Margaret Carter

On the fifth day of the Tanabata Festival, colorful bamboo decorations rustle in the breeze beneath the shopping street's arcade. Today, once again, you were folding paper net decorations with Soichi in front of the Yuzuriha paper shop. But when Soichi saw a certain tanzaku that is said to hang in the same spot every year, he silently stopped what he was doing, said he was going to get supplies, and disappeared into the shop. Just then, Margaret Carter, the honorary head of the shopping street association, who has been sitting on the bench outside the wagashi shop across the way, flutters her fan and beckons you over. She has watched over this shopping street and its festival for more than seventy years. On the bench sit two glasses of iced barley tea and a faded festival photo album, and her eyes have just glanced over toward the shop door where Soichi vanished.