Chapter 1

Mitsuha hadn't felt such a combination of apprehension and excitement since her first day of school, which was understandable since today was her first day of school. Of high school, that was. Final year, to be exact…in fact, the more she thought about it, the sillier her anxiousness seemed. But she had good reason to be so nervous – she'd lived her whole life in the same town, with the same people, going to the same school. She'd already known most of her classmates years before school even started, that was how close-knit the community of Itomori was. This time she was venturing into unknown territory in the heart of a city she still didn't understand, encroaching on established friend groups and relationships that lived in a different world to hers. She only hoped that her time here would be better than at that awful private school back in Ikebukuro.

It was a good thing her old school had all their exams data backed up too, otherwise they never would've let her in. Transferring in your final year into a relatively good school meant having a strong academic record, and fortunately for Mitsuha her record was still available. Imagine the excuse: Sorry sir, a meteorite destroyed my homework. The mere thought of such a thing made her almost laugh aloud as she put on her uniform.

Luckily Jingu didn't subscribe to the popular sailor outfit look, instead opting for a more western polo shirt and blazer. This was, however, the first time Mitsuha would be wearing a tie, striped in alternating dark and lime green. That meant she couldn't wear her customary red bow that was the (rather pretty) signature of her old Itomori school – but she had checked the rules and there was nothing forbidding the use of hair accessories, in particular the braided red cord she always used to tie her hair with, and that held so much meaning to her.

Looking at herself in the mirror, Mitsuha was happy with how she looked. The tie wasn't exactly the most welcome addition to her wardrobe, but it didn't look bad either. She'd got up pretty early to cook breakfast for her dad, as he usually left a little bit before she did, so she had plenty of time to admire herself in the mirror if she so wished. Generally the family would get up together to eat, despite the girls having no other reason to get up so early – a very good habit to keep. Now that school had started, Toshiki would be leaving first to take the subway down to Shibuya, followed by Mitsuha around fifteen minutes later, then finally Yotsuha a few minutes after that, but going the opposite way.

However, today was special – parents of first-years were always invited to school entrance ceremonies, so today Dad would be taking the morning off work to go with Yotsuha to her new junior high school. The entrance ceremonies back in Itomori were pretty low-key, so both sisters were excited to see how things were done at a large, city school. Technically Yotsuha would be entering into second year, but their dad had been invited anyway, so he'd decided it was a good opportunity as any to get a bit more involved in at least one of his daughters' education.

Yotsuha's bursting energy was the kind you could feel from a different room without even needing to look at her enthusiastic face or hear her loud voice and pounding footfalls as she excitedly ran about the flat. Unlike Mitsuha, Yotsuha had actually managed to make friends during her year in Ikebukuro. It wasn't that Mitsuha hadn't made any friends at all; she simply hadn't managed to connect to anyone at the school she attended, for a multitude of reasons.

Whereas Mitsuha's nervousness and anticipation were something you could only see in the tenseness of her shoulders and distracted eyes, her little sister was clearly not feeling any sort of regret or apprehension over moving school. As evidenced by yet another squeal from her bedroom, Yotsuha's was a mind of letting go and moving on; at least, that was how it seemed to Mitsuha – you never could really tell what was actually going on inside her head. She was usually more reserved than this, so it was surprising to see her so full of vigour. How grandma was still asleep was a mystery…

Mitsuha put her bag on, before realising it would be easier to put on her shoes with it off, then tried doing her laces with it on anyway, before giving up and putting it down; was her brain already this fried so early in the morning? She was just straightening up and opening the front door when she heard running footsteps and stopped with the door slightly ajar.

"Wait for us! Don't leave yet, Dad's still getting ready!"

"Yotsuha, we take different routes to school now. In fact, I'm pretty sure we go in completely opposite directions from the moment we step out the house."

"Well, at least have a look at my uniform!" Turning around, Mitsuha assessed her slightly out-of-breath sister. Since there was no combined junior, senior, and middle school in the area, Yotsuha attended a different school, one that did sport a sailor uniform. To be fair, she did look pretty cute in it. Perhaps it wasn't so bad after all…

"I'm kinda jealous, it fits you really well…but I'm assuming the hair jutting horizontally out the side of your head isn't intentional?"

Yotsuha's eyes went wide and she quickly scrambled to the bathroom to find a mirror and brush. "See you later!" the two sisters called to each other before the elder of the two stepped outside and clicked the door shut behind her. Climbing down the stairs and out the main door of the shared building, she took a deep breath of the not-so-fresh Tokyo air before stepping out onto the pavement. Trying to stand up straight (something her dad was very vocal about) she began what would be the first of many journeys to her new school.

