[He can hear his own words, the very same ones he'd said in the theatre, two months ago. 'I won't reincarnate anymore.' At that time, that solution had felt so simple, almost elegant. Cut off the cycle, pay back the blood on his hands, let his friends find a happier conclusion on their own. Hearing the same possibility come from Tamamori feels like a terrible cosmic joke. He regrets saying anything, but the experience, the near-escape sits on his mind, too immediate and big to not let out somehow. He can only hope talking about it hasn't ruined everything.]

Okay.

[He squeezes his eyes shut, hands fisted in Tama's clothes.]

...do you still remember, when "you" folded those cranes?

[He remembers the rest of that last morning: The first noise to break the silence had been pounding footsteps coming up the path. The physician had thrown open the front door and Mina had looked blankly up at the intrusion. The physician's expression was already settling into cold bitterness at being too late. But none of that is what Tama could know, if he consciously does at all.]

It wasn't only that. We lived together. You planted camellias like your grandmother. Once it snowed up to the eaves, and I had to climb out the window and nearly broke my leg on the ice, and you yelled at me for forever. [Talking about it is strange, all of this is strange. If the month-long nightmare is over, this conversation is taking a dreamlike feel.] ...Even if it wasn't forever, we were... we were happy. That's all I want.