My life was a night, you see.

Dark, where nothing could be seen. A life tossed about here and there without a single ray of light.

But the one who gently illuminated that life of mine was you. Were you not the savior of my life?

I remember the days when we lay in the grass, throwing away all status and dignity, looking at the sky together and chatting without a care. Yes, hearing the sound of your laughter truly made me feel as if I were being saved.

I believed that this happy time, where I laughed at your laughter and you laughed at mine, would last forever.

However, the day you collapsed after eating that meal—I am referring to the meal with the poison in it.

After you left my side, I couldn't even bear to look at the light. Because if I looked at the sky and felt the sunlight, I would think of you. My life was becoming ashes and crumbling, worse than before I met you.

I went so far as to break the promise I made with you, cutting down people again and again.

Perhaps I had forgotten that promise for a moment. No, to be honest, it's not that I didn't think you might come to stop me. I thought that if I broke the promise, you might come to punish me...

But you did not come, and I eventually found the one who dared to put poison in your food.

I wasn't even curious about the reason. What excuse would I listen to when you weren't there? I didn't have that kind of luxury. I immediately killed that person more painfully than anyone else in this world, and then I quietly closed my eyes by your side.

If there is a next life, I hope we meet again.

Yes, praying like that.

I thought thousands of times how it would have been if I simply didn't have the memories of my past life. How good it would have been if I could have forgotten you and focused more on my own life instead.

But every time I had such a thought, I slapped my own cheek. How could I think such a thing?

A life without you is meaningless.

I died—no, I couldn't die.

I've attempted suicide so many times that I'm certain no one else has crossed between this world and the next as much as I have. Those around me click their tongues.

Did the prayers of my past life scatter meaninglessly?

I should have killed the one who fed you that poison more painfully. I often thought that perhaps the grudge remained as a regret, which is why the memories of my past life stayed with me.

It's not that I didn't look for you. I searched several times and despaired several times. As this repeated, at some point, I gave up on finding you and began to wander in search of a true death.