When my eyes opened, my room was dark. Apparently I had fallen asleep.

I went to the kitchen to drink some water and then sat on my bed without turning on the light.

I didn’t really want to think about Fujisaki, but I ended up doing it anyway.

At one time I thought he was beautiful inside, but now I had no idea. I was completely exhausted.

Along with my confusion about Fujisaki, a nebulous guilt was circulating through my body.

At the park, while I was getting him to talk to me, I had suddenly had a thought:

I’m exploiting the existence of this old woman, aren’t I?

No beauty, no ugliness? People would let down their guard to a little old lady?

Seniors fall in love; they worry about beauty and ugliness. It’s not as if every elderly woman is all-accepting. Of course, some of them are tolerant. Some have lost interesting in romance, while others never had any to begin with. Everything depends not on age or sex, but the individual. But I had forgotten that simple fact and lumped them all carelessly together.

I hated myself, and I heaved a sigh.

My phone was blinking green with a message. My wrinkled, old-woman hand surfaced in the darkness and then vanished again.

I had gotten a message from Fujisaki.

“Today someone pointed something out to me, so I was thinking about what I like about you besides your face, Kyoko. And there was an endless flood of things. This is going to be long, but first of all, there’s how you actually listen when people are talking? And how when you’re happy about something, you just say so? And I like how when something bugs you, it shows right away in your expression. And how when we’re watching fighting game videos, you always root for the player who’s about to lose—it’s so kind. Also, I like the weird way you only ever post fried shrimp on Instagram. I like the time I spend with you, and I like the time I spend without you; I like the times I wonder, What’s Kyoko up to? And there are so many other things...”

Fujisaki’s message went on and on; it was so long I had to scroll multiple times.

Suddenly, I laughed.

Earlier in the day, when he suddenly started typing on his phone in front of old-woman me, it must have been to write this.

I was filled with happiness.

My feelings for Fujisaki had been on a rollercoaster that day, and I was tired.

Yeah, I really do like him.

The thought put my mind at ease so I could sleep, but when I woke up in the morning, I was so weary I couldn’t move.

Why? I wondered, but I realized it must have been an issue caused by the old-woman skin.

I had worn it for so long that the pain of old age had caught up with me.

I gotta take it off.

I figured I would be fine once I got the skin off, but when I tried to remove it the way I usually did, pinching at my temples and pushing up hard, it wouldn’t peel away. It seemed to be stuck tight. Pinch, pinch. I tried grabbing the skin in every possible place on my body, but it was no use. I wanted to avoid cutting it. When I tried again to pull as hard as I could on my temples, I stumbled and bumped into my shelf. The kokeshi on it fell to the floor and broke so neatly I couldn’t believe it.

Staring at the two halves of the body, my eyes filled with tears, and the rokurosen seemed to warp.

What should I do?

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The shock made me forget my physical pain, and after getting out all of my apologies to the kokeshi, I said, “I have to give it a memorial,” like a prayer.

Could I take it to Tsuchiyu Onsen? It seemed like they put the kokeshi they accepted on display or repurposed them as art. When can I go? As I opened my schedule app and confirmed my plans with all the speed I could muster, I remembered the old story about Tsuchiyu Onsen.

How Shotoku Taishi’s ambassador had been healed in the hot spring.

And the illness had been something to do with numbness.

If I took a bath there, maybe the skin situation would resolve itself.

It seemed like I could take a quick trip that very day.

I called the office with my hoarse voice, made sure I didn’t have a fever, carefully wrapped the kokeshi and put it in my bag, and set off for Tokyo Station.

Along the way in the Shinkansen to Fukushima Station, and in the taxi from Fukushima Station to Tsuchiyu Onsen, I thought about how to reply to Fujisaki but didn’t come up with anything.

At the onsen resort, just like before, huge kokeshi stood welcoming me beside Arakawa-Ohashi Bridge. Such reassuring eyes, I thought. Nothing will faze those eyes.

I want to be that courageous.

What made me think that was finding Yuri in the bath I entered.

She must have taken a vacation and come to the onsen as well. I wanted to ask, but how could I? I was an old woman. I figured I would steer clear of her so I wouldn’t be found out, but seeing her for the first time in so long warmed my heart.

The kokeshi was in the changing room. Ideally I wanted to give it a memorial feeling refreshed, if mournful, so I decided to soak in the hot spring first. I had the feeling the pain in my body had eased somewhat, but I was nervous. Yuri had been staring at me for a while now.

“Umm, can I help you?” I asked, unable to endure her gaze any longer. I both looked and sounded like an old woman, not the me Yuri knew.

There was no way she could have recognized me.

And yet...

“Kyoko?” she said.

“Huh?”

“Kyoko, it’s you, right? I knew it.”

“But how?”

“Why do you look like that? Why are you old?”

“How did you know it was me?”

“Huh? I just knew. For whatever reason, the moment I saw you, I thought, ‘This old lady seems like Kyoko,’ and then it really was.”

“Whaaat? Isn’t that a little too bizarre?”

“Nah, what’s bizarre is you looking like an old lady. What’s the deal? Is it cosplay? Or has one of us slipped decades through time?”

Yuri floated over to me and touched the old woman skin.

I was about to tell her it was stuck to me and wouldn’t come off, but when she pinched the skin, it stretched—byooo.

“Oh my gosh!”

When I shrieked, Yuri was surprised that I was surprised.

I got out of the tub and took the old-woman skin off in the washing area.

“Wow!” Yuri marveled, so I put it on and took it off a few times.

We laughed together.

I have a hunch that maybe the reason the skin loosened up wasn’t just that I had relaxed in the hot water, but also that Yuri had seen me as me regardless of how I looked.

When I went to deliver the kokeshi, Yuri came along. It made me happy when she said it must have been a special one. Maybe the kokeshi I broke would be reborn and meet us again someday.

I got the bathhouse to let me hang the skin up to dry in the changing room. It seemed like it would take some time, so after strolling around with Yuri for a while, we sat on a bench.

Eating pudding made with eggs cooked in the hot spring, I tried to think of when to tell her.

About the old-woman skin and how it had tried to protect me.

About Fujisaki.

I wanted to tell her everything that had happened since I had left for Tokyo.

And I wanted to try telling her again how I hated being called pretty.

Even if that made things awkward, I was sure we would be fine. I mean, she had just spotted me without relying on my appearance. Maybe I’ll tell Fujisaki that I was the old woman, I thought.

Yuri said, “I bet we’ll be together even when we’re old ladies. We’ll be bathing in hot springs and eating pudding, just like this.”

“Uh-huh. I think so, too.”

“Whoa, look.”

It was snowing out of season.

When I glanced toward the Taishi-Do building, I saw someone. It was the old woman who had given me the skin. A young woman was just coming up the stairs. Seeing her, the old woman smiled.

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