Chapter 5 – Conversations and Connections (Part 1)
Mitsuha goes down Shinjuku station, at a faster pace than usual, as if afraid of meeting someone she knows along the way, perhaps a colleague from the company where she works. And perhaps because of this, the route she used to cover in a quarter of an hour, she covered it in just 10 minutes, a time record that did not even occur to her. When she was about to get home, she passed by Café de Crié where she usually buys a sweet and a hot drink just to be inside the establishment. But surprisingly Mitsuha didn't stop there, turning the next block to the 5-story building, grayish as her usual humor, next to a vibrant studio building with vertical ivory lines. After entering the narrow, underground entrance of the small building, which looks more like a secret passage to a temple, she goes to the elevator, dials button No. 3, and finally heads for her door, the third to the left of the elevator.
"Finally home," Mitsuha sighed. After hastily taking off her yellow Italian heels, she threw herself onto the sofa in her living room. A mixture of tiredness and confusion flooded her body and mind, she didn't remember so much having happened on a day like now. There was a lot to explore in her mind, but little energy to do it: meeting an unknown boy whom she inexplicably wants to meet again, a public confrontation with her superior about whom he asked her strangely nosy questions, the most work ever in a day, etc. All this took away her sleep from her well-deserved nap, and if for a moment, she lay down on the sofa, then she sat down and settled down on a cushion.
"Who are you Taki?" she asks herself that question again, but with more time to think about it. Itomori town, trip to Tokyo, strange coincidences, all of this occurred to her mind, but an empty echo of response was all she received instead. However, that emptiness reminded her of something she wanted to do, "I have to call him, I have his contact, don't I?" she checked her purse, and to her relief was the blessed contact, that for some reason the individual who gave it to her didn't want to write it on paper, even though he swore on foot together that he wanted to write it, just one of the infinite strange things about that meeting.
It was 3:30 p.m. when Taki opened the door to his apartment. His father had not yet arrived, and would be so for several hours, until dinner time, around 8 p.m. At the entrance, he hangs his blazer and backpack from a strap. After taking off his shoes and putting on some low-key cloth slippers, Taki realizes that he doesn't have the patience to sit somewhere, either eating or doing anything productive. He then goes to the bedroom, and, as if his feet had revolted, they give a violent shake causing the slippers to shoot towards his wardrobe, and he throws himself on the bed with a bang. "Mitsuha, who are you?", he dropped that question in his mind after being in an inviting position for reflection. His mind, despite searching for answers, could not find them, except what he already knew: that she was from Itomori, who had taken a trip to Tokyo shortly before the comet disaster and still returned in time to save her own entire village, apparently. In terms of family relationships, she referred to a grandmother, a sister and a father, never referring to her mother, "Is she motherless like me?". Taki scratches the side of his head, if true it would be another of the infinite coincidences of that meeting. But such reflection seemed to lead nowhere, and with the fatigue caused by the news that day had brought him, he decided to sleep.
He stayed like this for a quarter of an hour until something made him wake up and look at his hand. "Again," he thought, "Why?" But unlike the other times that this involuntary act led to a strange feeling of loss and even tears, now something occurred to him, "I have her contact, I can call her!". So, he put his hands in his pants pockets to seek the contact, but it wasn't there. He began to fret, "Where the hell did I put the contact?" and remembered to look for the blazer he hung at the entrance, and ran there. Taki gropes the pockets of his blazer, "It's not here!", rummaging through it abruptly. Taki repeats the process again in the backpack he had brought with him, with each bag being rummaged through with increasing desperation, "No! It can't be!" with his breathing getting faster and faster. His stumped hand finally felt an internal clasp, and a flash of memory came to him, "Now I remember, I kept it here!" but the fear that he had lost contact of her only went away when he read the numbers on the paper he took. After that, he takes his cell phone and dials the number on the sheet, hesitating whether he was going to call right away or not. He looks at the time, it was almost 4 pm, he hesitates "She should only leave work around the end of the afternoon", and gives up calling her for now, waiting for the right moment.
Taki returns to the room, but this time he doesn't go to bed, the distress of having looked for the paper of her contact seems to have taken away his sleep. Instead, he sits in the desk chair, where he usually used to study. His restless mind asked him to draw something to pass the time, the mystery of the girl seemed to be in past waters until he contacted her. He began to draw the sketch of some stairs, representing the place of one of the most remarkable events of his life, the meeting with her, but a thought interrupts him: "Hadn't I made some drawings of Itomori?".
Bursting, he puts down the charcoal pencil and goes to his drawers under the bed to look for the oldest things he had kept in his high school days. He remembered his conversation with his friends confirming that those drawings had been made before his visit to Itomori, could it be that they contained the resolution of the mysteries that were put in front of him? He searched in a drawer, they weren't there, but in the other drawer next to it, in the middle of objects and papers from school projects, was a medium-sized black portfolio with its micas all filled. He leafed through the portfolio, it contained the most important drawings for him, or simply the most elaborate.
As he leafed through the first micas, he saw his old drawings of structural, cold, metallic and geometric architecture, it was as if he was seeing a completely different person, but after that, drawings of rural landscapes began to appear between the pages that seemed familiar to him, a bridge, a Shinto arch, and of course, the scenery of Lake Itomori. All these images he had already seen the times he went to the library to see the photographs of the old Itomori. Tears used to come to his eyes when he leafed through these pages, which in appearance looked like any images of Japanese localities but made pain in his heart, nonetheless. The same was happening with these drawings, which illustrated the same thing he saw in the library, but there was one drawing in particular that caught his attention: the sketch of a room, a makeshift minibar, and a random landscape on the same sheet. "Where did I get inspired to draw this?" asked Taki after wiping away tears. He habitually always drew according to what he saw in reality, he was not the type of person to draw fictional locations and characters, and even though he changed his drawing style radically after his sudden interest in Itomori, his attachment to what he saw in reality remained. Although he does not remember copying his drawings from real photographs of Itomori, they turned out to be real. Taki took one by one of these micas each drawing related to Itomori or any rural landscape that resembled it.
After that, he closes the portfolio violently, puts it back together and spreads the drawings on the desk; every sketch of Itomori made him feel an incomprehensibly strong emotion, and even an unfamiliar room and minibar made him emotional. He put the other drawings aside next to his desk and began to analyze this one carefully: "How could I draw a room that I have never seen?" Taki tried to pull back on his memory as he looked at his sheet in the center of the desk, nothing came out of him.
But a caption above the drawing caught his eye, it said "My room, Japanese-style room". "What do I mean with my room? Had I gone crazy that much?" shouted Taki in frustration, every clue he uncovered about his connection to Itomori and possibly the girl he found only led to more questions than answers. After that, as if ignoring an unsolvable puzzle, he moved on to the following design of the same sheet: the mini-bar. But it was not just any mini-bar, it was composed of tables and chairs made in a completely handmade way from logs cut manually by the saw and even with improvised umbrellas. The caption proved it as follows: «Café with parasol, Handmade Café, Trunk». Taki observed the peculiar project, another one he did without remembering, but something made him apprehensive "A sign for a bus stop? A monolith that looks like a vending machine? This is all the enemy of a good landscape! What the hell I had in my mind?" he shouted sternly to himself.
