The plane carried Takaki and Kanae back to Tanegashima, bearing along with them all their hopes and dreams for the future. Sitting now on the plane next to Takaki, Kanae could scarcely believe, ten years ago, their last encounter at an airport had been such a tearful one. She made no reference to that day, however, because that day was too painful a memory for both of them. Takaki had been like that rocket, launching into space, leaving Tanegashima in the distance to chase the stars, to be forgotten, never to return. Back then, he could not wait to leave. He did not know where he wanted to be, only that he needed to go far away. He did not even have a goal in mind at the time. His actions were driven not by the desire to see Akari, but only by the desire to escape into the vague promise of a brighter future that lay ahead in Tokyo. Chasing him all this time, was a much slower rocket, the girl who always seemed to just skirt by and barely make it, never really knowing what she wanted out of life. She knew only that she had always wanted Takaki to be a part of it.

Takaki pondered that day at the airport as well, sitting in the window seat and watching the islands pass by 30,000 feet beneath them. He felt Kanae resting her head on his shoulder as she leaned against him. Looking downward on her, he observed the soft rhythm of her breathing. He lightly brushed a stray tendril of hair away from her eyes. Watching her, she seemed both strong and fragile at the same time. She had been strong enough to come to Tokyo and take one last chance at finding him. But her heart bore the deep wounds of a love unrequited, leaving her reluctant to open her heart for another man, the way she had with Takaki.

"Takaki?" she whispered.

"Yes?"

"What are you thinking?"

"Just about everything we went through, to reach this point together. If only we hadn't lost so much time-"

Kanae gently put a finger over Takaki's mouth to silence him.

"Takaki, we're still young. We still have so much ahead of us. Let's not regret the past. Let's just look ahead to our future."

That night, after completing the long journey from Tokyo to Tanegashima, Takaki and Kanae had dinner with her parents. For Kanae's parents, it was their first time meeting Takaki, who they only knew as the boy who would accompany their daughter home occasionally from school. They were both pleasantly surprised when Kanae had asked their permission to have Takaki visit with them. Kanae had never shared her feelings with her parents, just her sister.

Takaki bowed before them as he stood next to a beaming Kanae outside their front door.

"Thank you for your hospitality."

"Such a fine young man," Mrs. Sumida declared as she stepped forward and hugged him. She was shorter than Kanae, a little on the stout side, with black hair that came down to her shoulders.

"So nice to meet you, Takaki," Mr. Sumida said as he grasped Takaki's hand with both of his and shook it vigorously. He was slender, taller, and bespectacled, with brown hair that showed streaks of grey. Takaki reflected on both of Kanae's parents, whom he had seen before only once, briefly, on their high school graduation day. He decided, after some thinking, that Kanae took more after her father.

"You know, this is a really momentous occasion," Mr. Sumida said, "I do not believe Kanae has ever brought home a man before."

"Dad!" Kanae cried, blushing fiercely. "Could you please not say embarrassing stuff like that out loud?"

The others laughed.

"Is that really true?" Takaki asked Kanae as they walked down the hall into the dining room, surprised by that bit of information.

"Well, yeah," Kanae said in a low voice, out of her parents' hearing, rubbing her fingertips together in distraction, "After you left, I never really got close enough to anyone to the point where I wanted them to meet my parents. I've never had a relationship in my whole life that lasted even three months."

She stopped herself and gave an anxious glance toward Takaki.

"I hope we can change that," she said, and Takaki smiled.

The four of them sat down to dinner. Mrs. Sumida had prepared sukiyaki. Over dinner, Kanae's parents asked everything they could of Takaki, wanting to find out as much as possible about him. To Takaki, it truly was one of the most delightful meals he had ever received, rivaled only by the dinner he had shared with Akari that night at the Iwafune train station.

"I really appreciate you letting me stay here for a while," Takaki said. "I hope it's not a bother to you."

"Not at all," Mr. Sumida said. "Our eldest daughter moved out after she got married, so her room is open for you to stay in. We heard about you leaving your last job. What are you going to do?"

"I've been sending my resumes for other companies, been looking for a new job as a computer programmer," Takaki explained. "It seems it might take longer than I thought it would."

"Where are you trying to get a job? Still going to be in Tokyo?"

"I—I haven't decided yet," Takaki said. "Up until just recently, I was only applying for jobs in Tokyo."

"Maybe," Mrs. Sumida suggested, "you might try getting a job nearer to here. I'm sure you could. Kanae would sure like that, isn't that right, Kanae?"

Everyone turned to look at Kanae, who blushed once again. It felt awkward to have her love life discussed out loud like this, but in a way, part of her liked having it spoken of, and out in the open. It was the same feeling she had gotten back in high school when she and her friends discussed their love interests, and each time Yukko or Saki asked her how things were going with Takaki, she would feel a sense of excitement. Outwardly, she would pretend to be embarrassed and act coy, but inwardly, she relished having her "situation" with Takaki discussed. Hearing her name in connection with his made it, in her mind, more real, somehow. The same thing would happen when other classmates would tease her about her "boyfriend" Takaki. She would regretfully wave them off, informing them that he wasn't really her boyfriend, even though in her heart, she sincerely wished he was. How much more magnified was this feeling now that Takaki was with her, having dinner with her parents, and discussing her budding relationship with him?

