It was a short message, but in my panic, I made typo after typo before I corrected them all.

I finally managed to hit send.

There was no way…right?

Ba-dump, ba-dump… My heart was pounding so loudly, I could hear it in my ears. My whole body was starting to feel heavy with heat.

Ding! He answered me right away. I opened the message immediately.

“She showed up in a big, black car, wearing flashy, expensive-looking clothes… Not your average person. She kind of stood out. Sorry if I worried you. I was just a little concerned.”

I closed my eyes, and phew—a big sigh of relief escaped me.

A big car, flashy clothes… It definitely wasn’t her.

I sat against the wall, the tension draining from my limbs.

It wasn’t her. It wasn’t our mom. Our mom must not have been able to afford to raise four kids, and that was why she’d left us at the facility. A rich woman couldn’t be her.

I felt kind of pathetic getting that worked up at the possibility.

“There’s probably tons of people who look like her. It’s not Mom,” I muttered to calm myself down and flopped onto the mat.

Then I heard a voice call from downstairs.

“Hey…! What the heck is this…?”

It sounded like Ichika. What happened? I was curious, so I left my room and headed downstairs.

7

The Miyabi Family’s Chore Division Meeting

Ichika pointed to the item on top of the shoe cabinet in the foyer. She looked mad and confused.

They were… Wow, they were beautiful. Yellow and white flowers were sitting there, arranged in a vase. I thought they were freesias.

Who put them there? I was sure they hadn’t been there when I got home…

“Oh, I bought those. Aren’t they pretty?” Nitori said casually, coming out of the living room.

Ichika’s face looked increasingly stern.

“I knew it was you, Nitori. How much did those cost?”

“I got ’em on sale. They were only three hundred and fifty yen.”

“That’s not cheap at all. Don’t splurge like that!”

The harsh tone upset Nitori. “I didn’t splurge. I just wanted flowers in the foyer.”

“Come on, you realize those flowers will die in a week—”

“You’re such a cheapskate, Ichika! Everyone decorates their foyer to welcome guests.”

“I’m just being practical. My foster parents never put flowers out!”

They glared at each other so pointedly, the air practically crackled.

Sure, flowers were pretty decorations, but they were kind of a waste…

They were probably fighting like this because we didn’t grow up together. What was normal for Ichika wasn’t normal for Nitori, and vice versa.

I didn’t know what to do, so I hovered anxiously nearby.

“So what do you think?”

“Hey, what do you think?”

They both asked me for my input at the same time, and I reflexively took a step back.

“U-um…”

“Th-the facility I lived in had flowers in the foyer…,” I said.

A smug expression crept onto Nitori’s face as she went, “Hmph!”

“B-but we didn’t buy those flowers. We grew them in a flower bed in the garden.”

Now it was Ichika’s turn to shoot Nitori a look, as if to say, “See?”

“Ugh, geez. Fine. From now on, I’ll pick flowers from the garden and use those to decorate.”

“You’re going to change the water in the vase, right?”

“Obviously!” Nitori shook her head like she was saying, “You’re so annoying!”

But Ichika responded coolly:

“I wonder. While we’re on the subject, let me point out that I’m always the one taking out the garbage and doing the laundry.”

“N-not always…”

“Okay, not always, but there are four of us, and I’m doing more than half the work.” Ichika’s unhappy tone drained the fire from Nitori’s voice.

My heart sank, too.

It had been almost two weeks since we started living together. Living together as sisters was starting to lose its special shine and feel more like natural, everyday life.

At first, it had been all fun, like one big sleepover.

But as things became routine, the hard parts started to outweigh the fun, especially when it came to chores.

Like if we didn’t take the trash out on trash day, it would sit there forever in the can. And laundry stayed dirty for eternity unless we ran the washing machine and hung our clothes out to dry. No grocery runs meant no food, and then we’d go hungry.

Even the hallway was covered in dust by the end of the day if we didn’t do anything.

It was a constant reminder of just how much the grown-ups in my life had been helping me. I knew that someone had to take care of the chores, but there were so many things I wasn’t sure how to do…and before I realized it, most of the burden had fallen on Ichika, who was used to handling chores.

“Honestly, you’re sloppy when it comes to chores, Nitori. Just today, you left the plates we used for the Hamburg steak in the sink. If you don’t rinse them off first, the sink will get all greasy.”

“Can’t help it. We don’t have a dishwasher.”

“That’s normal. Everyone washed things by hand at my foster parents’ house.”

“It’s normal to have a dishwasher. Your hands get all prune-y otherwise. Anyway, you’re being too nitpicky. Who cares if you rinse plates or not before putting them in the sink?”

“And you’re being way too nitpicky about the flowers!”

I was busy in thought; meanwhile, the two of them were getting more and more heated. Eek, at this rate, they were gonna have a full-on fight!

I quickly jumped in.

“Hey! How about we each stick to the chores we care about the most?! Oh, or maybe we could do it like how cleaning duty is assigned at school!”

They looked a little startled by me suddenly cutting in, but then they seemed to understand and smiled gently.

“Yeah… Sure. What were we even fighting about? You’re right, Mifu.”

“If something’s botherin’ you so much, then fix it yourself! That sorta thing, huh?” Nitori said.

The sharp tension from before seemed to vanish in an instant.

“Hey, do we have any large sheets of paper, like drawing paper? Even the back of a calendar would work.”

“I have an idol poster I don’t need,” Nitori offered Ichika.

“I’ll take it!”

“Sure!” Nitori said and ran upstairs, quickly returning with a white-backed poster.

“Okay, Mifu, go get Shizuki.”

“Huh?” I blinked, struggling to follow the sudden change of pace.

“We’re about to kick off the Miyabi Family Chore Division Meeting,” Ichika said with a wink.

• Miyabi Family Chore Division Chart
• Ichika: Kitchen, Dining Room
• Nitori: Foyer, Hallway, Stairs

As soon as the four of us gathered around the dining room table, my big sisters immediately began writing on the white paper with chunky pens. Shizuki and I just watched them, mouths hanging open.

“Mifu, what do chores do you want?” Nitori passed the pen to me like it was a relay baton.

“Er, I…I’ll…um…” I thought for a minute, and my shoulders drooped. “There’s nothing I’m particularly good at or picky about…”

It sounded like I was useless and couldn’t do anything, didn’t it? I felt a little down on myself.

But Ichika didn’t seem to notice, and she raised her finger high. “How about the living room, then?”

“Huh? Oh, s-sure!” I nodded several times at Ichika’s smiling face. I didn’t know if I was up to it, but I couldn’t afford to say something timid like that in this atmosphere.

O-okay, then…!

Mifu: Living Room, I wrote boldly on the white paper, and Ichika gave a satisfied chuckle.

“What about you, Shizu?” Nitori nudged the pen and paper at Shizuki impatiently.

“Um…” Shizuki looked at her with frightened eyes. Maybe she was having trouble following the conversation?

“It’s for the spot you’ll be in charge of cleaning and stuff. Where do you want?”

“I’m…fine with any… Um…o-outside, maybe…?” Shizuki’s gaze darted all around: to Ichika, then the paper, then Nitori, then the pen.

“Outside? Like the balcony or the garden?”

“…”

Shizuki nodded but looked a little flustered. Maybe…she was like me and not good at anything in particular, so she meant to say, “Here I am, out of my room, so please just decide for me”?

“That’s a big help. The balcony’s all covered in pollen.”

“Yeah. And the weeds in the garden are going wild.”

I thought they were being a little overbearing, but Ichika and Nitori had already moved on to the next topic.

“What about locking up?”

“You mean closing the storm shutters and checking the locks? Shouldn’t the two of us do that? We’re the big sisters. More importantly, what about the toilet and bath—?”

They did argue a lot, but they were in perfect sync now that they’d joined forces. They quickly worked everything out together, leaving Shizuki and me out of the picture as we stood on the sidelines.

But that wasn’t right. I was a member of the family, too!

Once I gathered up my courage, I said, “Okay!” and took Shizuki by the hand, faced the two of them, and shouted, “Hey, include us!”

“Oh.” Ichika and Nitori stopped talking and quickly made room for us.

“Of course,” Ichika immediately said. “Sorry for getting carried away with ourselves.”

“We were just talking about how to handle taking out the trash.”

“I—I think we should take turns. There are some days without trash pickup, but the days are fixed…so weekly shifts seem fair.”

Bit by bit, I made an effort to express my opinion.

“I see. You’ve got a point. What do you think, Shizu?”

“…I think that’s fine.” Shizuki seemed as unlikely to speak up for herself as ever. Still, her eyes now lacked that scared look she’d had before.

Our chore meeting continued.

“All right! The Miyabi family rules are decided!” We peered at the paper that Nitori had excitedly thrust at us.

“Oh…! Wow!” I blurted out.

Rules and assignments would normally be something I’d think of as annoying or a pain.

But these were rules I could love. Because they were our family rules.

No one was telling us to do this or do that; they were rules that the four of us had decided on our own, for ourselves!

“Let’s start tomorrow. Who’s first up on toilet-cleaning duty?”

“How about we rock-paper-scissors for it?” Ichika suggested.

We all held out our fists.

“Rock, paper, scissors!”

All four of us threw paper first.

“Tiebreaker!” We all threw scissors.

“Tiebreaker!” Then we all threw rock.

“Tiebreaker!”

“Tiebreaker!”

“Tiebreaker!”

“Tiebreak—”

We kept tying and tying…until I finally lost on the twentieth round.

“…I was starting to think we were cursed,” Nitori said.

“That’s identical sisters for you…”

My big sisters looked fed up. Even Shizuki let out a sigh.

“Ha-ha-ha,” I laughed weakly.

“Maybe we should draw lots next time instead of rock-paper-scissors…”

Moving on—before, the chores had only been done (or overlooked) when someone noticed.

Now that we’d divided them, we would develop a sense of responsibility.

