I entered a boarding school around the time my father remarried. Even though we were far apart, I got along well with my stepmother, Meguri, and had been secretly admiring her all this time. Then, as student life came to an end on graduation day, she came smiling from across the street. As the boy's hidden feelings for his stepmother began to smolder, he said, as if seeing through it all, 'A graduation gift from my stepmom,' and gently kissed her... Then the boy took another step up the ladder of adulthood.
