The steady beeping of the monitor filled the sterile hospital room. Each sound reminded me 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 time left. My body was finished.
And I had nothing left in me 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 became an adult. Junior high. That was when the accident took them both. I still remember the call, the empty house, the silence that swallowed me whole. My grandparents and uncle kept me alive afterward, but only in the cold, dutiful way people help when they feel they must. They gave me food and shelter, but never warmth. From that day on, I was truly alone.
But not completely.
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 me, tripped on her shoelaces when she ran too fast, and always laughed it off. She was clumsy, ordinary, and radiant 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 me explore every secret of intimacy. She was a lewd little thing. Sweetly calling me Master, begging me to use her body in ways that would make most men blush. Even then, she belonged entirely to me.
And still, I pushed her away. After my parents' deaths, I convinced myself leaning on someone 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.
Hikari.
Her 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 teased to hide her exhaustion, the way she filled a room with light even when she was hurting.
Years later, when I was grown, we became lovers. Those nights together burned themselves into me—the way she rode me until I curled my toes, the way she let me nurse at her breasts until I was dizzy with need. She gave me 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. And I let her.
Hiyori.
My fiancée. The Kanzaki family's proud daughter. Elegant, disciplined, untouchable. At first, I hated the idea of an arranged engagement. I hated her cold, distant mask.
But then I saw the truth. I saw her pouring everything into archery, her stance perfect, her eyes burning. 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 brilliant, strong, vulnerable. She needed someone bold enough to claim her, someone 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 time I truly loved her, regret had already hollowed me out. I hesitated, telling myself there would be more time. There wasn't. She slipped away too.
Three women.
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 smell of tatami.
Sunlight through thin curtains.
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 apartment of my adulthood. Not the lonely home 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, shaky at first, then steadier.
Not bitter this time. Not hollow.
Kotoha's smile.
Hikari's sly laughter.
Hiyori's cold, fragile eyes.
All of them alive again. All of them within reach.
This time, I won't hesitate.
This time, I won't let them go.
This time… I'll keep them all.