Love Letter From The Future

The weeping was long and long.

As if all the sorrows of not meeting had to be released, the girl’s tear ducts constantly overflowed with dew.

There must have been a psychological desire to be compensated for the unfortunate farewell.

Even after squeezing out tears for quite a while, the girl had no intention of leaving the man’s embrace. Instead, she merely covered the man’s cheek with her hand, her gaze drunkenly lost.

She still seemed unable to distinguish between dream and reality.

“Ugh, sniff… Why have you aged so much? How much have you suffered…?”

Her body was younger than when we first met.

Those words rose to the back of his throat, but the man soon stopped. After all, it wasn’t his body anymore.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t caught onto the girl’s meaning.

No matter how young the flesh may be, it was impossible to hide the aura of a man who had faced many storms over a long time.

A weary soul.

Emotions and passions were now merely faint. One could say he was a machine functioning solely on obsession and obligation.

It was miraculous that he even showed such a reaction now.

The man attempted a bitter smile but soon gave up.

His lips, which had not moved for years, could hardly draw a proper curve. Like rusty gears that wouldn’t turn properly.

All he could do was awkwardly stroke the girl’s back.

“I’m sorry, apprentice.”

“Is that all you have to say…?”

She flinched.

The man’s body trembled rarely. A vague sense of confusion spread across his golden eyes.

If it had been just a short while ago, yes.

It wouldn’t have been strange for him to dismiss it with a careless tone saying “it’s over.” But the woman who posed that question was none other than the one he loved dearly.

He was, after all, a human made of flesh and blood. The man realized that fact anew today.

Stammering, hesitating.

In the end, he voiced the feelings he had buried deep.

“I missed you.”

At that moment, the girl flashed a smile full of happiness.

“Hehe.”

She even nuzzled her head against the man’s chest.

A faint warmth began to envelop the man’s face as well, enough to draw a slight curve at the corners of his mouth.

It was around the time the air thickened with such tingling emotions.

“Ahem.”

Startled, both turned their gazes towards the unexpected sound of a cough.

At the epicenter stood a woman with dark green hair.

The great witch.

Realizing this, the man tried to distance himself from the girl, but she instead clung to him tighter, causing him to fail.

Of course, with a difference in strength, he could have pushed her away. It was just that, for some reason, he couldn’t muster the strength in his arms.

The great witch cleared her throat again.

“I planned to observe from a distance… but seeing you two like this, I suppose the peak of your youth was evident.”

“What, what do you mean?”

As she spoke, the girl further tightened her grip on the man’s clothing, as if declaring she would never let go of her precious treasure.

It was an honest and almost blatant reaction, enough to make the great witch stifle a laugh.

The man took a more formal approach.

“Teacher…”

“Hmph, who said you were my student?”

But the great witch’s response was solely grumpy. Although she soon wore a playful smile.

“My apprentice isn’t an old soul like you. They’re a bit more innocent, a little foolish… and thus, more promising.”

“Are you talking about that kid?”

At the man’s retort, the great witch pouted her lips. It seemed she wasn’t too pleased with her apprentice’s insults.

Even that look somehow reminded him of his own teacher.

The man felt as though he had been transported back to the past. Moments that had been arduous, yet all the more happy and precious.

At that moment.

The teacher approached without hesitation, rising onto her toes.

The man, just then, had been slightly bending his upper body down to cradle his small lover. This was why the great witch’s hand managed to cover the top of his head.

“Well done.”

The man’s breath hitched.

It was a voice he hadn’t heard in such a long while. The kind only used when the teacher praised her student, gentle in tone.

It was not mimicry. It was an impossible voice if it hadn’t been borne of several years of accumulated affection.

There was no way the man wouldn’t recognize that.

Wasn’t it a voice he had repeated in his mind countless times?

His mouth wouldn’t open properly.

“You worked hard. You did so well… You are, without a doubt, my proud student.”

Then, unconsciously, the man said, “No.”

He denied the teacher’s words. After saying it, he regretted it, but there was no hesitation in the man’s stance.

“I couldn’t fulfill the teacher’s wishes. I lost precious people again and again, I failed, I regretted… If only I could have done better…!”

“Do you believe in your teacher?”

His words faltered again.

The man hesitated, but ultimately could not bring himself to argue back. He merely averted his gaze slightly.

“…Yes.”

“Then don’t talk back. To think I’d have to listen to my student’s lament despite giving up my precious time…”

While speaking, the great witch took a puff from her pipe.

“Thus, your teacher would like to say.”

The next to react was the girl.

Elsi raised her voice in protest, her blue pupils slightly trembling.

“Then, what about you, teacher…?”

“There’s no longer one.”

With a sigh, the answer was expelled along with the smoke.

The brief, straightforward words left no room for doubt. As the girl wore a dazed expression, the great witch once again revealed a cruel truth.