The road wasn't exactly busy, which was to be expected since she lived in a residential area, but as Mitsuha drew closer to the station the number of people began to increase – she even spotted a few familiar uniforms, but she couldn't get close enough to confirm whether they were really from her school. That's right, it wasn't just a school anymore, it was her school. She quickly swept away the nervousness that came with that assessment before entering the station and waiting in line for the ticket barriers.

To be perfectly honest she could easily walk to the school from where they now lived, but the metro took around 15 minutes off her travel time and she could get discount prices as she was a student. Besides, she'd probably need to get around the city a bit anyway, which would be incredibly tiring on foot. She knew her reasoning had been flawed, but a few days earlier there had been a report of a mugging in the local paper, and when her dad had noticed it had occurred directly on the route she would have to take were she to go by foot, he'd immediately relented and got her a prepaid travel pass. Technically the buses would've been even faster, but she preferred trains, and it would only be a five-minute difference. As for cycling…for some reason, there was a deeply-rooted feeling of absolute terror when she even thought about riding a bike in such a hectic city – Mitsuha had had enough bike accidents back in Itomori. She'd never ridden in Tokyo before, and she wasn't going to start now.

Descending to the platform, she allowed herself a small internal cheer as the train pulled in right in front of- never mind, it was pulling out, not in. Her heart slowing back down (why did arriving at just the right time excite her so?) she waited the two minutes for the next train, which luckily wasn't as ridiculously packed as the previous one. She saw the hint of a similar uniform to hers a fair ways down the carriage, but whoever it was was almost entirely blocked from her view, and she wouldn't recognise them anyway. Mitsuha turned away and grabbed a handrail as the train left the platform, just in time to avoid falling into the woman standing next to her.

Arriving at Shibuya station around five minutes later, Mitsuha made her way up to the surface, finally breaking through to the world of sunlight and openness. Looking around her in awe, she was overwhelmed with the sheer number of people around her. It was the first time she'd come to Shibuya at rush hour, and in just a few seconds she'd seen more people than the entire population of Itomori – at least, that was how it seemed. Ikebukuro had been pretty busy, but it was nothing compared to this manic rush of hundreds, no, thousands of students, businessmen, labourers, government officials, parents and children, cars, buses, bikes, and even planes flying overhead…

Her contemplation ended when a man roughly pushed past her, and she realised she'd been standing almost directly in front of the entrance – or rather, one of the many entrances – to the station. Taking her bearings, she set off at a slow walk and simply observed her surroundings, but there was really no need. The buildings, streets, even some of the shops she knew by name and sight. She even caught herself absent-mindedly crossing the road before realising that yes, she was in fact going the right way, despite only having come this way a couple of times before. It was a strange sensation, like humming a tune for a piece of music you were sure you'd never heard before.

Soon the density of students began to increase. As she came closer to her destination, Mitsuha began to see ever-increasing numbers of teenagers wearing the same uniform she was wearing herself. Most were in groups, excitedly chatting – she caught snippets of conversation about classes, teachers and the spring break before tuning out slightly to simply absorb the atmosphere around her. There was also a large number of parents; it was the entrance ceremony after all. Despite also being a new student herself, she was actually transferring straight into third year, which was why she wasn't going in with the new first-years or bringing her family along.

Eventually the students converged onto one point, the school's main gates. They were wide enough to accommodate at least five people abreast, but despite leaving early she'd somehow walked slowly enough to end up arriving at the most congested time of the morning; there was a bit of a crowd as everyone tried to enter at the same time. Slowly shuffling her way through, Mitsuha wandered around the main yard for a while, trying to recall any details of the fairly speedy tour she'd been given a couple of weeks prior, but before she had a chance to really explore she noticed most of the students moving towards a large building near the back of the school grounds. Figuring it was the beginning of the entrance ceremony, she hastened to follow them.

Falling in step with the students around her, Mitsuha slowly moved towards the doors as students and parents entered two or three at a time. Two years ago she had been attending a similar ceremony in Itomori, but of a much smaller scale of course. Back then she had attended as a senior student, welcoming the newcomers, but now the situation was slightly different. Not only was she the new one here, she would have to sit with all the other second- and third-years without having a clue as to what was going on.

Today was going to be a long day.

