Ok so I read both of the part and got that the whole new sato and mei's relationship was b...

i'm fairly sure that this oneshot from mei's point of view means that mei is helplessly waiting for the both of them (him and new sato) to get over past tragic loves. starting from page 23 mei says, "having only noticed, i suppose it's too late." here mei is talking about how he has just noticed the small amount of love that sato is starting to feel for him, but when mei sees how helpless sato is ('resignation', 'profoundly despairing', 'nowhere to turn, no one to help', etc) mei feels a new kind of guilt and the urge to protect new sato and their new love. and mei feels that by accepting and nurturing the new sato's love for him, then his love for old sato will die (or is already dead). finally,
(because in the beginning he was only with new sato so that he could help with new sato's revenge on akira, so that he could feel better about girl-sato by thinking he'd making new sato feel better) he realises that it was wrong to use new sato for his own redemption and that from now on with new sato's love, he will get over his dead love for both old satos, and wait patiently for his happy love with new sato to start because their new love is 'irrecoverable' and is a last chance for both of them. and he hopes when new sato finds out about mei's trick, then hopefully new sato will forgive him (which he kind of does at the end of the first oneshot)...such a beautiful story with really great wording...though confusing..Hope this helped!

Maybe he means that the love he had before has died since he is with the new Sato and even though it started out as a way to get over the pain of his old love this new love will sprout and they'll become happy? maybe? plus the one Mei was originally with "died" so how can they get back together? i'm sorry if my post is confusing but I'm still trying to figure it out as well and I thought this might help whoever is confused also find the meaning behind the authors words. :)

I totally agree with "What? W-what?" 's post (OMG, can't believe I just wrote that) .... It makes perfect sense, but honestly, I intially felt like what Mei was feeling was more pity that love (no matter how small) for new Sato.. And really, Sato IS very pathetic, it's so sad that he had to go through all of that! And heck, just like he said in the prequel, Sato (old) COULD have had ANY other person, why did it have to be Akira. But then again, I think Sato (new) should count his blessings, even though he doesn't realize it now, because Akira was a Grade-A douche bag. He and Sato (old) really deserve each other.

Going on the prequel, Misato was opening his heart to Mei. Consequently, after going to break up Mei, Misato figures out that Mei was also using him as replacement for Satoshi! Feeling hopeless, Misato hearts starts to close up again and decides to cling on Mei due to his helplessness. Misato decides to not fall in love deeper with Mei like he did before with Akira. Since his love for Mei is much stronger than Akira, he'll only experience even more pain when Satoshi confesses his love to Mei. Thus, it explains the unrecoverable love.

At this point in the sequel, Mei is coming to terms to who he actually loves which is Misato. However, it's too late since Misato discovers that he was being used by Mei and closes his heart in to not get hurt anymore. Mei is now full guilt of figuring out how much he loss Misato's trust and made him sad. In his mind, Mei wishes that Misato will slowly realize that the Sato which Mei loves is him and a new gentle love will sprout.

You are far off with you idea of going back with Akira and Satoshi but it's Misato's idea only. I can sense disappointment in both of them if they do since Misato doesn't love Akira anymore. He want him to be more sincere which was not. Akira didn't care about Misato feelings.

I would have to agree with Ake on this one because thats what I got out of it when I read this manga as well. Mei begins to apologize to Sato (new) because in Sato's (new) eyes, he thinks he's still being used by him as a substitute, but he says with Mei because he loves him. Its just hard for him and he's hurting, feeling that he's lonely in a relationship where he believes he isn't loved. So on and so forth with what Ake was saying. I'm just adding a little more detail i guess. Hopefully Ake agrees lol unless I'm messing up your explain with my input but thats how I understood it.