And I was on duty this week! I’d do my best as a member of the family.

8

The Mysterious Letter

It was Sunday afternoon. All four of us sisters left the house together.

“Oh my, are you girls going out?” Mrs. Sato, the cheerful older lady from next door, asked us.

“Yes. We’re going to the department store for some essentials,” I answered cheerfully.

“Oh, I see. What sweet girls you are. Have a nice trip!”

“See you later!”

Back when I was at Kanro, I didn’t get to go shopping very often. My clothes were mostly hand-me-downs, and things like stationery were stocked by the facility. That was why a big department store like this felt as exciting as an amusement park.

We had only been there a few minutes, and…

“This notebook is cheaper!”

“This notebook is cuter!”

…Ichika and Nitori started arguing in the stationery department, neither one wanting to give in.

Shizuki looked helpless, her eyes darting about.

And here I’d been all excited… Ah, geez… I had to do something!

“Oh, this one!” I called out to the two of them, picking up a notebook that had caught my eye. “H-hey, Sis, what about this notebook? It’s five for four hundred yen and if we buy four sets, we can get them all for fifteen hundred yen! We’d get a bulk discount, and the covers are plain, so we can decorate them and make them look super cute!”

Their eyes locked on the notebook I was holding.

“…Good call.”

“Works for me. Let’s go with that.”

I wiped cold sweat off my brow and managed a tired smile. We were family; of course we could patch things up quickly after disagreements.

While I was reflecting on this, the notebook was plucked out of my hands.

“All right, let’s buy the whole batch.” Ichika picked up four bundles, totaling twenty notebooks, and went to the register.

Now we each had a notebook for every school subject.

“Should I carry half?” Nitori offered her hands, and so did Shizuki and I, but Ichika smiled and hoisted up the bag of notebooks in one fluid motion.

“I’m fine. This is nothing.”

“You’re strong, Ichika.” I was impressed.

“I guess. I’ve got pretty good stamina. I used to play on the Little League basketball team back in elementary school.”

“You did? That’s amazing!” I blurted out excitedly. Athletes were awesome!

“It’s nothing special. Were you in any clubs, Mifu?”

“I was in the crafts club in fifth grade, then in the art club in sixth. No sports for me.”

I was especially bad at ball sports. Whether it was basketball or dodgeball, my throws always fell short of my aim.

Ichika widened her eyes. “That’s incredible! I’m awful at arts and crafts.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Oh, in that case, I might ask for your help with home ec and art homework, Mifu.”

“S-sure! And I’ll need your sports tips!”

“Happy to give them.”

Helping each other with what we were good at… That kind of relationship was really great.

That was what being a family was all about!

“Hey, Nitori, were you in any clubs?” I asked, wanting to know more about my sister.

“Nah… Didn’t have time for that,” Nitori said bluntly, shaking her head.

“I see… Shizuki, what about you?”

Shizuki silently shook her head, too.

Here I thought talking about extracurriculars would be fun…but for some reason, the two of them didn’t seem very interested.

Was there…something else that everyone could get excited about? I glanced around the store. Then an idea popped into my head, and I called out to Ichika, who was walking ahead.

“Hey, Ichika…,” I whispered in her ear so the other two wouldn’t hear. “Um… Well, I was thinking… So we can… How does that sound?”

She nodded immediately. “That’s a great idea. But I don’t have much cash on me today… I’m not sure five hundred yen will cover it.”

“No worries! I’ll make it work!”

“Really? Let me know if it’s not enough. We’ll be shopping for dinner downstairs.”

“Okay, see you later!” I took the money and dashed off toward a different department.

Then Nitori whispered in my ear, “Hey, Mifu, I’m tired of shopping. Let’s go get some Frowa Froze ice cream.”

She must have secretly tagged along.

Frowa Froze was four hundred yen for a single cone. It was a little pricey for ice cream. I’d had it once in elementary school, and it was really yummy, but—

“What? W-we can’t buy something that fancy just for ourselves…”

“Fancy? It’s not a real department-store trip without that ice cream. We’ll tell Ichika and Shizu to come later: ‘It was gonna melt if we weren’t quick.’”

Just then, a family passed in front of us. A dad, a mom, and in the middle, a little boy around three years old.

Nitori stared at the family as they passed…

“…”

She suddenly went quiet. I wondered why. Her eyes looked vacant, like she was remembering something painful.

“Actually, never mind,” she muttered, then trudged back to where Ichika and the others were.

She looked a little blue as she walked away… Maybe she was reminiscing about her adoptive family? Even so, what was it about that family specifically that made her so somber? There were other families walking around with girls our age…

My gaze dropped to the floor. We grew up in different environments, which meant the memories we held in our hearts were different, too. Maybe it was natural I didn’t know what was on her mind.

Ah, but still…

…I wanted to learn more about Nitori, Ichika, and Shizuki. I was sure it would make us even closer as a family.

I clenched my fist tightly.

When we finished dinner that night, I called out to my older sisters, who were relaxing in the living room. “Guess what? I’ve got something to show you.”

I emptied the paper bag I was holding.

“Ta-daa!”

“Wow, those are so cute!” my sisters shouted at the same time, shocked.

The surprise was a big hit. I got us matching cushion covers!

“Hee-hee… I bought them when we split up at the department store. I went with a modern Japanese pattern.”

The pink cherry blossom cover was for Ichika. The red dapple pattern was for Nitori. The light-blue wave-pattern cover was for me, and the purple arrow pattern was for Shizuki.

“These are perfect for the Japanese-style rooms! And the pastel colors keep them from being too plain.”

“Mifu, this was a great find. And you weren’t short on money?”

“Hee-hee… Actually…”

After I’d secretly told Ichika at the department store that I wanted to get cushion covers, I’d headed to the hundred-yen store, bought a big, traditionally patterned wrapping cloth, and sewn it together with some fabric scraps I already had.

Since wrapping cloths didn’t fray at the edges, it was an easy stitch.

So I ended up with more than enough money.

“I knew you were sneaking around in your room when we got home… This is what you were up to?”

“No wonder! I can tell you were in the crafts club!”

They loved the cushion covers. I felt a little bashful.

At Kanro, we had to use the bedding and curtains they provided. But one of the fun parts of living here was decorating the interior as we pleased.

We were gathering more and more things we liked. It made me happy.

“Mifu was definitely perfect for the living room role,” Ichika suddenly murmured. “Whether we were assigning chores or buying notebooks today, Mifu always quietly kept us on track… It’s almost like you’re the living room bringing us all together.”

Hearing that made me so happy, I simply had to smile.

Up until now, I…always thought there wasn’t anything I was especially good at.

“Thanks, Sis!”

I’d make the living room an even more relaxing place for everyone. I was gonna give it my all for my family!

I pumped my fists as high as they could go. Then…

“Um…” Shizuki peered into the living room. She was wearing her pajamas, so I guessed she’d just taken a bath by herself.

She had two letters in her hands.

“Oh, you checked the mail? Thanks!”

Shizuki was in charge of the outside of the house, so she always checked the mailbox, which was mounted on the gate.

I took the letters.

“This one is addressed to Ichika.”

The return address listed the senders as Jirou and Aiko Kobata…Ichika’s foster parents. On the back of the envelope, it read, A letter came for you from Chigusa. Just forwarding it to you.

“Oh my… Thank you.” Ichika took the letter carefully and quickly put it into her pocket without another word. “Who’s the other one for?”

“Let’s see… Huh? This letter…” The front and back of the envelope were completely blank. The sender’s name wasn’t written anywhere.

I broke the seal as my sisters watched curiously. All that came out was a single piece of folded stationery.

I opened it, then saw the first line—and time stopped.

I’m your mother.

Ba-dump!

The second I read it, my heart pounded hard like someone had hit me, and I got tingles down to my fingertips.

Trying not to drop the letter, I tightened my grip so hard, I nearly ripped it.

It was like I couldn’t control my body. I felt hot, like I was on fire, but my mind was quiet and cold.

I’m sorry for not reaching out for so long. I’ve grown lonely, too, and want to live with you four.

Before I knew it, my sisters were also staring intently at the letter. Their silent gazes, full of panic, confusion, surprise, and hope…were fixated on the stationery.

All I could hear was the sound of my own heart beating.

I wish I could take the four of you in, but due to my situation, I can’t, so I want to at least help the one who’s most in need. I’ll come to get her soon. Looking forward to it. Love, Mom.

When we finished reading, the room was still veiled in silence like time had stopped.

“What the heck…? Our mom?” Nitori wore a crooked smile, but her eyes were so cold that they gave me the chills.

Even Ichika, who usually had a gentle vibe, murmured with a sharp gaze, “Maybe it’s a prank?”

“Wh-why…?!” I was panicking so hard, I couldn’t breathe, and my eyes stung…

I’d never felt this way before. My heart felt like it was going to burst.

“Mom? Our Mom? This can’t be real. I mean, she… I mean… Like this…” The stationery and envelope slipped from my shaking hands.

Shizuki picked up the envelope and inspected it carefully, rubbing the surface and holding it up to the light.

“There’s no stamp. It must have been put directly into our mailbox…” Her quiet voice broke the silence, and I gasped in surprise.

“Did she come by while we were out shopping…?!”

Maybe, just maybe, she’d left some other clue! Just as I was about to check the letter again…

“What the heck does she mean, her ‘situation’?!”

Crumble, crumble, rip, rip!

There was no time to stop her or grab it back.

“Ni-Nitori…! Why did you rip Mom’s—?”

Cutting me off, Nitori shoved the torn letter into the trash can. “This is just a prank! It has to be!”

“Wh-why would you do that…?!”

I was so sad and shocked that I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. Flustered, I wiped them away and looked to my other two sisters for help.

“She’s right… It must be a prank,” Ichika said calmly, then left the room and went upstairs.

Shizuki also retreated to her room without a word.

What’s wrong with Nitori? Why did she get so mad? Why didn’t Ichika or Shizuki say anything to her?

