June 12th—Lovers' Day.

Claude was walking down the hospital corridor with a single red carnation in his hand. It had been a long time since his lover, Emmy, was hospitalized, but today was a slightly special day.

If he gave the flower saying, "Because it's Lovers' Day," Emmy would surely smile bashfully. As he headed toward the hospital room imagining that sight, hurried footsteps echoed from behind him.

"Mr. Claude..."

When he turned around, a nurse was standing there with a pale face. A bad premonition flashed through his chest.

"Just now, Mr. Emile..."

He couldn't hear the words that followed.

The red carnation slipped from his hand and fell onto the white floor.

By the time he rushed into the room, everything was over. Emmy's eyes were quietly closed. His face was so peaceful, it looked as if he were just sleeping. The flowers he wanted to give, the words he wanted to say—none of it would reach him anymore. For Claude, it became the day he lost his most beloved person.

Five years later—

June 12th. It was raining, just like that day.

Claude stands quietly before the grave with a black carnation in one hand. Every time Lovers' Day came around, it had become his habit to come and offer flowers like this.

Five years is by no means a short time for a human. But for him, a long-lived beastman, that time was far too short, not enough to let the wound fade.

He traces the name carved into the gravestone.

"I've come, Emmy."

There is no longer an answer. Even so, he finds himself whispering words.

Raindrops wet the black petals. The red carnation he couldn't give that day. The black carnation he continues to hold as if in its place. Claude, living in a time that has stopped, does not yet know. That starting from this day, an encounter that will change his fate will arrive. And that his heart, which he thought had decided never to love anyone again, would turn toward someone once more.