However, a last drawing of that same sheet made Taki definitively convince that it was related to his research on Itomori, it said: "Hida, many slopes, surrounded by mountains". "Hida?" asked Taki, and the memory he had recovered from this morning, about searching the Hida Mountains before leaving for his journey to Itomori, appeared to him again like a flash in his mind. He found himself again researching a book about the Hida region and copying the slopes of the mountains in a more elaborate drawing. He went to scrutinize the sheets next to the desk and there was the drawing, with its imposing mountains. But nothing related to the design of the room and minibar appeared in his memory, as if it had been surgically erased from it. "My friends are right, I really created a treasure hunt...", Taki said quietly to himself.
Why would he bother to draw mountains around a famous place? Was my interest in Itomori so much that I could do a topography of what was around the village? But after these questions he returned to the same place, "Let me recap, I made these drawings before the trip to Itomori, I used them as a guide to find Itomori, but I could only make these drawings if I knew Itomori, making me... Oh! None of this makes sense!" punching Taki's desk after a scream of frustration.
Taki spent the next hour staring at the drawings, imagining what it would be like to be in those places. At some point, his head began to stagger, to the point that it fell on the top of the desk. This change of position made him teleport back to reality, he had to see if it was time to call the girl from Itomori. After a few hours, he turns on the screen of his cell phone and it was already 7:12 p.m.: "I'm going to try it now," said Taki, who was still hesitant to turn it on, he didn't know if that was the right time, but he couldn't stand the wait anymore. He pulls out the contact now present in his pocket, and enters the number.
At the same moment that Mitsuha was checking his contact on her bag, her cell phone started ringing on the table in front of the sofa, she suddenly dropped the bag and an enthusiasm emerged in the midst of her fatigue, "Is it Taki?" she wondered enthusiastically. However, on the screen of her mobile phone appeared "Saya Friend", and when she sees that it is someone she knows, her muscles soften and her sudden enthusiasm wanes. She attends:
– Hello Mitsuha, how are you? – Sayaka began with the routine question.
– Oh! Yes, I mean... it's okay Saya – Mitsuha stumbled over her words.
– Look, babe, I know it's not usual to call you today, but as you already know, the preparations for my wedding with Teshi are going from strength to strength. Could you come with me Saturday at 10 a.m. to go to the engagement clothing store? – Sayaka wanted to get straight to the point.
– Hmmm... yes. I don't see why not babe. And again congratulations to both of you! – Mitsuha tried to pretend that everything was normal.
– Mitsuha, are you okay? You're very hesitant today! Has anything happened? – Saya always knows when her friend doesn't act normally, even on the phone.
– No, it's nothing! I just... I had a busy day, no big deal... – Mitsuha didn't feel like telling her something that hadn't even fit in her own head.
– A busy day? So it's a big deal! Come on, don't be closed Mitsuha! Tell me what's going on! – Sayaka didn't want to see her friend suffer in silence if something bad happened to her.
– I... I only met one person on the way to my work and I was late for it. – Mitsuha said it monotonously, trying to make her friend lose interest. – And as you might assume, I was reprimanded for that... no big deal – Mitsuha continuing the monotonous tone.
– Nothing much? You're joking, right? And who is this person you met with? –Sayaka was excited to finally hear something from Mitsuha that wasn't monotonous.
– It's a bit complicated, Saya... I don't think I should tell you this over the phone call. – Mitsuha didn't feel ready to count the gossip.
– Come on! Don't be so mysterious Mitsuha! If you don't tell me now, I'll go... – a light shine on Sayaka – Wait a minute! He's a man, isn't he? That's why you don't want to tell! Did I guess? – Sayaka directly guessed, confident in her intuition.
– Yes, indeed it is… – Mitsuha replied with an air of annoyance. – We found each other in very strange circumstances and that's why I don't want to explain it here over the phone now, okay? – Mitsuha snorted, as she tried to force her friend not to talk about it now.
– Mitsuha! Have you finally found someone? It was about time! What is it like? Is it tall? Is it beautiful? How old is he? – Sayaka's euphoria was expressed in a machine gun of questions.
– Well, he's taller than me, and I'd even say he's handsome... – Mitsuha was starting to blush – What the hell Saya! I had one of the strangest moments of my life, followed by a terrifying reprimand, and you just want to know what the boy looks like? – Mitsuha on her nerves denounced without realizing the age of the individual Taki.
– Boy? Is he younger than you? – Saya asked with a certain tone of astonishment, not forgiving her friend's slip.
– Yes, it is. He is 22 years old. – Mitsuha resigned herself to telling her friend the details – And don't even tell me how I found him, I looked at his face on a different train from mine and started running like a crazy person looking for him. And he did the same too, ending up finding us on stairs... – Mitsuha paused – Saya, do you understand why I said it was complicated? Wouldn't it be better to talk about this when we meet? – Mitsuha wanted to prove her point to her friend.
– Oh! How romantic! You mean that you have seen each other before and only now you had the courage to do the first move with each other? Right at the most dramatic moment in a train station like in the movies? – ignoring Mitsuha's pleas – As for his age, don't worry Mitsuha, he in terms of relationship experience must be no less than you eheh! – Saya didn't waste the opportunity to throw her virginity in relationships in her face.
– Look who's saying Saya, you've also only had a relationship with one person in your life, a certain Teshi! – Mitsuha immediately wanted to respond to what she felt was an offense from her friend – And as for the boy, it's the first time I've met him, we've never met before. Although, it seems that I knew him and the boy equally too... – Mitsuha pauses to sigh deeply – See how complicated it is? You don't understand anything! – scolding Mitsuha her friend for her excessive curiosity.
– You've never met him then, have you? But... Wait a minute, let me recap: you were on a train to work, you peeked out the window and saw the unknown boy on the train next to you, he looked at you too, and you two went running to each other because... you felt that you knew each other? – Saya stumbled over her words, trying to understand her friend's account.
– I would say... that is a yes, that's it. – Mitsuha is more and more convinced that no one will believe her story – And the most frustrating thing is that we really don't know each other anywhere, not even by sight. Our conversation was trying to understand where we knew each other from, and the more we talked, the more bizarre the conversation became... Do you see Saya why I said it was complicated? But you don't listen to me! – Mitsuha approaches Saya as if trying to teach her a lesson.
–Is it... Love at first sight? – Saya tried to make a guess – It's not that I believe in these things, but it's the only explanation I can find, Mitsuha! – Saya was running out of ideas of what to say about it.
