قسط 10: Nao کے ساتھ Botan کی دوستی، لیکن شکاری کا چنگھا سب کچھ بدل دیتا ہے۔

10

A young girl named Nao and her family move to the countryside, and she has trouble fitting in. To console her, her mother invites her to plant winter peonies with her in the garden. While her mother goes for supplies, Nao is approached by another girl named Botan, whom she quickly befriends. She invites Nao to plant a peony atop a wooded hill in secret; Nao agrees, and for the next few weeks they spend all their free time playing together and nurturing the seedling. One day in the woods, the girls are accosted with rocks by Nao's bully, who is scared off by Botan's feral glare. The next day, the boy asks Nao if she's okay, which confuses her, but she dismisses it. One snowy day, they go to check on the peony, but Botan's leg gets caught in a hunter's trap. Nao goes to get help, despite Botan's desperate pleas not to leave her. At home, Nao's mother is on the phone; Botan couldn't be found, so she apologizes for the imposition. She also accepts an offer of wild boar meat to make boar hotpot (猪鍋 "Inoshishi Nabe", or ぼたん鍋 "Botan Nabe"). Later, Nao goes to see the peony on the hill, wondering where Botan could be. (Source: Wikipedia)