This story takes place after the events of my previous fanfiction, "Two Weeks or Tokyo!" I do not own A Silent Voice or any of its characters. Many times in the story, there will be different types of quotes, so they will be explained briefly.

In the context of dialogue, regular quotation marks are used. In the context of being between dialogue or on its own, a thought will be denoted by quotation marks as well as italics. The same applies for sign language, so be sure to notice the words that follow, such as "Shoya thought," or "Shoko signed," to avoid confusion. In the case of some characters, they will speak while signing, so there will be either quotation marks and italics or just quotation marks. There will also be texts and emails; these will be denoted by italics without quotation marks.

Two birds were separated from one another due to boundaries initially set by uncontrollable circumstances, then by distance, and then by themselves, respectively. The owners, as well as other birds saw the longing in each of their eyes and heard it in their songs. After years of distance, and a year of closing it, they became one. Now, after this, the birds prepare to fly home.

With Shoko's hand within his own, Shoya walked to the train station and boarded a train with her. He looked over at her, not just because he had something to say, but because he could now look at her without feeling too shy about it. "That's right…" he began to think. "We're more than just friends now…"

Signing now, Shoya asked, "Are you nervous?" to Shoko. Although they were not quite nervous around each other like they may have been in the past, Shoya had a reasonable excuse to be nervous upon coming home.

"Nervous? I-" Shoko began in response, but Shoya took hold of her hand to stop her.

"I want to hear your voice." he signed with a smile. Initially, the two had communication problems, the worst of which happened during a failed confession of love due to mispronouncing words. However, Shoko had been practicing annunciating words so that she could properly confess now, something that Shoya had picked up on the previous night, since she had hardly signed at all. Although Shoya felt a little bad for interrupting her, he simply couldn't let all the hard work that Shoko had evidently put into speaking go to waste.

Shoko cleared her throat. She generally reserved her voice for private conversations with her family or friends, or, in the case of last night, her boyfriend. When she spoke, the words would scarcely come out normally. It usually drew unwanted attention and stares, and had been a root cause of some of the bullying she suffered in elementary school. However, picking up on why Shoya stopped her, she blushed and prepared to speak. "Ah'b not nervous, Ah'm ezzided! (I'm not nervous, I'm excited!)"

Shoya rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He spoke and signed at the same time, saying "That makes one of us. I'm worried we'll get teased a lot… apparently back at home a lot of people were waiting for us to end up together."

Shoko giggled and nudged her boyfriend, who was staring out the window of the moving train. He jumped a little and stared at her, blushing out of embarrassment from losing his focus so easily. Shoko smiled and pointed at herself. "Ah was 'un of them! (I was one of them!)"

Back at the Ishida residence and salon, things seemed to be going pretty normally. "It's not even noon on a weekend, so he has to be asleep still, right? Unless…" Yuzuru pondered some things while Ms. Ishida flipped through a magazine. Yuzuru was the main one pressing Shoya to go ahead and ask Shoko out, but she was completely ignorant as to whether or not he actually had the guts to do it so soon. She leaned onto the table, considering whether or not she should bring it up, when a darling little voice rang in her ear.

"Yuzu! Let's play!" the young, short niece of Shoya and granddaughter of Ms. Ishida said.

"Maria! I totally agree, let's play!" Yuzuru replied happily as she lifted Maria up and put her on a chair. "Hey, Obaasan, can I take Maria to Suimon Park?" Yuzuru called out to Ms. Ishida ("Obaasan" is a way to say "auntie," not used in the literal sense here.)

After approving, Yuzuru put on her jacket and took Maria out to run around the park, acting kind of like her guardian, while Yuzuru ran around and played right alongside her. She snapped a few photos of Maria, encapsulating the childlike joy that she got just from playing on a swing set. Yuzuru smiled. She was relieved that her camera wasn't filled to the brim with photos of dead things, like it used to be. A little while back, she would constantly find gross corpses of animals to photograph, to show her sister. This wasn't any childish prank, though. For a time, her sister said that she, herself, wanted to die. So, to prevent this, Yuzuru showed the photos to Shoko in order to convey the gruesomeness and horror of death.

Yuzuru smiled. Shoko had started acting differently around a year ago. All of a sudden, some dude popped up from the past and tried to fix a bunch of problems for Shoko, most of which he was the cause of. But since he came into her life, she had started making weird faces- that is, faces that more accurately expressed her feelings- and going out with friends more. Yuzuru was skeptical and disapproving at first, but after some time, this guy proved himself to be pretty great. She scrolled through her camera's photos. One of her "starred" photos was one where Shoko and that guy were smiling from the conversation and company of the other. She glanced at it and considered deleting it. "Soon it won't be just a memory…" she thought out loud as she turned her camera off.

