Shoya Ishida tears all of his calendar beyond April 15.
In the week that follows he quits his job, sells all his stuff and retrieves all the
money from the bank.
On April 15th, he places the money next to his mother’s bed and heads out to a bridge
nearby.
He Climbs atop the railing determined to end all his suffering.
But.. he stops.
A few years ago, a young Shoya Ishida is a classic delinquent.
He is a mischievous boy who causes all sorts of trouble in class alongside his friends,
Ueno and Shimada.
Ishida is still in middle school but his mischiefs are famous all around.
One day, Ishida’s class is introduced to their newest classmate, Nishimiya Shouko.
She is brought before the class and allowed to introduce herself however instead of speaking
the girl takes out a notebook from her bag.
It has a scribbling stating how she was deaf and would communicate with them using the
notebook.
The class is fascinated by the arrival of this student, especially the delinquents , who
have a new target for bullying.
Almost immediately taking advantage of her deafness, Ueno and some other girls start
teasing and taunting her.
Obviously, Nishimiya has a lot of issues settling into a regular school but tries her level
best to blend in.
The bullying, however, is not helping at all.
Ishida in particular tries his level best getting a laugh out of his classmates by mocking
Nishimiya.
One day, a volunteer from the sign language club arrives at the class to help teach the
other students sign language so that they can communicate effectively with Nishimiya.
However, the students just don't care whatsoever and don't want to learn sign language.
Only one among them, Sahara, decides to volunteer to learn and help Nishimiya communicate.
Sahara gets a bit close with Nishimiya and that becomes her worst mistake.
Slowly and eventually the delinquents start bullying Sahara as well.
Sahara, however, is not able to ignore the bullying like Nishimiya and decides to leave
the school abandoning Nishimiya.
With Sahara gone, Nishimiya is alone and has no friends.
She tries to make friends with Ishida and repeatedly tells him through sign language
that she wants to be friends but the delinquent who had refused to learn any sign language
thinks she is being creepy.
He throws dirt on her face and runs away.
Nishimiya thinks that her being deaf is the problem and starts wearing hearing aids so
that she could blend in with the others.
However, this just gives the bullies some more opportunity to bully her.
Ueno and Ishida in particular start taking away her hearing aids and throw them away.
One by one.
Every day, they keep doing the same thing, until one day when Ishida forces her Hear
aids off her and Nishimiya starts bleeding from her ears.
That very same day, her mother complains to the school how she had lost almost eight hearing
aids in the last two months.
These hearing aids were very expensive and Nishimiya would not tell who had been doing
this to her.
The teachers immediately know that it’s Ishida who had been doing all this.
Even though all the other students had been a part of the bullying as well they don't
step back from piling on their share of the blame on Ishida.
Isihida protests how everyone was involved but he is one against many.
When he returns home, Ishida’s mom is on the phone with the principal who relates to
her everything that had happened.
Immediately, she drags Ishida to meet Nishimiya and her mother.
She apologises to her on behalf of her son and even hands her all the money that she
had worked so hard to save, to compensate her for the hearing aids.
Nishimiya’s mother takes her to the side and when she returns to take Ishida back,
the boy notices the tear on his mother’s ears.
She had torn her earrings off to fully compensate for the hearing aids he had broken.
Isihida feels terrible, not for what he had done but for what had happened to his mother
because of it.
That day onwards, Ishida is a subject of bullying alongside Nishimiya for trying to frame the
others for bullying Nishimiya.
He gets the same treatment that he gave Nishimiya earlier, his life is hell as well.
Nishimiya still wants to be his friend however and does her best so that he doesn't feel
bullied, going as far as cleaning his desk of all the mean comments written by Ueno and
the others.
One day, Ishida notices her clearing his desk and starts pushing his repressed anger onto
her.
The two get into a serious fight.
The next day, Nishimiya leaves school.
As Ishida grows older he begins to realise the atrocities that he had committed on Nishimiya.
He had bullied her for no reason at all for something that she couldn't even control herself.
He starts feeling guilty so much that he cannot meet another person’s eyes, they all feel
so much better than him.
