"She was telling the truth..."
"Why do you look a little disappointed?"
"No, it's not that..." Hitoshi Shiratori shook his head helplessly. "It's just... hard to imagine."
Kasakura Nanami's true personality was the kind that made people want to keep their distance.
Years of prolonged entanglement, love, and hatred had worn away her ability to respond to emotions normally. She truly was someone who struggled to control her feelings and often became so immersed in them that she could not pull herself out.
Thinking of how he had hesitated for even a moment over whether she might have been the girl he had met back then, Shiratori felt dazed.
Could that once-innocent little girl have been twisted into someone else entirely over all those years?
"If I met someone like this while working normally, I'd probably find her troublesome or difficult." Hitoshi Shiratori gave a bitter smile. "This is the first time I've realized that personality can be the result of suffering."
"Don't sympathize too easily with everyone like that just because of it." Tang Ze's attitude did not change much.
He merely watched Kasakura Nanami, still crouched by the roadside in the distance, clutching her car keys tightly and sobbing so hard she could barely breathe.
"She is worthy of sympathy, but a large part of her misfortune was caused by herself. Of course, she could ask others for help and express her pain, but trying to solve the problem through another, more extreme method is just as inappropriate. We're only innocent bystanders too."
Perhaps Tang Ze's assurances had made her feel especially safe. Taking the chance to explain the case to Shiratori, Kasakura Nanami finally released the pain and anxiety she had been unable to find an outlet for over the years. Once she started, she could not