Lemon of the False Moon 🍋 Episode 0: Memories of a Bitter Lemon (Prologue)

The night in Tsukigaura smelled of lemons.

The scent of the tide rising from the sea.

The scent of grilled corn from the stalls.

The scent of water from the goldfish scooping.

And from the lemon groves spreading over the cape, a fresh, slightly bitter scent drifted down.

Eighteen years ago.

The night of the Moonlit Festival.

Fourteen-year-old Mio Saotome was chasing her sister's back through the crowd.

"Sister, wait."

When Mio called out, Aoi turned around.

The light from the lanterns illuminated Aoi's cheeks softly.

Aoi was smiling.

"You're too slow, Mio."

"You're too fast, Sister."

"On the night of the festival, it's a loss if you don't run at least a little."

Aoi said that and started running again.

The hem of her yukata fluttered.

At her feet, red shoes.

In the night of the festival, only that red stood out with startling clarity.

People's feet.
The shadows of food stalls.
The light of paper lanterns.
A gravel path.

Between them, Aoi's red shoes appeared and disappeared.

Appearing and disappearing.

It was as if the night was telling me to remember only those shoes.

Mio chased after Aoi, out of breath.

"Big sister, where are you going?"

"The lighthouse."

"Again?"

"What else are we supposed to do on the day of the Moonlit Festival but go to the lighthouse?"

Aoi turned back and gave a mischievous smile.

"They say if you make a wish when the lighthouse light goes out, it comes true."

"Really?"

"Maybe it's a lie."

"Another lie."

"But, if it's a fun lie, isn't that fine?"

Aoi stopped in front of a stall.

An old wooden stall.

Small lemon candies were lined up there.

Clear, yellow candies.

Round ones.
Ones shaped like the moon.
Ones slightly misshapen, like a dog's face.

Aoi bought two moon-shaped candies and handed one to Mio.

Here.

Mio accepted it.

Thank you.

Make sure you savor it.

I'll savor a piece of candy, don't worry.

Aoi smiled.

Then, she said in a slightly more serious tone,

If you hide things with sweetness, even the truth will rot.

Mio tilted her head.

What's that supposed to mean?

Just remember it.

Are you talking about the lemon candy?

It's about the lemon candy, but it's also not.

You say weird things sometimes, sis.

Not sometimes. I'm always saying wise things.

Aoi put her own candy into her mouth.

Mio followed suit and put the lemon candy into her mouth.

Sweet.

That was her first thought.

But immediately, the sourness stung my tongue.

It was so sour that my eyes narrowed tightly.

Deep within that, there was a deeper flavor.

Bitter.

A bitterness with no escape.

And yet, strangely, I didn't want to spit it out.

Mio said, rolling the candy around in her mouth.

"It's bitter."

Aoi smiled contentedly.

"That's the real flavor."

"It's tastier when it's just sweet."

"Mio, you're still just a child."

"I'm fourteen."

"Fourteen is still an age that doesn't know the lemon peel."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Aoi didn't answer, but gave Mio's head a light pat.

That hand was warm.

Mio remembers the warmth of that hand.

She never thought that would be the last time.

The festival drums were beating.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

The sound of people laughing.

The calls of a street vendor.

The sound of children running.

A dog barking in the distance.

Those sounds grew faint as they turned onto the slope leading to the lighthouse.

The lighthouse side was dark.

The number of lanterns decreased, and the sea breeze grew stronger.

The sea at Tsukigaura was black, with only white waves crashing against the rocks.

The lighthouse beam rotated slowly.

The white light brushed over the slope, and in the next moment, darkness returned.

Light.

Darkness.

Light.

Darkness.

Each time, Aoi's red shoes would appear and then vanish.

Mio felt uneasy.

Sister, let's go back now.

Aoi did not stop walking.

Just a little longer.

Why?

Aoi did not answer.

Her profile looked a little different from the sister who had been laughing at the festival.

It was the face of someone who had made up their mind.

Mio hated that look.

Sometimes, her sister wore a face more mature than any adult.

She wore a face that suggested she was carrying something Mio didn't know about all by herself.

Sister.

When she called out, a strong wind blew.

Something was lying on the stone steps leading down to the lighthouse.