Ishida begins to realise that he was scum, a scum that did not deserve to live in a society
or rather live at all.
The world begins to shrink to his own small vicinity and everyone around him just turns
into big ‘X’es.
One day, Ishida decides to end it all.
On April 15 he goes to the nearby bridge to jump.
Just as he steps on the pedestal he stops.
Ishida doesn't know why but he doesn't want to jump.
Ishida decides to face his guilt.
He goes to the sign language club carrying Nishimiya’s notebook which she used to write
on to communicate hoping to return it back and have a chat with her.
Nishimiya is a bit flustered to talk to him at first but when she realises that he had
learned a bit of sign language to talk with her she opens up.
Ishida finally does the same hand gestures Nishimiya had done to her years ago to ask
her to be his friend and immediately realises how he had reacted to this simple question
years ago.
He quickly changes the topic and leaves to go back home.
At home, his mother had found out Ishida was planning to do the unthinkable.
How could he!
After all that she had done for him, raising him and feeding him.
She didn't want the money he had left for her if he was going to go ahead and DIE!!
She confronts her son and threatens to burn her money until he promises her to never think
of something like that again.
Ishida promises but she accidentally burns the money anyway.
What the hell?!
Even though he had decided to live on, it didn't mean Ishida's problem at school became
any easier.
He still couldn't meet anyone in the eyes.
He was a loner.
His emo phase was beyond recoverable.
Ishida, however, wanted to keep his promise to his mother and decides to live on.
Ishida decides to visit Nishimiya after school too but isn't so sure he should do it.
The guy has a lot going on in his head.
On his way back from the school he sees a chubby kid being bullied by a guy.
The guy was practically forcing him to lend him his bike.
Ishida contemplates for a while before going to help the boy but not the literal white
knight way.
He just goes and offers the bully his bike instead.
The bully runs off with it.
For a moment Ishida takes this as a message from God telling him not to meet with Nishimiya
but his mind wavers thinking of ways, how he could still meet her and make his visit
seem casual.
Just then he notices a bread coupon lying on the floor and for some reason thinks this
could be his alibi.
Ishida arrives at the sign language club with a bread loaf but is stopped at the door by
a puny little middle schooler who introduces himself as Nishimiya’s boyfriend.
He tells him to stay away from her and slams the door on his face.
Ishida returns home disappointed and on his way he encounters the same guy he saved in
school earlier.
He had brought the bike that the bully had stolen away.
And just like that, with that simple act, the X on his face drops to the floor and fades
away.
The boy introduces himself as Tomohiro Nagatsuka.
He actually sat right before Ishida in class, but for so long, Ishida had ignored him like
he had ignored others.
The two guys become friends instantly.
Tomohiro even forces Ishida to watch Morbius with him and then decides that Ishida was
his best friend.
They were definitely morbin!
Ishida visits Nishimiya again but this time Tomohiro goes with him and holds down the
guy claiming to be Nishimiya’s boyfriend.
Ishida and Nishimiya talk at the pool below, as the boy and Tomohiro watch them from above.
Ishida and Nishimiya are both a bit edgy to talk considering their past so they bring
back the topic of the notebook again.
Nishimiya begins opening the book and Ishida remembers all the profanities written on that
notebook.
He quickly snacthes it away but it falls into the pool below.
Nishimiya jumps to get the book and so does Ishida.
The boy clicks their photo from far away.
That night he uploads a photo to the internet and almost immediately the next day, Ishida
gets in trouble.
He is called to the teacher’s office and put again in house arrest for the rest of
the week.
His mother, however, allows him to go out and look after his sister Maria while she
plays.
In the playground he finds the same boy again.
Ishida realises that he was the one who had released those pictures.
Ishida is not mad.
He takes the boy to his home and even serves him some lunch.
The boy stays as long as night time and Ishida goes to drop him off later.
The boy tells Ishida that he knew what he had done to Nishimiya and acting like a good
guy now wouldn't change anything!
Ishida agrees that he had done some really bad things and didn't even deserve to live
but he wanted to make it better.
The boy smiles and then reveals he was actually Yuzuru, Nishimiya’s younger sister.
