But briefly resurrecting the dead comes with its own kind of pain—the pain of losing them all over again.
“Hitoshi waving good-bye. It was a painful sight, like a ray of light piercing my heart. Whether it had been for the best was not something I as yet fully understood. I only knew that, right now, sitting in the strong sunlight, its lingering memory in my breast was very painful. It hurts so much I could barely breathe.” (p.148)
Hitoshi disappears once again, and, while Urara insists that having this final goodbye was a good thing, Satsuki is not convinced. Yoshimoto complicates our ideas about closure and healing. Does finally saying goodbye erase Satsuki 's grief? Not necessarily. Hitoshi is still dead. That fact is as undeniable and unbearable