The steady beeping of the monitor filled the sterile hospital room. Each sound reminded that my heart still clung to life, even as it slowed with every passing second.
I was fifty-three. Too young to die, too old to pretend I had ti left. My body was finished.
And I had nothing left in except regret.
I thought of my parents first.
My mother’s warm hands, my father’s firm but gentle voice. They were gone before I even beca an adult.
Junior high.
That was when the accident took them both. I still rember the call, the empty house, the silence that swallowed whole.
My grandparents and uncle kept alive afterward, but only in the cold, dutiful way people help when they feel they must. They gave food and shelter, but never warmth. From that day on, I was truly alone.
But not completely.
Minase Kotoha.
The girl next door. My childhood friend. She was always there, waiting outside my door so we could walk to school together. She burned my lunches when she tried to cook for , tripped on her shoelaces when she ran too fast, and always laughed it off. She was clumsy, pure, and beautiful in ways I couldn’t put into words.
She was my first love, my first kiss beneath the cherry blossoms as petals fell all around us. And later, she was the first girl to let explore every secret of intimacy.
She was a lewd little thing. Sweetly calling Master, begging to use her body in ways that would make most n blush. Even then, she belonged entirely to .
And still, I pushed her away. After my parents’ deaths, I convinced myself leaning on soone else was weakness. I told myself keeping my distance was maturity.
In truth, I was just afraid of being left again. So I let her go. I watched her smile fade as I chose loneliness over love.
Minase Hikari.
Kotoha’s mother. She had married young, lost her husband young, and raised Kotoha all by herself.
Even as a boy I admired her. The strength she carried, the way she appeared strong to hide her exhaustion, the way she filled a room with light even when she was hurting.
Years later, when I was grown, we beca lovers.
Those nights together etched themselves into . She had technique that was world class, capable of making curl my toes. The way she let nurse her breasts while petting my head made my heart fill with warmth.
She gave everything, body and soul. But it was always shadowed by guilt.
Afterward, she would whisper, “This is wrong, we can’t,” and I… I stayed silent. I never gave her the words she needed: that I loved her, that I would stay.
And so, she walked away.
Kanzaki Hiyori.
My fiancée. The Kanzaki family’s daughter. Elegant, disciplined, untouchable.
At first, I hated the idea of an arranged engagent. I hated her cold, distant mask.
But then I saw the truth. I saw her pouring everything into her passions. I saw her hands tremble when she thought no one noticed. I saw her icy mask crack when she nibbled sweets and tried to hide her blush. She was soone who always tried her best.
She was brilliant, strong, vulnerable. She needed soone bold enough to claim her, soone to shatter her walls.
She loved public exposure plays, to be bounded up, and stuffed with toys during her archery competitions.
But I waited too long. By the ti I truly loved her, regret had already hollowed out. I hesitated, telling myself there would be more ti.
There wasn’t. She slipped away too.
Three won.
Three loves.
Three heartbreaks.
When they were gone, I had nothing left. I poured myself into work, into wealth, into the mask of a man who had it all.
But when the nights were quiet, when the house was empty, I thought of them. The girl whose laughter I abandoned. The woman whose loneliness I couldn’t soothe. The fiancée whose heart I failed to claim.
The beeping slowed. My chest clenched.
If only I could go back.
If only I could do it again.
If only I could hold them all close, never let them go.
The thought wasn’t even finished before everything went dark.
Birds chirping.
The faint sll of tatami.
Sunlight through thin curtains. For more chapters visit NoveI-Fire.ɴet
My eyes flew open, and I sat up in shock. My chest heaved, my body felt light. Too light.
I looked around the room. My room. Not the sleek apartnt of my adulthood. Not the lonely ho where I spent my final years. But my childhood bedroom.
My desk was scratched, my textbooks stacked carelessly, my uniform folded neatly on the chair.
Heart racing, I stumbled to the mirror.
And stared at a boy’s reflection. My reflection. Eighteen years old.
“…I’m… back?”
My voice cracked. A laugh slipped out. The most genuine laugh I’ve had in years.
Kotoha’s smile.
Hikari’s sly laughter.
Hiyori’s cold, fragile eyes.
All of them alive again. All of them within reach.
This ti, I won’t hesitate.
This ti, I won’t let them go.
This ti… I’ll keep them all.
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