There was a girl I used to play with in my early elementary school days. Her name was Kirika Shirata, and she was a small, fat but charming girl who would often visit me at home. Her house was rather rich, and she always had expensive looking snacks to look forward to.
–By the time we reached the upper-grade of elementary school, boys naturally started to hang out with boys and the girls with girls, and an atmosphere of “it’s dumb to hang out with the opposite sex” naturally developed. There was no exception for me and Shirata, and I began to distance myself from her because I didn’t like the way others treated us, and at about the same time, she became known as “white pig” and was teased because of her appearance.
Although we lived in the same neighborhood and often walked home together, I don’t remember talking with her properly until we graduated.
Time has passed and I, Satsuki Ameno, am now in my second year of high school. Although I went to a different junior high school and high school from Shirata, I still feel a little guilty sometimes when I remember her. We live close to each other, but I haven’t seen her since graduation.
Then one day, a girl shows up at the convenience store where I work part-time twice a week. She had come to buy the manga magazine that was on sale that day.
“You work here, right?”
“Isn’t that you, Satsuki?”
“Oh, you don’t remember me by any chance? I’m not sure.”
“S-Shira… ta?”
The girl who was once ridiculed as a white pig has grown into a beautiful girl with slender black hair and white skin. And she was the gravure on the cover of the manga magazine she held in her hands.
This is a slow-paced love story that moves forward little by little while guilt puts the brakes on.