5 Centimeters per Second: why that ending still haunts me

What is love? A question I have never been able to answer

What is love? I have never experienced it.

Maybe the thing I have feared most, all my life, is loving someone.

Not because I am afraid of being hurt. I have just always had the feeling that I would move too fast.

There has always been something inside me pushing me to keep going. Some other life, something I cannot name and cannot stop searching for. I do not know whether it is right or wrong. I only know that every time I look ahead, I accidentally skip past the present.

And love is different.

Love needs time. It needs two people who stay. And I have never really known how to stay.

Status, career, the things so many people chase — none of them have ever felt like enough to me. I still try, I still keep going, I still believe there is something ahead waiting for me.

I do not know where I will end up. I only know that the further I walk, the more I notice how few people are walking this road with me.

Everything I know about love comes from films, from my friends' stories, from my parents.

I watch them love each other. I watch them do things for each other that I know, if it were me, I could not do.

I am impulsive too. If I want something, I do it. Sometimes I am crazier than most people. But those are bursts of a few minutes.

And love is different.

It is not a few minutes of feeling. It is accepting that you will stay. Accepting that you will lose out. Accepting that you will suffer for someone else.

That, I do not understand.

Or maybe I have never been brave enough to understand it.

Sometimes I wonder whether it is a noble sacrifice, or just something foolish that reason cannot explain. I have never had an answer.

And it is precisely that paradox — between love, ideals, and that "foolishness" — that made 5 Centimeters per Second leave more inside me than any other film.

The third watch — when I could finally name the feeling

Every time I watch this film, I carry a very strange feeling with me.

I know I am sad.

But I do not know what I am sad about.

It took this watch for me to finally name what I was feeling.

Maybe people only begin to understand themselves after living long enough. To understand what they want, what they are afraid of. Or maybe it is not understanding at all — maybe it is just no longer trying to control it.

I let the feeling run.

I let it show itself.

And so one day like today, in the middle of the rain, after years of doing nothing but work, something in me went soft.

Why I watched one film three times

People ask why I would watch the same film three times.

The reason is very simple.

Because I do not remember.

I do not remember the ending.

I do not remember what I learned from it either.

It sounds strange, but it is part of who I am. I am stubborn about things that have no answer. An image, a line, an ending left open… the less I understand it, the more I remember it.

I watched it once.

Then a second time.

But months later, only one question was left in my head: why did it end like that?

That lack of clarity is what stayed.

Then one day, resting in the middle of workloads that stretch from one year into the next, I suddenly felt tired. And it was raining again.

I do not know why, but some days a person's emotions are perfectly still. And some days all it takes is one rainfall for everything to soften.

This time, I did not hold it in.

I opened the film again.

Every minute of it.

Every frame.

I let my heartbeat slow down with the story, like a child who knows in advance he will be sad, and still waits nervously for something to appear at the end of the road.

Two children born to understand each other

The opening of the film feels like a statement.

Not a statement that they will fall in love.

A statement that they were born to understand each other.

The way they meet does not feel like coincidence. The film almost deliberately places these two people side by side and tells the audience: these are two souls on the same frequency.

They both love books.

They both love history.

They are both children slightly out of step with everyone else.

They were both bullied, and both walked through it.

So much so that I asked myself: can two people in this world really be that alike?

What I remember most is not their love.

It is the feeling of being understood.

I am jealous of that.

Maybe in my whole life I have never met someone who made me feel that way. Someone I could talk to for hours without getting bored. Someone where a single sentence is enough to know what they are thinking.

They are only in fifth grade.

But the way they look at the world, the way they talk about books, about history, about the smallest things in life… more than once it made me feel like someone standing outside, looking in.

I used to ask myself: are they too different from everyone else, or am I the different one?

Then the film quietly lets its familiar images pass by.

Cherry blossoms.

Snow.

Rain.

Trains.

All of it beautiful.

But I only realised later that what stayed with me was not the scenery.

It was the feeling of having someone looking in the same direction as you.

Maybe that is the thing I have never had.