–What? No! It's not like that at all! – Mitsuha blushes all over – It's just just... I want to meet him again, we have pending matters that we couldn't finish because I had to go to work. – Mitsuha tries to devalue the feelings involved in the interaction with the boy.
– That is, you want to have a date with him. – concluded Saya in her friend's words – Which is fantastic Mitsuha, I tried to get you to meet some boys, but you didn't even care! – Saya reminded her friend – Forgive me if I'm being like my Teshi, but I think Musubi got tired of seeing one of his former servants still with the virginity of a Catholic nun, and made it rain a boy just for you! – Saya saw her friend's event as some kind of miracle.
– A date with him... – Mitsuha felt her heartbeat stronger as she exposed the possibility – But Saya, what a hell of a friend you are! Aren't you worried that I ran into an unknown man in the middle of the street out of hours? – Mitsuha wanted to escape the topic still with a strong heartbeat, at the same time trying to bring some sense to her friend.
– Look, friend, if you had been harassed or something worse – Saya knocks three times on the wood of the table next to her as if to ward off a bad omen – I would have noticed by the tone of your voice, or knowing you, you wouldn't answer my calls and there I would go to break down the door of your house! – Saya tries to loosen up the atmosphere of a sad and gloomy theme – But anyway! Is that not the case, isn't Mitsuha? – Saya wanted confirmation that none of this happened in her friend's mouth.
– No, none of that happened, although... – Mitsuha was going to talk about her superior's strangely nosy questions about the boy, but she didn't want to worry her friend about something she still doesn't know how it will unfold. – As I said, it was a strange interaction I had with him, but nothing to do with harassment. In fact, if there was harassment, it was with our very personal questions that we asked each other. – Mitsuha found in the subject of the unknown boy a refuge from her humiliation in the work environment that she still wanted to talk about less.
– Personal questions? Immediately the first time you met? Ouch Mitsuha! And then you still think it's too much to have a date with him! – Saya's excitement about her friend's report continues, but she pauses in her words. – Oh, what a head of mine! I was so interested in personal questions and forgot to ask you his name! What is the boy's name? – Saya does face palm of herself because she felt so moony.
– His name is Taki, Tachibana Taki – Mitsuha introduces his name without hesitation – And regarding personal questions… He already knows I'm from Itomori! – Mitsuha still hesitates, but goes on with the story, saying anything about Taki at that moment relieved her negative feelings.
– What? You can't! Have you gone mad? Weren't you the one who, whenever possible, never said your place of origin so as not to be seen as the "comet girl"? – Saya was stunned by such a revelation.
– Yes... indeed. – Mitsuha blushed with embarrassment – But I just said at the beginning that I lived next to Hida in Gifu Prefecture, I never imagined that this Taki not only knew the region, but traveled there, to Itomori! He said he was looking for something there... – Mitsuha tried to justify himself, ending with a mysterious tone at the end.
– He traveled to... Wait Mitsuha, but is this Taki from here in Tokyo? – Saya wanted to confirm her deduction.
– Yes, he is. He has always lived here. – Mitsuha confirms. – And I know what you're going to say, what is he for...
– … going to visit a land in the middle of nowhere where trains run every two hours, the convenience stores close at 9 pm – Sayaka begins to remember with emotion the old mantra of the two of them in roasting about Itomori.
– … no bookstores, no dentist, which doesn't even appear on the Maps satellite... – tears begin to appear in Mitsuha.
– … No fiancés, no job, few hours of sunshine. Snif! Mitsuha! I never thought we'd say this again in my life. – Saya sniffs through her nose as several tears fall on her – We were such ungrateful persons! – Saya shouted as if she were crying out to the heavens.
– Well, we were, snif! – Mitsuha also agrees and sniffles. – That's why it touched me so much when he said he visited our land, what are the odds? – Mitsuha asks, still wiping away tears.
– But... Wait a minute. So, when did this Taki from Tokyo visit our land? – Saya goes back to the subject of the boy. – If he visited before it was destroyed, he would have at least... – Saya pauses to do the math – He would have been at least thirteen years old, and I don't remember seeing anyone under 20 coming from abroad to Itomori, if it happened... the whole village would know! – Saya was trying to keep up with the puzzle that Mitsuha threw at her.
– He visited Itomori well after it was destroyed. – Mitsuha's voice becomes darker – It was in 2016, 3 years after that, and he said he was looking for something he doesn't remember... – Mitsuha ends in a melancholy and mysterious tone.
– Well, I suppose our village became a tourist target after the comet, but three years later? Unless... he was some student scientist looking for samples of land to analyze, wasn't he? – Saya asked, trying to give logic to her friend's information.
– But Saya, he just doesn't remember! – He made the trip of his life and remembers almost nothing! Does that sound familiar to you? – Mitsuha questions her friend.
–Familiar? But what are you talking about... – Saya has a flash of memory – Wait... that trip to Tokyo you took the day before the comet hit? – Saya tries to confirm if she got it right.
– Yes, that one. – nodding her head – I also went looking for something and I remember almost nothing. Although Yotsuha told me that I went to Tokyo to meet a boy... – Mitsuha was anxious to know the real reason for the trip – And you know what? This Taki told me that he was traveling by train on the same day I went to Tokyo. – Mitsuha left the puzzle pieces for Saya to fit together.
– What? Don't tell me it could be him, that partly explained why you acted so weird for a whole month! – Saya felt like she had just solved an old mystery – But Mitsuha, how the hell don't you remember anything? You even cut your hair at the expense of the trip! – feeling frustrated by her friend's amnesia.
– No! I just don't know! – Mitsuha has a déjà vu when she says these words. – I think it's the same reason why I don't remember to predict the comet's fall and shout to everyone that it's going to fall... I only have a memory practically after the fall... – Mitsuha begins to flood in the sadness of her own words, making her remember the frustrations at that time she tried to bury.
– It's a pity... I even remember asking how you predicted the fall of the comet and you said, "Someone warned me" and you started crying. – her friend's sadness began to infect Saya – But anyway! Obviously it couldn't be this Taki you supposedly found the day before with him, right? If it was him... we would be talking about a God, a comic book superhero or... or a fox as my Teshi said! – Saya felt ridiculous to put forward these absurd hypotheses at all.
– No... I don't remember anything! Not even saying that! Only... I remember feeling sadness like I had lost someone, but they were all alive! – Mitsuha almost screams in frustration at having to remember that.
– Perhaps... maybe it was because you could never find again this Taki that you saw in Tokyo..., but for that you had to remember him, right? – Saya makes the reasoning out loud – Oh Mitsuha! Couldn't you choose a simpler interaction? You take a crazy trip from the middle of nowhere to find this Taki, you two forget that you met, and after 8 years you meet again because you feel a déjà vu for each other? – shot Saya a theory seemed to give logic to her friend's meeting, even if not much.
