The Twelve Kingdoms: Shadow of the Moon

flyers."
    "Like, have you seen this girl? That kind of thing."
    "Hey, you guys are getting way carried away with this."
    "Yeah, it's got nothing to do with us."
    "She ran away from home, that's all."
    "That's right. It's only when it happens to an honor student that everybody gets all bent out of shape."
    "She took off with her boyfriend. Nobody wants to admit it, but when a girl falls for a guy like that, nothing she does is going to make any sense at all."
    "That's harsh. You were friends with her, weren't you?"
    "I never did much more than talk to her. To tell the truth, I didn't like her that much."
    "I know. It was always like she was better than the rest of us."
    "Definitely."
    "I heard her parents were super strict, always on about how she was supposed to be a 'young lady.'"
    "That's what I'm saying. But it sure was useful, her always getting her homework done on time."
    "True, true. Fact is, I haven't even touched today's math assignment."
    "Hey, me, neither"
    "Didn't anybody?"
    "Nobody besides Nakajima."
    "Youko, come back, please!"
    Bright laughter gushed forth. At once the fraternal scene before her blurred, grew dim. The images bent and distorted, the figures dissolved away. Then in a twinkle vanished. The light went out and all that was left was the blade of the sword.

Chapter 30
    Y ouko lowered the sword, now painfully heavy in her hand. She had known all along, deep in her heart, that those she called her friends were not her friends at all.
    For a brief moment of their lives they had been stuck together, shut up cheek by jowl in a little cage. Next year they would end up in different homerooms and forget about each other. After they graduated they would probably never meet again.
    Even so, the tears welled up.
    She knew these relationships were temporary at best. Yet, and perhaps all the more so, she had hoped to discover some greater truth hidden inside. She wished she could fly back to that classroom, plead her case before them. How would they respond then, she wondered.
    They were living far from here in a peaceful country, young women who undoubtedly believed they experienced much misery and woe in their lives. Once upon a time, the same had been true of her.
    The thought made Youko laugh so hard she ended up rolling around on the ground clutching her stomach. Curled up like that in a fetal position, it struck her that she was alone, truly alone, totally cut off from the rest of the world.
    When she fought with her parents, when she had a falling out with her friends, or when she simply felt down for a spell and told herself how lonely she was, hadn't that been little more than an indulgence? She had a home to go home to, people who would not turn against her at the drop of a hat, who would console her. And if all that went away she could make more friends soon enough, even if they were only fair-weather friends.
    Just then she heard the sound of a voice that, as many times as she had heard it, she still could not stand. Curled up on the ground she grimaced.
    "You can't go back, I keep telling you."
    "I don't want to hear it."
    "But as long as you are thinking about it, shall we consider the substance of your hypothetical? Even supposing you could go back, nobody would be waiting for you. You simply are not a person worth waiting for."
    In some way, the monkey's appearances were connected to the visions she saw in the sword. The blue monkey always showed up immediately after she saw a vision. It never did her any physical harm. It's just that he never said anything she wanted to hear, and in that grating tone of voice. Moreover, Jouyuu did not react to him in the slightest.
    "My mother is!"
    There came to her mind the image from another vision of her mother petting the stuffed doll. Even if she could not call her friends real friends, she could count on her mother to stand by her. A sudden welling up of homesickness made her chest hurt.
    "My mom was crying for me. That's why, someday, I know I'm going home."
    The monkey laughed all the harder. "But of course. She's your mother, after all. It's always so sad for a parent to lose a child.
    "What's that supposed to mean?"
    Youko raised her head above the underbrush. There was the monkey's head, bathed in blue light, close enough to touch with her outstretched arm.
    "Oh, she's not sad because you have gone missing, little girl. She's sad because her child is gone. Her sorrow amounts to nothing more than that. Can you not even understand this