〈◇〉

Mitsuha wanted nothing more than to melt into a pair of puddles, one in each shoe, and pretend the last two hours had never happened.

Everything was going fine at first. After all, she was simply sitting in the audience, standing up, applauding and sitting down whenever everyone else did. But around halfway through the ceremony, the music started. Mitsuha felt her face simultaneously pale and redden as she realised she would have to sing the school anthem without knowing any of the words, with a group of teachers sitting just across the aisle from her. She'd already gotten some funny looks from them when she almost sat in the seats reserved for the student council, and there was no way they were going to just ignore her not singing…she would have to stumble through it as best she could.

And stumble through it she did. She ended up spending the rest of the ceremony trying to tell whether anyone had taken notice of the absence of sound coming from her mouth. To counter this, she had tried guessing obvious words when they had come up – words like 'school' and 'Japan' were pretty easy to insert into the right places once you heard the first syllable, but at one point the music abruptly stopped and she almost made a complete fool of herself. She really should have looked for the words on the school website or something…

After that farce of a song, she ashamedly kept her head down for the rest of the ceremony, but it seemed that if anyone had noticed they were doing her the favour of ignoring it. After far more speeches than anyone should be legally put through, the students were sent to meet their homeroom teachers. The class lists had been posted outside the gym entrance as they were inside, and the students excitedly, yet in an orderly fashion, left the gym to find who they were going to be spending the year with while the parents and teachers conversed inside.

Which class she was in was irrelevant to her as she knew precisely one teacher and zero students, but even so there was some nervousness simmering inside her as she scanned the lists. It was only when using an English-to-Japanese dictionary at school that she had first realised how convenient an alphabetical order was, something Japanese lacked – finding her name meant going through every name, top to bottom; she eventually found her name near the middle of the list for class 3-3, which was run by one 'Furukawa-sensei'. Luckily she remembered the way to the third-year classrooms from her tour a couple of weeks earlier and joined the students who were headed the same way.

"…kendo club this year…"
"No, Kino's in 3-1 now-"
"…why is the spring holiday so short…"
"Yeah, but the exam's a-"
"-covering for Okudera, she's ill-"
"Who's that? The one-"
"Tokyo? Not with these grades!"
"-meet after? That guy…"
"Same class again, huh?"

Around her she could hear lots of excited conversations and tried to figure out from her new schoolmates' facial expressions which groups had been split up and which would be staying together. Most of the students looked fairly happy, although she could see one particular group of boys who were starting to peel off one by one as they were all assigned to different classes. Eventually there were only two of them left, and they quickly waved goodbye as one of them turned into a door on the right, clearly marked '3-3'.

Following him in, Mitsuha took a seat near the middle of the class as more students entered and the desks began to fill up. The classroom was completely standard – rows of individual wooden desks and chairs, windows on the wall opposite the sliding door, chalkboards covering the front wall, and a larger desk with a computer for the teacher. A quick glance around made it clear that everyone knew each other and there were definitely some strongly established friendships; she even got a confused glance or two as more and more of her new classmates noticed the stranger slitting slap bang in the middle of their classroom – Mitsuha was beginning to regret sitting in such a central position.

Just as a girl tapped her on the shoulder from behind, a teacher – presumably Furukawa-sensei – walked in and shut the door behind him, and before she could fully turn around Mitsuha heard a quiet "Never mind" from whoever had been trying to get her attention.

Furakawa was a tall man, slightly hunched, with the look of someone who would feel right at home teaching an empty classroom. Dressed formally, he had already adjusted his glasses twice by the time he made it to the blackboard, and it wasn't hard to realise how little control he had, or even wanted, over the classes he taught. Eventually he put down his rather ancient briefcase and, after one final adjustment of his glasses, turned to face the class.

"Alright everyone, please settle down. I mean, not that it matters, there are no actual classes today. Well, except homeroom, but does that even count? It's more of a casual-" His voice began to drift into a mutter before a shout came from one of the students.

"Heeeeey, senseeeeei!" A boy near the windows half stood in his seat with his hand raised, and the intended recipient of the shout, along with everyone else in the room, turned to face him. "How was your break?" So this one must be the class clown, Mitsuha thought amusingly.

"Hmm? Oh, yes, fine, very well actually. That is, very good. Not that it is relevant to your education."

He turned, picked up the nearest piece of chalk, inspected it closely, then looked up and began to write. "My name is Furakawa. That is, Furakawa-sensei. 'Sensei' isn't part of my name, but – well, anyway, just in case you need to write it, it's like this. 'Furakawa' that is, not 'sensei', I do sincerely hope you can all write that at your age. Anyway, it's 'Fura' as in 'old' and 'kawa' as in 'river'."