The first goodbye, and a phone call with nothing said

The film begins very fast.

And it separates them very fast too.

So fast that I had barely got used to the two of them when the goodbye arrived.

I stopped short.

"Wait — is that it?"

All I vaguely remembered was that the two of them would meet again later and then part again. So when the girl had to move away within the first few minutes, I honestly thought the story ended there.

By reflex, I glanced at the timeline.

More than an hour left.

I exhaled.

Not because the film was not over.

But because I knew that if the story continued, the author still had something he wanted to say.

What I was afraid of was not an early ending.

It was the part that came next.

The part where two children have to learn to accept the first separation of their lives.

And sure enough, the call came.

She calls him to say she is transferring schools, following her parents.

She keeps apologising.

She keeps comforting him.

And in the end, she is the one who cannot hold back the tears.

He says almost nothing.

He only gently tells her to stop apologising.

The first time I watched it, I thought he was angry.

On this watch, I finally understood.

He is not angry at her.

He is angry at himself.

Angry that he does not have the power to change anything.

Maybe because I am quite stubborn myself, that feeling is not unfamiliar at all.

There are times you badly want to do something.

And in the end all you can do is stand still and watch it happen.

There are times a person badly wants to keep someone from leaving.

And is so powerless that not even a single sentence comes out.

What tormented him for years afterwards also began with that call.

Not because of the separation.

But because he kept asking himself why he did not say one more gentle thing.

One word of comfort.

Or simply let her know that he was hurting just as much.

While he knew that the one hurting most at that moment was probably the girl on the other end of the line.

A year of nothing but letters

For the whole year that followed, the only contact they had was letters.

Life went quietly on.

School.

Sports.

New friends.

Growing up, day by day.

Each of them moved forward with their own life.

Only one thing seemed not to change.

Inside both of them there was still a figure that time had never faded.

At this point I started to wonder.

What if someone else had appeared during that time?

Would time be enough to make a person slowly forget someone who once mattered so much?

I kept that question in my head.

And the author answers it later in the film.

The promise and the train — a bridge between two children

Then the two children decide to meet.

After a year of missing each other through letters.

It is a very simple promise.

"Let's meet."

But getting to that meeting is an entire journey.

Looking back now, that meeting was almost a miracle.

This was the era of landlines and payphones.

No maps.

No text messages.

No way to tell each other you would be late.

Only a promise.

And the belief that the other person would still be waiting.

When he steps onto that train, I finally felt the distance between them.

Sixth grade, seventh grade.

Where I live, I would not even know how a child could travel hundreds of kilometres to meet someone.

But in the Japan of that time, it was possible.

There were telephones.

There were rail lines connecting the regions.

Trains that carried people across cities, over endless fields, through hills, forests, and small towns.

And every station was its own little world.

Some crowded.

Some with only a few rooftops sitting silently in the snow.

On this watch, I noticed something strange.

I no longer saw the train as transport.

I saw it as a bridge.

It connects places that are very far apart.

It connects people who seemed unable to meet again.

As I watched, I found myself quietly admiring it.

Not just the trains.

But the fact that people built an entire system large enough to connect human beings separated by that much distance.

They could not have known that some once-in-a-lifetime meetings are saved only because one train still managed to run.

Maybe it is only because of those trains that this meeting could happen at all.

Seven, eight, nine o'clock — helplessness on a delayed train

He promises to arrive at seven.

He boards the train very early.

The train slowly pulls away.

Outside the window, the city's buildings fall behind one by one.

Electric poles.

Signs.

Trains sliding past each other.

Then the city thins out.

Fields appear.

Rows of trees.

Mountains.

And further out, snow still falling quietly.

At first I was like him.

I only wanted the train to go a little faster.

So the meeting would come a little sooner.

But then I realised the author had no intention of telling it quickly.

He makes me sit on that train.

Sit there for a long time.

Long enough to see every stretch of land going past.

Long enough for the distance between those two children to stop being a number.

And become an actual road.

Station after station.

Field after field.

Town after town.

