BGM: Hakkyou Piano

After finishing her homework, Sanae took a break and looked at her watch. It was already around eleven o’clock at night.
When she opened the curtain and looked out the window, she saw that the large moon she had noticed earlier was still there.

She turned off the light. The moonlight became the only light in the room, but it was bright enough that Sanae thought she might be able to study. She was not going to do anything like that, though, like some poor great man of the past.

The girl wondered if Renko and Merry were making a wish to the moon right now. This moon is more than a fantasy – it’s like something is going to go wrong by staring at it.

Sanae picked up her phone, which she had left on the bed. There were two messages.
As soon as she was told by her mother that she couldn’t go, she sent a message to both her friends saying that she couldn’t go.
Merry’s message was, “Sorry to hear that,” and Renko’s was, “Just come, we’ll be waiting”.

What to do?
>Go
>Don’t go

>Go | Sanae decided to go and stood up. But then her headache echoed, followed by her mother’s voice from earlier. Sanae sat up on her bed and held her temples. She wrinkled her brow and sighed. She checked her phone and read the words again. [the VN askes the “What to do?” question again]

>Don’t go | It had been a long time since she had heard back from them, and even if Renko said they were waiting for her, they might have already left. She knew she shouldn’t go.

Sanae sent an apologetic emoticon to both of them.

Sanae lay down on her bed and looked up at the moon.
It was the first time in her life that she had looked at the moon for such a long time.
She started to feel sleepy.

A sudden and irresistible desire to sleep like a log came over Sanae. Her eyelids were still heavy, and she struggled to take a bath, but she was too lazy to do so. While she was about to let go of her consciousness, thinking that tomorrow morning would be better…

Music stops

the sound of the front door opening cut through the silence and rang in her ears.

Her heart jumped and she woke up, and like a gust of wind clearing a deep fog, the sleepiness disappeared.

Maybe her mother had gone out. Or did someone come?

Either way, it was late at night. If it were the first option, she would have called out to Sanae, and if it were the second one, they would have been a thief because she hadn’t heard the intercom ring.

No way, her father came home at this time.
No, no, no, no, no, there was no way.
Curiosity got the better of her and she opened the door to her room.

The hallway was dark and the room seemed brighter. There was no sign of people or noise.

She closed the door slowly and walked down the stairs.
The lights were on in some places, but again, no one was there.

It would be reasonable to assume that her mother had gone somewhere. But where did she go?

As Sanae looked around the room, her eyes met the moon outside the window.
It was almost at its zenith, and it was big enough to talk to her.

“Your mother is not at home – there’s nothing to hold you there”
“Your mother is not at home – you’re free to leave”

A voiceless voice could be heard in Sanae’s ears. But at the same time, her mother’s voice was still stuck.

Those words of rejection that came from a Noh mask-like smile, so humid that it made her feel like she was being licked on the earlobe,

and she yelled “Whoa!”

The girl thought it was right to follow her mother’s voice and not leave this place, but it was rather wrong to be here, she shouldn’t be here.

She grabbed her cell phone and started running as if she were fleeing for the night.
The humidity was even worse as she came to the door wearing only the minimum of warm clothes.

Her body misunderstood that the atmospheric pressure was low here, and her head started to hurt, but she could still hear the moon’s voice, tormenting her brain.
She couldn’t take it anymore and shouted, “Shut up!”

Music reprises

Dragging her heavy body, Sanae managed to open the door and step outside. The persistent voices and the wet illusion she had just experienced were all gone, the air was clean and the night was cold.

The girl ran for a while with the horror she felt, then stopped and looked back.
What had just happened? Was that place, that house, really the house she was born and raised in?

Mum, myself, what is ordinary, what is normal?
She shook her head. Renko, Merry, save me.

When she looked at the message, Renko had politely sent her a map of what she called the best spot to pray to the Miracle Moon.

Music stops

“Hakurei Shrine…?”

Music reprises

Sanae had heard of it, but she wasn’t that familiar with it to immediately think of its view.
It doesn’t have a guardian deity, and it’s not a big enough shrine for the whole local community to go to for a New Year’s visit.
According to the map, it wasn’t far away. Renko and Merry might not be there anymore but she decided to head there anyway.

It was a very quiet shrine.
Not sure if there is such a thing as a flashy shrine with a strong presence, but if there is, it would be the opposite of this one.

The atmosphere was not solemn, but rather empty, and Sanae felt something similar to the fear she had felt earlier at home.

She hugged herself and went through the torii gate.
“Renko, Merry, are you there?”
She called out their names loudly. She was sucked into the seemingly endless darkness and felt like no one could reach her.

When she looked up, she saw the large moon at the zenith.
For some reason, rather than being protected, she felt crushed, and out of frustration, Sanae started to run.

She ran up the stone stairs, feeling like there was something in the woods and bushes right next to her. It was running with her, giggling, and shouting again in disgust at the air of something that was never one. Since she was a little girl, Sanae has always been good at sensing that kind of atmosphere, but her mother used to understand and protect her. But now her mother wasn’t there, and she was alone. Knowing nothing of how to protect herself, Sanae did her best to shout and keep the “something” away from her.

When they eventually came out into an opening, Sanae heard a sound of air popping in her ear and sat up, startled.

And then, uh-oh, a familiar voice fell on her back.

She turned around fearfully.

“…Mother?”
“Sanae, I told you not to come out!”

Her voice reassured her, and she tightened every muscle in her body that had loosened up.

The woman definitely looked like her mother, but the way she spoke and her expression were different.

Perhaps she was a different person after all.
And there was another woman there.
“Suwako, did you put up the barrier properly?
“Of course. I’ve even put some kotodama.”

Didn’t she say to not go?

Suwako patted Sanae’s head. But the palm of her hand didn’t have the reassurance it once had, and Sanae brushed it away with a trembling hand. A feeling of dread still dominated her body.

The other woman laughed gaily and told Suwako that she didn’t like her.
Was she a friend of Sanae’s mother? She was calling her by her first name, Suwako. It was the first time Sanae met her.

But maybe this mother is not the mother she knew. Judging from their conversation, it seemed that the fear she had felt earlier at home had come from this “mother.”

Sanae’s confused brain told her that she shouldn’t have been here.
But she couldn’t stand up because she was too weak.
Suwako sighed loudly as she watched Sanae try to stand up with all her might.
“It’s no use. You can’t run away when you’ve come this far. You have to give up.”

Sanae looked up at the sky when she was shunned.
The moon was talking to her.
It spoke to her in a familiar way, telling her to make a wish.
She squeezed her eyes shut and released her wish pleadingly.

“Give me back my mother! Give me back my normal, ordinary life!”

Until this morning, or until the moon rose, life was as it had always been.
The ordinary and the normalcy surrounded her and filled her future. It was supposed to be hope, not despair, but with just one moon, everything was gone and changed.

Sanae’s voice echoed through the dry night, crashing into the tightly closed air.
But nothing happened. Sanae turned her head in despair.

“What… what… nothing’s changed…”

Music stops

Isn’t this a miracle moon that happens once every few hundred years? Isn’t it supposed to be three times as big as the other moons, and if you make a wish in a certain place, it will come true? And isn’t this the place to do it?
The other woman laughed at Suwako and said it was expected. Suwako had a hard look on her face.