“Do you know, Yoshi-kun, I think you…
I stopped as soon as I heard her voice. On the way home—at the playground by our middle school, in the little bookstore across from the station, and on the empty lot where a white cat slept. Shiina Yuki is a strange girl, who seemed to know everything about me. She has always appeared in my life this way. We laughed, cried, got angry at each other, held hands. Again and again, we got stuck in this closed loop of disappearing memories and fleeting promises. That’s why I never knew. I didn’t know how dear her smiles were to me—or why she was crying. I didn’t know what feelings were behind all those many “Nice to meet you.” This is a story about how, over the course of 214 weeks, I found and lost my love. Every week. And it’s also a story about how, in all four years, I only loved once. (c)