Misuzu and Daisuké’s former romance

Misuzu and Daisuké’s former romance persists after their relationship has ended and Daisuké has disappeared, not through a reunion but through a false social-media account. Misuzu’s effort to find him by posting as him makes their shared past at once a source of hope and something she can only revisit through an imagined version of the man she loved.

The Search and the Impersonation

Over roughly two months, Misuzu and Kyoichi operated a Facebook account in Daisuké’s name, posting as though he were its user in the hope that he would notice and send a message. Kido disapproved of the deception, though he did not place all the blame on Misuzu: Kyoichi, he understood, had devised the plan. Its purpose was to make Daisuké respond to an apparent version of himself, turning his own name into bait in the search for him.

The account assembled traces of a person rather than proof of his whereabouts. It displayed old photographs uploaded by Misuzu and Kyoichi, listed Daisuké’s hometown and schools, and liked pages associated with Michael Schenker and his former bands, Scorpions and UFO. Misuzu said Daisuké had been a particular fan of UFO. They considered looking for him through the band’s official page, but abandoned the idea because its roughly 250,000 followers would make him too difficult to identify. Searches across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter also surfaced several people named Daisuké Taniguchi, none of whom seemed to be the person they sought.

The Man Misuzu Recreates

The account’s Daisuké is not a neutral reconstruction. Misuzu presents him as vigorous and cheerful, timid yet competitive, and emotionally open in his response to UFO’s “Love to Love,” which he says makes him cry. In Kido’s understanding, this is the Daisuké she wishes existed and the only version she can imagine: a remembered person composed into a lively online presence by the woman who once loved him.

Writing as Daisuké lets Misuzu return to memories of their relationship without actually recovering him. The performance gives her a way to handle affection that remains vivid but out of reach; she can embody her recollection and feel her love near again, even though the account cannot establish where Daisuké is or what he would now feel. The imagined voice therefore carries two meanings at once: it is an appeal to the missing man and an expression of Misuzu’s own remembered attachment.

What the Account Risks Revealing

Kido wonders how the real Daisuké would react if he encountered the account. He might be shocked by a counterfeit version of himself, or assume that X—the man who had lived under Daisuké’s identity—was behind it. Kido is also unsure whether X, while using that identity, knew that Misuzu existed. The account’s intimate exchanges between a man presented as Daisuké and his former lover could unsettle the missing man, but Kido cannot tell whether they would persuade him to contact her.

The uncertainty is bound up with the identity theft at the center of the wider search. Kido considers it possible that the real Daisuké, if still alive, would avoid registering online under his own name, and even entertains the possibility that he had exchanged names with X. Thus an account intended to make Daisuké recognize himself cannot reliably distinguish him from the person who once assumed his identity. The search for the man becomes a search through names and performances, with no guarantee that recognition will produce a reply.

A Past Shared with Kyoichi

Watching the conversations on the account also leads Kido to notice a history between Misuzu and Kyoichi. He reads Kyoichi’s attraction to her as longstanding and suspects that Kyoichi loved her, while she chose his younger brother. Their private messages provide further signs of a connection, though Kido does not ask either of them directly. Kyoichi’s role in devising the impersonation consequently sits alongside a personal attachment that predates the search; the evidence leaves the precise nature of his intentions unstated.

This triangle complicates the account’s apparent purpose. It is a search device built around Daisuké, but it also becomes a channel through which Misuzu and Kyoichi interact, while Kido observes both the performance and the feelings it may conceal. The former romance is therefore not remembered by Misuzu alone: it is entangled with Kyoichi’s apparent long-held desire and with Kido’s growing attention to Misuzu.

Intimacy Without Reunion

Misuzu never tells Kido what aspect of the search she had wanted to consult him about. After their meeting, however, their online exchanges reach a new level of intimacy. The account has not produced evidence of Daisuké’s return, and the account of the relationship supplies no reunion or settled resolution. Instead, the old romance continues indirectly—in Misuzu’s chosen details, in the words she assigns to Daisuké, and in the uncertain possibility that he might see them.

That indirectness defines the relationship’s place in the story. The digital performance can preserve and reactivate Misuzu’s memories, but it cannot substitute for a response from the person she remembers. Her affection is made legible through a fabricated version of Daisuké, while his actual whereabouts and reaction remain unknown. The account keeps the past in motion without making it recoverable.