“From the outset, it was a will that could hardly be called ‘hope.’ What I accepted is not everything of the soul or memories, unlike you. It’s just something desperately wished for as it faded away… Even this would have been impossible if my foolish sister hadn’t confused the ‘boundary’ with her barrier.”

And silence.

After hesitating for a while, the great witch finally sighed heavily and confessed the true reason for stopping the two.

“…You are not entirely unrelated.”

It was an unusually mild expression for her.

It didn’t take long to understand the meaning of her words. If the ‘great witch’ from the world the ‘man’ lived in was an exception, it stood to reason that another summoned person would be the same.

Surprisingly, the one to react most immediately to that fact was the man.

“How long do we have left?”

His voice was heavy.

It was the conclusion he had already anticipated. The man had sacrificed an enormous price to cross into this world. He hadn’t even dared to hope for memories to be pulled back without cost.

Now, to reunite with his first love?

It was an absurd miracle. Naturally, the end would come soon. That was why he was even more unwilling to acknowledge his own heart.

The fact that he couldn’t forget the girl.

It was already painful enough, yet today’s meeting would continue to weigh on his mind.

All the intertwined emotions called for a brief response.

“A little.”

Fear returned to the girl’s face. Not despair, but pure dread that she was about to part from the man she loved.

She didn’t want to part.

That natural desire turned into tears that clung to the corners of the girl’s eyes. Perhaps the man felt the same.

The girl suddenly realized.

Why the man had looked away from her despite wanting to look. Even though they hadn’t parted yet, how terrified she felt, how was the man, who had to face the actual farewell, feeling?

Just as the girl was about to tremble and grip the man’s clothing.

“I’m glad.”

With a tone firmer than her memories, the man tenderly stroked the girl’s head.

“I’m glad we met again… and that you didn’t forget.”

As he spoke, the man managed to slightly twist up his lips.

To an outsider, it might have looked more like a spasm than a smile, but the girl understood.

That it was the most tender expression the man could show.

“…I’m glad.”

The woman cried. The man didn’t cry, but that was probably because he had forgotten how to weep.

But the time for tears was short.

There was too little time left for that.

In the end, the girl acted as if nothing were amiss and asked,

“Hey, what are you going to do since you like me so much?”

The man stayed silent. His response was similar to how it had been up until now.

Words that were too embarrassing to voice were left unsaid.

That fact only fueled Elsi’s playful spirit.

“Are you just going to whine after I’m dead? ‘I can’t forget Senior Elsi,’ and… huh? How about it? You haven’t been alone since me, right?”

It was a question nearly bordering on a joke.

She seemed to have certainty in the answer she was expecting. However, as time went on, no response came.

Because the man was silently averting his gaze and remaining silent.

It was at that moment that cracks began to form in Elsi’s smile.

“Ah, ahaha… well! After I died, there might have been one or two! You are the man who has stolen my heart, Elsi Rainelle! So… how many? One? Two?”

Still, there was no answer.

The man’s gaze was increasingly looking off to the side. Was it just her impression, or did his forehead seem to glisten with faint beads of sweat?

Eventually, the girl’s smile crumbled.

“Then, three? Four… five… hey, hey!”

When no answer came even to the end, the girl reached her limit of patience and raised her voice.

In the midst of that, the man endlessly kept folding and unfolding his fingers.

Five, six, seven… or perhaps a bit more?

The girl, who had her first love stolen by an unknown woman, had no choice but to shout with bloodshot eyes.

“Hey, you… cheating bastard!!!”

Thud, thud.

The man’s shins were kicked repeatedly by the girl. It was indeed a most unfortunate ending.

*

The next day.

“Ouch, ouch…”

Waking up with a hangover, I-an groaned at the mysterious pain he felt in his shins. Finally, a deep crease appeared between the brows of the man as he rolled up his pants.

“What’s this…?”

His shins were bruised.

I-an was a strong contender who had reached the level of a high expert. Naturally, it was difficult to injure his body, and even harder to leave behind marks for more than a day.

Unless irrationally repeated impacts had been inflicted.

What on earth had he done?

As he grumbled this to himself, it was when I-an carelessly grabbed the water jug next to his head.

A fluttering piece of paper fell.

I-an cocked his head and picked it up. There, in a scrawled handwriting, a short note was visible.

“Thank you.”

Familiar handwriting, unfamiliar content.

I-an stared blankly at the writing for a while. Then, after a bit of time.

He chuckled, tipping the water jug confidently back. As the cold water flowed down his throat, he felt as if he was regaining consciousness.

Then shall we start the day again?

At the moment he rose to his feet.

A small piece of paper that had been resting at his head fell.

There, too, a brief note was written.

“Let’s meet behind the observatory tonight.”

He simply had no idea who the owner of that handwriting was.

It seemed that the man’s autumn had not yet come to an end.

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