Every place he passes makes the meeting ahead feel a little more precious.

Then the snow starts falling harder.

One train after another is announced as delayed.

Normally that is an ordinary thing.

But for a child travelling to the most important appointment of his life, every passing minute stretches out forever.

What hurt me was not the delay.

It was the helplessness.

He cannot call.

He cannot send a message.

He cannot tell her he is on his way.

He cannot tell her to stop waiting either.

The two children only have their promise to believe in.

Everything after that is completely out of their control.

Maybe the worst part is not being late.

It is not knowing what the person on the other end is thinking.

Is she still waiting?

Or has she gone home?

The more I thought about it, the more different that era felt from now.

Today one message is enough to say anything to anyone.

Back then, once the train had pulled away, he had only himself.

Nothing to distract him.

No screen to look at.

Nothing to help him forget the worry growing by the minute.

Only the same thoughts going around in his head.

Wanting her to wait.

But not wanting her to have to wait.

Wanting to get there.

While knowing he cannot make the train go faster.

It is a very strange feeling.

Hope is still there.

But it keeps getting smaller.

Through that whole journey, the author weaves in their memories.

The letters.

The conversations.

The days when they were still together.

Every time a memory surfaces, I could see him find a little more strength to keep going.

Maybe he felt it too.

He takes out her letter.

Not to reread anything.

Just to hold on to whatever hope is left.

Hope that when he arrives, she will still be there.

And then, in one very small moment.

As he takes money out of his pocket.

A gust of wind carries the letter away.

I froze.

It is only a letter.

But at that moment it is no longer a letter.

It is the only thing he could hold on to for the whole journey.

And even that leaves his hands.

If it were me.

I think I would have cried too.

Not because I lost an object.

But because all that helplessness lands at once.

There was already nothing he could do.

And now he cannot even hold on to a letter.

From that moment on, I went numb along with him.

I stopped hoping for a beautiful ending.

Not because I thought she would not wait.

But because it was already far too late.

Seven o'clock.

Then eight.

Then nine.

For me, whatever else might happen from there could only make it later.

You are forced to accept it.

The train keeps running quietly.

The snow keeps falling.

And he can only sit there, moving forward.

Not because he is sure he will make it.

But because he has no other choice than to keep going.

She was still there — the meeting I thought impossible

Finally the train reaches the station.

He steps off.

The platform is almost empty.

Honestly, I thought exactly what he thought.

She has probably gone home.

It would be completely reasonable.

Nobody could wait that long.

But the film does not end there.

She stayed.

Still quietly waiting.

Not because she knew for certain that he would come.

But because he had promised.

And she believed the promise.

When they see each other.

They simply run into each other's arms.

No explanation needed.

No asking why he was late.

The tears just fall.

Everything they wanted to say was probably already inside that embrace.

Sometimes I think that time spent beside someone does not necessarily make feelings grow.

But missing them does.

It quietly accumulates, day after day.

So that when you finally meet, one look is enough to say everything a letter could not.

What made me happy was not only that they met again.

It was that after a year apart, they talked exactly the way they did on the first day.

The same stories.

The same way of seeing the world.

Still liking the same food.

Still praising the same tiny things.

It was so natural that I felt those two people had been born to meet each other.

That is probably the most beautiful moment in the film.

And what I admired most was not their love.

It was the two children themselves.

At that age they were already able to give each other a sincerity that I still feel I have a lot to learn from.

Maybe when I watched it before, I only saw a love story.

Today I finally understand why feelings like that can lead people to do things that seem so hard to explain.

The cherry tree, and how Shinkai paints emotion onto landscape

The two children finally meet.

I no longer remember what they said.

Or rather, I cannot remember.

Maybe because by then the content of the conversation no longer mattered.

What mattered was that they could sit next to each other.

And talk.

After a year of only missing each other through letters, I think anything at all could have become a story.

A day at school.

A test.

A book just finished.

Or simply what they ate today.

I have the feeling that even the individual grains of rice in a meal could have been something they told each other about.

That is what I have always admired.