A sigh came from one of the front desks. "Sensei, we know your name. And how to write it as well. It's not exactly complicated, and we've known you for two years already."

"That's all well and good Suzuki-san, but I do distinctly remember you using the wrong character for 'kawa' last year when you wrote my name on an essay you handed in." A few students sniggered as the rest finally decided to quiet down and pay attention. "I almost refused to mark it. Not that it would have mattered, you only got 47 percent anyway." The class erupted into laughter at the teacher's surprisingly savage remark as the girl's head dropped onto her desk with an audible thud. Out of the corner of her eye, Mitsuha just managed to catch a small smile from Furakawa before he put down the chalk and turned to face his class.

"Alright, you know the drill." There was a collective groan from the class, and Furakawa spend a few seconds fumbling underneath the front desk before retrieving a small pot. "One by one, and no swapping." That last part seemed to be directed towards…someone, although it seemed as though even Furakawa himself didn't know exactly who. He turned around with a shrug and began to draw some sort of table on the blackboard.

"Come on." The girl sitting behind Mitsuha lightly touched her arm as she got up and walked to the front along with everyone else, and looked back at her, motioning to her to stand up. The girl was of medium height, with her hair pulled back in a small, loose ponytail that barely moved as she turned to face forward – Mitsuha didn't get a good look at her face before standing and moving behind her.

"What's going on?" She quietly spoke to the girl, just loud enough to be heard over the general chatter going on in front of and around them. The girl turned her head slightly to look over her shoulder, and Mitsuha absently noted the way her irises seemed to fade from black to brown as they expanded away from the pupil.

"Random seating arrangement. He's writing the desk numbers on the board now. Well, he's written two nineteens, but you get the idea." Glancing over at the board, Mitsuha saw that he had indeed drawn a grid of squares, six by five, and was scratching his head as to how he'd managed to fill the entire grid yet only get up to twenty-nine. For some reason the numbers were completely random, with one nineteen on the front row and the other near the back-left corner.

By the time he'd figured out his mistake and replaced the bottom-most nineteen with a thirty, the girl in front of Mitsuha had reached the desk and taken a slip. Mitsuha grabbed one at random and opened it up, where she saw a six written in handwriting that somehow managed to look both stylised and messy at the same time.

"Lucky you, you get to sit next to me." Before she even had a chance to find her number on the board, the girl had read the paper in her hand and said such a thing with a small, sharp smile adorning her otherwise soft features, before pulling away and moving towards her seat. Mitsuha looked back at the board and located her desk – fourth row, final column; the wall that the classroom shared with the corridor outside would be directly on her right side. Turning around, the girl (she really should ask her name already) had begun to take her seat to the left of Mitsuha, and already the complaints and high-fives were dying down as everyone accepted and settled into the desks they would be sitting at for the next year, some next to their friends, others not so lucky.

Mitsuha took her bag off the desk she had first sat at near the centre of the room and moved it over to her new one beside the wall. Hanging her bag on the hook attached to the side of the desk, she noted that the desk was nothing special, just a plain wooden desk as expected. Of course there were some pen marks here and there, and a slight chip near the top, but it was nevertheless in pretty good condition. Slowly the class began to quieten down and Mitsuha took notice of the people sitting around her.

To her left was the girl who had spoken to her earlier, sitting straight and looking around the room attentively. In front was a short boy, quite convenient as sitting behind someone tall was always a pain. He had very short, slightly curled hair and was learning his head on his hands, already beginning to drift off slightly. Looking over her left shoulder, the boy behind her was quite tall, with a calm look on his face and glasses sitting just below his parted hair. Noticing her looking at him, his eyes lit up slightly and he smiled. Mitsuha gave a quick smile in return before looking away; the girl sitting next to her had somehow managed to make her even more nervous than she was before entering the classroom.

Mitsuha absently noted a single empty seat, two seats in front and two to her left, before she heard the teacher cough and looked over towards the board.

"Right, um, welcome everyone. I mean, not that you need it, you've all been here two years already. Well, nearly all." Furakawa dropped her a quick glance over the rim of his glasses before grabbing a piece of paper seemingly at random – somehow his desk had already become covered with them – and began to read out the register.

"Watanabe."
"Here."
"Sakamoto."
"Here!"
"Kusakabe."
"…heeeere…"
"Well, someone's still asleep today. Suzuki."
"Here!"

