A Little Timeline Of Kou's Traffic Safety Charm Earring Cause I Noticed This Recently And I Think It's

Late night In-N-Out can fix any issue

Bonus (keep reading)

Amane's Death Date

So I recently made a post about character birthdays (see here) in which I mentioned that we know Mitsuba's death month, but soon after making it, I realized we kind of had the same (if not a closer) approximation for Amane and Tsukasa's date of death...?

This might not come as a very shocking post to some of you, and a lot of it is ultimately speculation, but I think I have some interesting evidence to back up what I'm saying!

So let's lay out some facts first:

Amane was last seen alive on July 22, 1969

Amane died in his summer uniform

Summer holiday at Kamome Academy starts after July 22

July 22 should be very close to the beginning of summer vacation, which is a very helpful time frame for us. And luckily, on July 22, we can see Amane's class schedule:

I go into more detail in another post on my blog (link), but we can actually use this class schedule to potentially tell us the start date for Amane's summer vacation. You'll notice that one of the day of the week columns is empty: Saturday.

While it's possible that Kamome simply has no classes on that day, or that students have other activities on that day unrelated to their main classroom, the presence of it on the class schedule itself seems to imply that they have a reason to go to school on Saturday, and that they simply have nothing scheduled that week.

Ergo... what if that's the start of their summer vacation?

Since July 22 is a Tuesday, that would mean Saturday is July 26. And if summer vacation started, then why would Amane need to wear his summer uniform anymore?

What I'm saying here is... what if Amane killed himself between the dates July 22-25, just before summer vacation started?

Now I realize my logic is a little flawed here; students continue wearing their summer uniforms after summer vacation until the weather cools and they switch to winter uniforms, and just because there are no classes marked on the class schedule for Saturday doesn't guarantee that summer vacation started that day.

This is also a minor background detail and it's totally possible that they didn't put much thought into it at all.

...Still, I have trouble imagining Amane waiting to kill himself much longer after giving away his most treasured possession, the moon rock, and he definitely killed himself in 1969 before he switched to his winter uniform at school. That would mean he killed himself anywhere between July 22 up to early autumn.

Ultimately, you can come to your own conclusions, but I personally like the idea that Amane giving Tsuchigomori the moon rock was one of the last memories he had of him alive, so him dying around that time feels appropriate to me.

Anyway, time to get more into speculatory territory...

Since I'm limiting the options to 22, 23, 24, and 25, we have a tantalizingly low selection. There's really no way to narrow it down, though, what with the limited information that we have... So I'll start by describing why each day could work, then declare my personal winner.

First, July 22. This day is pretty appealing as a choice because we see Amane on this day, and he's already acting very suicidal. However, I feel like that makes it a bad choice too... we already had a major event happen on the 22nd. I can't deny that it would be a fateful last meeting for him and Tsuchigomori, though.

July 23 is next, and I can't say I love this day... I do like how it's the day after July 22, so that giving away the moon rock isn't the same day that he killed himself, but otherwise it doesn't stand out too much. The most I can say is that 23 sounds like "ni san" which sounds like older brother in Japanese, and Amane is an older brother. Yeah, that's about it... *sigh*

July 24 is a better one. For this, I'm getting out my auspicious calendar:

As you can see, July 24 is 仏滅 which is the day of worst luck. You might remember this being the same type of day that Tsukasa sacrificed himself. Now, I know I have a bit of a tendency to over rely on the auspicious calendar... but 24 also just sounds like a good death day, you know? 2 twins die, 4 dead in all, 4 is a spooky death number in Japan, etc...

Anyway, July 25 is also a good day. According to my speculations, this would be the last day before summer vacation starts, and would mark both the end of that school trimester and the end of their lives. In addition, the 25th of November was both the day that they were born and the day that Tsukasa sacrificed himself. Also, 25 is goroawase for twins in Japanese.

So in the end, I'm a little torn... even the day I'm not all that jazzed about, July 23, makes some sense to me. I guess for now I'll lean towards July 24, partly because that's the date the Apollo 11 astronauts got back from the moon... but honestly, it's a toss up between all of them.

Considering we don't know the time of day it happened, it's possible that the twins died on different days... and that's not even getting into their parents. There's no guarantee that they even died on the same day that their sons did, only that all four bodies were eventually found in the house, and that it was ruled a family suicide...

Additionally, since this illustration of Amane stabbing Tsukasa has stars in the bg, I wonder if it happened at night time...? Not that it really matters... but if it was after school and Amane stayed late, it stands to reason that the murder could have happened at night. That does lend a bit of credit to it being July 22 as well: Amane definitely stayed late that day.

You might have also noticed a discrepancy between the first image in this post, where Amane is shown poised to stab himself, and the colored one above here where he's hunched over with the bloody knife. Well it might not mean anything, but in the more recent one, the first image, Amane has no visible wounds. It makes you wonder if that's an error, or if his wounds healed before he killed himself. This opens a few possibilities, either that AidaIro changed their minds about Amane having wounds when he died, or that Amane waited a few days after killing Tsukasa before killing himself. Both are interesting ideas, but for now, I'm not going to do anything with them.

Anyway, I hope this post was somewhat informative or at least entertaining. I wouldn't be surprised if I wasn't the first person to talk about this detail, though. Thanks for reading!

really, what a frank person

Enjoying the Apothecary Diaries and all its characters, but not enjoying the shipping is a struggle when that's like 90% of the fan content 😔

and what if i said peak bisexuality reference

For the drawing request, Akane with any of the mystery kids maybe? 👀

Mitsuba trying to convince them to do the friends pose with him

Tbhk thoughts: Mitsuba's Scarf

I know everyone wants his yorishiro to be Kou but listen...Mitsuba's scarf was a gift from Tsukasa and if Tsu is really as innocent as they say, I want these two to become better friends. I want his yorishiro to be the scarf

*EDIT* I want to expand on the symbolism of giving somebody a scarf, not just in books but as a whole; it is far more than just to keep him warm. In Japan, giving someone a scarf symbolizes a deep connection, a bond between two people, and a reminder of a loved one, ESPECIALLY somebody you care deeply for. Not only that, but the scarf is RED. Red is the color of love. Have you ever heard of the "string that binds us together"? Please, for the love of God, let Mitsuba have a yorishiro so he will be stronger and live. See where this is going?

Tsukasa and Mitsuba have been bound quite LITERALLY by "The Red String of Fate"

Aoi being an animal lover is adorable.

She loves cats, only aware they don't like her back cause she keeps trying to pet them.

She loves giraffes, since she was a baby

she likes sharks.

and don't mind bugs.

bonus: looooves mokkes

Some beauty and the beast style dorks in love :)