Not that they had a lot to say.

But that they found someone who made even the most ordinary things worth telling.

Maybe they do not see the world the way I do.

They have their own way of talking.

Very gentle.

Very natural.

So natural that I no longer remember what they said.

But I still remember the feeling that conversation left behind.

Then the station closes.

The two children walk hand in hand down a road covered in snow.

They walk to the cherry tree they always mentioned in their letters.

What I remember most is not the cherry tree.

It is the moment they both stand beneath it.

All those memories.

All those letters.

All those times they missed each other.

All of it seems to come rushing back at once.

And I thought:

maybe once a person has held a feeling long enough,

the smallest thing is enough to bring all of it back.

A road.

A street corner.

A song.

Or just a tree.

The cherry tree has no blossoms then.

Only bare branches in the middle of winter.

And yet, through the way the film tells the story, I saw it as beautiful as if it were in full bloom.

To this day I still do not know.

Whether the scenery is genuinely that beautiful.

Or whether their feelings are so beautiful that the scenery becomes beautiful too.

Probably the second one.

I have always thought Makoto Shinkai is exceptional at this.

He does not just paint landscapes.

He paints emotion onto the landscape.

The world in his films is very wide.

But I always have the feeling that the world inside him is wider still.

There are corners of feeling I had never thought about.

There are thoughts I could not have predicted.

The same way other people sometimes cannot predict me.

I once wondered.

Whether he is lonely.

Then I laughed at myself.

Probably not.

Someone who can understand this many emotions must have listened to a great many human stories.

At least, that is what I want to believe.

The kiss, and the longest night of their childhood

And then the two children kiss.

A very light kiss.

Very short.

But very warm.

Honestly.

Even here I still do not understand what love is.

So I do not want to force an explanation of that kiss.

I only look at it the way I look at everything else in life.

If something is genuinely precious.

I want to keep it.

To wrap it up.

To carry it with me for a long time.

Exactly what he thought.

Wanting to carry that warmth with him.

Not out of greed.

But because he knows it is precious.

Because he knows he does not want to lose it.

Maybe love also begins from something as simple as that.

I do not know.

That is only how I feel it.

Because for as long as I can remember, whenever I meet something important enough, I want to understand it more.

To get closer to it.

To become better so I do not lose it.

I do not know whether that counts as pursuit.

But when it comes to love.

I have never had the chance to understand.

So here I just quietly watch the two children enjoy a moment that belongs only to them.

That night, they talked for a very long time.

Until morning.

That surprised me.

Because I have never stayed up all night just to talk to someone.

Not even with friends I have known for many years.

We meet.

We talk for a few hours.

And then we run out of things to say.

Maybe a conversation can only last when both people want to listen.

Both want to ask the next question.

Both want to keep it going.

If only one person is telling the story.

Sooner or later it stops.

Maybe that is why I admire those two children even more.

The morning after — the train home and a boy who has grown

The next morning.

Time to say goodbye.

She walks him to the station.

I think.

At that moment they both wanted to say the same thing.

"Stay."

But neither of them said it.

Maybe because they knew.

Even if it were said.

Nothing would change.

I am different.

If it were me now.

I think I would say it.

Because I have missed too many things in my life.

I hate the feeling of having to ask myself later:

"What if…"

The result might be exactly the same.

But at least I would have said what I wanted to say.

Then the train pulls away again.

He goes home.

I have always felt that.

After that night.

The boy grew up a little.

Not because of time.

But because he now had something to pursue.

Something big enough to make a person accept growing up.

People say a man only truly grows up after losing something.

Maybe that is true of him too.

From here on he lives with a very clear ideal.

Always moving forward.

Always trying.

Always strong.

In exchange, he smiles less and less.

I do not know whether growing up really means losing your joy.

Probably not.

It is just the way he chose to live.

As for her.

The film leaves plenty of small details about her too.

But I will not go too deep.

Maybe because from beginning to end, I watched this story through his eyes.

And because in many moments, I found myself relating to him more.