"Huh?" the confused Maria asked as she got off the swingset.

Yuzuru smiled and shook her head. "It's nothing!" she said, and with that, the two began to walk back to the Ishida residence.

Yuzuru was really happy that Shoya came into their lives. He quite literally saved Shoko's life, and he became one of Yuzuru's best friends. She grew really accustomed to having him around and got really close to him. So it was never really a secret that he had feelings for Shoko, despite how much he would deny it or play ignorant. But Yuzuru knew that he needed a push to act on those feelings.

After that push, which was a little over a week ago, Yuzuru was left completely unsure. She really wanted Shoya to go ahead and confess to Shoko, and she was very encouraging of him to act, but he struck her as the type to be too lazy to act so soon. So when she got back to the Ishida residence, and the smell of breakfast had yet to bring the sleepy giant downstairs, she was taken a little aback. She put Maria up in her chair and scratched her head. "Oh well, at least I can talk about this with Obaasan." she thought. That's right, Ms. Ishida was one of the people who Yuzuru originally conspired with to goad Shoya into acting.

After Ms. Ishida finished cooking everything, she sat back down. Yuzuru noticed that there were four plates, each with food on them, despite there only being three people in the room. "Yeah, I'm totally confused right now…" she thought as she stood up from her chair. Assuming the other plate was for Shoya, she asked, "Want me to go wake him up?"

Ms. Ishida smiled. "Actually, he left last night." she said, surprising Yuzuru and confusing her even more. "This is actually for Yaeko-san."

As if on cue, there was a knock at the door, and Yuzuru went to answer it. Standing in the doorway was a stern-looking and middle-aged, yet beautiful lady. "Mom? What're you doing here?" Yuzuru asked.

Ms. Nishimiya smiled and held a baggie filled with some alcohol. "Miyako-sna and I are going to be celebrating the joining of our families. Care to join us?"

"So cute…" Shoko thought as Shoya rested. While Shoko slept for several hours before and after the main events of the previous night, Shoya had only slept after. This fact, paired with the fact that Shoya sleeps more than a normal person, meant that his body felt lethargic and his eyes felt heavy. So on a five-hour train ride, it was completely normal that he would want to sleep.

He was very shy about it, though. He really wanted to be awake to talk to Shoko, but after it had become apparent that he needed sleep, via his head nodding, Shoko insisted that he rest some. He initially just laid his head against the wall of the train, but he felt a tugging on his jacket sleeve. "'Ere." she said as she patted her shoulder with her opposite arm.

Shoya blushed. He signed and asked. "Are you sure? What if your shoulder starts hurting?"

"Izz fine…" she said quietly and soothingly, as if to coax him into sleeping. Unable to resist, despite being initially hesitant, Shoya leaned over and rested his head on her shoulder. Because of the great height difference (Shoya is around 6'0" (1.8228m) while Shoko is around 4'8" (1.4224m)), Shoya had to scoot over some to properly lean his head onto her shoulder. Both of them realized that it was uncomfortable soon enough, so Shoko poked him to get his attention. When Shoya looked at her, he was worried as to what she might say.

Shoko, with a red face, offered to let Shoya use her lap as a pillow. "N-no, no! Don't worry about it!" he exclaimed loudly as his face grew red. He remembered how just a few months ago, despite already being close, Shoko was too shy to even take hold of his hand. He knew that even though she offered something like this, she definitely wouldn't be entirely comfortable with it. "It's too early for that…" he thought as his ears began to burn. Shoko had the same expression and shade of red on her face and her ears; she clearly felt the same way as he did. "Thank you, though!" he said while signing.

To compromise, Shoya used his jacket as a pillow and laid on the seat, his head right next to Shoko. Despite being tired, he couldn't fall asleep so easily. He tilted his head up and looked at Shoko, who was looking at him. He blushed. He knew she wanted him to sleep, so he tried to rest his eyes and clear his mind, but, whether it be from the embarrassment of the awkwardness from a minute ago, or from the pure joy that overarched, he couldn't manage to properly rest.

Seeing Shoya's eyes open slightly every few minutes, Shoko realized the problems he was having, and took it upon herself to solve them. Even though she was shy, she steeled her nerves and gently began to caress his face and hair. Shoya gasped from surprise, as his eyes had been closed, but neither of them recoiled from the embrace. Soon, Shoya was peacefully snoozing as Shoko was combing his hair with her fingers and admiring him.

