Episode 3

The roses scattered across the ground, rolling against the pavement in a splash of crimson and white. Akihiro stared, frozen, his breath caught somewhere between his chest and throat.

Hajun. Haru.

Names he had not spoken aloud in twenty years.

The two figures before him were taller now, their boyish edges sharpened into the striking lines of men. Golden hair, identical smiles, identical flames in their eyes—just as dazzling as he remembered. For a heartbeat, time folded in on itself, and he was once again that trembling boy clutching their hands beneath the persimmon tree.

But then the moment passed, and reality returned with the weight of scars.

His hands trembled as he bent down to gather the roses, hiding his face behind the dark fall of his hair. “...Why are you here?” His voice was low, rough from disuse.

Haru stepped forward, hesitant but hopeful. “We told you… we’d come back.”

Akihiro flinched. That word—promise. It burned like salt against an open wound. He tightened his grip on the crate, forcing a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Twenty years,” he whispered. “Do you know how long that is?”

The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the faint cry of cicadas in the distance.

Akihiro had waited. At first, as a boy, he had believed with all his heart that they would return. Every summer, he ran to the persimmon tree, waiting until sunset, hoping to see two golden heads racing down the path. When autumn came and they still hadn’t appeared, he told himself next year. Then the year after.

But the seasons turned, one after another, and the laughter of the twins faded into nothing more than memory.

By the time he grew older, reality had sunk its claws into him. His parents’ flower shop fell on hard times, debts piled high, and with them came the cruel hands of men who showed no mercy. The scar on his cheek was only one of many marks left behind.

And yet, even through the loneliness, even through the nights of despair, he could never bring himself to forget their faces. That was the cruelest part.

Now, standing before them, Akihiro felt his heart torn between longing and fury.

“You should have stayed gone,” he said, his voice sharp, though his hands trembled around the crate. “Why now? After all this time?”

Hajun’s gaze was unyielding, golden eyes burning with the same fire as when he was a child. “Because we never forgot you. Not for a single day.”

Akihiro’s chest tightened. Lies. They had lived full lives abroad, surrounded by wealth and privilege, while he had been left here, drowning in solitude. How could they possibly understand the weight of waiting?

And yet—his heart betrayed him. The sight of them stirred something he thought long buried. That warmth. That light. The unshakable bond of their childhood.

Haru, gentler than his twin, took a cautious step closer. His voice was soft, almost pleading. “Aki… we came back because we still…” His words faltered, but his eyes said what his lips could not.

Akihiro’s grip slipped. A single rose fell from the crate, landing at Haru’s feet.

He turned away abruptly, hiding the heat rising in his chest, the tears threatening to fall. “The past doesn’t matter anymore. You should leave.”

But even as he said it, his voice cracked faintly, betraying him.

Behind him, Hajun’s voice cut through the silence, firm and resolute. “No. We’re not leaving. Not again.”

The cicadas screamed louder, the summer air thick with the weight of twenty years.

For the first time in decades, the three of them stood together once more. And though Akihiro’s words pushed them away, deep down he knew—this reunion was only the beginning of something far more dangerous than the promises of childhood.

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