A Brief Moment of Ichika

He was my reason for living— It’s been three years since college student Ichika Sendawara was given two years to live, and she naturally feels like time is running out. But then, on the train, she happens to see her beloved teacher Professor Yurugi, who had vanished suddenly at the end of last semester. That one glimpse stokes the fire of a passion she had more or less given up on…but they may have more in common than she ever suspected. The economy in storytelling in this first of three volumes only serves to underline the poignancy of their connection—is a brief flash of happiness worth the pain of separation? —Life is fleeting, and love all the more so.

At the age of 16, Ichika Sendawara learned that she only had two years left to live. Now a 2nd year college student, she lives a busy, upbeat life, despite never knowing when the end will come. Everything changes when Ichika meets Professor Yurugi—for the first time she feels she has something to live for. But then Yurugi quietly leaves the university, and Ichika is left wondering why, and what could have been… A gentle love story that grapples with the deepest existential questions we face in life. As the Shuji Terayama poem quoted in the text says, “If life is nothing but goodbyes, who needs life?”