On the morning of enrollment day, Che brought that ordinary pen.
The pen was very ordinary, so ordinary that Kiyo lost interest after only two glances. Its wooden shaft was not new, its tip had been sharpened smoothly enough, and it had no special weight in his hand. As Che slipped it into his sleeve pouch, he suddenly felt as if he were carrying a ninja tool even more difficult to use than a kunai.
Because this pen represented what he could write today, and what he could not.
The wooden notebook was left in the house at East Row 2, No. 7. Nao had watched him place it in the cabinet with her own eyes, as if making sure he was not secretly taking half his brain to the ninja academy.
"Can you bear to leave it?" she asked again.
Che sighed. "Aunt Nao, you already asked that once."
"Important questions can be asked twice."
"It is not about whether I can bear to. It should not go."
Nao nodded. "Then remember this: not everything needs to be written down on the spot at the ninja academy."
Kiyo cut in from the side. "What about literacy homework?"
"That needs to be written," Nao said.
Kiyo looked as if fate had landed a precise hit on him.
Saori straightened the cloth around her bell again. Today, she had not wrapped the bell tightly shut. Its sound was very faint, making a tiny noise when she walked. She looked at Nao. "If someone asks, I can choose not to answer."
Nao crouched down and smoothed the hem of her doll's clothes. "You can. You can also answer a little. It is your choice."
Those words stirred something in Che's heart.
It is your choice.
He had been learning that lately: not