"C.B.? C.B.? Wake up. This is no place to sleep."
"...Nngh..."
In a daze, Mr. C.B. was awakened from her dream. In her sleep, she had felt no pain, no sadness. Her sleeping face was so peaceful it was a shame to disturb her—if not for the tears that trickled from the corners of her eyes, she might have remained lost in that endless dream.
After all, in that dream, her life and her thoughts had both come to an end. Fortunately, before she could get used to that state, she opened her eyes again, to see her parents, who had returned at some point...
"Dad... Mom? You..."
"Honestly, you're a grown woman now. Why are you still sleeping under the ginkgo tree like you did when you were a child?"
However, her parents had no idea why their daughter looked so surprised to see them upon waking. They were more concerned about why she had been crying in her sleep.
But before they could ask, the next moment, to their surprise, C.B., who had been lying on the scattered ginkgo leaves, shot up. Before the couple could react, her mother was suddenly embraced by her daughter.
Gradually, the slightly startled mother felt her daughter's soft sobs in her arms. Her surprised expression quickly softened. She gently patted her daughter's back, which was covered in ginkgo leaves and dirt, and comforted her. "There, there. Mom's here, C.B. No matter what's wrong, it's okay to cry it out."
"Mom and Dad will never leave you. It's okay, it's okay..."
While her mother comforted her, her father stood by silently, in tacit understanding. Though the couple was still very much in love, their love for their daughter was no less. They knew her personality well; she was not one to cry easily.
Even during the most difficult times, when they had pleaded with everyone they knew but failed to find a suitable trainer for her, she had never shown any grievance, let alone cried.
Even later, in her "Triple Crown vs. Undefeated Triple Crown" showdown with Rudolf, when they had watched their daughter end her career in the pouring rain, falling from a Triple Crown horse girl who should have been adored by all of Japan to a stepping stone for the "Emperor's" ascension, they had cried, but she had still smiled brightly in the rain, indifferent to the outcome.
And now, to see her crying like this... Clearly, the grievance she had suffered, the pain she was enduring, was not something an ordinary person could bear. Their daughter was truly hurt this time.
But where could this hurt have come from? Since joining Mr. Trainer's team, their daughter had been much busier, but her smiles when she came home these past few days had been noticeably more frequent.
Could it be... that some change in Mr. Trainer had hurt her?
The couple exchanged a simple look and quickly came to the same conclusion. They remembered the last time their daughter had locked herself in her room and cried, and how only Kitano had been able to solve the problem. The only thing that could make their daughter so emotional was probably something related to him.
After patiently letting her vent her emotions, her mother felt her daughter's body stop trembling. Seeing the time was right, she asked cautiously, "So, what happened, C.B.? If you're feeling hurt, can you tell Mom and Dad?"
"Of course, if you don't want to talk, we won't force you. But you don't seem like you can solve these problems on your own right now."
If C.B. didn't want to talk, they would be almost certain it was related to him. If she did, they could better provide the right medicine. So, on this question, it didn't really matter if she answered or not.
But to the couple's surprise, the moment her mother asked, C.B. let out a tearful laugh in her arms, her embrace tightening. She replied softly, "It's nothing... I just feel... it's so good... to have you, Mom and Dad."
In that dream, C.B. remembered, in her final memories, she had grown old. She had watched everyone she cherished leave her, one by one. Her Kitano... her parents...
In the end, in her twilight years, only this ginkgo tree remained, like their child, the only one still with her...
...Wait, the ginkgo tree?
Snapping out of her sadness, C.B. abruptly turned her gaze to the ginkgo tree behind her. And now, looking at this tree she had literally watched grow since she was a child, she noticed a secret she had never seen before!
In the dream, she and Kitano had planted this tree together... She remembered that at her current age, the tree had just barely grown taller than the garden wall.
But now, the ginkgo tree before her was already as tall as she remembered it being on the day she passed away!
