Mahoraba 15

Shiratori goes over and talks to her, and while he's talking Natsume pulls out a cup and puts her hand over it.. and when she brings her hand up confetti and streamers come out of it, surprising Shiratori. Everyone else is amazed, and rushes to praise Natsume-chan's trick, hoping to get her to talk.. but she walks away. When she sees some confetti on a flower she stops to pick it off, smiling after she does so, then walks on to sit at the pond.

Shiratori comes and sits next to her and talks about the weather, then about him writing a book.. no response. Natsume-chan pulls out a deck of cards and begins shuffling it in various ways, then makes it scatter with the same confetti and streamers as earlier. And she walks away... Shiratori picks up the cards and tries to do what Natsume-chan did, but he can't do it at all. When Natsume-chan sees he's can't doing it, she comes over and demonstrates for him, still without speaking, though. Meanwhile, everyone else is thinking up their next plan to get her to talk... but they don't know where she went.

Shiratori tries doing the trick and almost gets it right, ready to give up. But then something miraculous happens -- Natsume-chan tells him he almost had it :) Shiratori's rather excited that she finally spoke, and says he and everyone else wants to be friends with her. She opens her book, and a bird flies out.. ...かも. Talking with her is probably boring, she says, and it'll be boring if they're friends. Shiratori says that doesn't matter at all, and she seems to respond to it.. She's rather dark (flower pops up out of her book), and can't say interesting things (another flower), and not useful (another flower)... but he'll still be her friend? Of course, Shiratori says. She smiles, holding the bouquet of flowers she made...

棗ちゃんすごく可愛いよ、棗ちゃん！！...かも（≧∇≦）
Natsume-chan is really cute, Natsume-chan!...maybe

A flower pops out of her head, then other blooms start falling around here :) She's Natsume... Konno Natsume... maybe ;) The others finally find them, ready with another plan, and Natsume-chan hides behind Shiratori (I'd be scared, too). They're all surprised that she's that close to Shiratori, asking how he did it and such. Natsume-chan grabs Shiratori's shirt and blushes while Shiratori tells everyone to calm down.. 可愛すぎ！！ Didn't I say she was really cute? ;)

And now... continuing the story from last week, Satoshi-style...

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That left the man suddenly, making him very sad. It's not the first time someone precious left him suddenly... His wife died suddenly, and after that he withdrew, not wanting to have to go through the same thing again, afraid that if he met someone they'd go away, or misunderstand him, making him sad all over again...

  

..but if he had never met those two, then he would have never been that happy. And soon, the man started going back to town again.

  

Without being afraid of "parting", in order to "meet"
Without being afraid of being "misunderstood", in order to "know each other"

There are partings as harsh as the winter cold, but... despite that, the man hopes to meet again -- hopes to meet a person as warm as the rays of the spring sun again.

「ハル」　終
"Spring" The End

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Kozue wakes up as good ol' normal Kozue the next day wondering what happened. She sees Shiratori, finally able to do the card trick Natsume-chan was doing, and compliments him. But how did he learn it? He was taught -- taught by a precious friend :) Kozue asks to hear the rest of the story Shiratori was telling her last time, and others come to hear as well..

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Very well done this time. You'll have to forgive me for being a bit harsh with things last time, as I wasn't sure whether the story Shiratori wrote would be finished or not, but it was, and was done great. Natsume-chan is definitely my favorite alternate Kozue personality, no questions asked, no "maybe"s or anything ;) She's a sweet girl, shy, and extremely cute (hmm... have I said that recently about a certain other character?). And her magic tricks are really cool :) Now do you understand why I wanted to see her in anime form so badly?

Anyways, good job, Shiratori, being friendly to her and getting her to open up to you, actually being useful for once ;) I'll leave the psychological analysis of Natsume to Satoshi...

Next time -- a one-hour special! "Many Visitors": Everyone's going to come visit Narutakisou. And yes, Shirogane-sensei will meet Tamami-chan. Go figure how they'll get along with each other ;)