Something red.

Mio stopped walking.

It was a single red shoe.

Aoi's shoe.

The shoe that had been on her sister's foot just a moment ago.

Sister?

There was no reply.

The sounds of the festival felt far away.

The lighthouse beam rotates.

In the white light, only the red shoes stand out against the stone steps.

Inside Mio's mouth, the lemon candy cracked into small pieces.

The bitterness spread across her entire tongue.

Mio climbed the stone steps.

One step.

Two steps.

Three steps.

Her legs were trembling.

The sea breeze is strong.

The lighthouse door is half open.

From inside, there was a scent of overly sweet lemons.

It was different from the lemon candy at the festival stalls.

It was also different from the green scent of a lemon orchard.

Sweet.

Too sweet.

A lemon that felt artificial.

The moment she inhaled that scent, Mio's mind clouded over in white.

"Big sister."

Her voice was hoarse.

Inside the lighthouse, there was an old clock.

A round clock hanging on the wall.

The hands pointed to 8:47.

Only at that moment did it look strangely clear.

8:47.

The second hand was not moving.

Mio stared at the clock.

Why was it stopped?

Since when had it been stopped?

She didn't know.

However, that time was driven into her heart like a nail.

8:47.

It sounded as if Mio's own time had stopped.

There was a noise from deep within the lighthouse.

The sound of glass shattering.

A man's low voice.

Someone's gasp.

Mio stepped forward.

Big sister?

The white light rotated.

Inside it, a boy was standing.

Yuri Kurose.

Mio's first love.

They didn't go to the same school.

But they met every time the Moonlit Festival came around.

Mio secretly loved the face he made when he ate lemon candy, looking like it was sour.

He was quiet, a bit blunt, and yet he was a boy who couldn't leave someone in trouble alone.

That Yuri was standing inside the lighthouse.

Both of his hands were red.

They were soaked in blood.

Blood was dripping from between his fingers.

At his feet, shattered glass bottles were scattered.

Transparent shards.

Yellow liquid.

The scent of overly sweet lemons.

Yuri looked at Mio.

His face was deathly pale.

A face that looked like it was about to cry, but couldn't.

A face that looked like it was trying to say something, but no words would come out.

Mio couldn't move.

Blood.

A bottle.

Red shoes.

Aoi, who had vanished.

Yuri, covered in blood.

Everything seemed to point to a single answer.

"Yuri."

Mio's voice was trembling.

Yuri tried to take a step closer.

Mio backed away.

"Don't come any closer."

Yuri's face twisted as if in pain.

At that moment, Mio felt a white shadow flicker in the corner of her vision.

White clothes.

Someone's hand.

Footsteps running outside the lighthouse.

Small footsteps, not the sound of red shoes.

But that memory quickly clouded over in white.

The scent of overly sweet lemons filled her mind.

Mio covered her mouth.

I can't breathe.

Yuuri is shouting something.

"Mio"

Perhaps that's what she called me.

"Run"

Perhaps that's what she said.

"Don't drink it"

Perhaps that's what she said.

But Mio could no longer hear it.

The lighthouse beam rotates.

White light.

Darkness.

White light.

Darkness.

Each time, I see Yuuri's blood-stained hands.

They vanish.

They appear.

They vanish.

In Mio's mind, those hands became the hands of the culprit.

The hands that took her sister away.

The hand that erased Aoi.

The hand that turned Mio's first love into terror.

"My sister..."

Mio said in a voice that was no longer a voice.

"Give my sister back."

Yuri's face shattered in the white light.

The next moment, Mio's memories fell away.

As if sinking into water.

Leaving behind only the scent of sweet lemons, the red of blood, and a clock frozen at 8:47.

From that night on, Aoi was gone.

Her body was never found.

Only one of her shoes remained.

The police searched the sea many times.

They checked around the lighthouse, below the cape, and the well in the lemon orchard.

But Aoi was not found.

They could not declare her dead.

They could not fully believe she was alive either.

In the Saotome household, only her absence remained.

Aoi's room was left exactly as it was.

The book on the desk.

A white flower by the window.

A scarf knitted halfway.

A blue cup.

Every morning, Mother would open the door to that room just a crack.

