I'm not even sure if I should be telling you this, considering the way you'll probably look at me afterwards. But hey, if I'm already this far, might as well go the rest of the way, right?

To be honest, I didn't really know what I was looking for when I was frantically rifling through newspapers and clicking my way through articles on Itomori online. It was eight years ago, and a lot happens in eight years, but the one thing I can clearly remember is that there was something I needed to make sure didn't happen. I was scouring information with I hope it didn't happen, please let it not happen.

And it didn't happen, whatever it was. I was relieved to find that only a handful of people had died and the joy was so great that it didn't even make sense. I mean I've never been to Itomori (well, technically I haven't, but we'll get there when we do, right?) to this day and everyone I've ever known has lived in Tokyo their entire lives.

At the time, I'd passed my anxiety off as worry for innocent people who'd almost had the rug pulled out from under them. I was being too sensitive.

No matter what, though, I couldn't help but wait for something. Look for something. I wasn't sure what it was. Waiting and looking gets tiring after a while, and sometime I'd dropped it (mostly) in place for studying or hopelessly embarrassing myself in front of Okudera-senpai. Life went on.

But I didn't forget. I wouldn't forget. Forgetting anything seemed almost terrifying. I just couldn't.

Years passed, and although I hadn't forgotten, the looking and waiting had been pushed to the back of my mind.

The days blurred together and I dragged myself through them. Everyone was glad I was "back to normal," whatever that meant. All I knew was that it felt like I'd gone on some grand adventure and now that life was depressingly ordinary again, I couldn't handle it (which really didn't make sense. I've been to America before, when I was younger, but hardly anywhere outside of good ol' Tokyo. What kind of adventure was I comparing my life to?)
And then.

And then I saw her.

It was a fleeting instant, where both of our eyes widened, as if a metaphorical metal detector started beeping, like this was a huge gold deposit that I'd stumbled over.

Only, instead of metal, it would seem that I'd found what I'd been looking for for over 5 years.

The trains split then, but I was certain that she and I were buzzing with anxiety, itching to get off the damn train and out to the damn station to find each other. Which was odd, to say the least, because as far as I knew, she was just a random stranger to me.

We'd probably missed each other though, in our frenzied search. So we ran around the neighboring area, through a maze of houses and finally.

There was the girl with that ribbon in her hair.

"Your name is…"

"Mitsuha," I breathed. The word felt eerily familiar on my lips. Where was I getting this from?

"Taki-kun," she tearfully responded at the same time.

"Mitsuha," I said more firmly, and we reached the top of the stairs to look at each other properly.

"How… do I know you?" I asked. She looked as puzzled as I was, but was still smiling like she'd won the lottery.

"I have no idea," she said. God, even the voice was familiar.

Everything about her was, really. She looked to be older than me, perhaps by a year or two, but her body seemed achingly familiar, as well as her lilting voice and the way her eyes shone when she looked me in the face. I could practically predict her next move, like once upon a time, I'd been a Mitsuha too and every gesture was imprinted into my mind.

She stepped forward slightly. "Can I…?" I nodded wordlessly, and she placed her hands on my arms, not wanting to overstep any boundaries, and leaned closer.

"Tachibana Taki," she whispered to herself. "Who are you?"

I swallowed at her closeness. "I could ask you the same."

All of a sudden, she lurched away and started pacing idly in front of me.

"Once upon a time, eight years ago, more like, I had the sudden urge to pull an enormous prank on the entire town of Itomori."

My eyes widened at the name.

"For some reason or the other, I wanted everyone to go to my high school and wait there. I was so into my plan, I even hijacked the town's speaker system. Most did wait there, anyway, and soon after the infamous comet struck everyone was safe. But… I thought I was missing something."

She laughed and added, "Right, and I had something written on my hand. I love you."

I swallowed nervously. It seemed as though I was waiting for a twist in the story, like I'd heard it just about a thousand times before.

"Yeah, so anyway, after that I found some pretty weird stuff. Like, things written in my notebooks that I didn't write and I was feeling like I was looking for someone."

The whole time she'd been staring at the ground but now she looked up at me and said, "And when I saw you in the train, I found what I looking for. At least, I think I did." Another slight laugh.

"Is it weird that I feel like I know you really well?" she questioned out of the blue. "I mean… it's like I know you, but I've never even seen you before so…"

She looked at me expectantly, and I suddenly realized that I'd been standing staring at her this whole time. She was waiting for an answer. "Well, yeah. Me too," I said roughly.

"Oh, good," she breathed. "'Cause I thought I was going crazy for a second."

We both stood in silence for a few moments, admiring each other. A soft breeze interrupted the silence, and the woman's red ribbon rippled through the air.

I said, "Say, would you like to get some coffee with me?"

