Kotomi jolted awake. Her breathing was fast and heavy, but it slowed down as she looked around. It was morning. She was in bed. She was in her home in Japan. The one where she grew up. Her memories were hazy. She got out of bed, brushed her teeth. Then she washed her hair, tied it up the way she liked, and put on a cute black dress.

She walked downstairs. As Kotomi approached the kitchen, she noticed something outside. She noticed that the garden looked really nice. Like it'd been redone recently. Like someone had put a great deal of time into cleaning it up. Then she saw a boy. With blue hair. He looked as if he'd been cleaning up the backyard nonstop. He had a familiar book lying near him.

"...Tomoya?." She whispered to herself.

Kotomi's memory was still hazy, but she started to remember. She'd been at home for several days now. She'd just missed several days of school. She hadn't seen her friends at all. She'd been haunted by the memory of her parents' disappearance.

But now. He was here. The boy who cared about her. The boy who she cared about so much. The boy she loved.

"It's time… huh?" Those words were all she could from whatever strange dream she'd just had. But it was enough. It felt like there was much more she wasn't able to remember, but that didn't matter now. She reached for the door and began sliding it open.

She walked out. To face him. Finally, she understood this feeling in her heart.

She would not give up this time. Because...

He means everything to her.


Hello! Thanks for being interested enough to read through this entire fanfic! I don't know whether or not this will be a satisfying ending to any of you, but I like to believe that I was able to make it work somehow. This segment is just to give a bit of background on this story, and why it turned out the way it did.

I decided on this ending for a couple of reasons. First, I've alluded to the fact that this fanfic draws on my personal experience many times. While it would take way too long to explain everything crazy that's happened in my love life, there is one experience that really motivated to finish this story. Before I explain, to be clear, I am a male college student. I will try to keep this explanation as short as I can.

There was a girl that I dated, who cut things off with me suddenly early in our relationship. I thought for so long that it was my fault because I'd messed up somehow and made her hate me. But the reality was different. We recently got back in touch since the writing of Chapter 5, and it turned out that she had anxiety about abandonment and was afraid that I would leave her, so her immediate reaction early in our relationship was to be the one to leave me instead. This was something I never noticed when we were friends and even after we dated for a little. But, as it turned out, she's missed me, just like I've missed her. Though I never got the chance to say it to her when we dated, I loved her. She was my best friend before we even dated. She helped me put myself together in a really rough patch in my life, not unlike how Tomoya helped Kotomi in the anime and visual novel. This girl, who I will leave nameless, is someone who means a lot to me. Although we've made up and will probably never talk to each other ever again, I've finally been able to start moving on for real. That's where I got the inspiration for the ending in this fanfic.

The second reason is probably more relevant for you readers who want more to this story. I've tried to make this ending work with what happens in the Clannad visual novel. I'm not going to recreate the VN in a fanfic, and there are playthroughs on Youtube of the VN routes if you can't be bothered to buy the game and play it yourself. If you haven't played or watched a playthrough of the VN, it's excellent in terms of readability and being invested in the story, especially if you liked the anime.

My point is I don't really intend to keep this going unless there's serious demand for it (so say something like that in the reviews if you want me to do something like a "Kotomi After-Story" or something along those lines.) If I did decide to go that route, it wouldn't be for at least another month or so that I'd start, until after I'm done with finals and not busy with work. Not a moment sooner.

Anyway, thank you all so much for being around for this crazy depressing story. It took over 3 years to finally conclude it. I would say it's been a blast writing this, but honestly, for most of it I was just pulling out all of my saddest and most miserable feelings / experiences and conveying them through Kotomi. It has certainly been cathartic but I'm not sure if I'd say it's enjoyable. Also, I really do appreciate all the reviews and feedback I've gotten so far, which has been largely positive, which makes me super happy! Of course, by all means, criticize the story as you feel necessary, I know it's not a perfect story. In the first place, I'm studying pharmacy (so writing fanfics or fiction is not my forte), and I'm far from being a perfect person in general. But I put my heart into this story, and whether the feelings I put in it are good or bad, they're there.

That's all I wanted to say. Thank you all again!