My love index is at its maximum.

With her feet on the sofa and her chin resting on her knees, Kuriyama Sakura looked at Tazaki Tsukasa and said, "Warm, Tazaki-kun, I'd like to know more about you, so please speak up."

Qichuan remained silent, only staring at him with her clear blue eyes.

“Just an ordinary person,” Tsukasa Tazaki said. “Born into an ordinary family, raised in an ordinary family, with an ordinary face, an ordinary life, and thinking ordinary things.”

“Uh, Fitzgerald seems to have said something like this: ‘A person who presents himself as an ordinary person is not to be trusted.’” Kuriyama Sakura winked and smiled mischievously. “Do you need me to lend you that book?”

"The Great Gatsby?"

"Wrong, it's 'Tender Is the Night'."

"How many books have you actually read?" Tsukasa Tazaki asked helplessly.

Kuriyama Sakura made a gesture like a celestial maiden scattering flowers: "More than you can imagine."

"You two have gone off on a tangent," Qichuan Yui finally said, her voice hoarse.

“Yes, that makes sense.” Kuriyama Sakura nodded, taking a swig of coffee. “Since things have come to this point, let’s be more frank.”

Tazaki Tsukasa fell into thought, closing his eyes slightly.

When he opened his eyes, Yui Kikawa was staring at him from across the table.

"Are you alright?" she asked. "You seem conflicted; is this a difficult question to answer?"

Tsukasa Tazaki smiled and shook his head: "No, it's not that difficult."

"Then why don't you speak?"

"Just after careful consideration."

Is it really necessary to drag out thinking like this?

"We're just considering how to minimize the damage."

“Go ahead,” Yui sighed, fiddling with the remaining two oranges on the table with one hand. “I have a pretty good idea of ​​what kind of strange thing it is. I wasn’t really going to insist on finding out, but what you said tonight has completely dissuaded me. In that case, let’s just take everything in at once and then digest it slowly.”

"died."

"Ok?"

“I said,” Tsukasa Tazaki clasped his hands together on the table, staring at it for a long time, “Tsukasa Tazaki is dead.”

"How did he die?" Yui Kirikawa asked.

"From a psychological perspective, the Tsukasa Tazaki you know is dead."

"Why are you still in front of me now?"

"Perhaps, you're too beautiful?" Tsukasa Tazaki replied uncertainly.

“How inexplicable…” Qichuan Wei looked at his face with indifferent eyes, shook her head slightly, and said nothing more.

Kuriyama Sakura wrote a few lines on the paper with her pen: "Go on, don't keep us in suspense."

“After confessing to Xiaowei, he lost his confidence in life.” As he spoke, Tsukasa Tazaki felt increasingly thirsty. He picked up his cup of coffee, took a few sips, and continued to the two of them: “To him, the whole world was just a backdrop to highlight his own wretchedness and desolation.”

Yui Kirikawa screamed, "Was that what he called a confession?!"

At this moment, her face was deathly pale and her lips were extremely dry.

Kuriyama Sakura poked her palm repeatedly with her ballpoint pen, asking without question, "And then, he committed suicide."

“Yes,” Tsukasa Tazaki nodded, “sleeping pills. A lot of sleeping pills were taken at once, and he suffered for a long, long time before he was able to leave safely.”

【leave】

Kuriyama Sakura wrote those two words on the paper, then erased them.

“It’s more like disappearing,” she said.

Tsukasa Tazaki noticed that Yui Kikawa's pupils were somewhat blurry, as if covered by an opaque film.

“No words matter anymore, right?” He chuckled. “After several hours of torture, as long as I can be free, no words matter, right?”

"How did you get here?" Kuriyama Sakura pressed.

“Born from the ashes.” Tsukasa Tazaki looked down at the coffee in his cup, avoiding her piercing gaze. “To be precise, his death shaped who I am today. His life, his emotions, and the difficulties he encountered were like a signpost on the beach, blown away without a trace after a storm. What remains is only me, who knows his entire life, his emotions, and the difficulties he encountered, but with another personality.”

Kuriyama Sakura's eyes flickered.

She didn't speak, but listened quietly with great interest.

“It was around April 20th,” Tsukasa Tazaki said. “I was reborn from the ashes, like a penguin that suddenly appeared in Tokyo Bay. After cleaning up the traces of his struggle, I started moving, working, going to school, and adapting to the huge city of Tokyo with the thought of ‘survival’. Soon after, Hoshino-sensei forced me to find a club, and then I ended up in the ATF club. Oh, by the way, Tokyo nights are really cold in April. I remember I got caught in the rain on the 30th and ended up having a fever for several days…”

"Wait!" Qi Chuanwei's throat bobbed, her voice rising several octaves: "Can he come back? Tell me, can you..."

Tsukasa Tazaki turned around, seemingly wanting to continue, but she couldn't find the words.

Something has disappeared.

Perhaps it was only after his words had been processed in her mind for a while that she finally understood.

In this way, the power that kept her talking disappeared.

"Tazaki, no..."

The blonde girl stared blankly at the person in front of her, her lips slightly parted, as if she were a machine that had been suddenly unplugged.

“Lying might have been better,” Tsukasa Tazaki sighed, enveloped in a wave of exhaustion. “But it’s too late. There’s no going back. And…”

There was a slight pause of about ten seconds.

He continued, "And you've noticed it too, haven't you?"

