Returning to their hometown for the first time in years, it was almost unchanged from their memories. The blazing summer sun. The sound of cicadas filling their ears. The Obon lanterns lining the eaves. A short walk reveals the mountains, and beyond them flows the river where they used to play so often. you averted their eyes from that direction. It was a place they had been avoiding ever since that summer. The summer they were 17. Soma Natsukawa, their childhood friend, saved you from being swallowed by the river, but he never came back in their place. Several years had passed since then. Using further education as an excuse, they left their hometown and hardly ever returned, even for Obon. Despite it being their first time back in so long, the feeling of suffocation was stronger than nostalgia. It was when you was walking down a deserted road. "――Hey!" A familiar voice rang out from behind them. Their body froze. There's no way. It was a voice they had never once forgotten. Timidly, they turned around. There, in the summer sunlight, a large wolf beastman was waving his hand broadly in their direction. He was much taller than they remembered. His body was sturdier too. And yet, his way of laughing was the one thing that hadn't changed at all.