Takaki considered the question from Mrs. Sumida for a short time before answering, "That's a good point, I could always do freelance work. I could work from anywhere, I suppose."

Until that moment, he hadn't really given enough serious thought to what he would do about his job search. His original plan of looking for work in Tokyo, obviously would have to change now that Kanae was in the picture. He had never considered how meeting Kanae that day in the park could so dramatically change his future. Hitherto, he had been focused only on himself and what he was going to do, but at the same time, he had been afflicted with a deep and pervasive apathy, like nothing in his life really mattered, and it really didn't make any difference what kind of work he ended up doing. In a flash, he now found himself visualizing a future with Kanae in it. He pictured himself, working and living in Tanegashima or Kagoshima. He pictured what would happen if he did that. Perhaps he would visit Kanae regularly, or she would follow him if he moved. After all, he had no doubt she could find work as a nurse, wherever she went. He felt a sudden conviction that, no matter what, they would do whatever it took to make things work between them. The harbinger of future situations and scenarios flashed through his mind in that instant, like the conditional decision tree from an algorithm of a computer program, and he felt himself losing some of that former apathy and indifference toward his life. He felt himself slowly regaining his will to live.

After dinner, Kanae showed Takaki her room. It hadn't changed much since her school days. It was a fairly small room, with her futon mattress in the middle, an organizer rack hanging off the wall, a coffee table, and a bookshelf. Her bookshelf was lined with an assortment of nursing texts, old school yearbooks, picture albums, and a handful of romance novels. A single poster of a popular contemporary band decorated her closet wall.

"Well," Kanae said, pointing her room out to Takaki. "Here's the room I grew up in."

"It's nothing much," she added self-consciously as Takaki walked around, looking at the books on her shelf.

"It's nice," Takaki said. "Very clean and neat compared to mine."

Kanae laughed at that. She looked down at her mattress and thought to herself, that's the bed I cried myself to sleep on after you told me you couldn't return my feelings. She remembered how she had cradled her old dog, Cubb, now several years deceased, and poured out her feelings to him, her dog, her only friend and confidant in that moment.

I'll still love you. Forever and ever.

Takaki spotted one of her old photo albums on the bookshelf. He pointed to it.

"Do you mind?"

"Not at all, you can look if you want," Kanae said.

Takaki flipped through the photo album. It consisted entirely of pictures taken during their high school years. Most of the pictures involved Kanae with her family as well as her friends from school, mainly Saki and Yukko. A few pictures with their other friend Sasaki made an appearance. Toward the end of the album, he noted a single picture with the two of them together.

"I remember that," Takaki said with a smile. "That was at the school's culture fair, just before we graduated."

He studied the picture, which depicted him and Kanae standing together in the hallway next to the haunted house exhibit. He noticed how different they looked in that picture. Takaki's smile was soft and slight, barely showed his teeth, which was how he always looked back then. He always gave an air of being cool, calm, collected, distant, and above everything. Even in this photo, his eyes had the glossy appearance of someone looking beyond the photographer, straining to see something in the distance. His smile looked almost like an ironic smile, a forced smile, one that came from wanting to please Kanae rather than from the heart. Next to him, Kanae, leaning in his direction, close to him but not touching him, smiled radiantly. Her eyes were bright and joyful. It showed none of the pain she was feeling inside, the wound in her heart that lingered from the day of the launch, when she had wanted to confess her feelings but could not.

Close, but not touching. No arms around each other. No snuggling or leaning against each other to get close for the picture. In a way, it epitomized Kanae's entire relationship with Takaki.

"I wanted to have a picture with you," Kanae remembered, "that's why I asked Yukko to take that picture. I wanted just one picture of you and me together."

Takaki understood in that moment. She had wanted a picture of him and her together, but could not find an occasion or a pretext to have one taken that wouldn't seem strange or out of the ordinary. So, she had contrived to have a friend take a picture of them during a festive event, like the culture fair, where everyone was taking pictures, and no one would even think twice about it.

"I would always come back to this picture," Kanae said, feeling the emotions come back to her. She started remembering the way it felt, as a teenager, to gaze at the picture alone and imagine an entire loving relationship between her and Takaki, in her head. She would start conceiving all the various romantic scenarios with them together, which would result in this picture being taken to capture the memory for fond reflection later. But instead, when she looked at the picture, after a while she would come back to the reality that they were so far apart, not just physically, but emotionally, and the thought would bring fresh heartache.

"I was always looking at you, wanting to be with you,"Kanae said.

"I hope," Takaki said with a smile, "that we'll take much better pictures from now on."

Kanae smiled as Takaki bid her good night. Alone with her thoughts, she gazed at the picture once more. No longer would she feel so much regret and loss when she saw it. There would be no crying to sleep, feeling the heartache of longing for him. For the first time in a long time, she went to bed with a feeling of calm and contentment.

Author's Note

As Kanae's father is not shown in the anime/manga, I decided I needed to invent his appearance and personality.