birthday and invites several others to join. While Kaori does not show up at the start of the party, she later shows up which completely changes the mood of the party. Afterwards, Kaori finally decides to accept Shiori as her younger sister which makes Shiori happier than she had been in recent months. Yuichi and Shiori spend the rest of the night at her favorite place in town: the very large fountain in the park. Shiori tells him that night something she neglected to say about the day they first met. That day, Shiori was planning to kill herself by slitting her wrists with a box cutter but after meeting Yuichi and Ayu on her way home from the grocery store, she could not go through with it and wanted to meet both of them again. After a kiss between the two, Shiori falls unconscious in Yuichi's arms; in the 2006 anime series, she leaves to get a drink and disappears. After this point, Shiori is taken back to the hospital and Kaori does not come to school during this time. At the end of the story, Shiori is miraculously cured. In tears, she confesses to Yuichi that she never wanted to die, and that she was only trying to be strong during those difficult times. Mai is a third-year student of the same high school that Yuichi goes to. He meets her standing alone in the school building at night, with a sword in her hand. She has apparently taken it upon herself to fight and defeat demons at night while the school is deserted. Due to this, she is constantly blamed for accidents because she never denies them, being too sincere to say anything and knowing that no one will believe that there are demons in the school. Her best friend is Sayuri Kurata, the only person besides Yuichi that does not believe that Mai is a dangerous delinquent. Yuichi eventually starts bringing her dinner at the school while she is fighting and during these times Mai begins to warm up to Yuichi. Mai's idiosyncrasy is her unwillingness to carry on a conversation or even to merely utter the meekest of responses when addressed. Due to this, and her reputation as someone who causes trouble, she is most often avoided when at school, and is talked about behind her back. This cold side of her is shown to