The Eternity For You - Oneshot

[Lustrist]

5 years and her tote bag is still lunch-sized DAMN

 

[Poinn]

Havent read the actual manga but this hit me with the force of 7 closets

 

[StevenPi]

sorry, i can't get over this manga ending
it's raining...

 

[csebi]

In a way Kaori cursed Shizuku to live a somewhat healthy single life, still much better than being depressed and suicidal

 

[TinsleyNocturnal]

Augh! My heart!

 

[JustOng23]

Why do I keep doing this to myself. I know it would be sad but I still gave it a read. Still, good ending!

 

[calvint]

omfggggggg bless her heart

 

[RorqMayajo]

To me this feels like a perfect post-ending story from the author. I don't know why, maybe it's the fact that Shizuku has managed to live a full life so far, proving all of Kaori's efforts weren't in vain, but that she still fills her life with thoughts of her, proving that she still lives on in the minds of others, but for whatever reason reading this the night after I finished The Summer You Were There has brought me a great sense of peace. That's a big step up from bawling openly in the shower until my eyes were red and then furiously imagining Shizuku eventually dying of old age and getting to meet Kaori in the afterlife where they both get married etc. etc. until I fell asleep like I did last night. Anyways. Wonderful after-story.

 

[jeffbustercase]

Am I seeing things or is it written what I think to be ?

 

[SSJayD]

Am I seeing things or is it written what I think to be ?

Yep

 

[RitoI_15]

Yep

Wait what does it say

 

[steve73]

Wait what does it say

i think it says shizuku + kaori, i gotta admit i never noticed this

 

[CertifiedHeavyMachinary]

This is one Yuri manga that if they ask me if I wanna read it again and i'd say no for a good reason

 

[Recklesslycareful]

Ouch 😭😭

 

[Takuto96]

I had to put down my phone when she "proposed" her with the ring

 

[TempestFox]

screaming and crying and throwing up. thank you for this so much for this series Yuama

 

[MelonManic]

You can't hide from me epilogue, it's crazy how different this feels to the authors other work of that I can't remember the name of

Holy guacamole this is the closest to tears yet, and I don't cry often

 

[IbnAurum]

I had to put down my phone when she "proposed" her with the ring

Ikr, fucking waterhosed my eyes with that shit, def not tears, no siree

 

[steve73]

You can't hide from me epilogue, it's crazy how different this feels to the authors other work of that I can't remember the name of

Holy guacamole this is the closest to tears yet, and I don't cry often

I imagine ur thinking of ikemensugi desu shiki senpai! and yeah i agree the contrast is mindblowing

 

[randomguy684]

After I read this, I had to reread the final chapter to make sure of something. That something being whether Shizuku still loving Kaori and proposing to her grave at all contradicted Kaori’s wishes.

Having reread the chapter, I wouldn’t say they do, but I also wouldn’t say Shizuku is being healthy about this.

It having been five years, I don’t think Shizuku should be holding onto Kaori this close, however I should acknowledge that people grieve at their own speeds, so my point does lie moot there.

Even putting aside for a moment the question of whether or not five years is really all that long (it kind of is, especially at such a young age and for such a brief relationship, but it also kind of isn't, especially when you've got this kind of romantic trauma hanging over you), moving on from losing a lover doesn't have to mean finding a new lover. It means finding a way to live a happy life without the one you lost instead of wallowing in that despair.

With that in mind, I think Shizuku is doing well. Not perfectly, perhaps, but she's come out of her shell, she's found something that she thinks she wants to do with her life, she's got a reliable support network built around the shared love and loss of Kaori, and the love she still feels for Kaori is a source of happiness and inspiration and not something on which she's harmfully fixating. I see the proposal as being less a matter of "I want to marry this dead girl" and more a matter of tying up a loose end by doing something she wanted to do while Kaori was alive but wasn't able to, making "I would have married you" something more concrete than just a thought she kept bottled up. Rather than stagnating and holding on to Kaori, I think that's a part of the process of moving on, closing the book on one of the things she regretted not getting a chance to do.

Will she find somebody new to love? It's hard to say. I think her chances are relatively slim, being somebody who will almost certainly always be a little socially awkward and that making it hard to meet and fall in love with people, but I don't get the impression that she's closed herself off to being happy with somebody else. She just doesn't feel the need to look for a new love yet, and that's fine, so long as she's still living life fully and healthily.