As the days get hotter, summer fruits are being harvested one by one. Fruits from the mainland are increasing too. Grandfather occasionally goes out to help with work and brings back lots of fruit, and on very hot days, I think I might have died long ago if there weren’t fruits soaked in cold water.

I can’t imagine summer without peaches and cherries.

Iota’s summer is exceptionally long. Today, I almost burned the back of my hand in the sunlight coming through the glass. No joke, I was just leaning on the windowsill for a moment, but my forehead and cheeks became as mushy as an overripe peach.

When I feel the heat intensifying day by day, I realize ‘the party is approaching.’ Iota’s party is held on the longest day of the year.

It’s just one day, but everyone is enthusiastic from dawn until dawn the next day. Even Grandfather always came home after midnight on party days.

Not to mention Aila, who was the most popular person on the island. (Just to clarify, she didn’t come home at all.)

Aila was good at everything except tasks requiring imagination, and she was good at having fun too. She could be cold to family members but was generally kind.

As the party approached, Aila would decorate that year’s newly bought dress with flowers and imitation jewels. She was so skilled that she could attach decorations without pricking her finger once on the needle. It was quite enjoyable to watch a simple dress transform into something splendid.

Her smooth movements were as natural as waves flowing. She would also ask for my opinion while contemplating her hairstyle for the day. Though she never followed my suggestions.

Personally, I liked it best when she loosely braided her gathered hair. It was probably two years ago. Even then, Aila met with neat-looking kids. The people who went to parties with my sister changed every year, but her expression was always the same.

As if stamped from the same mold. They all handed Aila the same flowers. All the flowers from the island are similar, and the flowers they gave were the same ones in our table vase. But what else could the boys—older than me but—who hadn’t gone to the mainland do?

My sister accepted the bouquets with understanding. With flowers in one hand and her partner’s hand in the other, she walked gracefully. The men all followed hesitantly behind, as if worried she might fly away if they breathed on her.

I quietly watched from behind the window. Though I called it a ‘party,’ there’s no special venue.

In other words, most of the island is like a ballroom. If you walk about thirty minutes from our house, there’s a small shopping area, and it starts from there.

Poor lovers can also have a wonderful date just by walking all night. On that day, the whole island is bustling, and even if you lie down with the windows closed in your bedroom, you can hear people’s whispers and faint instrument sounds.

The playlist is so repetitive that even I, who only lay in bed, can remember the tunes.

If I could play the piano, I’d try to follow along. No, um. It doesn’t matter. I’m not talented enough to transpose music from memory.

As for the piano, I only watched from the side as Aila occasionally played. I wonder if I should have said I wanted to learn when my sister was here?

Grandfather can’t play the piano either. Aila knows because she learned from mom. I…… just, didn’t particularly feel like learning.

But now that Aila is gone too, if the piano is left as is, it will become a dust-collecting nuisance, so it wouldn’t be bad to learn now.

Oh, this is the last of the ink. I’ll end here.

June 29,

Sent by Asha]

[To the incredibly kind Asha

I understand VERY well how outstanding your sister Aila was. You seem to have completely forgotten, but it was just a month ago that I was suffering from the pain of rejection.

Please don’t tear into this fragile heart anymore. I firmly believe that we can have very meaningful and enjoyable conversations without ‘Miss Aila.’

Do you understand?

Do you really understand?

You do understand, right?

Let’s talk about something fresher. Freshly picked fruit! You said you don’t envy me, but I envy you terribly.

As for fruit, we only have wild strawberries, and we mainly preserve fruits from other regions in sugar or honey to eat over time.

There have been countless cases where we excitedly imported grapes or plums from other regions, only to have them rot or get buried under thick ice. We had to console ourselves with preserved fruits.

But when fruits that would have been sweet even eaten plain—surely they would be refreshingly sweet?—are simmered in sugar or honey, they become terribly sweet, too much to eat without anything else.

They’re barely edible when placed on bread. The texture also becomes uniformly mushy, which is disappointing in many ways.

Occasionally, Mrs. Margie uses wine to add flavor when cooking, which is perfect for covering fishy smells, but I’m not sure what other use it has.

Someday, I too want to eat piles of seasonal fruits of various kinds. Peaches and grapes with juice dripping, and the cherries you like. For me, these are literally stories from ‘pictures.’

Today, I rode a horse around the village. The village, free from traces of winter, is full of green and tender leaves. The dew with the chill of dawn gives a refreshing feeling just from its smell.

When I was about a span shorter than now, I rode a brown donkey, but recently I’ve grown quite tall, so I occasionally borrow my mother’s horse. I don’t have my own horse yet, but there are always one or two spare horses at the stable.

Today’s chosen one has splendid dark brown fur like tree bark. Above the hooves, it’s white as if covered in thick snow, and it seems popular among the other horses too.

I crossed the wide fields surrounding the mansion and went somewhere a bit too far to walk. I ran out of letter paper.

I could ask my father, but I’m almost sixteen, so I don’t need to ask for such trivial things. There are exactly two places in Kasoche where you can buy letter paper. One makes paper by hand, and the other is a general store that imports paper from other regions.

The paper made in our region is sturdy but not very pretty, so today I chose letter paper from the general store. There were papers that sparkled depending on the angle as if absorbing light, papers with faint patterns, and papers so thin you could see your palm through them.

I tried using a light green-tinted paper among them, how is it? It’s thinner than the paper I used before, and when held up to the sky, it changes to a curious color.

It’s just like a newly sprouting bud. Kasoche is full of that light now. How about where you live?

Does it feel cool and vibrantly alive like this place?

As we enter the beginning of summer.

Your friend, Carol

P.S. I’m enclosing sheet music. It’s a simple piano piece that you can follow after practicing a few times. Do you know finger positions? Just in case, I’ve drawn a diagram below. Piano and drawing are among my hobbies. I’ve memorized this piece, so you don’t need to return the sheet music.]

“Child, do you need something?”

“Ah, yes. I ran out of paper.”

“Paper? It’s in the first drawer of the study.”

The hands examining every corner of the house were urgent. Impatiently rattling the drawer, Asha pouted her lips and muttered.

“I used all of that too.”

“Oh my, we’ll have to buy more. Tomorrow or the day after, this old man will go down and buy some. Today I promised to watch the children over there.”

“Tomorrow……”

I want to reply right away.

Her empty fingers kept fidgeting. The gesture slowly wiping the piano cover in the corner of the reception room looked strangely anxious.

“I’ll go.”

“What, huh?”

“I said I’ll go. The bookstore is still in the same place, right?”

“Well, yes, but……”

Faded eyes gazed intently at his delicate granddaughter. Despite suffering from the intensifying heat just hours ago, she now murmured clearly as if nothing had happened.

“I need to buy ink anyway.”

“There are several more bottles of ink in the attic.”

Asha recalled the dull ink stains on her hands and shook her head. She could have replied using the plain paper she always used with black ink, but today she didn’t want to do that.