While browsing through some chapters of the manga, I found myself thinking about Hanako's reactions upon encountering Nene during those "first times."
One thing I like to observe is the expressions he makes, which make it clear that he already knew her.
We see this happen when she summons him for the first time; his look seems to show that he already knows her and was slightly surprised to see her again.
Then, we see Hanako react to the way Nene was dressed in a Yukata. We know this might be the cliché trope of the moment when the girl looks super pretty and the boy is surprised, but it seemed to be something more than that; the expressions and reactions were similar to when he saw her as a child.
In addition, of course, there's his own desire to see her again in the future.
Now let's look at something that has been intriguing me. The 12/13-year-old Amane. There's a version of him without apparent injuries that recognizes her.
But there's also the 12-year-old version of him who doesn't recognize her. This Amane has bruises on his body. He doesn't recognize Nene, but he's still attracted to her.
And lastly, adult Amane, who also doesn't recognize her.
This made me think about three different timelines. First, Tsuchigomori says that Amane's future was to be a teacher; he doesn't mention Tsukasa's existence or non-existence, but in that timeline, Amane had injuries on his body.
At that moment, Amane doesn't recognize Nene.
Tsuchi later adds that he was the only one who changed his own destiny, which is when he and his brother die and become ghosts.
Here there's an interesting gap; it could have been an alteration caused by Nene or by Number One, when Amane tries to change the past.
But the truth is that the Amane who is trying to fix the clock isn't injured.
Which means he must be the Amane who recognizes Nene, and is the same one who managed to go back in time and find her again at the red house.
When Nene traveled back in time several times, she encountered the injured 12-year-old Amane, the child Amane from the festival, an adult Amane, and an uninjured 12-year-old Amane who recognized her.
The injured 12-year-old Amane doesn't know who she is (timeline where he kills himself).
The child Amane from the festival and the uninjured 12-year-old Amane recognize her (timeline where we don't yet know the outcome).
The adult Amane doesn't recognize her (theoretically the original timeline as told by Tsuchigomori).
When we add the alteration factor where Nene finds the red house and makes Tsukasa return home, it seems to have created two different timelines, or she created one and Amane created another on his own, since he actually traveled back in time as well.
Nene created the timeline where Amane kills himself and his brother. When she finds baby Tsukasa, she doesn't directly encounter the Amane from the past, so it makes sense that the injured Amane doesn't recognize her.
The other timeline was created when Nene naturally encounters the Amane from the festival. This Amane is the same one who recognizes her when he is 12 years old and uninjured. The only alteration here was Amane's desire to reunite with Nene and the fact that he now recognizes her.
We don't know what happens in the timeline of the uninjured Amane; we are actually following it now. Although Amane reports that his mother is aggressive, he has no injuries or wounds on his body. Since he is traveling back in time on his own, it suggests that he is the same Amane who repairs the clock.
So we have two important alterations happening simultaneously. The first is the alteration that Nene caused by finding little Tsukasa and making him return home.
The second alteration was made by Amane himself, which we still don't know the nature of, but apparently he was punished by the number one (which caused him to lose his memory about his motivation for wanting to fix it in the first place).
When Nene finds the 12-year-old Amane in the red house, they created a new alteration, preventing Tsukasa from sacrificing himself. Well, we don't know what this caused because of the hiatus, but it resulted in an alteration of the timeline of the uninjured Amane.
DESPITE THIS, we still have an important factor, which is Amane's key that Nene has; this certainly altered something, which of course we don't yet know.
To summarize all this mess, we apparently have 3 timelines.
Timeline 1 = Adult Amane possessed by the entity. He doesn't have the age he should have despite being an adult; probably the house took Nene and the others to the past of an Amane in his twenties. The adult Amane in this timeline should be much older, and judging by Tsuchigomori's reaction when talking about Amane's present, it's likely he's already dead.
Timeline 2 = Injured Amane, an alteration caused by baby Tsukasa's return home (caused by Nene and Kou). Here, the news reports mention a family suicide, meaning the father was still at home (theoretically). Amane kills his brother and himself; I won't include the family as his target here due to a lack of evidence. Tsukasa Yorishiro says Amane tried to fix the clock, but it didn't work and nothing came of it.
Timeline 3 = Uninjured Amane, an alteration (probably) caused by himself trying to travel back in time. He recognizes Nene and was probably punished by Number One. We still don't know what happened in this timeline, but if the ghost Hanako recognizes Nene, then perhaps he knows about things that happened in other timelines.
We're not sure if Hanako recognizes Nene; we have hints that he might, but nothing has been definitively stated, as we saw 12-year-old Amane recognize Nene, leaving room for interpretation. If I were to say which timeline the ghost Hanako fits into best, I'd say timeline 2, if he truly doesn't recognize her. If he does recognize her, I'd say timeline 3.
Despite everything, the house grants the freedom to travel through time. We still don't know if the twins can travel and observe these timelines, but we know they have an important understanding of what to alter. Tsukasa Yorishiro purposefully had Nene alter timeline 2 by taking Amane's key, just as the red house decided ON ITS OWN to suddenly appear to Nene and Kou.
Remember, it wasn't them who went back to the past; it was the house that appeared to them in a very convenient way. Twelve-year-old Tsukasa appeared to ask Nene to play with him, and even said that the flow of time could be altered.
The twelve-year-old Tsukasa who recognizes Nene is the same Tsukasa who is with the uninjured Amane, who also recognizes her. Timeline 3.
The Tsukasa from timeline 1 (the adult Amane) does not recognize her.
And now for the damn paradox!
If Nene went back and made Tsukasa return home and created timeline 2, then perhaps that timeline was branched when Amane went back in time alone, as Akane once explained.
So timeline 3 could be a branch created by Amane as a reaction to timeline 2.
Timeline 2 = baby Tsukasa returns home
Timeline 3 = alteration of timeline 2 made by Amane trying to save the Tsukasa who returned "strange," or a fake, as he says.
Wow, that was almost an epiphany, it actually makes sense.
Maybe it's the rules of time; you can never alter a main timeline without creating another in the process. It's not as simple as going back to the past, changing something, and the future will be bright.
It's more like, altering something from the past leads you to a branch in the road, which leads you to another, and so on.
It's crazy to think that all of this came to my mind when comparing two Amanes XD
