Three years after that fateful day, Hodaka has returned to Tokyo. Fresh out of high school, he now lives alone in a tiny apartment, and he's finally reunited with Hina—the girl he once risked everything for.
Hina is no longer the "sunshine girl." She's just an ordinary high school student, living peacefully with her younger brother Nagi. They see each other almost every day—shopping for groceries, cooking meals together, laughing over nothing. But something's stuck between them. They still have
After the Clear Skies - On a clear morning, finally.
The back of his eyelids glowed faintly red.
Hodaka turned over on the stiff futon. He buried his face in the edge of the pillow. A room in the old apartment building "Corpo Urata." Normally, the sound of rain served as his alarm clock.
(So loud.)
The light was so loud.
Unfamiliar, perfectly straight morning sunlight streamed through the gaps in the curtains, drawing golden lines across the tatami. Dust danced slowly within those beams.
—It's sunny.
The moment he realized it, the memories of last night came rushing back all at once.
Soaking wet hair. The smell of rain. The traces of tears left on wet cheeks. In the pitch-black park, alone, he had gazed at her.
And then—
The faint warmth of the lips he touched.
"……Uwaaaahhh!"
Hodaka pressed his face into the pillow and let out a muffled scream. He curled his body up and rolled around on the tatami. He finally stopped when his back hit the wall. His heart was annoyingly loud. His face was burning.
(What did I do?)
Inside his head, his own words from last night replayed over and over. Not "I want to protect you." Not "I want to be protected." Just, "I want to be by your side"—that's what he said. The words he hadn't been able to say for three years, carried along by the rain, he had spilled them all out.
(So uncool.)
No, that wasn't it. It wasn't a matter of being cool or not. It was just, incredibly, embarrassing.
Hodaka sat up, still hugging the pillow, and stared blankly out the window. A rare blue sky filled his entire field of vision.
He reached out and picked up his phone, which had been tossed onto the tatami.
One LINE notification.
The moment he saw the name "Hina," the phone in his hand suddenly felt like it had grown hot.
Timidly, he tapped it.
*"The rain leak was really bad yesterday, huh. Did you catch a cold?"*
Such an utterly, ordinary message.
Hodaka stared at the screen, frozen for a moment.
(Rain leak…?)
Right. The rain leak was bad too. But there was something much more important than that, a voice inside him retorted. No, Hina must know that too. Knowing that, she still sent this gentle, usual message.
He tried to type a reply, but his fingers stopped.
*"Yeah"*—No.
*"I'm fine"*—That sounded too much like a jock.
*"What about you, Hina?"*—This was it.
But the finger pressing the send button trembled.
(Why am I so nervous?)
One deep breath. Two. He put strength into his fingertip and sent it.
*"Yeah. Are you okay, Hina?"*
Immediately after sending it, he wanted to hold his head in his hands at his own lack of vocabulary. There had to be something else. Like "Thanks for yesterday" or "I was happy"—no, that was even more embarrassing.
He put his phone on the tatami and buried his face in the pillow again.
His heart was loud, and he couldn't stop his face from breaking into a grin.
He had never had a morning like this in his entire life.
Late morning. The Takashiba Elevated Shopping Street was abuzz with the rare sunny weather.
Sunlight streamed into the arcade under the elevated tracks, and puddles glittered with reflections. From the shops with their shutters fully open, the voices of the shopkeepers sounded much brighter than usual.
"[excited]Miss, you're forgetting your umbrella!"
"[laughing]There's no umbrella to hold on a day like this!"
Such laughter could be heard everywhere.
A window seat at the café "Amayadori."
Hina was gazing absently at the people passing by outside the window. Her black hair, a little longer than her shoulders, swayed gently in the breeze from the air conditioner. A white blouse, a light pink cardigan. She hadn't braided her hair today. For some reason, she just wanted to leave it down.
On the table, a café au lait with plenty of milk was steaming.
Hina brought the cup to her lips and let out a soft sigh.
(I was so bold yesterday.)
In the pitch-black park, she had looked straight at Hodaka's wet face and poured out all her feelings. She told him, "Don't protect me." She said, "I want you by my side."
And then—she kissed him.
Her fingers unconsciously touched her own lips.
The sensation of Hodaka's lips back then, chilled by the rain. But beneath that, the undeniable warmth. Just remembering it made her heartbeat quicken.
(I wonder what Hodaka is doing right now.)
The LINE message she sent earlier. *"The rain leak was really bad, huh"*—she had written something so utterly trivial. But that was the best she could do. If she wrote something like "Thank you for yesterday," that would be like she was conscious of everything, and she'd die of embarrassment.
"[gentle]Hina-san, sorry to keep you waiting."
At that voice, Hina looked up.
Kirishima Miu was walking towards the table, her trench coat draped over her arm. Her usual intellectual air was the same, but today her eyes were a little red. Perhaps she hadn't slept much last night.
Miu pulled out the chair across from Hina and quietly sat down.
"[serious]I'm sorry for calling you out like this."
When Hina began, Miu shook her head slightly.
"[gentle]No. I wanted to talk properly with you again, too."
The owner, Sonoda Keiko, silently placed a glass of water in front of Miu. Miu gave a slight nod, then looked straight at Hina's face.
Silence continued for a while.
Outside the window, the laughter of shoppers could be heard. In the distance, someone was shouting, "Where's the sunny day market?"
Hina stared intently at the café au lait cup she was warming with both hands.
(I have to say it.)
The thing she had been running from all this time.
About her power.
How Miu had asked her, how she had hesitated, gotten scared, and even taken it out on Hodaka.
And what she had realized yesterday, in the rain.