I…was at a loss and could only stare at the trash can the letter had ended up in.

That night…

“I can’t sleep.”

Even lying in bed, I couldn’t stop thinking about the letter or its sender.

Mom.

What was she like?

I’d always, always thought I’d wanted to meet her…but the letter had only caused me pain.

I want to at least help the one who’s most in need.

Who was most in need? Why only one of us? My sisters had said it was a prank, but was that true?

After all, only certain people knew that the four of us were living alone in this house with no parents…

All sorts of thoughts bubbled up, like sticky sludge swamping my heart.

“Aaagh…!”

My mind went in circles, and no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t come up with an answer.

“Some water will calm me down…”

I got up from my futon and headed downstairs to the hallway. It was dark, and I couldn’t hear a peep… It was a little scary.

Just then…

Ker-chak!

…the front door opened!

“Wh-who’s there?!”

Could it be Mom? My heart pounded wildly.

I wanted to shout, but my body quivered, and my voice wouldn’t come out.

The door slowly…slowly…opened. It was…

“Mifu, you’re up?”

It was Ichika, of all people.

“I-Ichika?! Where were you?”

“I couldn’t sleep…so I took a walk around the neighborhood.” She didn’t seem like she was lying, but going out alone at night was definitely weird.

“It’s dangerous this late at night!”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not fine. Don’t do that! Promise me you won’t ever do that again!”

“…Okay. I get it. I’m sorry. Yawn…” Ichika didn’t actually sound apologetic at all. Stifling another yawn, she climbed the stairs with a series of thumps.

I could never have gone out for a walk alone at night like that, and I would never want to.

In the end, even though we looked alike, we were completely different on the inside…

I got some water from the kitchen and was about to go back to my room when something hit me.

A letter had also come for Ichika, right?

What did it say?

Now that thought was weighing on me, too.

9

I Can’t Be Part of Your Family

It was the next morning…

“Mifu, hey, Mifu, wanna do matching hairstyles today?” Nitori suggested after we finished breakfast.

“What, pigtails? You think I could pull those off?”

“Of course you can! We’ve got the same face, silly.” Nitori cackled as I almost spit out my milk.

“Please don’t match hairstyles. It’ll just make things more confusing.” Ichika gave a playful shrug as she carried the dishes to the sink. “You might be different on the inside, but you two resemble each other the most. People won’t be able to tell you apart.”

“That’s why it would be fun!” Nitori laughed, undeterred, and lifted her pigtails to show them off.

The two of them were acting like the previous day had never happened. If anything, they seemed even more upbeat than usual.

Maybe they were trying to cheer me up because they saw how worried I was about the letter?

“Actually, what if all four of us did the same hairstyle?”

“Everyone in pigtails?!” I was even more confused.

“Yeah! Wouldn’t that be hilarious? Right, Shizu?”

As she said that, the atmosphere froze, and everything went quiet.

Without a word, Shizuki gave a shake of her head, her loose black hair swaying gently.

She hadn’t worn her matching hair clip even once. She was as quiet as ever, almost never starting a conversation on her own.

“…”

Seeing my sisters’ faces cloud over filled my heart with worry, too.

I’d believed that time would soften her distant attitude…but what if she’d be like this forever?

“I’m sorry. I’ll be home late tonight. Please eat dinner without me.”

Shizuki sent us a text after school.

Nitori and I were already home, and we looked at each other.

“What’s up with Shizu? She’s not even in any clubs, is she?”

“N-no, I don’t think so…”

She’d never been so late that she missed dinner before.

“I’m home. We’re having curry tonight—Mifu’s favorite.”

While we were puzzling it out, Ichika came home smiling brightly, a bag of groceries in hand, but her expression turned anxious immediately when we told her about Shizuki.

Drained, we sank down on the cushions in the living room.

“How can we get closer to Shizu? I’ve really been feeling the distance lately. Would it help if we had a serious talk, I wonder?” Nitori’s words made Ichika frown and look to the floor.

“Come to think of it…there was a girl like Shizuki at the facility.”

“Really? You know how we can get through to her, then?” Nitori’s face lit up, but Ichika slowly shook her head.

“I’m sure Shizuki…isn’t being like that on purpose. She probably has her reasons for not opening up. It’s different for each person…and we won’t know until she tells us.”

Reasons for not opening up…

I wondered if it was something we couldn’t fix, no matter how hard we tried. I wanted to ask her. I wanted her to tell me what they were. But…

“Even just asking…might upset her, right?” I asked.

Ichika nodded.

“But if she stays like this forever, it’s just sad. Shizu always seems like she’s holding herself back… Yesterday, I asked her to take a bath with me, and she said, ‘No thank you, I’ll go in alone.’”

“Oh, she turned me down the other day, too.”

“You too, Mifu?”

When we first started living together, we’d agreed to bathe together as much as we could.

Nitori had said, “Bathing together means bonding,” and Ichika approved because “it’ll save on the gas bill.”

But Shizuki hadn’t taken a bath with any of us…

“Sigh… What do we do?” Nitori hung her head, and I clammed up.

Ichika hesitated, then continued:

“I think…it’s probably something Shizuki herself has no control over. She’s always alone at school, and it doesn’t seem like she has any friends. Do you know what she said the other day when I asked her about it?”

Ichika paused for a moment, then added in a hushed tone, “She said, ‘I decided not to make friends.’”

“…!”

The living room had been quiet before, but now you could hear a pin drop.

“Then it got me thinking… When Shizuki says ‘friends,’ does she mean us?”

“We…we’re family, aren’t we?!” I shouted without thinking, surprised.

“That’s right.”

Ichika looked out past the outdoor hallway, at the now-tidy garden that had once been overrun with weeds.

That was Shizuki’s handiwork.

We were related by blood, living under the same roof, attending the same school, and splitting up the chores fairly.

No matter how you looked at it…we were family. But…

“I think we should quietly watch over her for now.”

“I hate not being able to do anything.”

“Mifu, what do you think we should do?”

“Oh yeah, you got any ideas?”

“Um, er…”

This time, I couldn’t think of an idea that would appease them both. What should we do? I desperately racked my brain…

Ding!

All three of our phones went off at once.

“One new email from the Independent Living Practice Plan Executive Committee: this week’s independence mission.”

“…We get a task now?”

To be honest, this isn’t really the time…! I thought, opening the email anyway.

“Independence mission: wear matching items as a foursome.”

“Matching…” Everyone silently stared at the email.

I couldn’t hear their thoughts, but I was sure my sisters were thinking about what had happened this morning. We wished Shizuki would wear her hair clip, too.

“Let’s try it out. It might change something,” I said boldly.

“That’s right! Let’s give her a chance.”

“Nothing’ll change if we just sit back and watch.”

Nitori and Ichika slowly lifted their heads.

“First, why don’t we start by asking Shizuki what she likes?”

“That’s a good idea. Come to think of it, we don’t know a single thing she enjoys.”

“Exactly. That’ll make for an easy conversation topic, and the more we talk, the closer we can get.”

“I’m sure she’ll even put on her matching hair clip!”

We all nodded vigorously, our three identical faces looking at one another.

I didn’t know if it would work, but we’d give it a shot—for our sweet little sister.

The next morning.

“Hey, Shizuki, we have yogurt for dessert today.” Ichika took four linked yogurt cups out of the fridge. There were various flavors: strawberry, blueberry, peach, and plain.

We were always trying to save money, but we’d splurged a bit on the yogurt.

“Shizu, which do you like? Pick any one you want!” Nitori held out the yogurt to let Shizuki choose first, but…

“…I’m fine with anything,” Shizuki mumbled vacantly, looking down.

“Don’t be shy. You can have whichever one you like, Shizuki.”

“Yeah, Shizuki. Take the one you want most.”

Ichika and I smiled at her.

“Really…um… I’m fine with anything,” she said.

She was stubborn. It was like the kinder we were, the more she retreated into herself. I wished I could stick with her a little more and keep trying, but the hectic morning made it difficult.

“I’ll take strawberry, then.” Nitori nabbed it like it was a race.

“Oh…then I’ll have peach.” And Ichika took the peach flavor.

“Er, um, ah…” I hesitated. “Th-then…I’ll take plain,” I muttered weakly, glancing at Shizuki.

This was no good. Next time, I’d try talking to her myself…!

The next day, when I came home from school, I found my chance right away.

“I’m home. Oh, I’m so hungry. Do we have any snacks?”

“We have some mini donuts.”

This was it! I grabbed the box of donuts off the shelf in the dining room.

“Shizuki, we’re gonna snack on some mini donuts. Do you want chocolate or plain?”

I offered them to Shizuki first, but…

“Either is fine,” Shizuki said, looking uneasy, and slunk back into her room.

“I’m fine.”

“I’m fine with anything.”

“Either is fine.”

I did understand why she’d answer that way. I’d been like that, too, back when I lived at Kanro…

I didn’t want to be seen as a difficult kid, a selfish kid, a kid who was too opinionated. I didn’t want to be disliked and lose the one place I belonged.

Even when I had a preference, I’d wind up saying, “I’m fine with anything.”

But she could speak her mind here. We were family. And you couldn’t ever lose your place in a family, right?

That was why I wanted her to say, “I like this,” or “I don’t like that,” flat out.

It felt like the first step in becoming family.

That night, after we finished dinner, Nitori called out in a loud voice as if on cue:

“How about some TV? Shizu, you can choose the channel. What do you want to watch?”

“I’m…okay with anything.”

“Don’t be like that—here!” Nitori took Shizuki’s hand and firmly pressed the remote into it.

Whoa, wasn’t that a little pushy? Maybe that kind of push was what we needed, though.

C’mon, click a button, Shizuki…!

That would be her first step into our family. We held our breath and waited.

Shizuki stared at the remote in her hand, looking confused.

“Um…I’m really fine with anything,” she muttered like always and handed the remote back to Nitori.

