slight spoilers ahead ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ # I always pictured myself as a grass boat. A grass boat just goes with the flow, going wherever the wind and water take it. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Our unnamed protagonist leads an isolated lifestyle, alienating himself from his fellow classmates and always assuming the worst. The way he finds his connections is through fictional characters in novels. He is introverted, uninterested in other people, and passive with his decision-making. The heading quote perfectly illustrates this: The way he lives his life is to simply go with the flow of the water, assuming he is only ever being pushed around by others and therefore has no free will. This headspace all changes when he meets Sakura, a girl from his class. They are complete opposites. Sakura is popular, social and full of energy - the only thing that ties these two character together is that our protagonist is the only person (with the exception of her family) who knows of her terminal illness.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ # All the choices you've made in your life, and all the choices i've made, are why we met that way. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ And so he and Sakura form an unexpected friendship. At first, he is hesitant to accept this as a 'real' bond and acts distant, just as he does with every other character he meets. But Sakura is determined to get to know him better, and he sees it as her dragging him along to her adventures - she wants to make the most of her life before dying, so they spend a lot of their time together outside of school. Because of the protagonist's introverted personality, this draws a lot of attention from their classmates, and the rumours begin.

Many times throughout the manga, he is directly confronted with invasive questions, to which he denies any existence of a friendship. As Sakura documents her life in her journal 'Living with Dying', he requests that she does not even mention his name. Their juxtaposing personalities was the most interesting aspect for me, the tug between Sakura's outgoing nature and the protagonist's reserved attitude evokes suspicion and developing scorn from their classmates.

Whenever he questions the significance of their relationship, he concludes that it was always her decision making which dragged him into her life. However, as their bond grows, his mindset changes with it, eventually acknowledging that his own actions have led him to spend time with her. It was never simply pity-hangouts.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ # If you haven't asked, that means it's all in your head. It's not necessarily true at all. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ He is unnamed because from the protagonist's perspective, other people are not interested in getting to know him personally. And in turn, he is not interested in other people. Replacing his name are what he thinks people perceive him as. When he and Sakura first meet, he is [introverted classmate]-kun, which he associated with what everyone thinks of him as. Then to Sakura, he becomes [close classmate]-kun, [close]-kun and finally [?????]-kun. This concentration on how people make assumptions on how they are perceived was especially striking to me.

The story teaches us how friendship heals. Sakura was the protagonist's bridge to make new connections and have a more uplifting view of living. By the end of the manga, he puts in the effort to make new connections and as a result, he is less self-conscious about his identity. He learns to take interest in people, and then in turn they will take interest in him.