"[serious]You know, I…"
Hina raised her face. Her large eyes were steady.
"[serious]You know, I've always hated my power. I thought so many times that I wished I didn't have this power of a sunshine girl."
Miu listened silently. Her hand unconsciously touched the blue bracelet on her left wrist.
"[serious]I pushed myself, thinking if it would make someone happy, and I almost disappeared because of it. Hodaka saved me, and I swore I'd never use it again. But that was wrong, too. Not using it, and using it—both were 'for someone else.' My own feelings weren't there."
Hina's fingers tightened slightly around the cup.
"[whispers]Yesterday, in the rain, I talked with Hodaka, and I realized. It's okay for me to live for myself."
And then, she said in a clear voice:
"[serious]Miu-san. I will cooperate with your research. But it's not to save people. It's so that I, for my own sake, can face this power."
Miu was at a loss for words.
Her eyes just widened.
The sunlight streaming through the window shone through Hina's hair, making it glow softly. Her hands were no longer trembling. They weren't the hands of that time, clenched on her lap as if in prayer.
Facing her power by her own will.
That was something Miu had never been able to do.
Miu had tried to use Yuki for her own sake. Under the pretext of research, she had tried to bury her guilt. She had tried to force her own atonement onto Hina's power.
"[crying]……You're amazing, Hina-san."
Miu's voice trembled.
"[crying]Someone like me, I've always only thought about myself. The research, my apology to Yuki, it was all just to make myself feel better."
She tightly gripped the hem of her trench coat. Her voice grew hoarse.
"[crying]You are properly facing forward. You're so much stronger than me."
Hina smiled quietly.
"[gentle]I'm not strong at all. Until yesterday, I was running away, too. But I finally remembered that I'm not alone."
"[crying]……Thank you."
Miu said it as if squeezing out her voice, and bowed her head deeply. Tears spilled from her eyes, creating small ripples in the glass of water.
Hina said nothing, just gently watched over her.
The steam from the café au lait slowly disappeared towards the ceiling.
Afternoon.
After leaving Amayadori, Miu sat down on a bench in a corner of the shopping street.
Her tears had dried, but deep in her chest, she still trembled faintly. Hina's straightforward words kept echoing in her head.
She took out her phone and opened the memo app.
At the very top of the screen, a date and title were displayed.
*"Letter to Yuki, 19th Draft"*
So far, she had written eighteen letters and scrapped them all.
Long excuses that started with "I'm sorry." Words only for herself that ended with "Please forgive me."
But this time was different.
Her finger slowly traced the screen.
*'The cold days continue, but I hope you are well.'*
She wrote and erased, over and over.
Even though it was the nineteenth draft, she couldn't get past a single line.
Even so, this time, strangely, she didn't feel bad.
She didn't know if it would reach her. She didn't think she would be forgiven. But this time, the letter wasn't for herself. She just wanted it to reach Yuki.
After a while, she operated her phone again.
This time, she opened the LINE screen.
The recipient was Hodaka.
*"I've started writing the letter to Yuki. Though I haven't managed to write a single line yet."*
A few minutes later, it was marked as read.
But no reply came. One minute, two minutes, three minutes—.
(What is he hesitating about, that guy?)
Miu barely managed to suppress a small snort of laughter.
And then, the reply that finally arrived was:
*"Do your best."*
Just three characters.
"[laughing]Your vocabulary…"
Miu couldn't hold it in and laughed out loud.
And then she immediately typed a reply.
*"You don't have much vocabulary either."*
This, too, was marked as read immediately.
*"We're the same, then."*
The usual snarky remark.
But there was no hostility in it anymore.
Miu put her phone in her skirt pocket and stood up. She looked up at the clear sky. The blue sky after so long was dazzling, as expected, and it stung her eyes just a little.
Before evening. A room in the Minato Apartment.
Amano Nagi was lying on the bed in his room, fiddling with his phone. His slightly long black hair was a mess on the pillow.
*Ping*, went a light notification sound.
It was a LINE message from Hodaka.
*"Can I come up to the rooftop with you tonight? You too, Nagi."*
Reading it, Nagi let the corner of his mouth relax just a little.
(It's here.)
He placed his phone on his chest and let out an exaggerated sigh.
His older sister Hina had been acting strange ever since she came home soaking wet last night. She just stood frozen in the entryway in her wet clothes, spacing out. Even when he asked, "Are you okay?", she just gave a non-answer like, "Yeah, I'm fine." Her cheeks were a little red, and yet her eyes looked like she had been crying. And then this morning, from the time she was toasting bread for breakfast, she had been grinning the whole time. She got her math problems wrong three times.
(It's so obvious.)
Nagi sighed again.
If they thought he hadn't noticed, they were dead wrong. He couldn't count how much he had fretted over these two missing each other. Hodaka recklessly charging ahead, his sister pointlessly getting depressed, and each time, he'd step in between them, sometimes even kicking them in the back, trying somehow to push them together—.
Nagi typed a short reply to the phone: *"OK."*
Then he got up from the bed, grabbed his wallet, and left the room.
"[casual]Sis, I'm going to Kazemachi for a bit."
Hina, who was folding laundry in the living room, looked up.
"[gentle]Shopping for dinner? Should I go?"
"[sarcastic]No. You just keep spacing out over there."
Leaving those words behind, he quickly shut the front door.
At Kazemachi Bento, he ordered three daily special bentos. One fried chicken bento, and two grilled mackerel bentos. Fried chicken was Hodaka's favorite; mackerel was his and his sister's favorite.
(I'm going this far for them, you know.)
Grumbling to no one in particular in his mind, Nagi's steps were still a little light.
—Evening.
T
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