Although he didn't know why they couldn't switch bodies again, the male lead, Taki Tachibana, didn't just sit idle. He wanted to go and find the female lead directly, but because the memories from when they switched bodies became very hazy after waking up, he couldn't remember the name of the place where she lived.
Fortunately, he at least remembered the scene of the large lake he had seen with her sister and grandmother while he was inhabiting her body.
He used his own memories and compared them with some pictures found online, finally succeeding in drawing the scene of the large lake next to Itomori Town.
After drawing it, he picked a day and set off on a journey to find the female lead, Mitsuha.
He had originally planned to set off alone, but when he arrived at the station, two people were already waiting for him: one was his close friend, Tsukasa, and the other was the senior, Okudera.
Tsukasa and senior Okudera said they wanted to go with the male lead, reasoning that since he said he was going to meet an online friend, they were afraid he might get scammed.
The three of them got on the train and searched from place to place, asking many people, but found no clues after a long time.
Finally, just as the male lead was about to give up, the three of them went to a ramen shop to eat. When the male lead took the drawing out of his bag, the proprietress happened to see it and said it was Itomori Town.
It turned out that the ramen shop owner was originally from Itomori Town.
Although the male lead didn't remember it, after hearing what the owner and his wife said, he recalled it and hurriedly said, "Yes, that's it, Itomori Town, that's the place. It's around here, right?"
The small town where the female lead lived had been found, but a bizarre turn of events immediately followed.
That town had been struck by a comet three years ago, turning the entire town into ruins and killing hundreds of people.
The male lead then remembered the comet he had seen three years ago, but he still couldn't believe it because Mitsuha's diary entries still remained on his phone.
How could Mitsuha be a person from three years ago?
He hurriedly took out his phone to check, but the diary entries on it quickly began to disappear one by one.
"Disappearing..." the male lead said in astonishment.
That night, the three of them stayed in the area.
Senior Okudera found the list of victims from the disaster three years ago, and familiar names like Tesshi, Sayaka, Mitsuha, and Yotsuha were all on it.
Upon seeing Mitsuha's name, the male lead was devastated.
Senior Okudera then said, "Is it this person? You must be mistaken, because this person died three years ago."
"Just two or three weeks ago, she told me she could see the comet, so I..." the male lead said, disbelieving.
But soon, the words the female lead's grandmother had spoken earlier echoed in his mind: "You... are dreaming right now, aren't you?"
He looked at himself in the mirror, then, as if suddenly waking up, said: "What am I doing?"
Behind him, Senior Okudera was flipping through a magazine, which featured an introduction to kumihimo (braided cords).
"Is this a braided cord? How beautiful."
Senior Okudera remarked, then quickly looked at the male lead's wrist. "Taki, is that a braided cord on your wrist too?"
"This... I think someone gave it to me a long time ago," the male lead said, looking at the braided cord on his wrist. "Without realizing it, I started wearing it as a kind of lucky charm. Who gave it to me again?"
As he thought about it, he continued: "I once heard the person who made the braided cord say that it embodies the flow of time—twisting, tangling, unraveling, and connecting. That is time... and that place..."
As he said this, he suddenly remembered—the location of the Miyamizu Shrine's Shintai, where Mitsuha's "other half" was.
He hurriedly checked the map. After confirming that the location of the Miyamizu Shrine Shintai had not been destroyed, he left a note the next morning to explain, and then asked the ramen shop owner for a ride to the site of the Miyamizu Shrine Shintai.
The ramen shop owner kindly gave him a ride until the road became impassable for the car. Before he got out, he even gave him a bento.
"The Itomori Town you drew is beautiful," the ramen shop owner said with a sigh, smoking a cigarette.
The sky was overcast. After getting out of the car, the Male Lead followed the small path toward the Miyamizu Shrine Shintai. As expected, it started to rain midway.
The Male Lead found a place to shelter from the rain, rested briefly, and after eating the bento, he continued on through the rain until he successfully arrived at the Miyamizu Shrine Shintai and found the Kuchikamizake that Mitsuha had brought there before.
"Was the person who swapped bodies with me three years ago? Was our time out of sync? This is half of her..."
He picked up the bottle of Kuchikamizake, opened it, sat down, and poured a small capful of the sake.
"Musubi, if time could really be turned back, one more time..."
Saying this, he drank the small capful of Kuchikamizake.
Just as he was about to stand up, his foot suddenly slipped, and his whole body fell backward violently.
At the same time, images of the comet appeared. It seemed the Kuchikamizake had taken effect, leading him along the braided cord to roughly glimpse Mitsuha's life, including her birth, her mother's illness and passing, her father leaving home, and swapping bodies...
There were also flashes of Mitsuha sighing about how nice his date with Senior Okudera was while tying her hair in front of the mirror, tears inexplicably streaming down her face; the scene of her suddenly telling her sister she was going to Tokyo on the way to school in the morning; the scene of her asking her grandmother to cut her hair short; and the scene on the night of the festival, standing in the open field as the comet split and a massive meteorite crashed down.
"Mitsuha, you can't stay there!"
"Mitsuha, before the comet falls, you have to get out of that town!"
"Mitsuha, run!"
"Mitsuha... Mitsuha... Mitsuha!"
He shouted, and then, time suddenly reversed, returning to the morning of the day the comet fell. He had finally returned to Mitsuha's body once again.
"Ah!"
He sat up from his futon. "It's Mitsuha. She's still alive."
The fact that Mitsuha was alive moved him so much that he wept while touching her chest, scaring his sister, who had come to wake him up, and forcing her to leave early.
Afterward, he met his grandmother.
This time, Grandmother saw at a glance that he was not Mitsuha, but she wasn't very surprised. She even said that the people of the Miyamizu family had all experienced similar situations, it's just that those were things of the past.
The male lead told Grandmother about the comet that would fall.
After listening, Grandmother was very calm, only saying that no one would believe such a thing if it were said aloud.
The male lead, of course, also knew that it was hard for people to believe such a thing, but this time his mission upon returning was very clear: to save Itomori Town.
He went to school, found his close friends Sayaka and Tesshi, and said directly, "If we don't do something, everyone will die tonight!"
As soon as these words were out, his classmates were shocked.
"So, we have to take action!" the male lead said again.
Following that, the three of them skipped class directly and began planning and implementing the rescue operation for Itomori Town.
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