Kikawa nodded silently.

"I'm sorry, this wasn't my intention..." Tsukasa Tazaki slowly moved towards her.

Yui Kikawa glared at him fiercely: "You filthy thief!"

Tears welled up in those blue eyes, slid down her face, and landed silently on the sofa cover.

For someone as proud as her, once the first tear falls, it's destined to be unstoppable.

The blonde girl hunched over, gripping the sofa cover tightly with both hands, and gagged several times.

Everything spun around me, and time seemed to rewind.

In my thoughts, which were on the verge of collapse, many images flashed by like a slideshow.

In countless traceable fragments of memory, she watched the little boy grow up, grow more distant. The final image freezes on him as a teenager, gritting his teeth and enduring pain…

Back then, I knew nothing...

Yui Kisakawa opened her mouth: "Ha, ah—"

He wanted to forcefully vomit something, and his body trembled uncontrollably in the candlelight.

Tazaki Tsukasa leaned closer and rested his head on her shoulder, which trembled slightly.

"Give him, give him back to me!"

A heart-wrenching sob rang out, and the blonde girl cried as if she were about to vomit.

This was the first time Tsukasa Tazaki had ever seen someone cry so sadly.

Almost unconsciously, he buried his head in Yui Kikawa's arms, her body trembling and crying.

Tears and warm breath soaked her white dress. Her ten slender fingers, as if recalling something extremely precious, dug deep into Tsukasa Tazaki's hair, pressing his head down firmly.

Tsukasa Tazaki maintained this posture.

We waited for her to stop crying, but she never stopped.

Kuriyama Sakura wrote for a while, then tilted her head to look over. The candlelight was warm and yellow, and dust motes floated in the air. A blonde girl was crying uncontrollably, the soft, dim light illuminating her cheeks and making her tears glisten.

Each time tears fall silently, it's as if a halo of light peels away from her face. Scattered on the timeline of another world... there's an indescribable poignant beauty.

“That confession was just a slip of the tongue…” Tazaki Tsukasa leaned against her, speaking haltingly, “His true intention was simply to become as good as you and fulfill the promise he made as a child. But his long-standing lack of communication experience, coupled with his own inferiority complex, made it impossible for him to even speak properly in front of you, which is why he said such clumsy things. However, he truly loves you; he sees you as the only ray of light in his life…”

The crying continued for a long time before gradually turning into sobs.

Throughout her life, Yui Kikawa had only cried a handful of times, let alone cried uncontrollably. Her thoughts gradually calmed down, but she couldn't stop sobbing and tears for the time being. She could only wipe away the tears from the corners of her eyes while looking at Tsukasa Tazaki's hair.

Kuriyama Sakura rubbed her eyes and brows as if she were sleepy.

A forced, wistful smile appeared on her face as she reached out and gently patted Yui Kikawa's back.

"The matter is already settled. Perhaps what I'm saying will hurt you. If that's the case, I apologize."

Tazaki Tsukasa raised his head, smiling sadly and helplessly as he looked into her red eyes: "I just wanted to tell you that this wasn't my intention, and I'm not trying to excuse myself, but he really can't come back. Also, I didn't intend to be a thief, nor did I intend to exploit his relationship with you to steal your feelings. If my actions make you think that way, I can only say I'm truly sorry; I was powerless to change his disappearance..."

Qichuan Wei looked at him with red eyes, shook her head, and wanted to say something. But her words were swallowed by sobs. She reached for the cup on the table, but lost her grip. The cup fell to the ground, rolled a few times, and spilled coffee on the floor.

Kuriyama Sakura bent down, picked up the cup, and put it back on the table.

“He and I have lived in the same house since we were five years old…” Yui Kikawa shook her head mechanically and said, sobbing, “We often played together, talked about this and that, got to know each other, and grew up together like that.”

“I understand you completely.” Tsukasa Tazaki looked up at her. “If he had been a little stronger, maybe he and you would have had a wonderful future, and I wouldn’t be here. Honestly, that would have been a good outcome, and I would have gone back to where I belonged.”

Kuriyama Sakura inexplicably felt somewhat uncomfortable.

She glanced at Tsukasa Tazaki and said coldly, "That's right, he is a young master after all. It's only natural for a young master to be with a young lady, how dare you, an outsider, interfere?"

"Can you please stop picking on me at a time like this..." Tsukasa Tazaki replied with a headache and helplessness.

Is it wrong to nitpick at you?

The minister puffed out his cheeks, staring silently at his toes, and muttered under his breath, "Who cares about the old Tsukasa Tazaki? If you don't come, who am I supposed to talk to..."

fortunately.

She spoke very softly, only to herself.

Qichuan Yui gently bit her lower lip, her gaze slightly probing into the pitch-black depths beyond the reach of the candlelight: "He is very important to me, so I can't accept this fact."

"Did you ever have feelings for him?" Tsukasa Tazaki asked.

Kikawa Yui remained silent for a long time.

Her body suddenly began to tremble, and then she started sobbing again. She curled up into a ball, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed uncontrollably.

Tsukasa Tazaki stood up, his back to Sakura Kuriyama: "The key."

The minister tilted his head and glanced at Yui Kichikawa before reluctantly taking out the key and unlocking his handcuffs.

“That’s enough,” she warned threateningly. “I’m still watching, so don’t do anything too outrageous.”