"See you next week."
"See you next week," Miyu replied with a gentle wave before heading off in the car.
After school on Friday, Miyu and Rei left together since they had to attend a manuscript review meeting at her house. That left Yui and Hana standing at the school gate, staring after them with suspicious expressions.
"These two still claim they're just ordinary friends?" Yui said bluntly. "What kind of 'ordinary friends' take a taxi home together every Friday?"
"If they're dating, they're dating." Hana added.
"Maybe they're just shy."
"Anyway, come on! The new issue of Ametsukage Weekly came out today. Let's stop by the bookstore!"
"Oh! Right! Shirogane's new manga starts today!" Yui's eyes sparkled instantly.
Japan had plenty of romance manga artists, many far more famous than Shirogane.
But taste is personal, and to Yui, Five Centimeters per Second was a masterpiece. The best romance manga she'd read in the last three years.
So her excitement for Shirogane's new work far exceeded her anticipation for any other artist.
With energetic steps, the two girls headed for the small bookstore near their school, the very same one where they'd first seen Rei buying Sakura-iro Weekly and struck up a conversation with him.
"It's such a pity," Yui said playfully.
"Those two went and had a date. They're totally missing Shirogane's new series release. That's their loss."
Then she started rummaging through the magazine racks.
She normally never cared much for Ametsukage Weekly since the magazine had a diverse lineup, and she preferred emotional, shōjo-flavored romances.
But when it came to Shirogane, genre didn't matter.
Yui and Hana each paid fourteen yen for their copy, then went to a tea shop, ordered two low-sugar drinks, and sat upstairs.
The Cover
This week's cover showed a girl just waking up in her bedroom, staring blankly at the sticky notes plastered beside her bed, on her desk, and near the window.
The contents of the notes made Hana's eyes widen.
'This setup looks really interesting! And the art! It's gorgeous!'
'Has Shirogane's art improved even more since Five Centimeters per Second?'
She quickly opened to the contents page.
The first six pages were full-color illustrations explaining the setting.
A girl named Maori Hino awakens to discover, yet again, that due to a car accident years ago, her memories reset every single day.
Every morning, she must come to terms with the same reality, then read the diary she's written across the years to rebuild her understanding of her life.
But on this particular morning, her condition seems slightly improved. She remembers faint traces of the past few days.
A hospital checkup follows.
The doctor tells Hino and her parents, with relief, that her condition might finally be stabilizing.
Next, Hino's best friend Izumi appears.
Since Hino's memory is improving, many of the memory-assisting notes and arrangements in her room are no longer needed. They begin cleaning together.
And during this process, Hino finds a sketchbook.
Up to this point, Hana still didn't fully grasp the direction of the story.
"It is a romance manga, right?" she muttered.
"Why start by introducing the heroine's illness? And if she has memory loss, why say immediately that she's recovering? Doesn't that remove the tension?"
But then, the plot answered her questions.
After Hino meets Izumi again, she pulls out the sketchbook she found.
Inside were dozens of drawings of a certain boy.
Hana's breath hitched.
'A flashback narrative?'
Since Hino has forgotten everything from the past three years, and she's only now recovering; then the people she met back thenand the events she experienced, must be the core of this story.
Also, a professional mangaka would never include meaningless details. Appearing twice already, this sketchbook clearly meant something.
And that boy, drawn so prominently and so handsomely, Who is he?
In the manga, Izumi reacts uncomfortably when she sees the sketchbook.
She stammers out an explanation, saying he was just a sketch model Hino met at the library years ago, trying to brush the topic aside.
Then the perspective shifts.
Izumi returns home and takes out a notebook.
A handwritten diary, the real diary Hino kept over the years, completely different from the digital logs on her computer.
On the very first page, six handwritten words stand out:
"Don't forget Tōru Kamiya."
The panel shifts again.
Hana finally understood.
The real story is about to unfold through the memories recorded in Hino's old diary, memories she herself has completely forgotten.
The Title Page
"Tonight, Even If This Love Vanishes From the World."
The title appears again, elegantly printed, signaling the true beginning.
Inside a large lecture hall at school, a handsome boy stands before Hino.
His expression serious.
His voice steady.
"Would you go out with me?"
Not far from the boy, several onlookers, whose character designs clearly marked them as delinquents, were secretly recording the scene with their phones.
"Huh?" Hana's eyes widened.
She had just been thinking that the manga's opening was a bit slow, why did it suddenly jump straight to a confession scene?
And judging from the heroine's reaction, Hino definitely didn't recognize this boy.
Of course she wouldn't.
Even if she had known him in the past, her memories reset every morning.
On the side of the panel, the boy's inner monologue was written:
"She'll probably realize I'm not serious anyway."
Then the cute, soft-faced Hino hesitated only for a moment, lifted her head, and answered quietly:
"Okay, but what's your name?"
"Tōru Kamiya."
"Tōru Kamiya? I'll remember it. What class are you in?"
"Class One."
"Then wait for me in your classroom after school tomorrow."
With that, the girl gave a small smile and stood up, leaving the lecture hall.
The delinquents who had been recording circled around immediately, their expressions unfriendly.
The manga continued, revealing why this strange confession happened.
Tōru had stepped in to protect a friend who was being bullied by those same guys recording the scene.
Annoyed by his interference, they had mocked him, daring him to confess to Māori Hino, one of the most beautiful and unreachable girls in school, someone who kept her distance from everyone.
They wanted to watch him be publicly rejected and humiliated in the lecture hall.
If he agreed, they said, they'd stop bullying his friend.
Then the manga described Tōru Kamiya's family background.
A mother who passed away due to congenital heart disease. A father chasing the dream of becoming a novelist, often quitting his job impulsively to write full-time.
An older sister who had moved out, living alone.
And on the very next day, the video of Tōru's confession went viral across the entire school.
Hana straightened her posture as she read this part.
'Not bad. This plot is interesting.'
It didn't feel like a tragedy anymore.
In fact, wasn't this starting like a romantic comedy?
Then why did Hino later forget about Tōru entirely?
Even if they broke up eventually, Hino should've at least written something about him in her diary, something her future self would reread.
Oh, that's right.
Her diary is kept by her friend Izumi.
Then the digital diary files on Hino's computer…
Hana froze.
'They're fake.They were altered.'
A boy who confessed to her, probably someone she had actually dated.
His existence had been erased, from her diary, by her own best friend.
Which meant:
For Māori Hino, a girl who has lost three years of memories and can only understand her past through her diary, Tōru Kamiya does not exist.
A chill crawled up Hana's spine.
The premise of Tonight wasn't difficult to guess. Most readers would connect the dots between the electronic diary, the handwritten diary, and Izumi's odd behavior.
But seeing it unfold panel by panel, this was the first moment Hana truly understood how terrifying Hino's condition was.
A single altered entry could rewrite her entire understanding of the world.
Her daily reset meant that no matter how tragic something was, no matter how much she cried or suffered, she would wake up the next morning, and know nothing.
She wouldn't even realize that her diary had been tampered with.
'Is Izumi the villain?'
If not, then why erase Tōru Kamiya from Hino's life?
At that moment, Hana remembered the title again.
What she thought was a romantic comedy, began to peel away.
Tonight, Even If This Love Vanishes from the World.
A faint, ominous feeling spread through her chest.
...
Bonus @2000
Read 30 chapters ahead at [email protected]/c/Ashnoir