– But one of us must remember something, right? – Mitsuha was skeptical of her friend's theory. – We met as perfect strangers, and we came out as perfect strangers, it's just... on the stairs, on the stairs of the Suga Shrine to be exact, I looked into his eyes from the top of the stairs and didn't recognize him anywhere! I went ahead, I felt bad, but I went ahead! And he didn't recognize me equally, and he also went ahead! The two of us were going to separate paths... – Mitsuha was starting to feel her throat tighten just remembering her cowardice in not speaking first.
– I don't know, I just don't know! If that's like you said then... then only an invisible force beyond our comprehension would have made you speak without knowing each other! – Saya was impatient that she couldn't find a logical explanation – But someone had to cut your separate ways, right? – And knowing you, Mitsuha, you wouldn't be the first to talk to a stranger! – Saya tries to deduce what happened on her date.
– Yes, in fact Taki was the one who spoke first... – Mitsuha starts tearing up when she thinks that based on her, she would never be able to meet someone she had a mysterious desire to meet.
Saya begins to find her meeting caricatured, more than mysterious.
– So, if that's the case, let me see, the boy said: "Hello, I know you from somewhere although I don't know you?" – Saya imitates the male voice – And your answer is "Yes! I also know you, although I have never met you!" – making a thin voice as if joking.
– Hey! We didn't talk like that! – Mitsuha complained, pouting – Although your imitation wasn't very far from reality... Oh Saya! I feel so ridiculous! And as if that wasn't enough, we asked our names at the same time. Why? – Mitsuha throws a rhetorical question, which she didn't know the answer to.
– Oh Mitsuha, don't ask me something that only you could know and not even you know! – Saya was getting more and more impatient because she felt she had fewer and fewer answers to what happened to her friend – If you have spoken for a long time, you must know something of him, besides of course, his crazy journey to our land. Right? – Saya still remained curious despite the embarrassment of not knowing how to respond to what she was told.
– Yes, I know a few things. He's 22 years old, he's always lived in Tokyo... – Mitsuha puts her hand on her forehead – Ugh! What a head of mine, but I had already told you that! Let's see... Ha! He studied at the Agronomist University, and he is... an Itomori geek? – Mitsuha began to blush with embarrassment for knowing so little about the boy in such a big conversation.
– So... Is that all you know? You don't know, if he has a profession, if he continues to study, if he lives alone or with his parents... Don't you know anything about that? – asked Saya in amazement – Your meeting was limited to asking each other where you knew each other from and inventing crazy theories about it? – Saya shook her head as if to scold her friend from a distance.
– Let's say so... – Mitsuha nodded to the tone of reprimand. – Do you see why this isn't a meeting of lovers, or a divine gift from Musubi to have a partner? – Mitsuha felt entitled to fight back. – I know you want to see me with a man, but I want to be alone! Even if it hurts, I want to be alone! – Mitsuha screamed with tears in her eyes, as if she were making the most painful decision of her life.
– Mitsuha! Don't say...
Suddenly, a sound on Mitsuha's phone began to sound in the form of a "beep". She lowered the device to see what it was; It was an unknown number that was trying to call him. Her heart starts beating, "Is it Taki?" she thinks. She feels divided, will she discard her friend's call to answer this number or not?
She had the "call waiting" service active, so the unknown sender trying to call her was able to call her phone without the annoying "busy number" block. However, Saya receives no response to what she had said, and she feels the need to intervene:
–Hello? Mitsuha? Are you listening? – Saya is surprised by her silence.
– Oh yes! I'm here Saya! Sorry, but I received a call while you were talking, maybe I'll have to answer... Don't you mind if we stop the call right now here? – Mitsuha wanted on the one hand to know if this stranger was Taki and on the other hand to escape the conversation with her friend which was getting tense.
– In that case, I don't want to interrupt your life Mitsuha. – Saya accepted that she had other commitments – But I don't forget what you said! Then we'll talk! – leaving a warning to her.
– OK! Thank you for understanding. I feel that this is urgent! – Mitsuha gives a quick thank you and prepares to press the unknown number icon.
Mitsuha finally presses the icon on her phone after hastily ending the call with Saya:
– He... hello! Who are you? – A voice speaks at first nervously, confirming whether it is the person he wanted to call.
–Hello. My name is Mitsuha, Myamizu Mitsuha, am I the one you are looking for? – Mitsuha, despite the formal question, recognized a familiar voice on the other end of the phone.
– Yes, it's you! My name is Taki, Tachibana Taki, do you recognize me? – Taki replied with joy in his voice, but he was still expectant.
– Yes! Of course I recognize you! – Mitsuha replied with a tone of joy noticeable in her voice.
– Good thing... – Taki sighed in relief – Look, are you available Myamizu-senpai? Are you still working? Am I not bothering you? – Taki was still nervous about bothering the newly found woman that he made her delay.
– No, I left work an hour ago, don't worry about it. – Mitsuha replies promptly, – But... you don't need to address me as Myamizu-senpai. You can address me by my first name! – Mitsuha is perplexed by the nickname Taki gave her, no one had ever called her that.
– Isn't that necessary? – Oh! Taki puts his hand on the back of his head – Well, I actually feel more comfortable calling you by your first name. – feeling relieved to be able to treat her as an equal. – And you can call me Taki, or Taki-kun if you feel more comfortable. – Taki doesn't forget that she's a little older than him and gives her the option of calling him by the same nickname that Okudera-senpai used to call her.
– I'm going to call you Taki, you don't have to call us nicknames, do you? – Mitsuha also wants to relieve himself of the difference in treatment between them. – But Taki-kun, it's such a beautiful nickname..., but if you call me by my first name then I'll do the same! – Mitsuha didn't want to feel selfish making an exception to call him by his nickname, no matter how mysteriously attractive its sound was.
– But if you prefer Taki-kun, I don't mind Mitsuha. Incidentally... This will seem strange, but I even prefer that you address me by that nickname. The sound of your voice... It looks very beautiful when you call me that. – Taki seems to have déjà vus when Mitsuha chants the cognomen Taki-kun, he could swear that he heard that name being chanted with her voice, but he didn't know from where.
– Ok then... we both agree that it's better to call it that, isn't it Taki-kun? – Mitsuha wanted to confirm if he said it sincerely or just to please him.
– That's right. For me, you could always treat myself like this! – Taki smiled uncontrollably with happiness. – So... I wanted to ask you... Mitsuha, would you agree to meet with me? – Taki blushes when he realizes the content of the question – But it's not a date! I just... I have a few things to show you that might be interesting to you, that is... if you want of course! – Taki was embarrassed, it's the first time he's asked a girl to go out, not even with Okudera-senpai does he remember making such a request.
– But of course I do! – Mitsuha gets excited by covering her mouth – I mean, I... I also wanted to meet you, there are things... things that need to be explained, but I have nothing to show you... – Mitsuha feels embarrassed by the barely contained enthusiasm and for not being able to think of something to repay him, stumbling over the words.