Another failure. I let out a small sigh. Then…

Wham!

…Nitori slammed the remote control down violently.

“Enough already!” Nitori shouted. “Why don’t you ever say what’s on your mind, Shizu? We’re family!”

“Stop it!” Ichika immediately stepped in.

Then she addressed Shizuki, speaking in a firm but gentle tone.

“Listen, Shizuki, you don’t have to hold back. It’s okay to say what you think. We’re your sisters. We came here to be a family and learn how to live independently.”

Shizuki’s eyes opened wide.

Oh, did she finally understand…?! A tiny spark of hope lit in our hearts.

But then Shizuki said in a voice that was mostly a whisper, “I came here…to escape…”

“What?”

To escape? What did she mean by that? I was about to ask, when she piped up again.

“I can’t be part of your family…,” Shizuki blurted out with effort and quickly fled the room.

10

What Is “Family”?

“I can’t be part of your family…”

Shizuki’s words had been echoing in my head ever since that night.

After school, I sat alone at my desk in class and sighed. For days now, whether I was in class or on break, my mind wandered back to that moment.

I’d been so happy to have a family of my own…

Shizuki wasn’t even thinking about being happy. She thought she couldn’t be part of our family at all. We’d kept trying to reach out, hoping she’d open up to us soon…but maybe we had only been annoying her instead.

What she’d said to Ichika was also bothering me a lot.

“I decided not to make friends.”

Why would Shizuki say something so sad…? Just then, I happened to glance out the window.

“Oh…”

I saw Ichika and Nitori walking home together. For some reason, the two of them seemed to be picking up the pace a little toward the school gate.

Were they going shopping?

I watched as Nitori suddenly brought her face close to Ichika and whispered something in her ear. Ichika immediately burst into giggles and walked even faster. Then they were gone.

They kinda…looked like they were having a lot of fun…

I felt a little lonely and sighed again. Lately, I was constantly seeing my big sisters spending time together. Once in a while, they seemed like they were talking about something in secret…and would quickly stop whenever Shizuki and I showed up.

“I wonder what they really think about Shizuki…”

Ever since the night she told us she couldn’t be part of our family, the two of them had stopped saying her name so much. Could they have given up on her? The thought made me…sad.

Family was supposed to be warm, and everyone could get along and speak their mind…

You could make up right away, even if you fought, and then get along even better than before…

At least, that’s what I’d thought.

But the secret conversations lately had made even me feel distant from my big sisters.

“No…! There’s no distance. We’re family,” I muttered to myself, shaking my head quickly.

Just then…

Pat!

“Ack!”

Someone tapped me on the shoulder!

Stopping myself from jumping into the air, I turned around and…

“Mifu! Hee-hee. Did I scare ya?”

…found Minato and his mischievous smile.

We saw each other every day in class, but he still managed to surprise me and get my heart racing.

“Geez…! You made me jump!” I pretended to be a little mad to hide how nervous I was. I wonder if I fooled him.

“Hee-hee, sorry. I have something to show you,” Minato said, then he opened his bag and pulled out a big, square book. “I borrowed it from the library. Ever heard of this photo book? Living with Penguins in Town.”

“Penguins…?! Wow, so cute…!”

“Right? Since you have a penguin on your bag, I figured you liked them.” Minato pointed to my schoolbag.

The penguin mascot hanging there was my favorite. A long time ago, I’d wanted it badly when I went on a field trip to the aquarium with everyone at Kanro, and I had used my meager allowance to buy it.

So he’d noticed.

His quiet thoughtfulness made happiness spread through my body, and my heart felt soft and light.

I went along with him and flipped through the pages.

In a southern country, Cape penguins share a town with humans.

Below that sentence were photos that seemed almost unreal—penguins nesting in home gardens, inside fences, and behind vending machines. They lived in the town like stray cats.

I kept flipping through the pages, entranced, and stopped at a two-page spread showing a woman and a penguin playing in shallow water.

“That’s so cute…!” I couldn’t help but smile.

“You finally smiled.” I heard Minato’s voice right next to my ear. I looked up to find his gentle gaze watching me closely. “You look cute when you smile, Mifu.”

His radiant grin aimed right at me made my cheeks heat up. Minato had moved his seat to sit right beside me without my even realizing.

The two of us were alone in the classroom. We were so close, we’d touch if we shifted even slightly.

I didn’t know how to answer. Whatever I said would probably come out sounding weird.

I stayed frozen, and Minato frowned slightly.

“You know, you’ve seemed down lately.”

“What…? I have?”

“Yeah. You were totally zoning out during class. It was a little worrying. Did something happen?”

Minato was…so kind. The nervousness in my chest quickly changed to warmth.

“Um… To tell you the truth…I’ve been struggling to get along with Shizuki…”

I found myself blurting out the worry I’d been holding inside.

“Get along with her?”

“That’s right. Ever since I met her, Shizuki—”

“Huh? Met?” He cocked his head, and it hit me. Oh no! Minato didn’t know about our situation!

“U-um…er… I mean… Since forever…”

“Oh, right.”

Improvising a lie gave me a sharp ache in my chest.

Of course I hadn’t wanted to lie to him. But…back in elementary school, people often said mean things to me or gave me weird looks because I didn’t have any parents.

Telling him the truth would be painful…and scary.

“Shizuki is definitely shy…” Minato thought for a moment before continuing. “She’s always by herself at school. And she’s the only one who doesn’t wear a hair clip like the rest of you do.”

He even noticed that?

Minato had been paying attention to my sisters, too—not just me. Was it because we were unusual quadruplets who stood out? Or was it because they were my sisters?

Ah, whatever, what was I even thinking? I was there to talk about Shizuki.

“R-right. So I basically told her, ‘Let’s try to get along better,’ but…”

“And she shut you out?”

“Kind of… Things are a little awkward now… I don’t know how to make things right with her,” I said, looking down.

But Minato just laughed like it was nothing, leaned back in his chair, and gazed up at the ceiling.

“I get it. That’s pretty common, but it’s still rough. I have a big sister who’s three years older and a little sister who’s two years younger, and we fight every day.”

I heard the words big sister, little sister, and fight, and I looked up in surprise. “What? You have a big and little sister?”

“Didn’t I tell you? I’m a middle child of three.”

“Wow…!”

His family structure seemed kind of similar to mine. Curiosity bubbled up inside me, and I stared at Minato’s face.

“What do you fight about?” I asked, and Minato touched his hair and pursed his lips.

“Hmm, for example, my big sister totally hogs the bathroom mirror in the morning, so I always have to fix my bedhead at the mirror in the foyer.”

I laughed a little trying to imagine it. Ichika and Nitori fought about the same thing.

“Geez, Nitori! Hurry and move!”

“It’s my turn right now! There are other mirrors!”

Only having one of something always led to fights.

“My little sister’s in her rebellious phase. She’s constantly on her phone and doesn’t talk to anyone, mostly.”

Oh, his little sister might be a bit like Shizuki.

I found myself leaning in and asking, “And then what?”

“Then one day, I got angry and told my older sister, ‘Enough already!’ and she snapped back, ‘Shut up!’ and it turned into a full-blown fight. Then my younger sister went, ‘I can’t deal with either of you. You’re both banned from my room!’”

Yep, that sounded even more like Shizuki.

“And what happened after that?”

“What do you mean, ‘after that’?”

“How did you make up?”

“Huh…? Hmm… I wouldn’t say we make up…” Minato hummed for a minute, then grinned lazily. “Don’t sibling fights usually fix themselves without anyone realizing?”

“Huh?”

Here I was seriously waiting for an answer… I deflated, hitting the desk with a thunk.

“R-really? You just go back to normal without realizing it?”

I asked him again to be sure, and Minato continued cheerfully, “Yeah. I mean, we’re family. Isn’t that normal?”

Isn’t that normal…?

My mind became a total mess at those words. The floor beneath my feet seemed to bend and warp like waves.

Normal… Normal…

What even…was “normal”?

11

I Knew I Was Alone

I said good-bye to Minato and stayed in the classroom, lost in thought.

“I mean, we’re family. Isn’t that normal?”

I sat by myself on my chair, hugging my knees, replaying Minato’s words over and over in my mind.

What was a “normal” family? I didn’t know. Minato had been born with a dad, mom, and siblings. But I had been all alone. I never had a family before.

Maybe I wasn’t supposed to understand.

Ding-dong, ding-dong!

The bell’s sudden ringing made me snap my head up reflexively.

Flustered, I checked the clock and found that it was way past time to go home. The sky, which had been so clear, was now covered in thick, gray clouds.

“I need to go home… Oh, before that—”

The last person to leave the classroom had to rip a page off the bulletin-board calendar; that was the rule. Rip! I tore off a page, revealing April 25.

“Ah…” A small sound escaped me.

The following day was our thirteenth birthday—all four of us.

I hoisted my bag over my shoulder and made my way through the gloomy hallway. I turned the corner, and the entrance was on the left. To the right, there was a large mirror.

“…”

I gazed at my reflection. Two braids, plus my light-blue hair clip. We wore the same design in different colors—proof we were sisters.

And the following day, we would turn thirteen—another step, another day closer to adulthood.

Even so, Shizuki was as distant as ever. She still didn’t wear the hair clips the rest of us wore. Would she keep rejecting us, even after our birthday?

I didn’t want that…!

A wave of helplessness surged inside me, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I had to change things by the next day somehow. But how could I? If we were a normal family, then maybe things would fix themselves without us realizing it, like Minato said.

But we weren’t normal. We were a family that had never known normal…

As I was about to leave, feeling gloomy—I caught sight of a black car parked near the school gate.

Wow… What a big car. Was that someone’s ride? A woman sat in the passenger seat, but I couldn’t make out her face. My gaze unconsciously panned to the back seat.

“Huh…? Shizuki?!”

