🇯🇵 Japanese Title:
満月だけ開く店
Mangetsu Dake Hiraku Mise
The Shop That Opens on Full Moons
🎯 Theme:
Using the teacher’s lead, Hana, Yuki, and Ren venture to a small, lantern-lit side street on the edge of town. There stands a quiet, antique-looking shop with no name—its sliding door shut, curtains drawn. According to local rumors, it only opens during the full moon.
Tonight is that night.
Inside, they find a woman in her late 30s, graceful but distant. Her name is Mizuki—and when she sees Aika’s name in the sketchbook, her face falls.
“I didn’t think anyone would come looking.”
She admits she was one of the “Star Travelers.” She, Aika, and another girl, Kaho, had once vowed to chart their lives in the sky.
But when Kaho suddenly left town, the trio’s bond was fractured. Aika never stopped believing they’d reunite—and left behind the unfinished map.
Mizuki hands Hana a folded note Aika once left for her… unread.
“Maybe she was always one step ahead of us.”
📍 Setting:
- Cobblestone alley glowing with moonlight
- A wooden shop filled with celestial antiques: star globes, moon stones, handmade journals
- Small reading nook where Mizuki reflects on the past
- Flashback: three teenage girls drawing constellations in chalk on a rooftop
📚 Vocabulary
| Japanese | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 満月 | まんげつ | full moon |
| 再会 | さいかい | reunion |
| 約束 | やくそく | promise |
| 三日月 | みかづき | crescent moon |
| 守る | まもる | to protect, to keep (a promise) |
🗣️ Useful Phrases
| Japanese | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 満月の夜だけ開く、不思議な店だよ。 | It’s a strange shop that only opens on full moons. |
| アイカのことを…覚えてるわ。 | I remember Aika… |
| この手紙、ずっと開けられなかった。 | I could never bring myself to open this letter. |
| あの夜のこと、今も夢に出てくる。 | That night… still appears in my dreams. |
| 星の地図、まだ終わってないのね。 | The star map… it’s still not complete, is it? |
💡 Grammar Focus
| Grammar Point | Usage | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 〜しか〜ない (only, nothing but) | 満月の夜にしか開かない。 | It only opens on full moon nights. |
| 〜ような気がする (feels like…) | 今でも彼女がここにいるような気がする。 | It still feels like she’s here somehow. |
| 〜ずっと (all along, continuously) | この手紙をずっと持っていたんだ。 | I’ve held onto this letter all this time. |
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🎥 Dialogue
[Scene: Mizuki gently unwraps the folded note and hands it to Hana.]
Mizuki (softly):
「アイカは…星をつなげる子だった。」
(Aika was someone who connected the stars.)
Hana (opening the note, reading aloud):
「“また会えるよ。信じてる。”」
(“We’ll meet again. I believe it.”)
[Ren looks up at the sky. The stars are unusually bright tonight.]
Yuki:
「じゃあ、あと一人…カホに会えれば。」
(Then there’s just one more… if we can find Kaho.)
🧭 Closing Note:
Mizuki gives them a final clue—Kaho left for a small island years ago, to “chase stars no one else could see.”
📘 Next Tease:
A boat ticket, a lighthouse in the distance, and a name carved into driftwood:
Kaho.