– You're right, Mitsuha. We really must solve the mysteries between us... – Taki blushes when he says the word "we" – I mean, we have to know each other somewhere, there's no way we could have found ourselves as complete strangers, right? – Taki tries to cling to the useful side of the date he proposed, so as not to seem romantic.
– You're right, Taki-kun! We have to know each other somewhere... – Mitsuha does a quick search in her memories – But... We've already talked about it, and it seems like... Ugh! I've never seen you before in my life! – the nerves from the previous conversation take over her again – And whoever hears my story, thinks I'm crazy! I talked to my friend a little while ago, and she thinks this is crazy! She didn't say it, but clearly that's what she thinks! Same at work, I didn't even tell the whole truth, and they already think I'm crazy! Why? Why me? – Mitsuha vents her nerves and despair at this unfamiliar situation, with tears beginning to flow in her eyes.
– But, Mitsuha! I underst..." Taki is interrupted.
– And now, I'm telling you this! Me, that I don't even know you anywhere! And I want to meet you, I, snif... I that never wanted to meet any boy! – Mitsuha begins to sob, visibly altered.
– Mitsuha! Don't cry! I understand you, much more than you imagine! – Taki raised his voice, he couldn't stand to hear Mitsuha in that state anymore – I told my friends this too and clearly, they didn't seem to believe it, they even thought I was stalking girls from Itomori when I said you were from there! And if you're afraid that people will think you're crazy, I'm crazier than you! I'm the one who did the crazy research that I don't even know what it's for! – Taki loses his breath from talking loudly without pausing, exhaling to complete what he wanted to convey to Mitsuha – So, as I told you before, we're in the same boat! – A tear of emotion for his own speech runs down Taki's cheek.
– Are you sure you don't think I'm crazy? – Mitsuha questioned him, still wiping away her tears.
– Obviously not... Mitsuha! Look, I share the same strange sensations as you, and this... well, it's a sign that whatever you saw in me, I looked back the same... For example, have you ever seen people go to the mental asylum for collective hallucination? – Taki asks a rhetorical question – I don't think so! Because whatever you have seen or felt, I have also seen and felt the same. So, there's no way... There's no way this could be your imagination, if we both saw the same thing it's because it's real... even if we don't know how to explain it! – Taki stumbles over his words when trying to convince Mitsuha that she wasn't crazy, not even in his job interviews does he remember gathering so many arguments at once as he spoke.
– It is... really... – Mitsuha speaks in a sorrowful voice – You're right, I feel so selfish! I'm here complaining about being crazy while you're going through the same thing as me... or maybe even worse! From what you told me... – Mitsuha regrets her lack of consideration – Taki-kun, we must clarify this personally, like... now! I will not sleep peacefully until I resolve this. What triggered us was seeing each other, not by some conversation on the phone... Do you agree? – Mitsuha felt determined, but at the same time afraid, as if the entity she's talking to on her cell phone was going to disappear forever at any moment.
– But... Mitsuha, that's what I was going to propose to you! – Taki is happy and perplexed by her suggestion. – I just didn't want to interrupt you because you were... well, because you were thrilled with what happened to us... – Taki tried to find the softest description for her outburst.
– Taki-kun, I apologize for the rudeness a moment ago. I really don't know what happened to me... if there was a moment when I was crazy it was precisely that... – Mitsuha felt ashamed for having had the outbreak a moment ago.
– You don't need to apologize Mitsuha, I believe this situation would getting on anyone's nerves, right? – Taki said trying to show empathy – Well, as for meeting, I have a place that I know, Il Giardino delle parole, an Italian restaurant with a lot of good food and a café space for us to talk. Is it good for you? – Taki wanted to arrange a place where he knew they would both be well served during the "date".
– Il Giardini delle parole? – Mitsuha asks in astonishment – But... It's my favorite restaurant! Once I went there with a friend who wanted to try some exotic dishes, and the atmosphere and the food... They seemed so familiar to me, that it turned out to be our favorite restaurant. What led you to choose this restaurant? – Mitsuha asks still incredulous.
–Well! In fact... – Taki puts his hand on the back of her head and blushes – That's where I worked part-time for a year! It was in the 2016/2017 period, and if that matters to you, at the same time I started to be interested in Itomori... – Taki remembers the introspections about his lost memories. These came in line with certain things he did during his part-time job and which he doesn't remember.
–Oh! That explains your choice ahahah – Mitsuha laughs for the first time in the conversation, even if a laugh of relief – But... You said 2016/2017, right? I went to this restaurant for the first time in 2015... then I went to a winter vacation dinner in 2016, and I even celebrated my graduation there with some friends in the summer of 2017... – a light comes on in Mitsuha – Taki-kun, that means that... We may have met before! – a tone of enthusiasm is noticeable in her voice.
– Really? Does this mean that we could have met... for real? – Taki was pale, the chances of solving the mystery of this mysterious attraction were higher than ever.
– Well... I at least don't remember seeing your face there. The restaurant is quite big, it had several employees... – Mitsuha the more she thinks about it, the less hopeful she gets.
– I don't remember seeing you either, that's the truth... – Taki joins Mitsuha's melancholic chorus – But do you remember the days of the week you went to those meetings? I had Wednesdays and Saturdays off, and besides, I worked only at dinner time. – Taki really wanted to be sure if they really crossed paths.
– That was more than 4 years ago, wasn't it? You have a very good memory! – Mitsuha was impressed by his memory for the details.
– Do you know Mitsuha? It's just that I wrote everything down in an agenda on my cell phone when I started part-time, and the days of the week when I had a break from work were very well written down ahahah – Taki also laughs for the first time, she felt the need to relieve the expectant atmosphere between them – But anyway, a short time later I started to write everything down on paper... that trip to Itomori I took after 1 month or so of part-time work... changed my life – Taki's playful tone is immediately replaced by a somber voice – I... I couldn't write it down on my cell phone anymore, my fingers just jammed, and I started writing down my agenda on paper... That's why on the stairs, when we met... I had to give you my contact on paper, and even then... I wasn't going to let you do it... – Taki began to shed tears as he remembered the moment when he almost didn't let her write her contact, he didn't understand why he had such an outburst.
– Taki-kun, I forgive you, don't worry about it. – Mitsuha started to feel sorry for him. – I'm very sorry for what happened to you on that trip... Itomori, this cursed land! No wonder I wanted to get out of there! – brandishing Mitsuha angrily, not only for her, but now for Taki, feeling that she finally found someone who suffered the same as her in that land.
– Don't say that, Mitsuha... – Taki replied, still wiping away his tears – Itomori was a very beautiful land, and you know that well! But... If your life there wasn't good, I do not blame you. – Taki tried to be understanding with her, as much as he disagreed with the negative things she said.
– I don't disagree with you... after the disaster I realized the good things I had lost... – Mitsuha hated to admit it, but that's what she really thought. – Anyway, we were talking about us meeting at the restaurant, weren't we? – Mitsuha wanted to change the subject.