"Aoi, wake up."

She would start to say that, then close her mouth.

Father would keep the newspaper open at the dining table, not reading a single word.

The miso soup would grow cold.

The grilled fish would remain untouched.

If anyone said anything, the fact that Aoi was gone would drop into the center of the room.

And so, no one spoke anymore.

Conversation vanished from the Saotome family dining table.

The sound of reaching for the soy sauce.

The sound of pulling out a chair.

The sound of chopsticks hitting a plate.

That was all that echoed through the house.

Mio stared down at her own rice bowl.

White rice.

Miso soup.

Grilled fish.

Mother's hands are trembling.

Father's eyes do not look at Mio.

Because if he looks, he will remember that Aoi is gone.

That is what I thought.

No, that is not it.

Perhaps every time Father and Mother look at Mio, they are thinking this:

Why did this child come back instead of Aoi?

No one ever said such a thing.

Not even once.

Even so, Mio heard it every single day.

Within her own breath.

Within Mother's silence.

Within Father's back.

I am sorry that I am the one who survived.

Those words took root in Mio's chest.

Like the roots of a lemon tree, thin, deep, and impossible to pull out.

It was around that time that Nagi started taking Mio to Tsukiarido.

Mio, come to the shop.

That is what Nagi said.

Do your homework at my place. I'll bake a pie.

Tsukiaridou smelled of old wood.

Black tea.

Butter.

Lemon peel.

A blue cup by the window.

Nagi always made Mio eat something.

"Eat."

"I don't want any."

"Even if you don't want it, eat."

"It's bitter."

"Eat the bitter things, too."

"I want something sweet."

Nagi said nothing, simply placing a small piece of lemon pie on Mio's plate.

"Things that are only sweet will make you feel sick later."

At those words, Mio remembered Aoi.

If you hide it with sweetness, even the truth will rot.

Mio ate the pie.

It was sweet, sour, and a little bitter at the end.

Every time she swallowed that bitterness, Mio felt like crying.

But she did not cry at Tsukiaridou.

When I cry, Nagi makes a troubled face.

When Nagi looks troubled, the fact that Aoi is no longer here feels even greater.

That is why Mio ate without crying.

My father and mother gradually broke apart in their own separate ways.

My mother cleaned Aoi's room every day.

She wiped the desk that no one used, changed the sheets on the bed where no one slept, and never let the flowers by the window die.

My father stopped talking about Aoi.

He stopped looking at Aoi's photos.

But in the middle of the night, he would sometimes stand motionless in the hallway.

When Mio called out to him, my father would always say,

It's nothing.

The words 'it's nothing' became the heaviest words in the Saotome household.

Mio decided that when she graduated from high school, she would leave for Tokyo.

My mother did not stop me.

My father did not stop me either.

Only Nagi said,

Are you really going?

Mio nodded.

Yes.

Are you running away?

Mio could not answer.

Nagi sighed.

"It's okay to run away. But you mustn't leave yourself behind."

Mio did not understand the meaning of those words at the time.

Mio left for Tokyo.

To get away from the scent of Tsukigaura.

To get away from the house where Aoi was no longer there.

To remove herself, the symbol of their sorrow, from her father and mother's sight.

And to escape the memory of blood-stained Yuuri.

But she could not escape.

Eventually, Mio chose a job creating fragrances.

She didn't even know herself why she chose that path.

However, the first fragrance she created was the lemon of Tsukigaura.

A scent that was not just sweet.

A scent that was sour, with a hint of bitterness at the end.

Every time she tried to erase that bitterness, she heard Aoi's voice somewhere.

If you hide it with sweetness, even the truth will rot.

Mio left the bitterness in.

That was the beginning of LUNE.

That was the beginning of her success.

That was the beginning of a long, circuitous path toward the truth my sister left behind 18 years ago.

But Mio did not know anything yet.

She only remembered the lighthouse from that night.

Red shoes.

A stopped clock.

The scent of a lemon that was too sweet.

A shattered glass bottle.

A blood-stained boy.

And, my sister who vanished.

For 18 years, Mio lived believing that memory was the truth.

With a bitter lemon drop left at the back of her tongue the whole time.