Eleven-year-olds are not supposed to piss their pants in the public.

They're not supposed to be pissing their pants anywhere.

We keep this in mind as we flip to the next page, which shows an older lady, one that also looks like Anna.

"Anna's mom," Natsumi whispers to me. I nod.

Anna's mom is on the phone, and after a few moments we gather that she is talking to a doctor.

"Yes, yes. We've always thought that she was kind of, um, behind for her age, but lately she's been... worse." She dabs her eyes with a tissue. "Peeing her pants is one thing—she doesn't remember her way home from school anymore, my other daughter always has to go pick her up. It's a five-minute walk! She can't remember! Yes, of course yes, we'll be there tomorrow. Thank you so much, Mr. Nishiyama. I'm just so worried, you know. Being a single parent is as hard as it is. Yes, yes, okay, thank you. Goodbye."

She hangs up the phone and turns around, her eyes meeting that of her older daughter. Anna is sitting at the dining table, her homework in front of her, looking at her mother expectantly. Her mother sighs.

"Mr. Nishiyama thinks it might be bad."

We can tell how bad it is from the next page of the calendar, when Mr. Nishiyama comes out holding a picture of a head, except the brain part seems to be more than half pure whiteness. We know that this elderly physician is Mr. Nishiyama because of the name tag on his doctor's robe.

"It's called MLD, a hereditary disease," he says gently, solemnly. "To explain in layman's terms, this whiteness pictured in her brain—it will get worse, and it might happen rapidly. Your girl will be losing most mental and physical functions in the following months, meaning that she will no longer be able to walk, to converse, to do anything on her own. And when the time comes—"

Anna and her mother both stare at him with bloodshot eyes.

"—When the time comes, she'll stop breathing. I'm very sorry, but so far no means to reverse this have been developed yet. For now, we can only prolong the process, though for maybe only a year or two. And the surgery, I'm afraid, will cost quite a great amount."

Anna's mother asks, lips quivering, "How much?"

I don't get to learn how much, because Natsumi has already flipped the page with impatience, wiping a tear away hastily, as if expecting that the next page will bring better news. It doesn't. In the picture, little Nanako lies under sheets of blankets, pale and listless. Her hands are visible above the covers, but her fingers seem to be curled strangely, stiffly, like they no longer remember that they are fingers and what their functions are.

We'd assumed that everything would be quiet, considering that the little girl is sleeping and such, but Anna's mother is apparently screaming with abandon, to the point that only parts of her speech is distinguishable.

"You can't go to that boarding school—I won't let you—when you come back your sister will be dead, don't you realize? Aren't you going to spend her last days with her? What are you even thinking—signing up for that—you're all I have now, how can you not consider my feelings you ungrateful, selfish little—"

Compared to her, Anna's voice is much calmer and more low-key.

"No, mom, you've got it wrong. I'm not going to that school for myself." Her eyes are determined, dead serious. "I've done my research. This is one of the most prestigious schools in Japan, and I already passed the entrance exam. I have it all planned out. When I graduate with flying colors, I'll be able to make a lot of money, Nanako can get her surgery, and this will buy us some time. I'll be studying up on brain surgeries, on MLD, on everything I can find. Yamabe Gakuen is reported to have one of the best library collections on brain-related neurological science, I'll read all the books I can get my hands on, I'll find a way, I'll find a cure—"

"Don't be silly, Anna. That's impossible and you know it."

"But mom—"

"I'm going to lose one daughter. I'm not going to lose my other one to some boarding school. You're here to stay."

"But mom, you do realize that studying is the one thing I'm good at? You've always said that. You've always told the others, Oh, Nanako is the one that always cheers me up while my older daughter, well, she just studies. Yes, you're right, I just study, and I'm good at it! I can find a way, I promise I'll find a way, you won't have to lose any of your daughters because I'll save Nanako, I'm not going to let her die—"

Anna's mother laughs, hollowly, like someone whose life has become entirely empty. "Your sister can't wait that long, honey. She'll be dead before you even graduate."

