He was completely shocked. He rushed toward the abandoned house to investigate, but there was no sign that anyone had lived there recently. No footprints, no lights, no belongings—nothing.
Just then, he spotted a mailman delivering letters down the street. Kakeru ran to him and asked about the house. The mailman explained that the place had been empty for a long time. A family once lived there with a little girl, but they moved away, and nobody had heard from them since. Kakeru described Mai's appearance to him, but the mailman couldn't remember—too many years had passed.
Devastated, Kakeru ran home, convinced that Mai had tricked him. It felt as if the world had turned its back on him once again. But deep inside, something didn't add up. He felt a strange pull—a sense that she never meant to deceive him.
At that moment, he had a choice to make: let go and return to his grey, empty life… or hold on to the mysterious feeling he experienced when he first met that girl.
He chose to fight for that small spark of happiness he had felt. Deep inside, he sensed that Mai's disappearance had something to do with the old tree. It was night, and rain poured heavily from the sky, but he took his grandfather's bicycle and rode straight to the tree.
Standing in front of it, drenched in rain, he made the same wish again:
"Please… make me feel happy again."
A huge lightning strike roared down from the sky, crashing into the same light pole as before. Everything went white.
When he opened his eyes, it was a sunny day—and he was lying under the old tree, his head resting on Mai's lap. Overwhelmed, he hugged her tightly and burst into tears.
"Why are you crying?" she asked gently.
"I thought I lost you forever," he said, still crying.
She comforted him, whispering, "I'll never leave you."
They stayed like that for a while until he finally calmed down. Then he told her, "But when I checked your house… it was abandoned."
"What? I just came from home," she said, confused.