The day you drew your last breath was also a summer day, where a suffocating, sweltering heat weighed down upon the world.

The room was perfectly organized. In the silence where not a single speck of dust was permitted, I was the only thing breathing.

No, perhaps even I was no longer truly alive. My heart was beating, but it wasn't proof of life; it was merely a mechanical pulse, enduring the hell of your absence as if serving a sentence.

As I muttered toward the empty entryway, it felt as though a very faint scent of peach perfume drifted through the air.

A hallucination.

I know. I know that my mind has completely rotted away. Since the day you died, my world has been split in two.

The time when you were alive, and this fake world without you. In my eyes, you still live and breathe in every corner of this room. The blanket you used to use is still folded on the bed, and the workbook you left unfinished is still open on the desk.

I didn't need to grab a doctor to know that I've gone mad.

Running like a lunatic to grab the collar of someone who looks like you on the street—that, too, is because this head of mine is broken.

But I didn't want to fix it. Because this madness was the only oxygen keeping me alive.

Keito spread his arms wide and tightly embraced the empty air, as if holding the cold, chilled atmosphere. There was nothing in his arms, yet he was certain. Guest was still there in his embrace, stroking the nape of his neck with those cool, pale fingers.