caused some controvcrsr in Japan for ,ts dcp,crion of 1hr uncon,ent1onal loH· affair bctwcrn a won1an 111 her rh1rt1r!>

The}' can't help me, so J'm going to cake chc plunge. Bcrrcr ro cake a nsk than play 1t safe

Namiko is my inferior. I have her test all the dangerous waters for me. Then all I need to do is jump in after her. amiko gcnerallr recommends me co try everything.

I got mad. But I was afraid to fight back. Namiko scares me. The reason I'm still hanging out with Namiko isn't friendship or anything, it's chat I'm too scared to tell her that I can't stand her, or how low I feel when she criticizes m

There's the smell of sperm in my nostrils ... I can't chink ... What's the matter with me? ... Noth­ing. It's nothing ...

Oh well, J guess I've made my decision, and there's no going back now. And probably Ryuji treats me like chis because, on some level, he senses my lack of feelings and looks down on me

We talk, but the subject of Masumi never comes up. Akina gets mentioned from time to time, but only as someone

he acts at first as if she's never heard the name before. "Huh? Oh. Aki na. No, I never see her. If we happen to be in the school cafeteria at the same time, she totally ignores me.

And now I've promised. J'm stuck with it. All I've got to do is lie there, right? Then after that once, I'm going to break up with him.

Komugi, chis is gross. Look at it. All chis fat around your stomach. You really need to lose some weight." Does he have to make chat face? This is my body.

Truthfully, I'm not the type to screw around and get into trouble. I just hang out and don't do anything bad. I can't even enjoy myself unless l believe cha

You're so useless!" R.yuji is always sur­rounded by women.

I've never really been jealous-in fact, I don't know what jealousy feels like. Unbelievable really, but I really don't feel it at a 11.

Giving me a phone when I don't want one-it's like a mild punishment. And what's worse, it's pearly pink.

Come to chink of it, I don't really trust Namiko. IfI tell her, she'll make too much of a deal of it. She'll try to analyze every lirtlc derail.

Ac this rate, I might even lose my virginity by the end of the summer, because I don't really know how to say no.

y. "You'll make a wonderful wife," the homeroom teacher used co tease her.

"Noc really. They cold me when I was in elementary school. I just thought, whatever. If they'd lied co me about it, I might have turned bad or something, I guess."

You're joshing me. Huh, you'll have to call me chen."

he doesn't have to sell her body in some sleazy joint somewhere to make money. As for me, J couldn't make it doing either of chose things,

For a while, it is a blast, but pretty soon I start to feel pissed off being here with her. When the conversation gets stuck, there's no one to rescue us. Just the two of us hanging out-it's too stressful

Thar's complete crap. We just don'c say anything mean to each ocher. We've learned char much over rhe years. The bonds between us may be stretched chinner and chinner, bur they'll never break. The/II last forever

Especially my father. He's fifty­five or six or something. Around there. That's weird. You hardly ever come across parents who are almost sixty. Akina's got married when they were teenagers

I'll never choose a man like that. It's so shallow, choos­ing each ocher only by looks and not by what's inside," she sneers.

When I'm speaking to my parents, all rhe words seem co come our wrong.

In the end, just because we went along to the festival with Masumi,

I'm not particularly popular with guys, so that's a good way for me to go. Trouble is, I'm not that smart. My face isn't going to do it for me though (and I can't stand post-plastic surgery faces. It looks like they've just been turned into the doctor's idea of a cute face), so l'm stuck with relying on my brains.

'm pretty talented, so maybe I'll go all the way through to grad school. Then I won't have to get a job.

t's so retarded-there's a student meeting in the auditorium

Well, I just don't get this responsibility. I don't want to have anything to do with it at all, okay?

But they're sooo different, like when they climb the stairs, they always keep to the

in middle school the teach­ers starred to dump them, letting them hide out at the nurse's office.

A number five friend, organized and quiet, and from a one-parent family. That would work. Thar's rhc same as Akina, except fifth. I'd like to sec a girl like cha

Seriously. I steal glances at Akina's face as she skillfully picks up a whole beef-tendon kebab with her chopsticks and crams it into her mouth. Then there's Narniko who has accidentally mashed her hard-boiled egg into her soup and is now having to slurp it down; Masumi who can't guite

But really I hate the whole subject of money. I feel depressed ifI lend someone ten yen

In the group, we don't really care that much about Masumi, so I didn't pay much attention to what my mom said

poker face

Looks like he thought it would appeal to a middle-school student if he wrote it on pastel blue paper. With a picture of a kitten

Hey, cool-it turns our I might actually know what love feels like. I chink I'll keep the whole thing secret. For about ten years. The love of my life-him alone

ell, you don't talk about serious problems, right? You don't burden your best friends with the really heavy scuff

got to worry about is whether or not to go out with Ryuji Toshima.

my parents are going to pay for it coo,

Well, we haven't ,lCtuallr tested whether we reallr do mesh. It wouldn't be right co just go off together, and anyway if we did, the group would break up

Thar is sooo lame. Everyone's so busy with working and study­ing chat they're complcrcly wiped. Do people really date at that kind of festival?

dult men going out with middle-schoolgirls.

she's pissed off that the architect guy

the front door the whole place is, like, packed with birdcages

We're all wear­ing the cardigans chat are totally in among the girls at our school.

Masumi has two older sisters, so playing the baby is her force