The blazing sun hung high in the sky, its dazzling light passing through the dense foliage to cast dappled spots on the pair sitting shoulder to shoulder against a large tree.
Although it was nearly noon, the breeze beneath the shade still held a hint of coolness, reminding people that autumn had arrived before they knew it.
The young man and woman leaning against each other beneath the tree were Kanzaki Kumo and Nezuko.
Nezuko had not known how to begin, but after gathering her courage to take Kanzaki Kumo's hand and receiving a response, she seemed to open the floodgates and began to talk.
At first, she had only meant to describe how her feelings had developed: when the seed of those feelings had been planted, when it had taken root and sprouted, and finally, what had made it bloom and prompted her to want those feelings to lead somewhere.
But as she talked, the topic drifted far, far away.
From her curiosity about this older boy from elsewhere when they first met, she somehow moved on to memories of her difficult but heartwarming childhood, interspersed with thanks for Kanzaki Kumo's efforts to improve her family's living conditions, before beginning to share the everyday details of her life over the past dozen or so years.
A girl experiencing her first stirrings of love could never help sharing everything in her heart with the person she loved-the interesting, the dull, the happy, the irritating, the infuriating, the sad...
And Kanzaki Kumo readily assumed the role of listener, paying close attention as the girl shared her past, so ordinary and yet so extraordinary.
It was ordinary because many families in this world lived similar lives, lacking material wealth, but with warmth between family members to soften the hardships of reality.
It