I love communicating, that girl had once said, her low voice resonating with slight huskiness.

It had been two years since then, but Asai Kei had not forgotten about it, not one bit. The day of the week, the time, the weather, the color of her uniform, the shape of her fingertips, and even the angle to which her neck was tilted was all immediately available to him.

He truly could remember every detail.

So how had he failed to notice? Why did the huskiness in her voice never register to him? Why had he never given it more thought?

It had taken him two years to realize the truth behind it.

Souma Sumire must have been crying.

Why hadn’t he realized that before? He was thick-headed. So stupid. So…

She had been crying without shedding a single tear.

“I love communicating.” She had pushed out a smile despite her crying. “I want to exchange all kinds of words with all kinds of people, from the greatest of blessings to the smallest of formalities.”

Souma Sumire. She really should have cried. She should have rejected her suffering and sorrow.

She should have called me out for being so dense. She should have let her tears introduce pain to his heart. He could have been filled with regret, pushed to treat her well with a deep love. But…

She smiled.

Every time that she smiled and threw out her chest, she was pushing back her tears.

You were too strong for your own good. Far too strong, and far too beautiful. The Kei of two years past couldn’t have even imagined her crying.

No middle schooler, no girl, no… person, should have ever needed that much strength. The strength to abandon their own happiness.

It was almost like a weakness. She was so strong and so perfect that it became a problem. She was so capable of enduring, and enduring, and enduring, that she could smile her way into death. She could even stand to kill herself.

He couldn’t think of her as anything but foolish. Perhaps even weak, contradictory as it was. The reality of her fleeting existence saddened him.

But that’s just it.

It was because she was strong, beautiful, foolish, weak, and fleeting.

Because of that… I’ve been given another chance.

Asai Kei’s words could reach out to Haruki Misora. A boy became able to speak with a girl once more. He could convey some amount of words to someone, somewhere.

That was the singular narrative that Souma Sumire had put her life on the line to set up.