I thought I saw Shizuki in the car and dashed out into the schoolyard without thinking, but before I could see if it was her or not, the car sped off in a flash.

“Shizuki… That wasn’t you, right…?”

Ba-dump, ba-dump…

Each beat of my heart sent a dull pain through me. We’d agreed to always tell one of our sisters if we had special plans.

I’d never heard Shizuki mention a woman like that before.

All the girls here wore the same uniform, and lots of them looked alike from a distance, but…I couldn’t say 100 percent that it wasn’t Shizuki.

Because…I didn’t know anything about Shizuki.

Lately, I didn’t even know what my big sisters were thinking.

“I’m…all alone,” I muttered and looked down.

Plip…plip…fwish…fwiiish!

“Eeep!”

Rain suddenly started pouring like someone had dumped a bucket on me. The air suddenly turned oppressively damp, and I felt it pressing down on me.

“Oh no…!”

Where was my umbrella? More importantly, I needed to take shelter! I needed to hurry and get home…!

FWIIISH!

While I dawdled, the rain kept growing heavier, and my heart pounded faster and faster.

Everything in front of me, behind me, left and right was chilly and blurred. I couldn’t see a thing.

I hated the rain. I was scared. I was so scared!

Just as I ran back to the entrance to take cover…

“Ah!”

Splat! I lost my footing on the wet earth and fell to the ground.

The cold rain soaked my brand-new school uniform. Rain pounded down on my shoulders, cheeks, forehead, and hair without mercy.

And then to add insult to injury, lightning flickered, and thunder boomed.

Flash! Roar!

My body trembled from within, like my heart was sinking into a deep darkness.

“Help…”

The rain grew fiercer, like something had snapped. I managed to crawl back to the school entrance, not even knowing if I was crying anymore. Drenched, I hugged my knees and curled up.

I had bad memories of the rain.

It had been the same time of year, back when I was in first grade. Like today, the storm hit just as I was on my way home from school. The rain dashed against the ground, and the wind howled, shaking the trees. The sky was dark as dusk, and thunder clapped with a tremendous sound.

There might have been a weather alert. Lots of parents came to pick their kids up from school that day; the entrance was jam-packed with a riot of colorful umbrellas, raincoats, and boots. It was like a rainbow had appeared in one spot amid a deluge.

No one came to pick me up. Before I knew it, I was standing there alone.

Everyone had gone home and left me alone by the gray school entrance. I curled up and trembled in the shadow of a post. An older student who lived at the same facility was supposed to come grab me, but…

That one day, they completely forgot about me.

No one came to pick me up, no matter how long I waited. Each time lightning flashed, I was so scared, I squeezed my eyes shut. I’d timidly crack my eyes open again and find there was no one in the cold hallway.

FWIIISH!

There was only the never-ending sound of the rain. It was cold, and my body got more and more chilled. I thought I was going to die there, all alone. No matter how hard things got or how lonely I was, no one was going to come save me.

Ever since, I always associated the rain with that same helpless loneliness.

“I haven’t changed one bit since then…”

My uniform was wet and muddy. I was freezing.

At this rate, I might catch a cold, but I didn’t care. After all, no one would worry about me. I was completely alone…

I drew up my knees and buried my face in them.

Briiing, briiing, briiing…

My unfamiliar ringtone broke me free of my gloomy thoughts. My phone was ringing nearby. Vacantly, I looked into my bag and noticed it glow.

In the dim entryway, what I saw on the small, faintly lit screen made my eyes widen.

Incoming call: home.

“Home…?”

With shaking fingers, I tapped the answer button. A chorus of voices identical to mine spilled from the speaker.

“Mifu? Where are you right now? The rain looks crazy. Are you okay? Oh—”

“Hurry up and come home. Do you have an umbrella? Want me to come pick you up?”

“Don’t just take the phone from me, Ichika! Mifu, there might be a weather alert. The wind’s really strong, too… Mifu, you there?”

“Hello? Mifu, can you hear me? Are you okay by yourself? Can you handle lightning?”

I thought the two of them must have been taking turns with the house landline. My older sisters’ voices came through one after another. I pressed the smartphone to my ear and listened closely to them.

Before I knew it, I had stopped trembling. Both Ichika and Nitori were worried about me…

Right… I had a family waiting at home for me.

Roar!

Suddenly, a gust of wind blew into the entryway, lashing my wet bangs.

Things were different now…so I needed to change, too!

Fighting the wind’s volume, I shouted in a cheerful voice with all my might, “I’m… I’ll be okay!”

I clutched my smartphone to my chest and raised my face, determined as I pressed the end call button.

I wedged my phone in between the textbooks and my backpack to protect it from the rain.

Bracing myself on the shoe cubby, I slowly stood. I slipped on my wet shoes and opened the umbrella I’d left at the entrance.

My trembling feet managed a step forward.

I could walk, barely. I could keep going without falling.

One more step.

When I left the entryway, the rain pelted my umbrella all at once. It was so scary…! But I wouldn’t let it beat me.

Step by step, I planted my feet and went farther, farther, steadily farther…

“!”

Mustering up all the courage in my body, I dashed out into the rain, headed for home.

12

On a Stormy Night

“Mifu?!”

“Mifu! We were so worried about you!”

Ichika and Nitori were shocked by the sight of me when I came home.

“You’re soaked. And you’re blue!”

“Didn’t you have an umbrella? Use this to dry off!”

My body and my mind warmed up a little as I was wrapped in a big bath towel.

I…wasn’t alone. The feeling washed over me, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

I was definitely calmer than when the rain first started. Even so, I couldn’t stop panting after I had run through the downpour.

“Huff…huff… Sorry… I’m okay,” I murmured weakly and buried my face in the towel.

“Get in the bath right away. You’ll catch a cold.”

“You really okay? Something happen?”

“Well…”

I wanted to tell them how scared I’d been. How I’d remembered something from when I was little and been trembling in the entrance of the school.

My heart was still pounding, and my chest hurt. When I went to speak, I remembered how scared I’d been and almost started crying again…

Flustered, I squeezed my eyes shut, and I swallowed the words somewhere deep in my throat along with my tears.

To think the two of them were so worried about me, and I couldn’t even explain what had happened… I hated how weak I was being.

Just as I looked down…

Creak!

…a door opened, and I raised my head.

Shizuki came out into the room. Thank goodness she’d come home.

So it really hadn’t been Shizuki riding in that black car? I felt relieved and tried to smile at her, but I couldn’t get my cheeks to move. She paled in surprise when she saw me soaked.

Thunk!

She slipped back into her own room and firmly shut the door.

Sorry I startled you, Shizuki.

I wanted to do something to get Shizuki to open up, but I was too wrapped up in my own problems.

It was just sad… I was supposed to be her older sister.

That thought alone almost made my fragile heart well up with tears again.

“It’s a flash storm, right? I’m sure it’ll pass quickly…,” Ichika said, looking out the window while the storm roared on.

But even by night, the rain, wind, and lightning showed no signs of letting up.

Fwiiish… Crack… Roar…

It was later that night, just before midnight.

The storm was still raging outside. The wind made the house creak periodically with eerie sounds.

I lay frozen in my futon, eyes wide-open.

I wished morning would come already… I felt like those bad memories would chase me into my dreams if I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to be asleep or awake. Honestly, a ghost popping out would have been preferable…

Then the sliding door to the hallway quietly opened in the dark.

“…Huh?”

Who was it?

A chill ran down my spine, and I timidly called out, “Nitori?”

No answer came. Clutching my futon, I tried calling out again…

“I-Ichika?”

The darkness shifted, and something came closer.

“?!”

I held my breath and squinted to see a face that looked just like me besides her glasses.

“Sh-Shizuki?”

Wh-why was she here?

I sat up and got out of my futon.

…Huh? Why were the hallway and the staircase so dark?

Shizuki’s room was on the first floor. Don’t tell me she’d climbed those steep stairs in the dark?

“Shizuki, why didn’t you turn on the lights…?” I asked timidly, and Shizuki whispered in an even smaller voice than usual:

“I thought I might wake someone up if I turned on the lights… I was fine. There’s a banister.”

“B-but…”

Crack-crack-crack! Boom!

“Eeek!”

A deafening thunderclap hit, and I couldn’t help but cower.

My heart lurched. Just as memories of that rainy day started to fill my mind again…

“It’s okay.”

…a warm hand touched my back.

I slowly glanced up…and saw my identical sister. Shizuki, who normally avoided eye contact, met my gaze shyly.

“You looked like you were crying…so I got worried and came to check on you.” As the rain pattered outside, Shizuki’s voice was so clear that it seemed to drive away the darkness.

A single ray of light broke through the despair in my heart.

On that rainy day, I’d shut my eyes, afraid of the thunder, and when I’d fearfully opened them again, there’d been no one in the hallway. But now Shizuki was right here with me.

“Um… Want me to pat you on the back…?”

Pat my back…

I was so happy, I couldn’t find the words. I thought I should thank her.

Huh? Suddenly, I noticed some wetness on my cheek.

I…was crying.

My mind went blank, and Shizuki drew back her hand in surprise.

“Oh…sorry… I shouldn’t have done that… Sorry. I’ll lea—”

My body moved on its own. I cut her off, hugging her. Her thin body radiated warmth.

“Stay with me…”

Someone had finally shown up to save me when I was hurting and lonely.

“I’m happy. I’m crying because I’m happy…!”

I wasn’t alone! My heart was full, like it had drunk a whole jug of warm light.

It was like the sun’s sparkling rays were shining down on the little girl who’d always been crying in a corner of my heart since that rainy day…

After that, Shizuki and I slipped under the futon together. She kept gently patting my back.

I wrapped my arms around Shizuki and held her tightly.

She was so warm but small…

We all had the same face, but each one of us was a little different. Shizuki was paler and thinner than the rest of us. It felt like I might break her if I squeezed too tightly.

