Even now, five years later, I find myself searching for traces of her in the scents drifting on the street corner.

#nana56b


Synopsis

Amid the hustle and bustle, the scent suddenly
pierced my nostrils.

That unique fragrance—a hint of sweet vanilla
lingering beneath the freshness of bergamot. It was
a scent that only she, and no one else in the world,
should have been wearing.

“—Mio?”

My body moved before my mind could process it.
I didn’t even hear my colleague, who was walking
beside me, calling out to me. I pushed through the
crowd, turned around, and searched for the source of
the scent.
There, right before my eyes, was a woman with long
black hair. Her build even bore a certain
resemblance to her.

My heart pounded so hard it hurt. I was overcome by
the illusion that the clock, which had been frozen
since that day five years ago, had suddenly been
wound back. But the moment that woman turned to face
me, my faint hope was cruelly shattered.

She was a completely different person.

“…Ah, I’m sorry. I must have mistaken you for
someone else.”

The voice I managed to squeeze out was trembling.
Unable to even watch the woman walk away with a
puzzled look on her face, I stood frozen in place.

“Hey, are you okay? What’s wrong all of a sudden?”

My colleague patted my shoulder with concern. That
very kindness, however, was what finally triggered
the dam to break.
My vision suddenly began to blur. No matter how much
I wiped them away, hot tears streamed down my cheeks
and fell to the ground. I no longer cared that people
were watching or that I was in the middle of work. It
was simply the cruel reality that she was no longer in
this world—a reality that had leaped over the past
five years to crush me all over again, right at that
very moment.

“Sorry… something just got in my eye…”

Even though he knew it was a lie, my coworker
didn’t ask any questions; he just rubbed my back.

That night.
Returning to my silent apartment, I sank onto the
sofa without even turning on the lights.
On the small altar in the corner of the room sat a
photo of Mio, her smile unchanged from five years
ago. The bottle of her favorite perfume—though almost
completely empty—still sat there, untouched, because
I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away.

“I still love her this much.”

The words that slipped out into the darkness
vanished without reaching anyone.

People say: “Time heals all wounds,” they say.
“Someday, it will become just a memory.”
But even now, five years later, I still find myself
searching for traces of her in the scent on a street
corner or the way light happens to fall. I can’t
possibly forget her.

The tears wouldn’t stop.
I cried out loud, pathetically, sobbing like a
child.

How many more thousands of times must I repeat a
tomorrow without her?

Through my blurred vision, she in the photograph
was smiling gently at me.