She had run away from home because she was scolded badly for spreading the picture and
getting Ishida in trouble.
Slowly, as they walked back home, Yuzuru starts forgiving him but Nishimiya’s mother had
not forgiven her at all.
She sees the two returning home and thinking that Yuzuru had been taken forcefully and
slaps Ishida across the face and walks away with her daughter.
Over the next few weeks, Yuzuru acts as a mediator and helps bring Nishimiya and Ishida
closer.
Ishida also tries his best to make amends for his mistakes and reunites Nishimiya with
Sahara whom she had wanted to meet for such a long time.
Sahara is the same timid girl like she was from before and she immediately apologises
for leaving Nishimiya back when they were in elementary school.
Nishimiya understands Sahara’s situation and the two become friends once more.
The three of them along with Tomohiro spend the next couple days feeding the fish and
spending time together.
One day, as Ishida takes Nishimiya shopping he stumbles upon Ueno.
She hadn’t changed a bit and as soon as she notices Nishimiya she once again starts
bullying her.
Ueno encourages Ishida to help her like old times in bullying Nishimiya but he stops her.
She has no intent to return back to his old ways.
Ueno walks away laughing at Ishida’s folly.
Although Ueno wants to become friends with Ishida again, she doesn’t want to be involved
with Nishimiya again.
She believes that Nishimiya was the one who had broken off their group and she could never
come to like her ever.
Some days later, the group of friends go to the amusement park and enjoy the day, almost
to the point that Ishida wonders if all this enjoyment that he was having for the past
few days.
Was it ok?
Was a person like him ever supposed to feel that way?
Feel happy?
For a moment, Ishida forgets these questions and lives in the moment; perhaps he was meant
to be happy after all.
In the next few days however, everything crumbles.
Nishimiya visits the doctor with her grandmother and finds out that she can never hear again.
Nishimiya gets depressed with the news.
Her grandmother passes away a few days later as well.
All of the pressure has a great impact on Nishimiya.
Ishida is unable to figure out her issues.
On the day of the fireworks festival, Ishida has gone to the festival along with Nishimiya
and her sister.
Nishimiya excuses herself and leaves early telling them that she has to study.Then Out
of Nowhere Yuzuru tells Ishida to get the camera from their house.
Ishida goes on to their home and notices Nishimiya climbing on the guardrail.
Ishida’s eyes widen, she was going to do what he had planned on doing some weeks ago.
She was giving up.
Ishida quickly rushes to her and grabs her arm just as she fell.
He grabs on to her and begs God to give him the strength for one more pull and he would
do it all right.
He would face his fears, he would look people in his eyes and become better.
With that prayer he gives her one more pull and manages to save Nishimiya but falls from
her guardrail instead.
Ishida is rushed to the hospital.
As Ishida recovers in the hospital, Ueno takes care of him.
She doesn't let Nishimiya anywhere near him as she blames her for his situation.
Nonetheless a guilty Nishimiya comes to the hospital door everyday waiting for Ishida.
One day, Nishimiya gets a dream of Ishida bidding her farewell.
She gets scared and runs to the same pond that they usually met in.
Meanwhile, Inshida wakes from his coma as well and rushes to the same place too.
The two meet and both of them apologise to each other.
Ishida apologises for what he had done to her when they were young and tells her that
he wants to help her live and face her fears.
Whereas, Nishimiya apologises for not changing herself with respect to the environment she
was in and not putting enough effort.
A few weeks later, Ishida and Nishimiya visit Ishida’s school for the festival and they
get together with all their friends.
Ueno has also started warming up to Nishimiya and learned a bit of sign language as well.
Despite her harshness before her heart had started to melt as well.
In the festival, at first, Ishida still feels uncomfortable looking at the faces of all
the people ,who were better than him and deserved better than him, but soon with all his friends
by his side he can walk straight again and the X’es are no longer there.
If we really want to change, if we really want to become better then the change must
begin from us.
Sometimes it is difficult to embrace change and giving up seems to be the most logical
option but we have to remember that the night is darkest before the dawn and good things
always come to those who wait and believe in themselves.
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