This was the real lifestyle: not fancy vacations, but the ritual of summer. The cold metal of the shaved ice shaver. The mountain of white snow. The violent splash of red syrup. The brain freeze.
Click.
But Kenji wasn’t thinking about homework. He was thinking about gacha .
“Kenji! Look!” Yui held up her sketchbook. She had drawn a shaved ice machine. Kakigōri.
The sun over Tokyo was a white-hot blister, and the cicadas were screaming their lungs out. In the small, tidy apartment in Setagaya, seven-year-old Kenji stared at the polished wooden floor.
“Stop,” Kenji said.