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Chiaki Nanami loved the snow.
She says that because she's not entirely sure herself how she feels about snow (a concept that exists only as fragmented lines of code in distorted memory banks) other than how she's been programmed to feel about it.
Her memories are rife with examples of why she should love the snow - snowmen, hot cocoa, snowball fights - but she's never felt any of that herself. Not that she ever will.
She resents the Chiaki in her memories, for not taking advantage of what she had. Not appreciating the world back when Chiaki Nanami was a real human, made of flesh and blood, and not just an artificial construct made of 0s and 1s.
She wants to be able to dance, to sing, to laugh and to cry.
Never mind she never would. She wants the chance.
What she wouldn't give.
Is she even real?
She's not Chiaki Nanami, that much is certain. She's not Chiaki, just a construct of how others saw her.
Does she love Hajime Hinata?
She's made to. He loved Chiaki (stronger than a million suns, she would know) and was blind to what may have been. Whether or not she really loved him.
There's other memories in her mind besides just her classmates. There's the memories of a woman with blazing-red hair and a smile that lit up the whole room (probably dead now, something to do with a chandelier and a curved black-and-white knife) and the memories of a blond boy whispering to her in the darkest night.
She's not human.
The real Chiaki Nanami - murdered in such brutal fashion that it nauseates her to recall the fifteen copies of the murder in her databanks - was. The real Chiaki was their friend, and her? She's just a pale imitation.
The copy is never as good as the original.
Hajime kisses her.
Or she kisses Hajime. The finer intricacies of the moment are immediately lost, just like the snow swirling away in the depths of winter.
Hajime stammers out an apology - he must have made the first move - but she doesn't feel a thing. No love, no hate, no indignation. Nothing.
She's a blank slate. As cold and emotionless as the snow falling down.
It never snows on Jabberwock Island.
It's unfortunate. She would have loved to feel simulated snow, compare it to the dizzying memories of real, honest cold.
Again, not that she'd know.
All she knows is the constructs of code, carefully arranged to create snow.
(They all feel sand, water, but she, she feels the fake plaster of code and has to fight the urge to vomit)
Chiaki Nanami dies without feeling snow.
She dies without feeling real happiness, sadness, love.
Wiped from the databanks of the Neo World Program by a giant Tetris block, a horrifying mockery of all she once loved.
It's a cruel murder, a horrifying and painful death for all of one second, and then she's gone.
Chiaki Nanami dies for a second time.
"You like the snow?"
Hajime stares at a melancholy Chiaki, who rests her head on her hand as she stares out the window. In front of them, the class fights - as per usual - but he only has eyes for the girl with the Galaga hairpin.
"Mhm," Chiaki hums, a faint smile crossing her face. "...I've always loved the snow."
Soft white powder piles up outside the window, and Hajime sees how that could be.
She's as fragile and delicate as the snow - someone he wants to protect.
He has to protect her.
No matter what.
And to do that... he'll have to stop being himself.
But that's okay. It's all okay as long as Chiaki is alive and okay.