Persona! Gosei High

[InTheMachine]

“Dango,” Akiko says emphatically as she gets up. I don’t want to eat too much. I’m not sure how scary the maze will be.

“I bet there’s taiyaki somewhere too,” she says, naming Koji’s favorite festival sweet.

At least she hoped it was still his favorite sweet. The last time they’d gone to a festival together they were both ten and Yoshiro was still eight since his birthday was later in the year. She remembered that Koji was adamant about finding the illusive taiyaki stand run by Mrs. Kimura. She only showed up to one or two festivals a year, if that.

Yukine, Akiko’s brother who was twenty at the time, had driven the three of them a few towns over to where he’d heard that Mrs. Kimura was going to be set up.

The memory makes her smile sadly. While they’d had a great time, they’d been unable to find the stand. Koji had pouted all the way home while she and Yukine had tried to cheer him up, saying that they could go next year. But they never did.

That summer, Yukine got hired at the same wealth management firm as her father. While he’d still made time for her, they’d never managed to do another trip like that. And now they never would.

She and Koji had drifted apart too, after he got into a traveling baseball league, and then made the team in middle school.

Akiko takes steadying breath and then follows the boys to the food stalls, keeping an eye out for one that sells the two foods she mentioned.