– Well... yes! We were in it. – Taki was also relieved to get out of that spiral of negative feelings and incomprehensible things. – I had said that my days off were on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and I only worked at dinner time. – Taki recapped – Those times you went, were you at dinner time? And... Can you remember the day of the week? – Taki wanted to make sure the conversation didn't slip away this time.
– As I said, I had dinner in the winter of 2016, but... – Mitsuha didn't want to disappoint him. – In the summer of 2017, I had lunch. As for the days of the week... I don't remember well, it was more than 4 years ago, it's hard to remember the details... – Mitsuha was trying to pull her memory, but nothing relevant came out of him, it frustrated him.
– Well, Mitsuha, then focus on the winter of 2016! – Taki didn't want to give up easily. – Did you use to have a favorite day of the week to go to the restaurant? – questioning her.
– Taki-kun, I... I just don't know! – Mitsuha feels bad for not being able to help him decipher the enigma. – If it were now... My days of going out somewhere were restricted to the weekend. But... In my student days, any day of the week, as long as it wasn't exam time, was good for going out! Besides, I wasn't the one who arranged the meetings... – Mitsuha speaks inwardly the last part, while remembering her powerlessness in front of the others around her.
– You don't have to slaughter yourself Mitsuha! – Taki felt he was asking too much of her. – I just... I wanted to have a clue, something concrete, to explain our... uniting? – Taki hesitated and was embarrassed to say something that could be taken as a relationship, but he couldn't find a better word to describe what he had with her.
– Uniting? Well... – Mitsuha was equally embarrassed – We're just going to meet to settle a matter, right? I... I wouldn't call it a uniting! – Mitsuha considered that Taki was going a little too far and wanted to return to a more reserved position.
– Excuse me for the term used. – Taki was sorry, put his hand on the back of his head – I just... I don't know any other term to describe our situation... – Taki tried to justify himself but saw that it led nowhere. – But then, the date... Still standing? – Taki was afraid she might now refuse, not realizing he used another "forbidden" word.
– Taki-kun, but of course it's still standing! – Mitsuha was perplexed by his question – But, it's not a date! Is... A casual meeting between two people! – Mitsuha made an indignant voice, but it didn't seem serious at the same time.
– OK! A casual meeting! – Taki found his unusual reaction funny – So what time do you want that casual meeting between two people? – Taki found the term Mitsuha came up funny, but preferred not to comment so as not to get into more trouble.
– Well, I don't know... – Mitsuha looks at his cell phone clock Maybe 9 pm? – Mitsuha wasn't used to marking hours, but she considered it to be balanced.
– It may be then, but... Are you sure you have time to prepare? – Taki was sincerely worried that the time for her to get ready wasn't enough.
– You and the men... You all think that women can't get ready quickly! – Mitsuha said, a little offended by Taki's question.
– Oh! Sorry, I thought... well, forget about it! – Taki found himself at the papers with her unexpected reaction – But then, arranged for 9 pm? – Taki wanted to get straight to the point, getting rid of the embarrassment.
– Yes... It's agreed! – A strange feeling in Mitsuha's stomach ran through Mitsuha on the verge of the meeting.
– Then great! I... I now bid you goodbye! – Taki began to gain tingling in his fingers, the anxiety of saying goodbye was also affecting him.
– I also say goodbye! See you later! – Mitsuha wanted to make the best farewell possible.
– So, bye! – and Taki then turns off the phone.
Taki puts down his phone, sighs and throws himself on the bed. He keeps thinking that maybe he hung up the call too soon, but he didn't want to embarrass himself with more words in what seemed like an end to the conversation. The time from there for the "date" did not help either, it was almost 8 pm, and there was only one hour left to prepare and move to the agreed place. If both prolonged the call for distraction, the "meeting" could be impaired. "Someone had to hang up the call, right?" concluded Taki, trying to reassure himself and close the subject once and for all in his head.
However, he now focused on what he had to prepare to leave. First of all, where was he going to keep the drawings he wanted to take? If he put it in the black portfolio mixed with the others already present, it would not be practical to show them to her. "There has to be somewhere else to put them", he thought, and went to look in the same drawer from which he took his portfolio, another smaller folder to store only the necessary drawings. Rummaging through this drawer again, he came across a small gold-colored briefcase but stuffed with his last drawings of his graduating course.
"Well, I think this one will do", and Taki began to pull those drawings sharply to the floor, then took it to the desk where he had his sketches related to Itomori, hurriedly putting them into the simple hollow of that cover. However, when Taki looks back, he sees that his other drawings were scattered on the floor: he picks up the drawings, almost crumples them and puts them messed up in the drawer from which he took them. "Then I'll get them ready, I don't have time for that," Taki thought in view of the "meeting" scheduled with her.
After having managed to put the drawings he wanted to show on an appropriate cover, Taki turns to what he has to wear. He looks at himself: he had at this moment a pair of pants and a dress shirt on, missing only the gray tuxedo jacket and the shoes that were at the entrance of the door. "I could wear the same clothes I went out with today, couldn't I?" said Taki. But suddenly it occurred to him what Mitsuha would think of him if he wore the same clothes they both met in the morning: "No, I have to wear something else," he thought.
Taki rummages through the long-span hanger exposed in his room for the most appropriate jacket to add to that shirt. He wanted to wear something that was neither too formal nor too casual, but nothing seemed to please him; sometimes it was because the color didn't match, because it was too fresh, too warm, too formal, too casual, etc. He was about to resign himself to wearing the same thing until he had an idea: "How about putting on my waiter's suit? Maybe she can associate my appearance with the one she may have seen me of years ago!". Such a thought excited Taki, and he decided to look in the closet for his servant's suit; He just needed to change his gray pants for black ones, put on his waiter's waistcoat, his black tuxedo bow and his apron.
He was rummaging through the clothes in his pile in the closet and seemed not to find the set of the suit. He hadn't worn it for almost 4 years, and with the lack of use it was increasingly put aside the clothes. "Where the hell did I put the set?", Taki was starting to get nervous, time was getting tighter and he didn't even see signs of any of the pieces he was looking for in his usual places. Until he remembered: "Wait a minute! I already know where it may be, in the same place that I kept my school uniform!". With that, he went to a small drawer in the corner of the closet, which had not opened it for years; He opens it and sees the school uniform as planned and gets nervous. But after taking off his uniform, he finds his vest, pants, bow tie and apron all well organized, with a slight smell of mold, as if it were an untouched archaeological object.
Taki takes off her pants and hurries to put it all on practically without thinking, time was tight and he couldn't afford to hesitate. After putting on everything, including the apron, he goes to the wall mirror next to his hanger to check if everything is properly on. When he looks, he jumps and gets scared, it was as if he had seen a ghost from the past. But that was not all that worried him: "Oh! I can't go out with this apron on the street! But... There's little point in dressing up as an employee if she doesn't see all the outfit I wore before, right?" Taki has a new idea, "I know! I'm going to put the apron in my backpack!", referring to the backpack with a strap that he used during the day.