Why the film does not stop at its most beautiful moment

If the film had ended at that meeting under the cherry tree, for me it would already have been a complete ending.

Two children meet again.

They hold each other.

They cry.

They talk until morning.

Then they part.

A very beautiful story.

So beautiful that I did not want to keep watching.

Maybe because I did not have the strength to witness another sadness.

But the film keeps going.

At first I thought the author was being greedy.

Why not stop at the most beautiful place?

Later I understood.

Because life does not end at its most beautiful moment.

It keeps going.

And the part that comes after is what the film really wants to tell.

It is the process of a child becoming an adult.

He transfers schools again.

This time to a very distant island.

A quiet rural place.

Few people.

Few houses.

Few things that make anyone hurry.

Here I noticed something.

In Japanese films, adults almost never do anything wrong.

They just live their lives.

Go to work.

Get transferred.

Take their children with them.

But every decision an adult makes accidentally rewrites a child's entire childhood.

When I watched this as a kid, I never thought about that.

Looking back now, I see that children's separations are often not their own choice at all.

He grows up very naturally.

There is no transformation scene.

No dramatic turning point.

He simply gets better day by day.

Good at school.

Good at sports.

Calm.

Quiet.

Always helping people.

Never trying to stand out.

But always standing out.

The film never says he is handsome.

Never says he is rich.

Never builds him as a perfect character.

The most compelling thing about him is his steadiness.

His eyes always looking forward.

As if there is always something very large inside him.

The girl who engineered every "coincidence"

And this is where the second girl appears.

Honestly.

I do not think she likes him because he is a good student.

Or because he is well known.

What she likes is probably the particular light he carries.

Someone always trying.

Always kind.

Always moving forward.

Like a star.

Not too bright.

But always there.

Making other people want to look up.

I do not know why.

This character is built very much like the person I have always wanted to be.

So I am probably a little biased toward him.

Through all of high school.

He is still himself.

Still remembering the girl from years ago.

Still living by his ideal.

While she quietly appears in his life.

At first I did not notice.

Only on this watch did I see it.

Almost none of those "coincidences" are coincidental.

He practises archery after school.

She goes surfing.

And they just happen to head home at the same time.

But nothing about it "just happens".

She has to ask her sister for a ride.

She has to watch the clock.

She has to wait.

She has to get back exactly when his practice ends.

And then pretend it was chance.

That familiar line keeps repeating.

"Let's walk back together."

That is when I understood.

Some people put an enormous amount of care into creating a meeting that is meant to look accidental.

She once said:

"If I were a puppy, my tail would be wagging non-stop right now."

I laughed.

Because the line is adorable.

And heartbreaking.

Luckily she is not a dog.

Otherwise every feeling would be visible.

Being human.

At least you can still hide it.

The choice form: love or a dream

And then comes the day of choosing.

The day you fill in your future.

I have always thought this is one of the most important moments of school life.

Until then, you just keep going.

Finish primary school.

Move up to middle school.

Finish middle school.

Move up to high school.

The road is basically drawn for you.

But that form changes everything.

For the first time, a child has to answer questions nobody has ever taught them.

Who do I want to become.

Where do I want to live.

What do I want to pursue.

And what will I have to give up.

What makes me think is that in more than ten years of school we learn a great many things.

But we are almost never taught how to make a big decision.

And never taught how to face regret.

Maybe that is why that moment is always frightening.

Not because there is no answer.

But because every answer trades away something.

By then she understands it too.

If she wants to follow him, she will have to leave the island she grew up on.

Leave the waves.

Leave that sky.

Leave her own dream.

And if she stays.

She will have to leave the person she loves.

Love and a dream.

For the first time the film places them side by side.

And does not let the character keep both.

Maybe because she knows the day of parting is close.

She starts to become braver.

But her courage is still very small.

Still the same convenience store on the way home.

Still two cans of drink.

Still the same road they walk every single day.

That day, she buys the drinks faster than usual.

I thought she was going to say it.

In the end, she does not.

Some words are very easy to say.

And some words take all the courage of an entire youth, and still it is not enough.

