Poor Muroi-san in more ways than one, heh. In some ways I do enjoy the novel more than the animanga because Seishin gets to school Toshio on some things like he did in this chapter. I originally watched the anime first and got the impression that Sunako was going to potentially spell trouble for the village and Seishin in particular, but then I've also had a long time of teachers drilling into my head that everything in literature has a deeper meaning if you know where to look (or think you know--there's an entire thing about a writer's intention versus a reader reading too much into something the writer never intended; I'll have to dig it up).

I do hope it wouldn't take Seishin 30 years to figure out that he and Sunako may not be as compatible as both had initially hoped given that he has a lesson to draw from his relationship with Toshio in regards to compatibility, but maybe in some ways, this is just him choosing to exchange one form of drifting through life for another, so who can say? I would give almost anything to see what happens after the epilogue to this series, but I doubt we're getting a sequel.