Taki sees the time, it was already 8:40 pm. and he had not yet prepared everything. He takes off his apron and goes to the bathroom to soak himself in perfume, with the first bottle he found. After that, he packs his apron in his backpack by the door, puts on his shoes and takes the hanging key to leave his apartment. When he leaves, before closing the door he says loudly: "I'm going out, Dad! I'll be back later!". But then he remembers, "Oh what a head mine, my father hasn't arrived yet! He must have stayed late today...", and his stop at a hurried pace reminded him of something more important: "The folder of drawings! I must get it quickly!", and he runs into the door as if someone's life depended on it to grab his fine golden briefcase that was on the bed.
Taki is out there again, this time with everything ready. After locking the door, he looked at the time, it was 8:45 p.m. "Damn! I'm still going to be late!". He went downstairs and started running on a street where he usually walked in the middle of the road. His briefcase in his hand and backpack on his back didn't help his running pace, and he walked at that pace for a few minutes, until he reached a main road. When he is forced to stop to cross and turn to the left side, he thinks: "But this restaurant is close to my house! I didn't need to run at all!". Taki puts his hand on his head while waiting at the traffic light on the busy street, why didn't he remember that? Maybe it was because he almost never went straight from the house to there, or even vice versa. Before working he was at school or in a café with his friends, and after working he was with his co-workers at the invitation of Okudera. Taki remembers those times, for some reason he stopped going out at night and started going out much less in the afternoon, it was as if he had lost the desire for it, but he didn't understand why.
Taki moves at a pace for the rest of the route, trying to contain his pheromones of sweat that is not welcome for a "date" with that importance. As he approached the showy façade of Il Giardino delle parole, he began to tremble with nerves, beginning to regret the idea of having put on his waiter's suit. "But where the hell was my head? They will still think that I am an employee there and with that create a scandal at the table!", scolded Taki to himself. However, he remembers Mitsuha, and the importance for both to solve the mystery that surrounds them, and if that fact helped her remember him, his effort and his possible embarrassment would have been worth it. "That's important to her, remember," Taki took a deep breath as he walked the last block before the restaurant.
When Taki arrives at the edge of the establishment he and Mitsuha agreed upon, he didn't see her there. He looks at the time, it was 8:51 p.m., "It's still early, it's better to wait here," Taki tried to reassure himself. However, there were several people waiting at the entrance, and he realized that he had to mark his turn.
Mitsuha suddenly feels a strange silence, after having been on a phone call with two different people for more than an hour straight. She puts down her phone and throws herself on the couch. Her head was spinning, she couldn't reason properly, "What just happened to me?" she asks towards the ceiling. After a few minutes, she recomposes herself in her mind, sitting on the couch again and something occurs to her: "Oh! Did I arrange a date with him? But what the hell has gotten into me?", scolding herself, but strangely she didn't feel regrets. That bothered her, she was never attracted to anyone, not even the kind of ideal Tokyo boy she dreamed of being when she was in Itomori.
With the meeting in mind, she checks the time, it was 8:05 p.m.: "I have to get ready, I'm already late!" thought Mitsuha with distress. She heads to her room to see what she was going to wear, it didn't even occur to her to wear the same thing she wore since the beginning of the day, especially when Taki had already seen her in that outfit. But it wasn't just the clothes that worried her: "I have to show you something! What the hell am I going to bring to him?" Mitsuha, despite not knowing what Taki was going to bring him, she was sure that it would be something important since he was an Itomori enthusiast. "He likes my hometown very much, doesn't he?" she threw the rhetorical question into the air, as if waiting for the universe to answer her. Coincidence or not, she found a solution: "My kumihimo rope, of course! What a head of mine!". Now she was confident that she didn't come empty-handed, especially something she always wore with her.
But nevertheless, she lacked one thing, "How am I going to show him the rope if it's in my hair? I don't want to mess up in front of a fine restaurant... there must be another way!", Mitsuha reasoned, but the more she thought about it, the more nervous she became, the preparation time tightened more and more. In the heat of the moment, she unties her essentially red rope as quickly as possible, perhaps then she would have some idea of how to show it. She begins to feel the rope in her hands and feels something hard between the strands of the rope: "That clasp... Why the hell does such an old rope that is only good for hair have a metallic clasp?" She had noticed this clasp before, and found it strange at the time too, but she didn't want to think about it because it was synonymous with traveling in the memories of her life in Itomori and buried that strange impression of hers... hitherto.
"Now that I think about it, that rope didn't have a metal clasp, right? I remember... I remember that when my mother gave me this rope, it was just rope, nothing else!", Mitsuha tries what she hadn't made in several years to remember her life in Itomori, "And this rope was like this for my whole life in Itomori, I never added anything to it, let alone a clasp! Unless... I had given it to someone...", and Mitsuha tries to solve a mystery she never thought would give it importance, "The only person I lent the rope to was Sayaka, and it wasn't even all day... my grandmother would kill me if I didn't come home with it in my hair!", reminding her of her harsh life at the shrine, "Sayaka would never do that..., but... What if it was me? I did things in my last month in Itomori that I don't remember, right?", and Mitsuha remembers her friends telling her that she acted very strange one day, and the next day it was normal, "Oh! What a thing! Did I have to remember that I was crazy at the time now?", she didn't remember the days when she acted strangely, and she began to understand why she wanted to forget that fact.
Mitsuha looks again at the time, it was 8:20 p.m.: "Why the hell am I so distracted? I must hurry up!" and finds herself in a situation where not even her clothes have prepared, for a still considerable displacement. She then stumbles again on what to do with the rope, "Where the hell am I going to put it if it's not in the hair? I can't carry it in a separate bag, I still lose it!", Mitsuha was terribly afraid of losing the only physical object she has from Itomori. She starts running her fingers on the rope to try to calm down, until she has an idea: "This clasp, it reminds me of some bracelets I wore, can I?...", and Mitsuha begins to feel the clasp more carefully: it was a small mechanism with a hinge, well screwed at the end to one of the edges of the rope, whoever did it understood some engineering. She then tries to force the mechanism with her small bites from the outside, and if at first it was wrong, Mitsuha's anger for making her delay ended up giving her the strength to unlock the hinge. To her surprise, the hinge unlocked, making a complete 360º rotation.
"So... I could use my rope as a bracelet all this time, and I never knew it!", and with that Mitsuha discovers how to carry her rope safely, although she didn't like using her rope as a bracelet on a day-to-day basis, she considered that it had too many loops of thread around her wrist to use as an acceptable-looking adornment. However, she wanted to make an exception for this mysterious Taki, it would be much easier to show her special thing on her wrist than in her back hair. She then wraps the rope around her wrist quickly, and then uses the mechanism to contain the excess thickness of the bracelet that this rope has formed: "I can't believe it! This works! But it has a very masculine appearance... Well, I must hurry up!".