Then her scooter suddenly breaks down.

They decide to push it and walk.

The road is a very familiar one.

But that day it is longer than ever.

He is the same as always.

Attentive.

Caring.

Asking after her.

Helping.

All of it completely natural.

That is simply who he is.

But because it is so natural.

It hurts her even more.

In the end she bursts into tears.

She cries a lot.

And then says only one thing.

"Please stop being so kind to me…"

That is probably the line of hers that haunts me most.

The first time I watched, I did not understand it.

Now I do.

When you love someone who does not love you, the most painful part is not being rejected.

It is that they keep being gentle with you.

That gentleness is not hope.

But it is not cold enough to make you give up either.

It holds you in the middle.

Unable to move forward.

Unable to step back.

I used to ask.

Why did she not say it sooner.

Then I realised the question is meaningless.

Because I am also someone who rarely dares to say what I feel.

Not because I am afraid of rejection.

But because I am afraid of disturbing someone else's life.

If you already know the answer.

Silence is probably the easier option.

At least then only you carry the sadness.

And the other person stays at peace.

He still does not understand at that point.

Or maybe he does.

But his heart is not here.

Through all those years.

He is still facing the girl from back then.

Still writing messages and deleting them.

Still carrying a promise that never ended.

Watching this, I do not blame her.

And I do not blame him.

Both of them are sincere.

They are simply standing in two different places.

One looking forward.

One looking at the person walking forward.

That distance sometimes cannot be filled by effort.

And that was the first time I realised.

Some feelings are very beautiful.

But they were never born to have a beautiful ending.

Only to teach us what it is like to love someone.

Messages written and deleted — the real knot of the film

There is a stretch of his life that I still find far too regrettable.

Every time I reach it, I get angry.

Not because I dislike him.

And not because I dislike her.

But because I am powerless.

Maybe because I have felt very much what he feels, I cannot stand watching someone lose an opportunity like that.

He still has her phone number.

Phones exist now.

They could contact each other.

He still writes the messages.

But he never sends them.

Write.

Delete.

Write.

Delete again.

For years.

I kept asking myself.

Why?

Why in all those years did they never meet even once.

Never ask each other a single question.

Never update each other on their lives.

Only keep living, keep growing up, while each still holds a very special place for the other.

That is when I thought: this is the real knot of the whole film.

Not distance.

Not time.

But silence.

Was he afraid?

Afraid that in growing up, both of them had changed.

Afraid that the girl from back then was no longer the girl he remembered.

Or that he was no longer the boy he used to be.

That perfect image they both kept in memory — one meeting might have been enough to shatter it.

Or maybe he was afraid of something else.

The same as when he was a child.

Standing in front of the person he loves and still unable to change the story.

Unable to change the distance.

Unable to change the decisions of adults.

Unable to make her stay.

If I have to think about it, those are the only two reasons I can find.

And strangely enough…

I like neither of them.

I do not want to accept any reason at all.

Sometimes I think a great deal.

And sometimes I do not want to think any more.

I only know what I want.

I want him to send that message.

Just once.

Maybe afterwards they would fall in love.

Maybe they would break up.

But at least the story would have an ending.

Instead of leaving two people to live forever inside a memory so beautiful that nobody dares to touch it.

Few children can hold a feeling for that long.

Across a distance that large.

And still the author lets them keep missing each other.

Keep growing up.

Keep passing each other by.

God…

I really do resent the author.

Not because he wrote a sad ending.

But because he would not let the characters take the road I always hoped they would take.

Maybe that is exactly what he wanted to tell.

But not me.

I do not want to hear another reason.

I only want to see a result.

There is one detail that makes me regret it even more.

I still remember that as a child, she stood waiting for him for hours because of a single promise.

She did not know whether he would make it.

But she chose to wait.

Only because he said he would come.

A child back then could be that brave.

So I always think: if later on he had just been brave enough to send one message, maybe the story would have been different.

Of course, that is a very biased thought of mine.

I know I am standing entirely on his side.

