Love Comes After Simulation

A brief memory scene appears.

The hospital stood at the edge of the town. Outside the window, the mountains were shrouded in darkness, resembling black clouds pressing upon the night sky. The town’s outline appeared like a lake, its lights mirrored as if they were stars reflecting from the heavens.

Minami Yuuki hated this serene night sky. What he longed for was a storm—a biting northerly wind, a surging cold front, a tempest sweeping across the world. He wanted the clouds in the sky to be torn into fragments of white, transformed into downy snowflakes descending to the earth! Yet, no matter how strong his will, it could not influence the grandeur of nature.

He pulled the curtains shut and turned to look at Reina.

His wife lay on the hospital bed. The medical equipment, which she had always tried to avoid, had finally encroached upon her body. But her beauty remained untouched. Illness could claim her life, but not her grace. Those tubes, some pale and some translucent, resembled the damp, shadowy vines and brambles of a forest, guarding this sleeping beauty within their confines.

During dinner, Reina had stirred groggily for a brief moment. She listened to him talk for a while before slipping back into a deep sleep. Her once serene sleeping face now bore traces of sorrow. Minami Yuuki could no longer wait—he needed Yoshida Town’s first snow to cleanse the nightmares haunting his wife’s dreams.

He kissed her cheek lightly before stepping out of the room.

Next door to the ward was the attending doctor’s office. A woman in her fifties, of average height, sat behind the desk, reviewing the examination reports in her hand.

She told Minami Yuuki, “It will be just a few days now, no more than two weeks.”n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

“We’ve done everything we can.”

The doctor sighed softly. Usually stern, she now spoke to Minami Yuuki with the gentlest tone.

But no matter how many layers of cloth are wrapped around a blade, its sharpness cannot be dulled. The moment it touches the heart, it will pierce through the layers and stab into flesh.

The sharp pain in his chest left him dazed. He might have spoken further with the doctor, but by the time he regained his senses, he was already standing on the rooftop.

He gazed toward the hills to the north. Beyond the shadow of those hills lay the lake Reina longed to see—a lake so vividly blue due to its mineral-rich waters, resembling the clearest summer sky. Locals and visitors called it the Pool of the Sky.

When the first snow falls, the lake freezes over, and its submerged trees become adorned with white snow, creating a dreamlike scene. It was a vision Reina had waited for countless times throughout her short life, only to miss it each time—a regret that weighed heavily on her soul.

Would she miss it again this time?

Minami Yuuki thought of last year. Around this time, Reina had just completed her surgery and was recovering well. She had wanted to come see the snow. If only he hadn’t stopped her, she wouldn’t be facing death with this unfulfilled longing.

His hand clenched tightly on the railing. The biting wind carried a sharp chill, stinging his face. He pulled up the hood of his jacket and stared out into the night.

Everything was black—only differing in shades. The sky was a lighter black, the mountains a deeper black, the flowerbed below even darker, and the open ground before him slightly lighter. His gaze followed the shifting boundaries of light and dark, searching for something he couldn’t quite name.

Amid this blend of darkness, he suddenly noticed specks of white.

At first, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, fatigued from staring into the night. He rubbed his eyes, relaxed his mind, and looked again into the distance.

More and more white dots began to fall from the sky.

Snow.

It was snowing.

The snow had arrived so abruptly that Minami Yuuki could hardly believe his eyes. He reached out his hand to catch a few flakes, bringing them closer for inspection. Рä

The delicate snowflakes quickly melted in the warmth of his palm, turning first into white frost, then into transparent water.

More snowflakes fell into his hand. He placed a small flake on the tip of his tongue, where its coldness spread gently.

And with the melting snowflake, the sorrow that had imprisoned his joy began to dissolve. Happiness surged forth like an unstoppable wave.

He rushed down from the rooftop and into the second-floor ward.

Reina was still asleep. He softly called her name, but she did not hear him, her eyes remaining tightly shut.

In that moment, Minami Yuuki felt a pang of regret. He wanted to watch the snow together with her, to share his joy, to share the hope he had glimpsed in those delicate snowflakes.

But soon, that regret transformed into relief.

He was relieved he hadn’t woken her, relieved that fate’s cruel jest had not extended its reach to her.

Two hours later, the snow stopped.

This brief and delicate snowfall was far too weak to blanket the barren branches of the Pool of the Sky or freeze its waters.

By the next morning, as the sun rose, the few patches of snow left on the grass quickly melted.

By midday, there was no trace of the snow at all.

[You were overjoyed. Having never been to Hokkaido before, you mistook this fleeting flurry for the first snow of the season. You soon learned your lesson—the snow had lasted only a short while, disappearing under the morning sun, leaving nothing behind.]

[You felt, deeply, what your wife had often experienced—the bitter, cruel tricks of fate.]

[For three days after the first snowfall, the sky remained clear.]

[You hung a small snow charm by the window. You prayed to the gods at the shrine. You sought guidance from tarot cards in a fortune-teller’s booth.]

[By the end of November, temperatures plummeted. When you asked the town’s oldest resident, he told you that the true first snow was imminent.]

[But your wife could wait no longer.]

[Reina had not woken in two days. Her life, like a paper boat drifting on a river during a storm, was on the verge of being consumed by the waves. In the dead of night, you could hear her labored breathing, full of pain.]

[At noon on December 3rd, your wife passed away.]

[In the early hours of December 4th, it began to snow.]

[It snowed through the night, and by the time you and both your families arrived the next morning, the snow was ankle-deep.]

[The funeral was held in the snow. You had long since prepared her coffin and her grave. She was laid to rest on a hillside overlooking the Pool of the Sky.]

[You placed a cluster of hydrangeas by her grave. When you stood up, your gaze fell upon the Pool of the Sky not far away.]

[From the hill, the frozen lake was not its usual vivid blue but rather a pale, milky green. Snow blanketed the branches of the submerged, lifeless trees, making them appear like translucent crystals. From afar, the trees seemed to float upon the pale green lake, their branches draped in snow.]

[Above the Pool of the Sky, the softened tones of the snowy sky arched quietly. White clouds hovered behind the mountains, blending seamlessly with the snowy peaks, leaving you unable to distinguish between unfallen snow and snow-covered summits.]

[The lake’s green and the snow’s white, the sky’s blue and the clouds’ white—sky and lake, cloud and snow, green and white—all converged, intertwined before your eyes.]

[You were momentarily dazed.]

[The snow was your wife’s skin, the clouds her gentle smile. The sky and the lake were a canvas of soft blue hydrangeas, filling the background.]

[In the first snow at the Pool of the Sky, you saw the breathtaking silhouette of your departed wife.]

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