She hadn’t turned the lights on because she hadn’t wanted to wake us and gone up that steep staircase… If she’d fallen, she definitely would have broken something.

But she’d come anyway.

I hadn’t been able to get close to her. I thought she might not like me.

“I can’t be part of your family…”

Her words had been so very, very sad.

And yet she was such a kind girl.

With her body heat and her hand on my back, the knot in my heart came untied, like numb fingers stretching out.

“Listen, Shizuki… Once during a storm, I got left behind at school.”

The words spilled out little by little from my mouth and from my heart. It was the first time I’d ever told anyone the story.

“I was so scared and lonely, it was traumatic… When it suddenly started raining today, I remembered that day and wound up crying at school, even though I’m a junior high schooler now… Heh. Weird, huh?”

I felt so pathetic opening up to her that I found myself almost crying again—but I squeezed my eyes shut and kept going.

“But you know, Ichika and Nitori called me then, and that made me realize, ‘I have a family. I’m not alone anymore,’ I felt like I could be a little stronger.”

I pressed my forehead against Shizuki’s chest, seeking comfort.

“Even now, I feel safe because you’re here with me… If I ever get caught in the rain like that again, I bet I’ll be able to remember today and be more positive about it. I have you to thank for that, Shizuki. Thank you.”

Full of gratitude, I pulled Shizuki into a tight hug.

“…”

“Shizuki?”

The back pats stopped. I peeked at her cautiously.

“I…can’t be part of your family. Someone like me isn’t meant to have family…,” she murmured, her eyelashes fluttering.

13

Feelings I Didn’t Realize Were There

“Why do you think that…?” I asked carefully, trying to avoid sounding accusatory. Why would someone as kind as Shizuki be so insistent that we couldn’t be family?

There had to be a reason.

“W-well…” Shizuki struggled to get the words out.

No, was she scared…? She’d tensed up against me. I’d never been able to understand how she felt before, but now the contact between us gave me a read on her emotions.

There had to be some big reason behind the closed-off door of her heart.

After a long pause, I took a chance and spoke up.

“Um, do you not like purple?”

“What?” Shizuki flinched.

“Oh, uh… You never wear the hair clip. I thought maybe you didn’t like purple…”

That wasn’t the reason why she was resisting being a part of the family, was it? I brought it up anyway, hoping it might get her talking.

You can speak your mind. I’ll wait as long as it takes. I gave her a gentle touch, trying to express how I felt.

Just when I started to worry if she’d answer at all, she said, her lips barely moving, “No, no. Purple is my favorite color.”

Her light breath tickled my eyelashes.

“Then…what is it?” I asked, peering into Shizuki’s face.

“Well…” She slowly rolled over, turning her back to me.

Oh…she’s clamming up again, I thought for a second. But I was wrong.

Reluctantly, Shizuki parted her hair on both sides.

“Do you see right here?”

A flash of lightning lit up the whole room, bringing the back of Shizuki’s neck into view.

“That’s…!”

There was an old scar, like she’d been scratched hard with something sharp. It stood out heartbreakingly against her thin, pale nape. I was speechless. Shizuki murmured in an emotionless voice:

“When I was in elementary school…I was stabbed. With a compass needle or something, I think.”

“Stabbed?” I sprang up, not believing my ears.

Shizuki started to tremble slightly with her back to me.

“I was always bullied… That’s why…”

That was why she couldn’t tie her hair back or wear the hair clips. That was why she couldn’t join her sisters in the bath. Those unarticulated feelings became painfully clear.

I felt like I had the same scar down the back of my own neck.

“Bullying… Didn’t the teachers do anything about it?” I asked, and Shizuki shook her head.

“There were too many kids at school and the facility… The teachers couldn’t keep an eye on everyone…”

“That’s awful…”

She’d been bullied, and no one had helped her. I had no idea Shizuki had suffered so much.

“I came here…to escape…”

So that’s what she’d meant. Shizuki had joined the Junior High Independence Plan to escape bullying.

She didn’t have rain falling in her heart like I did…but there was something colder, sharper, like a blizzard.

“I’m sorry, Shizuki. That must’ve been hard… It must have been so painful…” I couldn’t come up with the right words to console her; all I could do was murmur while biting my own lip to keep from crying.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and Shizuki spoke up again.

“I put up with it…but one day, I couldn’t stand it anymore. That day…” I gently rubbed Shizuki’s trembling back as she continued. “It was a really cold day, and it was snowing… That day, someone threw my treasure into the river.”

Treasure…? What could Shizuki’s treasure have been? I didn’t ask her, instead opting to let her continue.

“The water wasn’t deep, so I jumped in and desperately searched where it fell. I found it somehow but wound up with frostbite on my hands and feet… That was when I started thinking about escaping from that place, about wanting to disappear.”

It must’ve been a really precious item for her to jump into a river in the middle of winter. And she’d said someone had thrown it in…

“I mean… It’s only natural that you couldn’t stand it anymore…”

Shizuki shook her head. “That’s not why I put my foot down…”

“Huh?”

“I had one friend… She yelled at the bullies for me…but the next day, her—Eiri’s—shoes were stolen. She’d gotten caught up in the bullying, too. All because of me.”

“Oh no…”

“The people around me just get hurt… I shouldn’t make friends…because I’m the worst.”

“That’s not true!”

“I decided not to make friends.”

Now I understood what she meant by that.

“Shizuki, you’re not the worst. You’re our precious, amazing little sister. You came all the way up here because you were worried about me!”

I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I moved closer under the futon and hugged Shizuki tightly. “It’s okay, Shizuki. If anyone ever bullies you, we’ll protect you. You have three big sisters, after all…!”

I’d been bullied myself. Back then, I’d been too scared to even say stop and just cried.

But…

“I can be strong if it’s for my family.”

…I wanted to protect Shizuki. With that thought, a spark of courage flared in the empty darkness.

“…”

Shizuki was quiet for a while. Just when I started to think she might be dozing off…

“I really…can’t…”

“What?”

“I…can’t be part of the family…”

“You don’t like us?”

“That’s not it…but…” She didn’t say anything after that.

“Shizuki, you’re our little sister. From here on out, we’ll always be together…” I pressed my face into her glossy black hair and took a deep breath, letting her scent fill my body.

This time, it was my turn to pat Shizuki’s back.

“It’s okay, Shizuki. You’re okay now… No matter what happens, we all love you. So—” Drowsiness suddenly came over me, and my head got fuzzy. I tried to stay awake, but my eyelids kept closing on their own…

“So don’t worry… Just join the family…”

Drifting off, I heard Shizuki’s voice.

“Just for today…I will.”

“Just for today…?”

I thought that’s what I’d heard, so I asked again. The wind and rain echoing far away had quieted just a bit.

Shizuki didn’t answer…and eventually, I drifted off to sleep.

14

This Is the First Step

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was Shizuki’s sleeping face bathed in the morning sun. She was breathing peacefully and gently in her sleep. In the soft light, our hair was mixed and fanned out together.

There was the faint tweeting of birds, adding to the gentle morning atmosphere.

I just knew the sky stretched wide and blue outside.

“Morning, Shizuki.” I stroked her cheek gently. Her brow knit in protest before she slowly opened her eyes.

“Good…morning…”

Her groggy expression relieved me in a way.

Shizuki’s painful past couldn’t be changed. From here on out, though, her future could be whatever she wanted it to be. I knew she’d open her heart to us one day.

“Nnh…” I got up from the futon and gave a big stretch toward the morning sun.

Today was Saturday. That meant no school, but…

“What…? It’s nine already?!”

I guessed staying up last night made me sleep in more than I meant to.

Panicked, we headed to the dining room, still in our pajamas. Even for a weekend, it was strange that our big sisters hadn’t woken us up by now… Just then…

“Huh…?!”

Was this really the same house? The dining room and living room looked totally different!

Colorful balloons hung from the dining room ceiling. The table we always ate our meals at was covered in a white tablecloth. There was a massive plate with all our favorite snacks stacked high. Our places were set with napkins folded into cute shapes.

“What the…?!”

As I stood there dumbfounded with Shizuki, Ichika and Nitori came in from the outdoor hallway.

“Oh, you’re up?”

“Morning, sleepyheads!”

“Hee-hee-hee, surprised? Take a look!”

I looked in the direction Nitori indicated.

Happy Birthday

Ichika, Nitori, Mifu, Shizuki!

The living room wall was decorated with folded paper letters.

“Surprise party accomplished! It’s birthday time!” Nitori laughed and jumped around as if to say, “Gotcha!”

With a matching smile, Ichika hurried us along. “Come on, go and get changed!”

“O-okay!” I obeyed and rushed to my room, quickly changing into my clothes for the day. I headed back down to the living room in a sweater.

“Wow…!” Just looking at the gorgeous decorations dazzled me!

The walls and ceiling were adorned with paper chains, triangle flags, and curled ribbons. Hanging from the living room ceiling were large, translucent balloons with confetti in them. There was even the number 13 covered in paper flowers.

I spread my arms wide. It was like I’d stepped into a fantasyland. Everything was sparkly and shiny!

“Amazing… This is really amazing! It’s like a dream! Huh?”

Something weird was stuck to the living room curtain. What was this? Broken branches made from straws? Nitori giggled when I got closer to inspect it.

“Ichika made that.”

“I’m awful with these kinds of decorations…” Ichika sighed awkwardly. “I read online that wrapping straws in masking tape and arranging them in star shapes would make for cute wall decorations…”

“And instead, ya made a real mess,” Nitori teased, to which Ichika looked annoyed.

“That’s why I worked hard on those paper flowers and chains. I even did your share when you got bored and ditched me.”

“I was…you know…busy making those confetti balloons. Putting in the confetti and blowing them up… That kinda stuff.”

“You better hope they don’t pop. Those things’ll be a nightmare to clean. I told you it wasn’t a good idea.”

“Ichika, you’re so picky. It’s fine. They look super trendy. Everyone overseas does this.”

