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When Sakuta finished telling Rio everything, their coffee cups were both empty.

They were at the counter in an awfully fancy café near the cram school. Through the glass windows, they had a great view of the foot traffic outside.

This place had a liquor license, and a couple in their midtwenties toward the back were laughing a bit too loudly. They must have been regulars; the shop staff were yukking it up with them.

“That’s about everything I’ve been through the last few days.”

Mai claiming to be Touko Kirishima, hiragana Kaede waiting for him at home, all kinds of other changes, and the discovery that the real Touko Kirishima was long since dead. And that she turned out to be Shouko’s donor. Finally, that Miori Mitou from college was the real singer going by the Touko Kirishima name.

“What do you make of it?”

Rio had listened in silence, but now she sighed. Her gaze was on the crowd outside, but not really looking.

“You’ve said a lot of things I find hard to believe, but accepting it all for the moment—what do youwantto do?”

Rio sounded like she was testing him.

“Good question.”

“Do you want Sakurajima-senpai back?”

“Well, obviously.”

Arguably his primary purpose.

“Or do you want to make amends to Miori Mitou and Touko Kirishima?”

“……”

He didn’t have a ready answer for that one. Sakuta shifted his gaze from Rio’s face to the street.

“I don’t think I have any guilt where Mitou’s concerned.”

He wasn’t sure changing the future had caused Touko’s accident. Not if he understood Rio’s explanation of the butterfly effect.

“Then what do you think?”

He thought about that, then reached the same conclusion.

“I think I wanna be her friend.”

Not just the surface meaning of the word.Frienddidn’t mean the same thing as it had before finding out Touko was Shouko’s donor. Butfriendwas still the only word he had to describe his relationship with Miori.

“Do you want to change back everything that’s been rewritten?”

Rio had imbued her last question with a very meaningful tone. It was impossible to miss the drop in temperature. Sakuta was sure it wasn’t just in his head.

There was a hint of tension in her voice. The air around them crackled.

He didn’t have to wonder why.

If everything went back to normal, Rio’s life would be reset. Rio and Yuuma would be just friends again, no longer dating.

So Sakuta left that question unanswered and asked a question of his own.

“If Mitou keeps rewriting things, do you think she’ll eventually find a reality where Touko Kirishima is alive?”

“I do not.”

Rio didn’t really hesitate.

“Your reasoning?”

“Most of the changes you perceive relate to the #dreaming posts from before the rewrite happened.”

That much was pretty clear.

“True, there were dreams about Mai claiming to be Touko Kirishima, and about both Kaedes, and about you and Kunimi.”

And Toranosuke’s bad mock exam, and Kento and Juri getting closer.

“And before reality was rewritten, I told you what those dreams were.”

“Visions of another potential world.”

Rio nodded.

“We have to assume these dreams allowed someone to perceive those possibilities and they made that a reality.”

“In other words, unless someone dreamed that Touko Kirishima was alive, then there’s no way to rewrite reality the way Mitou wants?”

“She’s the one who should be dreaming about Touko Kirishima.”

“Yeah.”

If that was what Miori wanted.

“In which case, she doesn’treallywant to see her again,” Rio said.

A sudden one-eighty.

But not a surprise.

“……”

Sakuta found himself agreeing, and that made his face tense up.

“I see you’ve worked that out, Azusagawa.”

Something about Miori’s manner had put the idea in his head.

And if Rio was pointing out the same thing, he couldn’t dismiss that idea.

“Adolescence Syndrome mostlydoesgrant the wish of the person who has it,” he said.

“Exactly.”

“Mitou says she wants to see Touko Kirishima, yet she hasn’t.”

“Maybe she’s running away.”

“From Touko Kirishima?”

Rio nodded, eyes on her hands.

“Or at least from Touko Kirishima’s death.”

Miori’s behavior had suggested that much. It was hard to get a read on her, hard to tell where her heart lay—and that had given Sakuta this impression.

They fell silent. And Rio’s phone vibrated on the table.

She glanced at it.

“Kunimi?”

“Mm. He’s almost here.”

Inside of a minute, they saw his face outside. Yuuma spotted them through the window and waved.

Rio got up.

“Look, Azusagawa,” she said, not looking at him.

“Yeah?” he replied, keeping his eyes on Yuuma.

“This is as far as I go.”

She made that very clear.

“It’s plenty.”

Sakuta tried to smile but failed.

He knew where this was going, so he couldn’t manage it.

“I like it better this way,” Rio said while watching Yuuma come to the door. He was smiling happily, unaware that anything might be out of the ordinary. For him, it was just another fun evening.

“I’m going,” Rio said, not waiting for Sakuta to answer.

She joined Yuuma at the door, and they headed off toward the station. Yuuma turned back once, waving a hand at Sakuta.

The portrait of happiness.

And it sure tugged at his heartstrings.