@GopnikAdora I've read this series so many times and the ending was always unsatisfying. It just left the ending on a massive cliffhanger and so the relationship between the two was just left ambiguous and unresolved.
Thanks very much for posting the link to the alternate (and in my head, now canon) conclusion to this beautiful series. I would still like to see an epilogue of sorts with that conclusion in mind but I'll be happy knowing this ending exists and its FAR more gratifying.
Helps that you posted that link on my birthday so I can call it a late birthday present. Thanks very much again for posting the link and thanks Kanbayashi Makoto for posting a better ending that the one you originally gave us.