When they are in middle school, the narrator returns home after a two-month break due to a school competition. He sees the girl with another man for the very first time, and she smiles so brightly that he knows she is in love with someone else. The narrator is surprised to find that the girl has no experience in life, and that she is unaware of his presence. He apologizes for not mentioning him while he was away, and wonders if it is because he has only been in the house for two weeks, or if he has gotten to know the girl better. He tells the story of how the girl excelled at literature, and how she made steady progress in her studies before she transferred to another school. When the narrator asks the girl if she is jealous, the girl replies that jealousy has always been there for a long time, but that she does not want to admit that someone is "really cute" when he is jealous. She tells the narrator that last year, she received a letter from qui, who asked her to tell him about the Silver Prize, but she was afraid to do so because she had already decided to study hard.