[Remaining Lifespan: 1 hour, 11 minutes, 41 seconds]
Rrakavasha finished recounting his life.
Something lodged itself in Clarice's chest, filling her entire body with discomfort that refused to ease. His days after finding redemption had been calm as still water, right up until the end, he'd encountered no further misfortune. Yet despite this peace, she still ached for his entire life. Why did it hurt so much to hear?
She searched for an answer but remained lost. Wasn't an ordinary, peaceful life enough?
"Mr. Rrakavasha, don't you have anything you want to do? Any dreams you want to realize...?"
"I do. I've already completed them, I just told you about them."
The answer finally crystallized. He'd never lived for himself at all. His entire life had been spent drifting with the current, never choosing his own direction.
When his teacher imparted knowledge, he studied diligently, pouring himself into frantically absorbing everything she offered. When she assigned tasks, he worked earnestly, solving every difficulty, striving for perfect completion. Whatever his teacher told him to do, he did without question. When she told him to leave after graduation, he left without protest.
Then he quietly secluded himself here, staying for a full century without venturing far even once. Until death, he would guard the road home for his teacher, a sentinel waiting for someone who might never return.
He was like a willing puppet living for another person, content with invisible strings attached to his limbs. He appeared free yet had never truly been free.
You shouldn't have lived like this...
Even if she was the only light in your life, you should still have had your own ideals, your own self, rather than willingly binding yourself with unseen threads.
Clarice wanted so desperately to be jealous of his teacher, but the one who brought him redemption wasn't her. What right did she have? On the contrary, she herself had been redeemed by him. If her mother had forgotten everything due to amnesia, then she too would have nothing left too. Absolutely nothing.
The weight in her chest grew heavier. Clarice sorted through her tangled thoughts, trying to understand why this hurt so much.
Because she had no right to judge. Because everything was beyond saving. Because... she could only keep these words buried in her heart, never to see daylight.
How could she bear saying such things to him?
Was he wrong? No. Was his teacher wrong? Neither. If someone had to shoulder blame, then blame that world, long since turned to cosmic dust, that left him with lifelong scars he'd carry to the grave.
Were these the only reasons?
Clarice closed her eyes helplessly. No... that wasn't it.
Perhaps the most important reason was one he'd never realized himself, and precisely this made her want to feel jealous beyond all else.
He might be deeply in love with his teacher, yet he didn't know it. Had never recognized the feelings in his heart, didn't understand what love was. He simply treated love as something natural, as respect for his teacher, nothing more.
Clarice recalled a recent visit when she'd happened to hear him playing and singing that song, the melody so sorrowful it had stopped her in her tracks.
"...I want to hear you play and sing that song."
"Which one?"
"I don't know the name. Just... the saddest one."
Rrakavasha always fulfilled the girl's reasonable requests. He stood up, fetched the zhongruan, and began playing with practiced ease, his fingers moving across the strings as naturally as breathing.
The melody rose. The verse followed, then the chorus, the interlude, the ending... each note carrying weight that settled into her bones.
From the first few seconds, Clarice already had her answer.
He was slow, lacking a proper understanding of emotions, not even recognizing them as love. Most of his life had been occupied by his teacher, leaving no room to understand what stirred in his own heart.
But... the songs he created couldn't deceive anyone.
What one thinks of by day, one dreams of by night. Likewise, if you've never been in that state of mind, how could you create lyrics and melodies that make listeners grieve? How could you pour such longing into music without first feeling it yourself?
Lamenting that deep feelings are finally understood, that love at last becomes hand in hand...
The final line was perhaps the truest subconscious wish buried deep within his heart, a hope he'd never dared acknowledge in waking hours.
Yet aside from the ending, everything before revolved around emotional loneliness and unobtainable love, each verse a confession he didn't realize he was making.
This song he'd composed was about himself, and what made it even harder for Clarice to breathe was the realization that it was also about her.
We both walk deeper down a path fated for missed chances, fated for no ending, our hearts riddled with wounds. But I know it, while you do not...
The cruelest thing was that she could say nothing. The greatest regret in the world was nothing more than this: loving someone who didn't even recognize love within themselves.
That divination she'd once performed hadn't been inaccurate; on the contrary, it had been perfectly fulfilled down to the last card.
Three of Swords. Ten of Swords. The Star Reversed.
Profound heartbreak leading to a relationship's end, bringing unforgettable despair. In the end, all hope for the once-envisioned beautiful future was completely lost.
Only... he knew nothing about it. That was all.
He didn't know his own heart was broken, nor did he know of his hopes, or perhaps he'd never dared hope at all. Even less did he know his subconscious had long since sunk into despair, drowning quietly beneath the surface.
He lived for his teacher and waited painfully for her final words, all the way until the end of his life. Willingly bound within memories of her, never once thinking of breaking free from chains he didn't even recognize as restraints.
How tragic...
The zhongruan in his hands, the white coat inside the bamboo house, both were irrefutable proof of this conjecture. So many years had passed, yet they remained as fresh as ever, preserved like relics in a shrine to someone still living.
No wonder that day he went to tend the back mountain soil, even though the weather had turned cold, he still removed the white coat. Simply because he didn't want it stained by even the slightest speck of dust, couldn't bear the thought of dirtying something she'd once worn.
You really didn't have to humble yourself like this...
At this point, Clarice could no longer hold back. She stood up, wrapped her arms around Rrakavasha's head, and pulled him into her embrace with a fierceness born of desperation.
"Clarice?"
"...Let me hug you. Just for a little while..."
Perhaps no one has ever truly felt sorry for you, ever given you an embrace filled with compassion rather than expectation.
Then let me be the one to do it.
Before you die, let me bring one final warmth to your body, already cold and unaware of so many things.
Even if it's only a little. Even if it's only for a single moment.
Rrakavasha froze, caught off guard by the sudden contact. A strange sensation welled up in his heart, something he couldn't quite name. Wrapped in warmth that felt oddly familiar, as if from a half-remembered dream, his body relaxed completely despite himself.