Oh…I got it. They’d been preparing for today the whole time, balancing out each other’s weak points.

“So all that stuff you were whispering about was for this?” I asked, and Ichika looked at me gently and nodded.

“We were really worried about a lot of things. After Shizuki rejected us and said she couldn’t be a part of our family, we just kept wondering if there wasn’t more we could do. Nitori and I both really love our family…but we weren’t sure how to express it.”

“That’s when we realized, Hey, our birthday is coming up! So we thought, That’s it! The big sisters can throw a surprise birthday party for the little ones! and we got to work.”

The two smiled. Warmth washed over my chest.

I wasn’t the only one who’d been worrying.

I really wasn’t alone anymore.

“Today’s a special day! Come on, Mifu, I’ll do your hair. Salon Nitori is open for business!”

“S-sure!”

Nitori styled my hair in the bathroom. Soon I was looking at my usual braids and my light-blue hair clip. She carefully loosened some strands for balance, then gave it a quick spray.

Happiness flooded into every nook and cranny of my heart like a fresh breeze.

“This is the best birthday I’ve ever had!”

I jumped for joy. The cute braid bobbed along with me.

“Right? Four quadruplets, four times the birthday fun!”

“Yep. A birthday celebration like this is anything but ordinary.”

Oh!

Ichika’s offhand comment reminded me.

It wasn’t about being normal… No, it was because we weren’t normal that things were so wonderful.

My worries washed away as if they had never existed.

Even if we weren’t normal, even if we didn’t know what normal was, we’d be okay.

We’d become a family for sure!

I gotta call her out here.

“Shizuki!” I yelled out to Shizuki’s room on the first floor.

But there was no answer. Just as I thought, That’s strange, there was a faint creak as the dining room door cracked open.

“Shizu! Come on, you’re next.” Nitori held the purple hair clip in one hand and beckoned to her with the other, but—

“Huh?”

—something was off about Shizuki when she came into the room. She was hugging herself and leaning against the wall like it was a struggle even to stay upright. Not to mention she was still dressed in her pajamas.

“I… I… Today…”

“What’s up?”

“Do you feel sick?”

My big sisters rushed over to Shizuki, looking worried. But she only squeezed her eyes shut tight and didn’t move.

Maybe she felt uneasy about the scar on her neck being visible when her hair was tied back.

No. It wasn’t just that.

Something…was off. I felt a chill go through my heart, like I was missing something very important…

Puzzled, I looked at Ichika and Nitori. They exchanged meaningful glances and nodded quietly.

“Shizu…”

“Actually—”

Just then…

Ding-dong!

…the doorbell rang, cutting them off.

15

Mom Appears!

Ding-dong!

Who could it be at a time like this? We all turned back toward the foyer.

Ding-dong, ding-dong!

The doorbell kept ringing, but nobody said a word.

Just when I thought it had finally stopped…

“Excuse me!” We heard a woman’s high-pitched voice next. It seemed to pull Shizuki in, and she staggered to the foyer.

“Sh-Shizuki?”

We followed after her, and the four of us opened the door together.

A woman in an expensive-looking suit stood at the door. She had elegant high heels on and carried a handbag that was obviously designer. She wore jeweled rings, a necklace, and earrings…

My eyes swept over her from top to bottom—and I was speechless.

She looked like us. She had our face!

Ignoring our silence, the woman stepped forward with a click of her heel.

“Hello. This is my first time meeting any of you besides Shizuki. I’m your mother.”

“Whaaat?!” the three of us cried out at once.

No way… M-Mom…?!

My mind went totally blank. I couldn’t even blink. My chest hurt, and my breathing grew rougher and rougher. Ichika and Nitori were frozen in place with their eyes wide.

“My name is Urara. Urara Miyabi. I’m sorry for leaving you by yourselves all this time.”

Her smile was bright. Somehow, her tone didn’t sound the least bit apologetic…

Was she…really our mom?

“N-no way… No way! What are you talking about?!” Nitori’s voice quivered.

Ichika snapped out of her own stupor.

“Just…who are you?” Her low, calm voice carried the weight of an adult’s.

But the woman—Urara—didn’t flinch at all.

“Hee-hee, didn’t you hear me? I said I’m your mother. You’re still not convinced after seeing my face? We can do a DNA test if you need proof.” She laughed, pointing to her face confidently.

She definitely resembled us… Was she our mom after all?

But…

…we stood frozen, like our feet were stitched to the floor. Our reaction must have satisfied her, because she declared smugly, “I’ve come for you, just as promised.”

Come for us…? Oh!

Those words triggered the memory of the letter from our so-called mother:

I’ll come to get her soon.

The letter had definitely said that… Was there more? What else was there? I desperately racked my brain, and the moment I remembered, I shook so violently, I thought I’d fall over.

It mentioned she’d take in the one who was most in need…!

Right then, I remembered what Shizuki had said the previous day, when I’d been somewhere between dreaming and waking.

“Just for today…I will.”

“No way…” I looked up.

“Let’s go, Shizuki.” Urara barged into the hallway and grabbed Shizuki’s arm forcefully.

“D-don’t!” My sisters and I lunged for Shizuki together. Our combined force pulled her away, and she stumbled into us.

“Wh-what is this about, Shizuki?” I met her eyes and asked, but she just trembled silently.

Urara peered down at Shizuki and said in a syrupy tone, “What’s wrong, Shizuki? Didn’t we make a promise yesterday? You’re the child most in need, so you’re going to leave this house today and come live with me, your mother.”

“What?!”

Shizuki alone stood frozen, her eyes wide-open.

Yesterday… So I really had seen Shizuki the previous day at school…! That meant the woman in the passenger seat of the car had been Urara!

Don’t tell me she’d been meeting this woman when she texted us, Please eat dinner without me.

I tightened my grip on Shizuki’s shoulder.

But…if Urara really was our mom, what was I supposed to do?

The mom I’d dreamed about. The mom I’d wanted to meet for so, so long.

And here we were…

Our mom was trying to tear our family apart…! Why would she do that?!

“Now, all of you, step aside. Give me Shizuki.” Urara shooed us off like she was scattering stray cats.

“Why?” I stood up without thinking and stepped forward. “Why just Shizuki?! We’ve finally…finally become a family. I was alone for so long, it was so hard, and…I thought I’d finally found where I belonged…!” I screamed desperately.

“She’s right…! Our real mother wouldn’t do something this cruel!” Ichika spread her arms out wide to shield Shizuki.

“Exactly! Who do you think you are?! You showed up outta nowhere saying nothing but selfish stuff. Shizuki’s our precious little sister!” Nitori yelled, undaunted.

Urara just laughed mockingly and said, “Family…huh? Did Shizuki say that?”

“W-well…”

I couldn’t manage to get the words out. Right, we hadn’t heard it directly from Shizuki yet…

Seeing me falter, Urara quickly took Shizuki’s hand.

“I figured as much. Who’s the real selfish one? I clearly told you in my letter that I was coming to pick her up. And…you think you’re family? Your little sister? You don’t seriously believe that, do you? Take a good look in the mirror.”

Urara lifted her slender finger with its gleaming red manicure and pointed to the large mirror in the foyer. Reflected there were four sisters, all with the same face.

“Shizuki’s the only one still in pajamas. Her hair isn’t done. You’re excluding her, the poor thing.”

I couldn’t let it go. I pushed between Shizuki and Urara and shouted at the top of my lungs, “Th-that’s not true!”

But I couldn’t get anything else out. Seeing that, Urara continued in a calm tone, “You all know nothing about Shizuki’s past, do you? Of course you don’t. Shizuki hasn’t told you anything. But I know. I looked into it. That she was bullied, that her dear friend was dragged into it, and that she came here to escape the bullying.”

Shizuki’s— No, everyone’s breath caught in their throat.

“You call yourselves family, but you don’t know a single thing about her painful past. Shizuki would be far happier living with me. You’re not qualified to be her older sisters because you know nothing about her. You have no right to hold her back.”

“N-no…I kne—”

Frustration, anger, and confusion made red and white flash inside my mind. My messy feelings overwhelmed me, and I couldn’t get the words out…!

As the tense thread of my heart was about to snap—my two big sisters firmly steadied me from behind.

Their eyes shining brightly, they spoke loudly.

“We knew, too!” Nitori yelled.

“We knew about Shizuki’s past and how she felt when she came here!”

“What?!” Shizuki and I caught our breath and whirled around to face our big sisters, who replied in reassuring tones.

“Sorry, I overheard you yesterday.”

“And I heard it from Ichika!”

Oh, right! There was only a single sliding door between my room and Ichika’s. Our rooms let sound through almost completely.

Ichika and Nitori both knew about Shizuki! When I thought that, the world suddenly seemed brighter.

“Hey, Shizu. We all really like you. We’re all happy we met you. Don’t say you’re leaving…!” Nitori tightly squeezed Shizuki’s free hand. Her gaze was full of unfiltered warmth.

“Who cares if you were bullied and came here to escape that? I’m glad you managed to get away. We’re all happy our precious little sister is safe!” Ichika said, her voice echoing throughout the foyer.

They bravely came closer as they spoke, tinges of anger coloring their expressions. As I watched the two of them, brilliant courage welled up from deep inside me.

“Don’t go… Don’t go, Shizuki! We’re quadruplets, and you’re an important part of our family!” I screamed the loudest I’d ever screamed.

Urara frowned, furrowing her eyebrows, and shouted hysterically, “That doesn’t matter! Shizuki said she’d live with me!” Then she added, “I’m the one who Shizuki thinks of as family, not you!”

It felt like the blood was going to burst out of my heart. There was no way Shizuki didn’t think of us as a family…!

The days the four of us spent together flashed through my mind rapidly. We’d had fights, painful memories, and tough moments, but knowing I had a family of sisters made me feel joyful, ecstatic, and blessed… We were always smiling…

Smiling?

Had Shizuki been smiling?