Mitsuha stared at me for a second before tucking her hair behind her ear and giving me a smile so dazzling, it rivaled the sun.

"Sure, Taki-kun."

It took us a few weeks, but in the end we had gotten to the bottom of all of it. At least, we thought. It took Mitsuha and me about fifty more trips to the cafe we had went the first time we met - well, technically not the first but you know what I mean. Right?

The truth was, no one really got us. And I couldn't blame them, I mean, it was hard to wrap our own heads around how we knew each other so well.

I mean, swapping bodies so we could time-travel to alter history?

Yeah, right.

I would think I was insane if the same thing hadn't happened to Mitsuha.

Some things took a little while to remember, or just understand. Often times, I would be the one asking questions, mostly just for confirmations. Because, boy, was our story a complicated one.

It would usually go something like this: "So, while I was in your body, you made the plan for your friends to blow up the substation to take out the power so that Sayaka could make an emergency broadcast over the town's speakers to evacuate everybody to the school so they wouldn't be hit by the comet?" By the end of my question, I was usually out of breath and when Mitsuha nodded in amusement, I know we're both thinking, Damn. We were smart kids.

Mitsuha opened up more after the first few meetings in Cafe Clover. Somehow in the beginning, I was unsure if it was really her, because she was collected and reserved, but now it's a regular occurrence for coffee to go flying when I make a joke or for her to release a string of expletives when I comment on her… well, anything, really.

She would mostly ask me questions about me or herself all those years ago, rather than questions about what actually happened, which was interesting. Sometimes she would look at me and go, "Did Yotsuha really catch you touching my boobs?" or "Sometimes I forget you're three years younger, Taki-kun."

But the funniest part was when we're together with other people. It's all too hilarious, when we were eating somewhere with Teshi and Sayaka. Mitsuha ordered a sake once (and never again after that) and I leaned towards her to snicker, "I would've thought you were done with sake after making it from your own spit."

Her face would turn just about a hundred shades of red and she would sputter before whacking me on the arm so hard it left a mark that wouldn't go away for days.

Simply put, it was much easier when we were alone. Which we were, most of the time. It was hard for most people to put up with the side glances we'd shoot each other; it's no fun being on the outside of an inside joke. Yotsuha would give us weird looks sometimes, and we'd burst into laughter, remembering the way I would touch Mitsuha's chest with fascination when I was in her body. Mitsuha's grandmother would smile at me like she knew something I didn't, Itomori's mayor would glare at me like he knew I knew something he didn't, and Okudera-senpai (Okudera-san now… she had asked me to say her name with a -san a long time ago) would give us a grin and say that we were perfect for each other (which always turned Mitsuha and me into stammering tomato-colored messes)

But it always seemed like something was missing. Even with Mitsuha, there was an ache in my chest that wouldn't seem to go away (Especially with Mitsuha). And it looked to be the same with her.

After a while there would be mumbled apologies when our hands accidentally touched, and she wouldn't hug me just before leaving the cafe, which had became a meeting spot over the last six months. I didn't kiss her cheek like I used to when I dropped her at her apartment, in fear of making her so red I thought she might combust.

But, like all things, this thing we had got too much to bear, and one night we were re-visiting that staircase we had so fatefully met once more upon, Mitsuha called, "Wait!" as I began to ascend the steps.

I paused, confused, and she bounded up to a couple steps below mine, reached up on her toes, grabbed the collar of my shirt, and kissed me like Tokyo would be hit be a comet tomorrow.

(See? See what I did there? No? You know what - just - Never mind.)

And I would be lying if said I didn't go down a few steps to reach her height, wrap my arms around her waist, and kiss her back the exact same way.

And in that moment, the empty space in my heart filled up the brim and spilled out in the form of tears in my eyes. I hadn't felt like this since I was Mitsuha. So… complete.

I realized she was crying about a second after I realized I was. We were crying and laughing and nothing bad could've happened in that moment. Hell, Tokyo could've actually been hit by a comet and been wiped off the face of the Earth, and I wouldn't care.

We ascended the steps until we reached the very top one and sat down, Mitsuha curled into my embrace. After a little while, in which the birds sang, the sun shone brightly like any other day, and two people with a complicated history shared shy smiles and tender kisses, Mitsuha said, "I'm glad I met you, Taki-kun," as if I was just another one of her friends, not one who knew what she did every day before going to sleep and how to tie a girl's hair in that complicated braided-ponytail thing, and that Yotsuha had nightmares sometimes and would slip into her sister's bed in the middle of the night.

But she smiled at me again in that way where I knew exactly what she was thinking, so I grinned back and said, "Me too, Mitsuha. I'm glad I was you."

And we sat, grinning like fools who had just gotten out of prison, ready to rob another bank, on that staircase in Tokyo.