Without a doubt, it has all been a learning journey for Kou. At the moment it seems something like “Oh, Kou learned what it means to love, what it means to have people you care about, to have friends, and people who you care about a lot, and now he also discovered the pain that that entails, not in an edgy sense of "pain" but in the recognition of the fact that sometimes painful things happen, that we hurt others and others can hurt us. This is the dilemma of human relationships and that that makes them so risky but also extraordinary, they inspire us to give everything, to create, to live. But it's okay because he learned and we can relate. And we all learn this way, because that's what it feels like to become an adult, so you always have to look at the journey instead of the destination. Now Kou knows how to feel and what it means, and we are all grieving just like the two of them because, again, we can relate. And also we all went through the hellhole of growing up.” That is, Kotoyama introduced the complexity and tragedy of the human condition and the complexity of human interaction and its relationships to Kou, and to us in the process, but that's okay, because in having such mixed and dissimilar feelings about this approaching end, we too have been part of the experience of the human condition, through our relationship with art and in forming part of a collective artistic process with us as readers. We must be grateful to be able to be part of a space like this and to have experienced an artistic work that makes us ask ourselves these questions and hold these difficult discussions, and that have no apparent answer because they have also bothered thinkers, intellectuals, and philosophers for ages. Questions about love, about growing up and coming of age, about duty, and what is to be done in situations like the one we've seen in this chapter? Persist or let go? Is it even possible to persist in a scenario like this? Can love conquer all? What is valuable about loving as a human experience? And so many others. We'll see what Kotoyama has in store for us, it's been a pleasure sharing this with everyone.
