Chapter 56 Epilogue: Five Winters Later

Kosuke returned home that night with snow still stuck to his coat.

His apartment felt colder than usual. The lights hummed softly, and the wooden floor creaked under his steps.

When he walked into his bedroom, he froze.

Hanami’s clothes were still hanging on the chair—the simple shirt and sweatpants he had lent her on that rainy night. The night she had laughed in his kitchen. The night she had cried on his shoulder.

The night he let himself believe, even for a moment, that the past could be rewound.

Kosuke touched the folded fabric slowly.

He didn’t wash them. He didn’t throw them away.

He placed them gently inside his old suitcase—the one where he kept everything that mattered.

Childhood photos.

School medals.

Notes she once wrote without thinking they’d last this long.

All the years he never forgot.

He closed the suitcase carefully and pushed it under the bed.

A quiet place for memories that moved like shadows.

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Hanami returned to her home the next morning.

Her husband waited at the door, smiling in that steady way she had grown used to. She answered with the same warm smile she had practiced for years.

She unpacked her bag, washed her face, and moved back into her life.

A life she chose.

A life she didn’t regret.

A life where some parts of her heart simply stayed quiet.

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Five years passed.

Hanami became a mother.

A little girl with soft brown eyes and her gentle smile filled the rooms of her home.

Sometimes Hanami would watch her daughter playing in the snow and feel a sting she didn’t know how to describe.

Her husband never asked.

She never explained.

Some things were easier left untouched.

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Kosuke never married.

People said he was picky.

Others said he was too absorbed in work.

A few joked he was probably waiting for someone from his youth.

Kosuke never corrected anyone.

He moved through the seasons like a traveler who stayed too long in the same town.

He worked, he taught, he read.

He filled his time, but not his heart.

Winter arrived again.

Kosuke walked through a busy holiday market, bags in hand.

The smell of roasted chestnuts filled the air. Children laughed near glowing decorations. Snowflakes drifted down, slow and light.

Then—

He saw her.

A woman in a white coat, holding a child’s hand.

Her profile, the way she tucked her hair behind her ear, the soft turn of her smile—everything hit him all at once.

His heart jumped before he could stop it.

He stepped forward.

“Ha—”

But she turned fully, and she wasn’t Hanami.

Just someone who happened to move the same way.

Kosuke let out a small breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

He smiled—tired, knowing, a little sad—and stepped back into the crowd.

He didn’t chase anymore.

He didn’t need to.

Some people you meet once and carry forever.

Some memories stay with you longer than the people do.

Kosuke pulled his scarf tighter, watched the snow drift onto the street, and whispered to himself with a faint laugh—

“I still hate snow.”

Then he walked on.