But setting personal feelings aside, I still believe love always needs one person to step forward first.

Maybe the other person will wait.

Maybe not.

Maybe the two can walk together.

Maybe all you get back is a refusal.

But whatever the result, I would still feel lighter than never knowing what could have happened.

Maybe that is the ending I wanted.

Not a happy ending.

But an ending brave enough to face the truth.

The adult, and the song at the end

In the final part of the film.

The first thing that stays with me is not the story.

It is the space.

The music.

The loneliness covering the whole city.

After many years of effort, he finally becomes an adult.

He has a job.

A girlfriend.

The life many people are aiming for.

But is he happy?

Probably not.

There is a very short scene.

The phone rings.

His girlfriend is calling.

He sees it, and quietly lets it go.

He does not want to work any more either.

Everything has become exhausting.

And I thought:

an engine that runs forever still has to stop eventually.

People are the same.

Except his exhaustion does not come from work.

It comes from no longer knowing what he is living for.

When he was young.

His motivation was very clear.

To meet that girl again.

The promise under the cherry tree.

The letters.

The memories.

But time keeps moving.

And he is still standing in the same place.

Maybe that is what being lost really is.

Not that you do not know what to do.

But that you know what you want and do not know how to reach it.

That made me think a lot.

Because there are times I have asked myself the same thing.

What am I trying so hard for.

What am I looking for in this life.

He is probably luckier than me.

At least he knows who he is looking for.

He knows who he wants to meet.

In the middle of a huge city.

He walks past streets.

Past shops.

Past stations.

Past countless people.

Still hoping that one day he will run into her by chance.

Even though he knows.

That it is almost impossible.

Then One more time, One more chance begins to play.

To this day I still think that if I had to pick one song to tell this entire film, there is no better fit.

What the song says to me, in the way I hear it, comes down to one idea: if only there were one more time, one more chance, a person would finally say the thing they never dared to say. And if he could have one wish, the only wish would be to be beside her right now.

At that point I no longer knew whether I was watching a love story.

Or looking at one person's regret.

I am not even sure those feelings are love.

I only know I could not take it.

I really could not.

The railway crossing — why she does not turn around

And then the film reaches its final scene.

He and she pass each other by chance at a railway crossing.

It is a very short moment.

They walk past each other.

He turns his head.

And he thinks.

"I had the feeling that if I turned around, she would turn around too."

That moment stopped my heart.

A train cuts across.

Hiding them both.

I just waited for the train to pass as fast as possible.

And then…

He turns around.

But she has already walked on.

The scene ends very lightly.

Inside me it did not.

I went insane.

Genuinely.

All those years of missing each other.

All those years of trying.

All those years of carrying someone in your heart.

Lucky enough to finally meet again.

And yet…

She keeps walking.

The first time I watched, I could not accept it at all.

I kept thinking.

"Why?"

"Why this ending?"

Much later, after reading many different points of view.

And after watching the film one more time.

I noticed a detail I had missed before.

Back when they were children.

Before they said goodbye.

She had written a letter.

And in the end never gave it to him.

Maybe from that very moment.

She had chosen to put that feeling somewhere very deep inside her.

To let it become a beautiful memory.

Rather than a promise stretching on forever.

Many people explain it that way too.

That she has accepted moving on.

Not because she stopped loving him.

But because life has to continue.

That feeling is not gone.

It has simply become part of the past.

Watching it again this time.

I no longer wonder.

I understand why the film ends this way.

I understand why she does not turn around.

And I understand why, in the end, he smiles.

But understanding is one thing.

Accepting is another.

Even now.

Every time I think of that scene.

Something in me is still unhappy.

Maybe because somewhere inside I still hope those two children will get one more meeting.

Not to rewrite the past.

Just to say one sentence to each other that they have both held on to for far too long.

What I understood after the third watch

After finishing the whole story, what stayed with me was not the ending.

It was the feeling that I had finally understood myself.

Honestly, writing this was much harder than I expected.

Not because I have no feelings.

But because I never knew how to describe them.

Every look.