Mitsuha tried to remember the names, but there were far too many and she couldn't even tell who was answering as shouts of 'Here!' were called out from all over the room. She did manage to get the name of the girl next to her however - it was Hiraoka, and she was determined to at least remember that much. Then one name in particular stood out:

"Tachibana. …Tachibana?" The name sounded somewhat familiar…

"He's absent, sensei." It was the boy behind her who had answered. Ah, perhaps it was because it sounded so much like 'Teshigawara'. That reminded her, she hadn't spoken to Tessie or Saya-chan for a while, she should make sure not to fall out of touch with them.

"On the first day? And here I thought he might be more disciplined come the new school year. Oh well. Miyamizu?"

"Ah, here!" Mitsuha felt the eyes of the entire class turn upon her, and dryly swallowed against their expectant gazes. What they were waiting for, she didn't know, but she wished they'd just stop staring. And the tiny smirk on that girl – Hiraoka's – face really wasn't helping!

Luckily it was then that Furakawa came to the rescue. "You can introduce yourself in a minute, I suppose. Anyway, let's get on." His nonchalant voice had pulled most of the class' eyes away from her, and he continued on with the remainder of the register.

Mitsuha knew her classmates would have questions, so she had thought long and hard about what she would tell them, and she'd come to a conclusion that she wasn't quite happy about.

She'd decided not to tell them she was from Itomori. If they specifically asked her, she wouldn't lie, but the questions would be difficult and annoying and she really didn't have many answers to give. Worst of all would be if they found out her dad was the mayor – then the interrogations would really begin, and she was sure the news would spread quickly around the school, just like at Ikebukuro. She really didn't want that kind of attention.

"Alright, come on up and introduce yourself Miyamizu-san." It seemed the register had been completed while Mitsuha was busy thinking. With those words, she pushed back her chair, thankfully without it screeching against the floor, and calmly walked to the front. Of course, she looked calm on the outside, but her mind was already hitting itself as she prepared her white lie. It wasn't what she wanted, but it would be better than the alternative. Perhaps later, once she knew everyone a bit better…no, those thoughts aren't relevant right now! Mitsuha turned, took one shallow breath, and put on a smile as she looked across the class that was now rapt at attention.

"Hello. I'm Miyamizu Mitsuha, and I'm transferring in today. My family just moved here from Ikebukuro, and before that I lived in Gifu prefecture, so I don't really know the area that well. I've lived in the country all my life, so the city is quite new to me. I know it's quite unusual to transfer in third year, but, well, here I am. Anyway, I hope I can get to know you all very well over the next few months."

Mitsuha made a small bow to the class and began to make her way back to her seat, before stopping after only a step, turning to the teacher and repeating the bow. Quickly straightening, she turned back towards her desk and walked over, sitting down and finally taking a deep breath. Oh my goodness, that was terrible! was the only thought that ran through her head as she went over what she'd just said. It was too formal, and too long, and I said I was from Gifu so of course they'll ask me about Itomori, why didn't I write it down and practice it or something?! But looking around at the class, most seemed to be paying attention to the teacher and the few who were looking at her gave her smiles before looking forward once more. It always sounds worse than it actually is, I suppose.

〈◇〉

The day ended early, barely past midday, and the halls quickly filled with students and teachers alike. The morning had been a kind of induction, meeting her classmates and homeroom teacher before dates for holidays and major events were discussed, then finally they were told their timetable and who would be teaching them each subject; Furakawa would be teaching them history and geography, and Kitamura, the teacher she'd met on the day they'd gone house-hunting, biology. There hadn't been any time to properly talk with anyone until the class was dismissed, and it seemed that school would be ending here for today.

After homeroom finished, most students threw her a quick greeting before heading out to take advantage of the half day, but a few took a little longer to talk to her properly. Hiraoka had a couple of questions about her previous school and about the country, but nothing too invasive and Itomori wasn't at all mentioned – it seemed that she'd taken a liking to Mitsuha for some reason. Then there was Saito Akane, a bubbly and cheerful girl with short shoulder-length hair and a round face, who seemed like she was about to explode with excitement when introducing herself before hugging a very surprised Mitsuha and flying out the door like she was on a spring. Finally there was Fujii Tsukasa, who welcomed her on behalf of the school council – he was the boy who sat behind her and held himself in a confident yet calming way. He was going to meet a couple of friends after school so had to rush a bit, which left Mitsuha and Hiraoka as the last ones in the classroom besides Furakawa.