Wait, huh? I couldn’t remember her smiling once. Shizuki, and only Shizuki, hadn’t smiled…

We had barged in and called ourselves her family, but maybe Shizuki didn’t—

“You’re wrong!”

A voice rang out in the cold air. It was the loudest I had ever heard Shizuki speak.

“My sisters are my family!”

I thought I must’ve been dreaming for a moment. Sisters. Family. Had she…just said that? Powerful emotion flooded my chest, making the backs of my eyes burn. Tears silently trickled down my cheeks.

“What are you talking about, Shizuki? You said there was no place for you here. You came to me because you wanted to be a family, didn’t you?” Urara’s voice trembled with anger.

“No…I didn’t want my sisters to get caught up in my bullying or problems! I didn’t want to hurt the dear family I’d finally found, so I wanted to leave. You might be my mother, but you’re no family of mine!”

I couldn’t believe she had that much strength in her slender body.

Shizuki quickly shook free of Urara’s hand. Then she took another deep breath.

“My sisters accepted me. Even when I rejected them, they still said they wouldn’t let me go, that we were family! That’s why… That’s why I…” Thick teardrops spilled out with her words.

Ichika’s and Nitori’s eyes were just as damp, and they looked happy and sad at the same time.

“You dummy! Why are you like that?!” Nitori shouted.

“That’s right, you’re silly…” Ichika paused for a moment, then said. “Did you really think we’d be happy without you?”

“We want to be part of your life, no matter what happens to you!”

We hugged our little sister tightly. The rusty lock broke off, and the door to her heart creaked as it opened slowly. I thought I could hear the sound myself.

“Sis…”

Only Shizuki’s sniffling filled the air.

“Um… Are you girls okay?” a slightly confused but kind voice asked.

Startled, I looked up to see our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Sato, standing by the gate.

“Well, I heard yelling… Oh my, what’s the matter? Are you crying?” Mrs. Sato looked at us, surprised. Then she fixed Urara with a suspicious look as if to ask, “And who might you be?”

“Tch.” Urara brushed back her long hair. “I see how it is. I’ll leave for now. But…I’ll be back soon.” She gave a defiant smirk and walked away, her heels clicking sharply.

16

We Four Sisters

“All done, Shizu.”

The purple hair clip rested gently on top of her black hair.

Yep, it looked even better than I thought it would! I beamed at Shizuki in the mirror.

Her hair tied half up, she slowly blinked again and again.

“This hides the back of your neck and looks elegant and chic. It’s perfect for you, Shizu!” Nitori kept nodding, pleased with herself.

“She really is cute.” Ichika hugged Shizuki’s shoulders and rubbed their cheeks together.

“Super cute!” I hugged her from behind, and Shizuki gave a strange yelp and hid her face with both hands.

The three of us older sisters laughed and took turns patting Shizuki’s head. Then we moved to the living room, snapped a picture of the four of us, and sent it off to Mr. Fujiyama.

We’d successfully completed our independence mission: to wear matching items as a foursome.

We settled onto the floor cushions and sighed in relief.

“Who do you think that woman really was anyway? You seriously met up with her, Shizuki? By yourself? Where? How many times?” As Ichika shot question after question at her, Shizuki answered quicker than ever before.

“Sh-she approached me on my way home from school, then drove me to a coffee shop, and we talked maybe twice…”

“You shouldn’t go off with strangers. What if she’d kidnapped you?”

“I’m sorry…but she looked just like us…” Shizuki’s shoulders drooped sadly.

I remembered Urara’s face. She really did seem like a grown-up version of us, which made it hard to believe she wasn’t related to us somehow…

…and it wasn’t just her face.

“We can do a DNA test if you need proof.” The confidence in her voice had to mean something.

“Is she really…our mom?” I asked. If she was, should we really have chased her off like that…?

“Even…even assuming she is our real mother…”

“Real mom or not, tryin’ to tear us apart makes her the bad guy. Even if that lady’s our birth mother, she’s not our mom!”

Where Ichika hesitated, Nitori came out and said it straight.

“I hate that old hag! What does she mean, ‘situation’? Helping ‘the one who’s most in need.’ Yeah, right!” Nitori clenched her fists, glaring with narrow eyes. “She probably asked people from the facility or school about us and snooped. Then she figured Shizu was the only one without a hair clip, so she would be the saddest and be easy to manipulate. Too bad! Shizu’s not some poor, helpless kid!”

Brightening up in an instant, Nitori tightly hugged Shizuki and rubbed their cheeks together.

“Fweeeh?!” Shizuki’s cheeks turned bright red as she grew flustered.

Oh… Come to think of it, Minato had texted me about a woman who “kind of looked like me” asking about quadruplets. That must have been Urara.

“Well…she could be bluffing about the DNA testing,” Ichika said, but she looked worried.

“Hey, Shizuki, what do you think?” I’d started to feel anxious, too, and wanted Shizuki’s opinion. She might have picked up on something when she was talking with Urara one-on-one.

“Um… Er… Well…” Shizuki went silent and looked down. There was a piercing glint in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. After a few seconds, she calmly looked back up.

“I wasn’t thinking straight, either… That woman’s claims were illogical. Judging by her appearance alone, you can tell she comes from an affluent background. Even when it was just the two of us, a massive limo came to pick us up. She paid at the coffee shop with a black card. Even though she’s more than financially capable, she’s decided to take in only one of her biological children… Blood relation aside, I don’t think she has what it takes to be a parent.”

We froze, our mouths wide-open. We were amazed to hear Shizuki, who was usually so quiet, speak so persuasively. After a little while, Ichika blinked several times and muttered:

“Are you…a detective?”

Shizuki hung her head shyly. “I like mystery novels… I didn’t like being at the facility or at school, so I spent a lot of time in the library.”

Or so she said.

That reminded me, when the letter from our mom came, Shizuki was the first to notice it had been put directly in the mailbox. Shizuki might be a genius! It made me happy to learn something unexpected about her.

“That’s amazing, Shizuki! By the way…what’s a black card?” When I asked, Nitori smirked next to me and answered:

“It’s just a black card.”

“Huh, so it’s exactly what it sounds like.”

“Just kidding. I think it’s a credit card only super-rich people have. I’m not sure, though.”

Super rich…

Like Shizuki had before, I also found myself thinking hard. Who…was Urara? Was she our real mom? If she was, why would she insist on taking only one of us?

I squeezed the pale-blue heart-shaped pendant my mother had left me. She’d said she’d be back again soon… Maybe next time, we’d really be separated—

“Shizuki, was there anything else you noticed?” Ichika asked, flustered.

“Let’s see… Hang on a moment.” Shizuki brought back a large, white handkerchief from her room. “She gave me this. Yesterday, my bag got wet in the rain…and I happened to forget to bring my handkerchief to school… So she said, ‘I’ll give you this one.’ But…this handkerchief probably won’t provide any clues…”

Shizuki’s shoulders sagged.

“Can I see it?” I casually unfolded the handkerchief. It was a shiny, expensive-looking fabric, edged with lace—

“Hmm?”

There was some cute embroidery on the edges: pink, red, light blue, purple. A four-leaf clover with four different-colored leaves.

So cute! It was the same colors the four of us liked.

Huh…? But this logo… I thought I’d seen it before…

Grooowl!

“Whoa…!”

Out of nowhere, my stomach growled like I was in a comic book. Everyone laughed at my bright-red face. Then Ichika clapped loudly, trying to brighten the mood.

“All right, breakfast time. We’ll do our chores, then go buy some cake this afternoon.”

“Cake?!” I looked up quickly.

“Hey, Shizu, what kind of cake do you want?”

“What…?” Shizuki opened her eyes wide and went quiet when Nitori asked.

“Yeah. Today, I was thinking of buying your favorite cake, Shizuki. How does that sound?” Ichika took out the pamphlet from the cake shop and spread it open on the desk. There were pictures of lots of tasty-looking cakes: strawberry, fruitcake, chocolate, cheesecake.

“Is that really…okay? It isn’t just my birthday.” Shizuki turned her head down, and Nitori patted her on the back.

“It’s fine. This year, we’ll have your favorite cake. Next year, Mifu’s. The year after, mine, and the year after that, we’ll have Ichika’s favorite cake.”

“I like that idea!” I was excited already. “And once we finish, we’ll loop back around and start with Shizuki again. Then it can be me, then Nitori, then Ichika.”

“We’ll always be family, won’t we?” Shizuki said, realizing the obvious for the first time.

“Yep!”

“That’s right.”

“Always.”

We all smiled at her.

It was clear as day, but it was still an amazing thing. Family stayed together. No matter how much time passed or what happened, we would always be family.

“I…” Shizuki stopped to think. “I think I’ll go with the fruitcake.”

She spoke so everyone could hear her. The reserved Shizuki who’d always said, “I’m fine with anything,” or “Either is fine,” was no more.

I was so glad, I squeezed Shizuki’s hand firmly. Nitori smiled with satisfaction and hopped up.

“All right! Tonight, we party together!”

“A party?! All right!”

As I stood, I threw my arms up in a big cheer.

Bam!

“Eek!”

“Whoa!”

“Ack!”

One of the big balloons burst as I hit it with my nail! Everyone shrugged.

A moment later, we slowly lifted our heads to see…

…the four-colored confetti inside the balloon—pink, red, light blue, and purple—fluttering and dancing gracefully.

“They’re like cherry blossoms…”

Ichika, who had been opposed to balloons with confetti inside, muttered dreamily, “It’s like a wedding.”

Smiling happily, Shizuki said quietly, “Happy thirteenth birthday, everyone.”

Nitori shouted happily, and I loudly followed her lead.

“This confetti is to celebrate us becoming a family!”

Someone started laughing, and we all joined in.

The four of us wore our matching hair clips.

As our laughter echoed, the clips sparkled in the morning sun, like fragments of rainbows fluttering down from the sky after a storm.