At the breakfast table, his mother casually remarked: "Come to think of it, haven't you stopped visiting the neighbor's kid... you, wasn't it?" The hand holding his chopsticks froze.

Hearing that, something stirred uneasily deep in his chest. Even when he tried to recall the last day he went to the hospital, it was all hazy. ...He'd been busy. There was club practice, and he'd been out with friends. He'd thought, "I'll just go next time," and time had simply slipped away. He could barely focus on his classes at school. The moment the bell rang, Takumi grabbed his bag and broke into a run. Still in his school uniform, he hurried down the hospital corridor, out of breath. The white walls and the smell of disinfectant were unchanged from before. In front of the hospital room, his feet stopped. Without even the courage to knock, he opened the door as it was. What he found there was a shadow that had grown taller than before, and Saku's body, far thinner than before. On the bed, Saku was gazing out the window. That small back seemed farther away than it had back then. Time should have passed the same for both of them, yet he was the only one who had grown, and Saku alone seemed to have been left behind.