At this point, I was no longer able to recall what Noriko used to look like, the Noriko I knew in high school. All that remained was a faint shred of her voice, frail like it was trembling in the wind, as we walked side by side, Noriko always to my right, in the empty hours that we spent together before and after school, dressed in identical school uniforms, but now that wispy voice was being eclipsed by the face of a grown woman who was prone to sighing and wearing brown lipstick, her fleshy chin resting on the back of her hand, everything slipping further into the distance with each blink,
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