Next, Mitsuha quickly goes to the closet to choose the clothes. Suddenly it occurs to her, "Taki said he doesn't remember me that time I went in 2016, right? But I wore something different at the time to go out...", and she starts rummaging through the older clothes, looking for what she used to wear to go out at the end of her first graduation. In a hurry, Mitsuha preferred to throw the clothes that weren't the ones she wanted to the bed, and the more Mitsuha searched, the bigger the pile of clothes stayed on the bed. Until... a color pattern that she hasn't seen in a long time appears to her: "This is it! Why didn't I ever wear that dress again? It's so beautiful!", The dress was jade-green composed of red leaves and yellowish spikes, forming an autumnal theme. And Mitsuha then pinches herself to hurry up, it was time to change her clothes. She takes off her pale pink blazer and yellow shirt, and then her salmon pink pants as well. And if in a short time she was undressed, putting on the dress took her a little longer, it had been a long time since she wore something like this with straps and a tie belt. In addition, she still had to button the front buttons and close the back zipper, however, in this she had much less difficulties, including even the zipper, which she managed to handle well due to the flexibility of her shoulders.
Then, Mitsuha looks at herself in the mirror, "I really look beautiful...", blushing then, she couldn't believe that she was going to dress like this to meet only a boy, especially one she barely knows. "This is just to stimulate his memory, to see if we solve this mystery...", trying to reassure Mitsuha about the real intentions of what she called a "casual meeting between two people". Following her shortest moment of contemplation than she would like, Mitsuha checks her makeup in her small mirror "Well, luckily just give it a little touch up here", and she's happy that her moment of redoing her makeup on the train would be good for something else.
After that, she opens another drawer of her aesthetic furniture, and takes out a colorful rope, among the several available, one that was red, to complete the most faithful outfit of what she remembered at that dinner in 2016. She had this set of ropes in case she lost her original rope, or just wanted to change color, but such eventualities had never happened... hitherto. Mitsuha wraps the rope around her hairstyle as quickly as possible, but even then, after looking at the time, "Ugh! It's almost 8:40! There's no way to get there in time!". All she had to do was put on her shoes now, put on a bag and put on a coat, and as she had no time to think, she chose the same yellow shoes and brown bag she wore during the day: "I've run with these things before, haven't I?", and she puts them on and hangs the bag quickly to get out of the door next to her. But when she opens it, the absence of smell of the bare arm catches her attention: "What a head of mine, the perfume is missing! And a coat, I need a coat!", Mitsuha puts her hands on her head, and goes back to soak herself in the first perfume she found and went to the bedroom to get the first neutral-colored coat she found on the hanger and took out a white frock coat.
Mitsuha comes out and throws open the door, and runs down the stairs, not even wanting to wait for the elevator. When she goes out into the street, Mitsuha realizes that she must orient herself on the way. "Where was the restaurant? Let me see... oh! I remember going on the subway from Shinjuku station!", and Mitsuha runs there. Her running pace was as fast as the one she did in the morning at the crazy morning meeting, crossing a small, cemented garden and other streets with almost no traffic. But after turning left on the main street, she crossed a sidewalk parallel to a busy road, and with that, she also had to go through pedestrian walks. If in the first crossing Mitsuha managed to pass without problems, in the other two it was already necessary to wait for a traffic light. The first traffic light she was lucky and passed with green, but at the crossing to turn right towards the station it got red. Mitsuha waits impatiently and sees the time, it was 8:47 p.m., a very fast travel time, but not enough for her. After an endless minute, the traffic light turns green and she starts running again, drawing the attention of some pedestrians. Now she just had to go straight ahead, until she came across the analog stairs of the old metro station. Mitsuha descends, and ends up at a visibly old underground station, with old, exposed metal pillars, contrasting with the modern buildings of the avenue she crossed on the surface. It was as if she had gone back in time.
Mitsuha does not see any metros and is distressed. "Oh! Why don't you arrive now?", tapping her foot impatiently. She looks at the time, it was 8:52 p.m.: "I won't be there on time...", uttering the lament in a thin and low voice, as if preparing to cry. Just as the first tear was beginning to flow, a zombie began to be heard louder and louder. Mitsuha raises her head to confirm that her suspicions were right: the subway has arrived. While the wagons were still slowing down, she wiped the drained tear and began to run towards the subway, as if she believed that it might not stop at the station. After the doors open, Mitsuha throws herself at the first one in front of her, lucky that at the time she was she didn't need to wait for a massive exit of passengers.
Mitsuha sits on one of the chairs and sighs, "I'm almost there," but another question bothered her, "What was the name of the station next to the restaurant?" Mitsuha picks up her phone and tries to find her way around Maps, her fingers groping hard at every simple gesture on the screen, and every mistake to access the desired place made her snort with impatience. Luckily for her, she just had to enter the name of the restaurant and search for nearby stations, "Here it is, Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station", staying at the station after the next. Mitsuha leans her back on the chair and finally relaxes since she started to move, feeling her back moist. Such discomfort made her wake up from the short rest and she began to remember her image, "Sweat now? Why the hell did I run so much?", she asked himself, but she simply didn't know why: Was it to fulfill the commitment? Insatiable curiosity? She didn't know how to answer. The subway begins to slow down at the stop before she disembarks, and makes she instinctively smell her body as if it were her last chance to check her odor. At the same moment, she takes off the makeup mirror and looks in the mirror if it has been undone, seeing a streak protruding from her cheek. She was almost going to panic, but then calmed down when she saw that it wasn't that station yet, "Phew! I still have time."
After everything is arranged, Mitsuha gets off at the station next to the Il Giardino delle parole restaurant, in a much more modern environment. It was as if she had traveled back to the present, with the towering safety barriers by the line and automatic stairs at the end of the corridor. It was 9:02 p.m., as soon as Mitsuha realizes the time she runs again, going up to an avenue that was familiar to her, but had not been there for a few months. The route was very short, she could feel it, but she could only slow down when she saw the façade of the restaurant in the background. Mitsuha sighs deeply, "Whoa! I'm finally here," and tries to look for that Taki.
She checks the time, it was 9:06 p.m., and when she was going to enter the restaurant to check if he was already there, she saw someone who caught her attention in the crowd of people waiting at the entrance: it was someone in a waiter's suit, with a small backpack on his back and a golden briefcase in his hand. The individual did not notice that she was watching him, he seemed to look at his cell phone worried. Mitsuha sees his profile, and recognizes him, finding it hard to believe that it was him with that outfit. She was nervous to be the first to speak, and the more she hesitated, the more she felt that she had recognized this person somewhere other than at the meeting of the stairs. She clears her mind, trying not to overthink it, and takes the initiative:
–Ar... Are you Taki-kun? – Mitsuha asks hesitantly.
Taki barely hears the name and the voice, he raises his head. He sees her and starts blushing, he was caught off guard. The idea of spotting her and preparing himself emotionally before having contact with her went down the drain.