[Toru's body was growing weaker by the day.]
[This was not caused by illness, but by something deeper, a problem current medical science could not solve.]
[If only a miracle existed.]
[If only magic existed.]
[You kept watch at your husband's bedside day and night, repeating silent prayers and hoping for a miracle to arrive.]
[But suffering in this world is as countless as the fish crossing a river. How could good fortune possibly fall on you.]
[In the end, he still could not escape his fate of returning to dust.]
[In April, cherry blossoms in full bloom climbed the branches.]
[In the cold rain, you held a funeral for your husband.]
[Your daughter said nothing. She remained quiet throughout the ceremony, remembering how her father, who had talked with her only months before, had fallen to such an end.]
[A man as gentle and kind as he was should have lived a long life. The world was unbearably unfair.]
[The funeral had few attendees. Your parents, who should never have had to send off their own child, could not hide their grief. You forced a smile and comforted them, telling them life still had to move forward, and that they must not drown in sorrow.]
[But only you knew how shattered your own heart already was.]
[From that moment on, your world lost its light.]
[He had saved you when you were at your most helpless, yet you could not save him.]
["I am useless, I can't do anything." You lay in the bedroom, feeling the cold emptiness of the other side of the bed, your tears soaking the pillow.]
[You choked on your sobs, unable to sleep the entire night.]
[Your husband had asked you to live well, but that was too difficult. Without the one you loved, you no longer had the courage to keep living.]
[Your daughter, who had never been especially close to you, seemed to grow up overnight.]
[Kitahara Amane began comforting you, telling you that you still had her to rely on.]
[Unfortunately, her comfort did not ease your pain.]
[From the moment your husband passed, the thought of following him took root in your mind.]
[As the years went by, that thought only grew stronger.]
[But your daughter was still a minor. She still needed you. You resisted the urge to end your life and stayed by her side.]
[On the surface, you seemed fine. Your friends believed you had walked out of the grief of Toru's death.]
[To keep your daughter from noticing anything strange, you often read the diary he left behind, filled with memories from your high school days all the way until your marriage, every page saturated with his true feelings.]
[Borrowing strength from those old dreams, you held on until the day your daughter became an adult.]
[You knew you were selfish. You knew wasting the life your husband had once saved was unforgivable, but living hurt too much. Every moment, every second, you endured the pain of longing for one person. You had endured five years and could endure no longer.]
[Your husband once said you were hopelessly lovesick, someone who would abandon everything for love, even to the point of foolishness.]
[He had not been wrong.]
[Just before your death, you held one simple wish. If there was another life, you hoped you could meet him again.]
[On a silent winter night.]
[You left this world.]
[Your daughter received a scheduled message from you the next morning. Amane, please forgive your selfish mother. Live well on your own.]
[After your death, your parents handled your funeral.]
[With white hair sending off black hair, they seemed to age ten years in an instant. After that day, they returned to their rural hometown and never came back to Tokyo.]
[Your daughter did not attend your funeral.]
[She believed you had wasted her father's kindness, betrayed his love. Kitahara Amane no longer recognized you as her mother.]
[After the funeral.]
[Your remains were buried beside Toru. Five years later, the two of you were finally reunited.]
[After you and your husband passed away.]
[Kitahara Amane did not accept your inheritance. She set it aside, worked part time, and completed university. Whenever friends asked about her parents, she would answer seriously that she came from a single parent home and had only a gentle father.]
[Her mother had died at childbirth.]
"So this is what it became." Kita felt a deep melancholy.
To be honest, if she ever faced something like this, she would probably make the same choice.
Abandon everything and follow the one she loved to another world.
[Kitahara Amane inherited her father's profession and became a high school teacher.]
[She gave the gentleness buried deep in her bones to her students. With her graceful looks and kind nature, she became the unattainable ideal for many boys in their adolescence.]
[In Kitahara Amane's fifth year of teaching.]
[Your father passed away peacefully.]
[Kitahara Amane handled the funeral herself.]
[The following year, your mother passed as well.]
[After the funeral.]
[Kitahara Amane finished sorting through their belongings and felt an unbearable heaviness in her heart.]
[From that day on, she was alone. In a vast world, she could not find anyone like her. Loneliness surged like a tide, eroding her spirit.]
[In the days that followed.]
[Kitahara Amane slept less, only five hours each day.]
[Why sleep long in life, when death promises endless rest.]
[At thirty.]
[Your daughter returned to the home you once shared with her father and opened the long forgotten diary.]
[She read every word aloud as she turned the pages.]
[Late at night.]
[She lay across the desk in the study, her tears soaking the yellowed paper.]
[She missed her father dearly but could never see him again.]
[She wished she could tell you that she had loved you all along, yet she no longer had the chance.]
[The following year.]
[On a late April night.]
[Kitahara Amane took her own life at home, sinking into eternal sleep.]
[The many years of loneliness and pain had finally ended.]
[She felt at peace.]
[Simulation complete.]
...Why?
How did it become like this?
They were promised reunion and happiness, promised devotion flowing both ways.
Kita could not understand.
[Player, this is the result you chose yourself.]
"..."
Yes.
I brought this upon myself.
Dead. All of them. Not one left.
Someone like me does not deserve to love him.
I failed not only my lover but even my daughter.
[Calculating results...]
"Forget it."
Kita turned off the simulator without checking the rewards.
It did not matter anymore.
She was ready to quit.
After several simulations, Kita had never once brought happiness to Toru.
If it failed the first time, she believed the second time would work. If the second failed, she believed the third would succeed.
Yet the third time, because of her own strange decisions, also ended in total destruction.
Do I really deserve his sincere love?
Kita stared at the ceiling for a few seconds.
...I don't.
If I love him, I should let go.
I hope he finds someone better.