Chapter 37
In the earlier years, there was nothing unusual, it was simply the relationship between a doctor and his patient's family.
But gradually, the bond between the two grew closer to friendship.
Even within the memories, Ruan Mei could read the changes in Clarisse's feelings toward Tomomu Kanzaki through the girl's facial expressions.
It was a familiar look, one she had not seen in so many years she had forgotten exactly how long.
During her youth, many students in the same academy had looked at her with those same eyes.
Was it… affection?
Ruan Mei thought carefully.
Yes, it was.
She could distinguish the differences in the gazes directed at her.
Some were pure and some left her indifferent.
Some carried hidden motives and made her uncomfortable.
And a very small number, when examined closely from every angle, contained only one word: sincerity.
The way Clarisse looked at Tomomu Kanzaki was sincere.
But why…
Why did seeing the girl look at Tomomu Kanzaki with those eyes make her feel a faint discomfort?
Perhaps in the future she would need to add a research topic on different human emotions.
For now…
Ruan Mei forcefully suppressed the strange feeling in her heart and continued searching for answers inside Tomomu Kanzaki's memories.
In the final years of his life, his daily routine remained almost unchanged.
The only difference was that he never used any method to extend his lifespan.
His bodily functions began to fail. The loss of sensation he had once cured returned.
"…"
Ruan Mei frowned.
Even if Tomomu Kanzaki had known how to make that medicine, without extending his lifespan the effects were extremely limited.
At 172 years old, Tomomu Kanzaki would occasionally fail to taste things correctly.
He would sometimes be unable to sense changes in the weather.
He would sometimes lose his sense of touch, or his vision.
He would sometimes lose his sense of pain and not realize he was injured unless he saw blood or the wound.
He accepted all of it calmly.
He only took the medicine that kept his body in a youthful state. Everything else he left to nature, paying it no mind.
He adopted a stray cat for company and continued living this way until the final three months of his life.
A conversation between his friend Yu Qingtu and Tomomu Kanzaki caught Ruan Mei's full attention.
"Before I leave, I want to ask you one last question."
"Please speak, senior."
"Do you admire… no, more accurately, do you like Ruan? In a romantic sense."
In that instant, Ruan Mei stared intently at Tomomu Kanzaki, as if trying to read something from his face.
"Senior, please don't tease this junior. I only feel respect for my teacher. How could I harbor such disrespectful and absurd feelings?"
Looking at his completely sincere expression, with no trace of a lie,
Ruan Mei's mind once again replayed the lonely scene of the young boy stripping away his own memories, choosing to forget that event and silently bear all the pain.
She unconsciously bit her lip. An indescribable pain surged through her entire body.
It shouldn't have been like this…
"Safe travels, senior. When you deliver the plum blossom brew, please remember to leave a message for my teacher, reminding her to keep a regular schedule and eat on time."
Hearing it from Yu Qingtu and hearing it from Tomomu Kanzaki's own mouth felt completely different.
Only after Yu Qingtu left did Ruan Mei realize she had forgotten to breathe for a long time.
The next second, Tomomu Kanzaki's violent coughing echoed.
He was coughing blood.
Keeping his body in a youthful state could not slow the decline of his organs. On the contrary, it brought side effects.
Coughing blood was one of the signs.
But he didn't know that. He simply thought it was a symptom of old age.
The girl named Clarisse brought her mother for treatment of her amnesia.
Ruan Mei paid no attention to the mother and daughter.
Every time she saw Tomomu Kanzaki hiding from view, concealing his aging and physical discomfort, her heart would ache.
His old age should not have been like this…
The girl performed a tarot reading for him: Three of Swords, Ten of Swords, The Star reversed.
Ruan Mei saw at a glance that the girl was lying. The outcome those three cards represented was the complete opposite of what she had said.
Eternal love…?
No, it wasn't.
It was pain. It was collapse. It was falling into the deepest despair.
It was all caused by her, every bit of it inflicted on Tomomu Kanzaki.
"Is the house not far from here also yours?"
"…It's not my house."
"Then… why do you clean that house so frequently?"
"That is my teacher's house. A long time ago, she used special methods to move it here, but she forgot to take it with her when she left."
"And pruning the vegetation along the path… what was that for?"
"I was afraid my teacher would forget the way home."
"…"
Ruan Mei clutched her chest. Her emotions churned violently, and her eyes starts to water without her realizing it.
She unconsciously stepped back and bumped into the equipment behind her, pulling off the electrodes again. Only then did she realize that all the memories had already been received.
"On the way to chasing a certain endpoint, Teacher lost and forgot many things and people… perhaps even her own home."
"I firmly believe that if one day she reaches that endpoint and fulfills her wish, she will remember many of the things she forgot, and she will definitely come home."
"I cannot help her with anything else. The only thing I can do is look after her house for her."
Yes… Tomomu Kanzaki could not help her.
But it should not have been like this…
It was all a consequence of her own actions. Tomomu Kanzaki had begged her so earnestly back then.
Yet she had remained unmoved, her eyes filled only with obsession.
"Where is Tomomu Kanzaki's home planet?"
"It turned to space dust long ago. Wherever my heart belongs, that is my home."
Tomomu Kanzaki had made the world where he was reborn his home.
His heart was here. This was his home… and the place where her home was.
But he could have left. Why…?
While searching for the answer, a young boy's tender voice exploded in the depths of her soul.
"Home is very important. I no longer have a home, so Teacher must not end up like me."
"After I graduate in the future, I will go back and look after Teacher's house for her."
The promise the boy had kept for his entire life stabbed into her heart like a sharp blade, twisting violently.
Ruan Mei completely lost control. She could no longer maintain her calm and rationality.
"…Kanzaki… Kanzaki…"
All her life, she had witnessed betrayal.
Her parents had betrayed her grandmother.
She had betrayed her parents.
No one had kept their promises.
But Tomomu Kanzaki had never betrayed her.
Even after dying for hundreds of years, he was still fulfilling his promise in his own way.
…It had not even been a real promise.
Ruan Mei had not forgotten her answer back then: "Do as you wish."
It had been nothing more than the boy's "one-sided wish"… an incredibly sincere one-sided wish.
He had never betrayed her.
Yet she had lost her little Kanzaki, her Kanzaki, her student, completely.
And now, she could never get him back.
She could not return to the past, and the future no longer had him.
If Kanzaki Tomomu had remembered everything in his final moments, would he truly have resented his teacher?
Ruan Mei's breathing trembled as she closed her eyes helplessly.
The speed of the memory playback slowed, but it did not stop.
A suffocating late night arrived earlier than Ruan Mei had wished.
To cure Mrs. Durand's amnesia, Tomomu Kanzaki had personally acted as the clinical test subject and recovered…
—Everything he had stripped away with his own hands back then.
His facial expression stiffened. His eyes lost all light.