“Hey, Yos.h.i.+-kun. I think you’re——” Hearing that voice for the first time stopped me in my tracks. On my way home from school. On the playing field of our junior high, and at the bookshop in front of the station. And then in the empty lot where the white cat slept. s.h.i.+na Yuki, the strange girl who somehow knew all about me, always approached me like that. We laughed, cried, got angry, held hands. Again and again, we repeated those disappearing memories and ephemeral promises. That’s why I never knew. I never knew the value of Yuki’s smiles or the meaning of her tears. Nor even the singular sentiment behind her many ‘Nice to meet you’s. This is a captivating, heartrending tale of meetings and partings.