Jitsu Musume -A different story-

"What is her name? Do you still have contact with her?" The questions said by Shizune might be a bit confusing, but the attitude she was showing was purely curious. She could guess that this person must have been something special to Kurono, so she felt the need to know a little more… But what she heard next made her slightly regret doing it so directly.

"Her name was Mei..." It was noticeable how Kurono emphasized the past in that sentence, and what followed gave all the sense to it. "She passed away a long time ago..."

The words "I'm sorry" stuck in Shizune's throat, she didn't even need to ask once more as she had perfectly heard what Kurono had just said and really felt the need to apologize, but while a worried expression formed on her face, Kurono turned to look at her slowly.

It was then that Shizune could see it, a calm expression graced Kurono's face while there was no melancholy feeling around him, which was a bit strange due to the topic he was covering, but Kurono didn't let Shizune try to say anything more since his voice hadn't stopped.

"It's curious actually, I'm aware that at some point in our lives, we have to face what the death of the people we love entails, I suppose it's something natural, but... It's unfair to have to experience it so early." And speaking of the melancholic feeling from before, finally decided to appear as something inevitable. "Mei was a normal girl, a good student, had a happy and stable family, and although she didn't have an incredible number of friends, you could tell that she appreciated every one of them… And that makes me wonder if the simple fact of having saved her was so important for what she decided."

Shizune remained silent as Kurono began to speak, she had already understood that Mei must have been important to him, so she needed to listen carefully to what he had to say about her for the story or relationship between them to be clear.

"It was like I told you, she started approaching me, the first few times using the excuse that she needed to thank me somehow, but as time went on it became quite common for her to do it whenever she got the chance. There were times when I could hear those around us talking about her for the simple fact that she got along with me, which really annoyed me. I didn't mind them talking about me, but I really couldn't stand for someone else being brought into it." The annoyance was clear in Kurono's voice, but it would only last a few seconds before it gradually subsided, which calmed the small concern of Shizune. "Fortunately, no problem occurred about it, mainly because Mei didn't pay attention to them either, besides that, as the days went by, she introduced me to her friends."

The memory of those days, in addition to that complicated feeling for Kurono, also brought back some memories that he cherished, and at the same time, made him feel like an idiot for a simple reason.

"Some of her friends were from our same group or grade, and although it was difficult at first, at the end we mutually accepted the situation and started to get to know each other, especially since Mei forced us to do it, but thanks to all that, the rumors about me, at least the false ones, they were reduced until it seemed that I had become a moderately normal student." And the reason why Kurono felt like an idiot was because, after so many years, he had not communicated with those people who once he considered as friends. "And as for Mei, she grew closer to me, to the point where she forced me to take her to meet and talk to her about my situation, although he didn't care about any of that or treat me differently, she also met Kazumi-nee and they both got along very well…"

Although it was true that Kurono was supposed to talk about what exactly had happened, he was mentioning anything that came to his mind at the time, but Shizune didn't interrupt him in any way, especially since she understood what he meant and the possible scenarios that resulted from that.

"I know what you're thinking, but unfortunately, those moments of peace and happiness weren't going to last very long." And it was as he said, even though everything he was telling sounded like what a relatively normal life would be like, that's not he removed the fact or eliminated the words he had said at the beginning. "It was the same day of our graduation, I had fulfilled my goal of finishing high school without causing any new problems or similar, I still remember all the congratulations I received, even Kazumi-nee cried a lot, which I felt was a bit excessive."

And as always, Kurono tried to lighten the heavy feeling of the environment a bit, which he achieved since Shizune gave him a few smiles every time he did it, but this time he didn't try to do it with that intention, it was as if he was simply wandering in those memories, ones that hadn't been touched in a long time.

"But apart from all that, my mind was pretty busy with something else at that time, after all, Mei had told me that she wanted to meet me at the viewpoint near where she lived." Maybe it was because everything indicated where she was going that, but Kurono found it difficult not to stop before continuing. "The sunset that day was not much different from any I had seen, although I was more focused on the time on my watch to be sure that it was the one we had agreed on. I was feeling a little nervous for some reason, but all that emotion disappeared when I saw her."

And as if it were something normal, Shizune was quite concentrated on imagining the situation, but her emotions showed nothing more than serenity and patience with everything Kurono was recounting.

"She greeted me, we began to talk about various things, about how we felt about having graduated, what we wanted to do in the future, or simple topics of no real importance, all so that in the end it would result in what I feared at that moment… And now, I wonder if anything would have changed if I didn't let him leave that day."