After about three hours, the train was approaching its destination, and the clock was approaching noon. "Shoya, weah almozz 'ome... (Shoya, we're almost home...)" she whispered gently, causing him to stir and wake up.

With a yawn and a stretch, Shoya was back awake. He had a wonderfully warm and peaceful smile on his face, one that melted Shoko's heart. "Thank you, I needed that." he said while signing. She popped his joints and looked out the window. "Oh wow, so close…" he thought as he took hold of Shoko's hand.

Together, they talked on the train as it slowed to a stop; together, they departed the train; together, they began to walk through their familiar town.

Back at the Ishida household, the ladies sat somewhat informally around the kitchen table. Maria was munching on snacks and Yuzuru was following suit. The adults were discussing important things nonchalantly. "-So I told him he even has my blessing for marriage!" Ms. Nishimiya said happily.

"And let me guess, he was all surprised, right?" Ms. Ishida responded. "For some reason, he thinks saying things like that are totally ridiculous, like, who does he think we are? Idiots?" she said and both the ladies laughed. They were talking about their families, specifically how they would be joined together. Yuzuru wasn't exactly in on the conversation, but she was enjoying the atmosphere. From what she gathered, the two would be showing up soon. "That poor bastard…" Yuzuru thought as she snickered to herself. "The mood's gonna turn 180 when he gets here…"

Ms. Ishida knew that Shoya would be back a little after noon. So, in preparation of his arrival, he invited Ms. Nishimiya over to antagonize and tease him, as well as to party and drink. They had expectations, and they wanted to make them clear, to both of their children, respectively, at once. From what Yuzuru heard, they were going to list a few things that had to be done in their relationship. Upon hearing them, Yuzuru laughed. The list of demands Yuzuru made could be considered cruel by some, especially Shoya. However, as Yuzuru listened to the demands that the ladies were thinking up and spitballing, she only had one thought going through her head. "I'll need to record this…"

There was still some time before the two arrived, so Yuzuru just wandered around the shop with Maria, thinking about it all. Truthfully, she was proud of Shoya. He really surprised her and showed his guts by leaving so spontaneously. More than she was surprised, she was anxious about what this meant. She worried about whether Shoya, too, would leave for Tokyo after the two inevitably married, something that was so ascertained due to the nature of the conversation between their mothers.

Yuzuru sat in a barber chair and spun around in it. She sighed from worry as nervous thoughts obstructed the joy of spinning around, though her spirits were lifted a little when she saw Maria try to crawl into a chair to follow suit. She just hoped that she could keep everyone in her life. She even had a backup plan for if Shoya wasn't just playing dumb and actually didn't see Shoko as more than a friend, where she herself would try to date him. She was a bit relieved that things didn't come to that, though, since she truthfully only saw him as a best friend and older brother.

She kicked her legs out and stretched them. "Jeez, when are they gonna get here?" she wondered as she walked to the door, peeking through it. After she saw nobody, she walked back to the kitchen, where she saw the red faces of her own drunk mother and Shoya's drunk mother. They had moved to talking about other things, like work, but this bored Yuzuru, who was neither an adult nor drunk, so she turned on the television while she snacked some more. Marie crawled over and sat in her lap. "Aww…" Yuzuru thought as she scrolled through the channels. She kept turning up the volume, since the drunk ladies were talking increasingly loudly. Maria didn't seem to mind, though.

Maria got bored of watching TV, so she stood up and walked around. If Yuzuru got up, she would probably ask to go to the park.

At once, several things happened and several scenes coincided. Bells rang, signifying that someone came in. The ladies stopped talking and looked over to see if it was Yuzuru, but Yuzuru was sitting in front of the TV, which was now muted.

"Sho-tan!" Maria called out as he stepped into the salon, followed by Shoko. Yuzuru stole a glance at the two and didn't say anything as they hadn't noticed her yet. Although she was really happy to see the two, especially her sister who she hadn't seen in a few months, they had the floor, and Yuzuru wanted to observe. As they got closer, Yuzuru clicked a button on her camera and began to record.

Shoya, with Maria in one of his arms and using his other arm to hold Shoko's hand, walked into the kitchen. He almost lost his nerve after not only seeing that Ms. Nishimiya was there, but that she as well as his own mother were drunk, which was obvious from their flushed cheeks. Shoya cleared his throat, though, as if to get everyone's attention. With a shaky voice and a red face, "I-I know this is redundant, but… Mom, I'd like to formally introduce you to Shoko, but not as my friend... As my girlfriend."

And thus, the festivities of that afternoon, which would extend to the night, began.