“How nice and sociable she is. How kind she is to everyone alike, all this almost excessive talk about her being a good, hardworking person. Like how her father is some big shot at a foreign-owned company, but her not being stuck-up one bit despite living in an amazing mansion and being amazingly rich. How despite her greatness, she still reaches for greater heights.” “She sounds like some kind of superwoman.” Those stories must have been only half-serious. Rumors are rumors. “That was all back then, of course,” Hanekawa noted. “…Back then.” “I did hear after starting high school that she’d fallen ill─still, to be frank, when we became classmates this year I was shocked. She wasn’t someone who would sit in the corner of the classroom like that, even by accident.” Though it had been just my image of her, Hanekawa added. It certainly had been just her image. People change. Your middle school days and high school life are worlds apart. That went for me, and for Hanekawa, too. It had to be the same for Senjogahara. She must have gone through a lot, and maybe it was true that she was simply ill. Maybe she’d lost her radiant personality for no other reason. Maybe she’d lost a lot of her fill of cheer. When your body weakened, your