In an instant, an incredibly absurd but seemingly the only plausible explanation flashed through her mind. Eager to verify it, C.B.'s breathing quickened. She turned to her father and exclaimed, "Dad! Do we have a shovel at home?! Get me a shovel, quick!"
"Eh? Ah, yes, yes, yes! I'll go get it!"
Her parents had no idea what was going on with their daughter's suddenly fluctuating emotions, like the stock market. But for the same reason as before, it was rare for their daughter to cry, and even rarer for her to be this excited. Whatever it was, she must have her reasons. All they had to do was comply with her small requests.
A moment later, her father brought a shovel from their garage. C.B. grabbed it without a word and did something that made her parents suspicious—she started digging up the soil around the ginkgo tree she cherished so much.
"C.B.? What are you doing? Don't you love that ginkgo tree most? Why are you digging it up?"
Her mother asked, a little anxiously. In the couple's eyes, their daughter's behavior was extremely abnormal. Suddenly bursting into tears and laughter, and now looking like she was about to destroy her most precious ginkgo tree—none of this was something she would normally do.
But even so, after some deliberation, they chose not to stop her... And under their worried gazes, her digging didn't last long. With a crisp thud, in that moment, C.B. and her parents all flinched.
After all, that sound was not like hitting a tree root. It was a very clear impact.
"Found it... I really found it."
Upon hearing the crisp sound, C.B. even forgot to keep digging. Excited and determined, she immediately knelt on the ground and started digging away the damp soil with her hands. A very familiar, dark box became increasingly visible in the soil...
"Hah!"
With her horse girl strength, C.B. gave a mighty heave and pulled the wooden box, which had been buried in the soil for who knows how many years, out of the ground. And at that moment, her parents, looking as if they had just found a treasure in their own home, finally rushed over.
"A box? This... we don't remember burying a box when we bought this house."
"Was it buried by the previous owner? But this box must be so old. Even from the time we moved in, it's been over twenty years, right? How has this box not rotted?"
"—This seems to be cypress wood," her father said, looking at the soil-covered box in her hand. An answer clearly came to his mind. He muttered to himself, "I've read some books before. In China, some nobles would use wood like nanmu or cypress to make coffins, which can be preserved for a very long time... If this wooden box has been buried in the soil for over twenty years without decaying, it must be made of this kind of material."
"Eh? Then, then what's inside? It's not something scary, is it?"
Upon hearing that this was the kind of wood used for coffins, her mother immediately thought it might contain something like ashes. But at this moment, C.B.'s ears could no longer hear any other sound... because she knew what was "buried" inside.
"Wait? C.B.? What are you doing? Don't open—"
Her mother noticed her daughter's action, but she was too late to stop her. C.B. slowly opened the wooden box. And inside, they did not see anything scary. Instead, a small object shimmered in the sunlight.
There, side by side, one precious, one simple, two small rings lay quietly in the wooden box that would not decay for a hundred years. They had once witnessed the end of a relationship. And now, because of the same two people, the same relationship, they had seen the light of day once more.
...Drip.
Gradually, a teardrop quietly fell into the wooden box. Now, finally understanding everything, C.B. was, at some point, already in tears. She, who thought she knew all the truth, who thought she knew the one she loved best, had only now learned what he had buried.
One ring was the one she had personally put on his finger... And the other was the one he had once wanted to put on hers!
After this box rots, they can forget each other... Why did he choose this kind of wood that would not decay for a hundred years?
It turned out that he was the only one who had guessed everything. He had known from the beginning... that neither of them could ever forget the other.
"Honestly... you guessed right again..."
Mr. C.B. slowly closed her eyes. She smiled. Though she was crying, her smile was incredibly bright. She knew that this freest wind that was her had, from this day on, completely lost its "freedom."
She could... no longer escape this spring that knew her so well. And now, she no longer wanted to escape. She just wanted to embrace with all her might this spring that she had once missed.
-------
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