"She won't," Anna counters staunchly. "I have faith in Nanako. She won't give up on us, and I won't give up on her."

Her voice is strong. So strong. She has to be, for her mother, for her sister.

But the next page shows how weak Anna actually is—no more mother, no more sister. Just Anna, in our school library, poring over a huge stack of books. She appears to be studying, but when we look closer, the words printed in the books are not related to neuroscience. They are thoughts—Anna's thoughts.

It should have been me.

It's hereditary. I should have gotten the genes, not Nanako, she's the one who always makes everyone happy, she's so cute and sweet and cheerful and she's everyone's sunshine, she's my sunshine, and I'm just boring studious Anna and I don't make anyone happy, Nanako is the only one who likes me, the only one who talks to me because I don't have friends and when my classmates make me cry she's always there to take care of me even though I'm five years older and now she's dying, why is she dying? Why couldn't it be me?

Why does she have MLD and not me? Why not me? It should've been me, should've been me, should've been me, should've been me, should've been me, should've been me, should've been me, should've been me, should've been me, should've been me, should've been me, should've been me, should've been me, should've been me, should've been me, should've been me, should've

Natsumi snaps the calendar shut and looks at me with her large brown eyes.

"That's why Anna's afraid of failure," she mutters. "At this point she has no choice, she can't fail."

"That's why she won't stop studying. That's why she likes money so much," I add, horrified. "God, why didn't she tell us? I'm not, like, rich, but we could do fundraising or something—"

"Not enough." Natsumi shakes her head. "That kind of surgery requires far more than that. My dad works in an insurance company, I ought to know."

"Your dad can't help with that either?"

Natsumi shrugs. "I have no idea but I can talk to him about it. That's not the point right now though, we need to conquer the fear thing first and save Anna, right? That's what Katsuki told me."

"Oh yeah, I kind of forgot what we're here for," I say with a laugh, but the laughter sounds forced. It seems that all of a sudden all the happiness I've ever had has been sucked clean out of me. Natsumi looks rather down too as she stares troubledly at the calendar in her hands and sniffle a little. I know that she has a little sister, so she can relate.

Heck, I don't have any sister, older or younger, and I can still relate.

Natsumi leans back her head against the cottage wall and closes her eyes. "If this is her worse fear... then how do we conquer it?"

I lean back too, and try to think. My mind is all muddled, however, and it's hard to form any clear thoughts. It reminds me of the picture Mr. Nishiyama held, the one with all the whiteness in the brain. Thinking about the whiteness makes me shudder. It's going to fill up little Nanako's brain bit by bit, until she loses all her bodily functions, slowly but surely—

And the solution dawns on me, so simply and matter-of-factly I'm almost surprised that Anna has never thought of it earlier.

"Goodness, I'm so dumb," I say to Natsumi, "we're basically walking around in people's brains. Surely we can fix the whiteness in Nanako's brain too if we hook her to a machine?"

Natsumi stares at me and I stare back. And we both turn around to stare at Anna who has appeared from nowhere.

"Why did I not think of it earlier? Oh my god thank you!" she screams and envelop me in a hug. Natsumi randomly decides to join in and we're suddenly all hugging each other and Anna smells like cherry blossom petals and it's quite nice.

"We kind of have bad news though," Natsumi says, "like, our school isn't what we thought it was, there are zombie teachers and zombie upperclassmen outside, our principal is dead, Izumi has witches in her head and we still have to kill some mice for Daisuke."

Anna is completely unfazed. "We're going to mindhack Nanako after all that, right?"

"Yep," Natsumi and I chorus.

Anna laughs. "Well then, bring it on."

As we are pulled back to reality, I rejoice that I now know a bit more about Anna. I still don't know whether she thinks the chicken or the egg came first but, at least, I know what makes her smile like the sun.