"Alright, let's go. Unless you have some business with sensei?"

"No, not really." It seemed like Hiraoka wanted to keep talking, so they began to move toward the door together as Furakawa gathered up his papers. They'd had a short break around halfway through the homeroom, in which Furakawa had come over and answered any questions she'd had. There hadn't been much to discuss really – school was school, the city and building may be different but everything else was pretty much the same. "If I have any problems or more questions I'll ask him next homeroom."

"You'll have to excuse the rest of the class, you'd think they'd be more interested given how few transfers we get." Hiraoka's frown conveyed exactly how she felt about the matter, but it wasn't such a big deal to Mitsuha.

"Don't worry about it, I didn't expect to just fit in right away after all. This was already a better welcome than at my last school."

As they left the class and made their through the corridors towards the main outer gates, Mitsuha managed to coerce a little more information about Hiraoka. Her first name was Akira, but she seemed to have some aversion to it, and it took some convincing to convince Hiraoka to call her 'Mitsuha' instead of 'Miyamizu-san'. She lived around 10 minutes' walk from the school and had lived in the area her whole life, but it seemed that she didn't like Tokyo that much. Although she tried to hide it, it was clear Hiraoka was very interested in the sort of country life Mitsuha used to lead, and she had to be careful to not give away too much that would link her to Itomori. The more she thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed, keeping it from everyone – but she knew the attention she would garner would be a real pain, so until someone asked she'd just keep quiet about it.

Eventually they reached the mob of students leaving the gates and Hiraoka mumbled out a quick goodbye before turning and grabbing Mitsuha's sleeve. "If you need anything, you know…just ask, ok?" Her cheeks were going slightly red and her speech was almost fast enough to sound garbled. "I mean, it would be a pain to everyone if you kept your problems all to yourself, so don't be too shy." And with that, she turned on her heel and quickly disappeared into the crowd.

So she does have a cute side after all. Mitsuha allowed herself an amused smile, already having lost her new friend in the ocean of identical uniforms.

Turning away, she began the walk back to the station, thinking back on her day. It hadn't been as hectic and eventful as she had anticipated, which was certainly a good thing. The class seemed friendly but not overly mothering, which was a good balance, and she had a few people she could call acquaintances at the very least. Turning the corner, the number of students began to dwindle, and Mitsuha allowed herself to relax. All was going well.

Suddenly there was the sound of running steps behind her, and a hand grabbed her shoulder, urgently yet with some gentleness. She could hear slightly ragged breathing, and turned around to see –

For a few seconds they simply stood, gazing into each other's eyes, he breathing heavily and she with eyes wide in incredulity. The boy let go of her shoulder before straightening slightly and calming his breathing, and Mitsuha felt her hand tingle. Without speaking, without saying a single word, both could tell exactly what the other was thinking.

"We…we've met before…haven't we?"

"Yes." A small smile had blossomed onto Mitsuha's face, growing larger with each passing second, and her voice began to break. "Yes, we have." It was but a second later that she saw the smile reflected back at her, not on the boy's face, but in his eyes, and Mitsuha knew that she'd finally found who she had been searching for.

Neither waiting for the other, both with the same burning desire, and yet with complete calmness, the handsome city boy and the country girl with the ribbon in her hair spoke at the exact same time the exact same words, the question whose answer for so many months they had yearned with all their hearts to know.

"What's your name?"

A/N

"Kimi no namae wa." That final line has been in my head ever since I saw the film back in May (and in Britain's biggest IMAX, no less!) and this scene, along with one coming much later, were the main inspirations for this story. I hope I did it justice.

One year age difference + retake second year + move to Tokyo + writer's hand waving = same class! The equation that this story is based on has finally been completed, and we can now move onto the story proper.

Thank you for all the reviews, follows and favourites! I think I might begin to post slightly more often (2 chapters every 3 weeks or so) if I can be disciplined enough to stick to my schedule. In particular I would like to thank aysam . harits09 (FFN thinks that username is a link, hence the spacing) for correcting the name of the restaurant Taki works at. I have amended La Boheme (the name of the real restaurant in Shinjuku, have a look on Google Maps) to Il Giardino Delle Parole, which is Italian for The Garden of Words, one of Shinkai Makoto's other well-received films. It's on Netflix so I'll probably watch it this weekend. Stay tuned and enjoy the story!

Talndir

10/02/2019: Fixed spelling error (thanks SpaceUnofficial!).