The Global Stream numbers for Anohana's final two episodes arrived at Leo's desk on a Thursday morning. He looked at them, set them aside, and opened his coffee. Sydney, who had placed them there, waited.
"Good?" she asked.
"Historic," Leo said, and turned to the production notes for JJK Season 2.
Sydney looked at the numbers one more time before leaving his office. She had been in this industry for eleven years. She had worked with few directors before Leo. She had never seen concurrent viewership climb - actually climb, during a finale. People had been calling friends mid-episode and telling them to turn it on right now. The numbers had gone up as the episode played.
She closed the door quietly and went to expand the server capacity, which she'd already done twice this week and apparently needed to do again.
Episode ten had aired two nights before. Leo had watched it alone, in his office, after everyone else had gone home.
The party at the secret base. Poppo arriving first, decorating with the cheerful determination of someone who believes completely in what he's doing. Menma making tissue flowers and putting them everywhere because it was her farewell party and she wanted it to look nice. The others arriving one by one until all five were there — which hadn't happened, not like this, not chosen and warm and all at the same time, since before she died.
Then Yukiatsu forcing Jintan's hand. Say it. Say it. Say it. The rhythm of it relentless, almost cruel, but also the only way it was ever going to happen.
I like her. Menma, I—
And Menma's tears streaming silently down her face, visible only to Jintan, while the others watched him talk to the air.
Later, the confessions coming unprompted: Tsuruko saying I love Yukiatsu with the quiet finality of someone releasing something they've held too long. Anaru saying I love Jin-tan with the defiance of someone who has been ashamed of it and has decided to stop being ashamed. The five of them in that clearing, finally honest.
Then: I will go to heaven. You know, to be reborn.
And then: the firework.
The launch had taken all of them, even Jintan, even at the last moment when he almost stopped it, choosing not to. The firework went up. It opened in the night sky.
Wow, a flower bloomed in the sky.
Menma's voice, delighted, the last word she had for that moment.
And then she was still there.
The episode had ended with Jintan staring at the space where she stood and feeling two things simultaneously - relief so large it had no shape, and the beginning of a terrible question. If the fireworks weren't the wish, what was?
The Global Stream comment section had been one long ongoing conversation across two days:
[She said "a flower bloomed in the sky" and started crying and I started crying and I'm still not over it.]
[I was completely ready for her to disappear. I had prepared. And then she didn't. I don't know what to do with that]
[The fireworks went up and menma started CLAPPING and saying wow and the rest of them were crying and she was just so happy and I can't]
[Anyone else go back and rewatch the tissue flowers scene after ep 10. she made them because she was happy to be there. that's it. that's the whole show]
Episode eleven.
The real wish, when it finally arrived, was the simplest thing in the world.
Menma had made a promise to Jintan's mother, before she died, in a small quiet way that neither of them had made much of at the time. The wish was this: Jinta won't cry. He's been acting tough because I ended up like this. I wanted him to laugh, be mad, and cry more often.
She came back to make Jintan cry. That was all. She came back because she had promised his mother she would, and because Jintan had been holding it together for years, and because the only thing Menma had ever wanted was for everyone to be okay.
Leo read the Global Stream comments from that reveal at his desk. Just a handful, but they said it.
[It was never the fireworks. she came back for him. she made a promise to his dead mother and she kept it]
[I spent ten episodes thinking I understood what this show was about and I was wrong]
[She's not smart, she said. she couldn't figure out how to make him cry on her own so she called everyone for help. and that day it didn't work out. she's been trying to keep her promise this whole time]
Then Poppo's confession. The scene Leo had cast Asher Reed for, had written the weight gain transformation for, had waited the entire arc to land.
Asher had played it without a single false note: the cheerful, enormous, perpetually present Poppo breaking open in front of the group, finally telling the truth he had circled the globe to escape.
I saw it. I saw Menma pass away. I was so scared. I wanted to run away, but I couldn't move.
Five years of traveling. Five years of being the loudest person in every room. Five years of showing up and believing, harder than anyone, because he had been there when it happened and had not been able to help, and the only thing he could do now was try.
I'm begging you. Please make Menma go to heaven.
After that, the hide-and-seek.
Jintan calling her name through the dark of the secret base. The others joining in. The letters appearing - one for each of them, Menma's handwriting on pages from the diary. And then her voice:
I'm ready. Go ahead.
All five seeing her at once. For the first time, all at once.
Menma!
It's Menma!
I can see her!
For one minute in the dark of the secret base, the Super Peace Busters were complete. Menma was there — visible, real, present and all five of them could say goodbye.
Menma, we found you.
She smiled, as usual.
The Global Stream numbers had kept climbing through that final scene. Three million people watching simultaneously, the number still going up as the credits rolled, as the narration settled over the screen like the last light of a summer that was finally, gently ending.
That flower is surely still blooming somewhere.
Forevermore, we will continue to grant that flower's wish.
Plz Drop Some Power Stones.
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