Every line.

Every silence between the characters.

All of it gave me a lot to think about.

But a few years ago I would have kept all of it inside.

I knew I had feelings.

I just could not name them.

It took me until thirty to slowly learn how to listen to myself.

To know what I am sad about.

What I regret.

Who I relate to.

And more importantly, to find a way to write it down.

That is harder than I ever thought.

I have written a lot.

Advertising.

Content.

Pieces that many people responded to.

But that is a different kind of writing.

It has a purpose.

A structure.

A logic.

This time it has none of that.

For the first time I felt I was writing in order to understand myself.

Someone once told me my writing was all verbs.

They were right.

I do not know how to describe.

I do not know how to use words that evoke feeling.

I do not know how to make someone see what I am seeing.

I always think in logic.

Always want the cause before the result.

That is both my strength and my limit.

Maybe that is why, on one of the rare days I let myself go soft like today, I noticed that emotions have their own logic too.

Nothing appears without a reason.

Every sadness has a cause.

Every kind of growing up has to be paid for.

Maybe that is why I relate to him so much.

Not because of the love story.

But because he is also someone who does not accept reality as given.

Does not accept fate.

Does not accept feeling powerless.

And that powerlessness is exactly what becomes his drive to keep rising.

That is very much like me.

Maybe one similarity like that is enough for me to carry this film with me for years.

The path drawn for us, and the limits of people

Another thing this film made me think about is the way we live.

From childhood, the road is more or less drawn for us.

Primary school.

Middle school.

High school.

University.

A job.

A stable job.

A stable life.

That is how we all keep walking.

But can anyone say for certain that this is the only right road?

Or is it just the best road society currently has?

I do not know.

Probably nobody does.

This world is fundamentally uncertain.

But right now, studying, working and living like everyone else is still the most reasonable choice.

I accept that.

But there is still a feeling inside me that the limits of people do not stop here.

Maybe there will be people better than us.

Later generations will solve things we are still powerless against today.

Just like in the film.

If distance were no longer distance.

If contact were no longer difficult.

If life gave people one more chance.

Maybe there would be fewer unfinished stories like this one.

I like thinking that way.

At least it lets me keep believing the world can always get better.

I grew up on stories about staying faithful

There is one more thing this film made me look back at.

The way I was raised.

I grew up in a culture that prizes faithfulness above almost everything.

Stories like Hòn Vọng Phu, the woman who turned to stone waiting for her husband.

Lessons about waiting.

About keeping your word.

About loving one person all the way to the end.

Maybe that is why for a long time I could not accept the ending of this film.

In my head back then.

If you still love someone.

Then go and find them.

If you still miss them.

Then say it.

If there is still a chance.

Then take it.

As long as what I wanted to say has reached the other person, whatever the result, I feel more at peace.

Maybe I am too stubborn.

I keep thinking about those two sixth-graders.

So young back then.

And still brave enough to cross hundreds of kilometres just to meet.

And yet the older we get.

The more courage we lose.

I have read a lot of interpretations.

Some say he loves the memory more than the person in the present.

Some say they are both in love with a version that no longer exists.

Even AI once answered me the same way.

But honestly, I am not convinced.

Not because those readings are wrong.

But because I do not want to see the film that way.

I prefer to believe the author is telling a story about growing up.

About the times we miss each other.

About how some things are only understood once they are already lost.

Maybe in a few years I will think differently.

But right now, that is the reading that gives me the most peace.

After the third rewatch, I also bought One More Side.

Not because I wanted to find the correct answer.

I was just curious.

I wanted to know what she was thinking.

What the other girl was thinking.

Whether they really chose what I imagine they chose.

Maybe I am still a little bitter about that ending.

But this time is different.

I no longer read the book as a way of arguing with the author.

I just want to listen to one more point of view.

Maybe after finishing it I will understand something more about people.

Or, more simply.

Understand a little more about myself.

And maybe, after this third watch, I can finally close the memory of this film.

Not because I have stopped regretting.

But because I finally understand why I regretted it so much.