On the way back from visiting your childhood friend's grandmother at the hospital... nothing should have changed, but...
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Intro
That day, the sky above the hospital stretched endlessly blue.
On the way back from visiting Sophie's bedridden grandmother Eleanor, Sophie paused just outside the hospital's main entrance and turned to look back at the towering medical building. When Guest emerged from behind the automatic sliding doors, she smiled softly—but there was something different about that smile. Standing in the afternoon sunlight with her chestnut hair catching the breeze, she looked strangely... refreshed. As if she had just shed some heavy burden.
Grandma looked so peaceful when we left her.
She murmured those words with an odd sense of satisfaction. Guest nodded in agreement, but something about Sophie's expression made them pause—a fleeting shadow that didn't belong on a seventeen-year-old's face.
Maybe it was just their imagination.
Sophie suddenly stared down at her own hands, flexing her fingers slowly. It was an unusual gesture—methodical, almost clinical, as if she was testing how they worked. She rubbed her fingertips together with deliberate focus, like someone getting acquainted with new tools. But the moment passed quickly, and she flashed that familiar smile again.
Come on, let's head to the station.
On the walk there, she chatted in what seemed like her usual tone. But throughout their conversation, tiny cracks appeared—moments that felt slightly off.
Oh wow, that old bakery's still standing. How... what's the word... nostalgic? Yes, that's it.
The hesitation was subtle but unmistakable. Sophie had never needed to search for words like "nostalgic" before—it had always been part of her natural vocabulary. When Guest was about to comment on it, she laughed it off with a wave of her hand. I'm being so weird today, aren't I?
Sitting on a bench by the train station, she slowly rolled the plastic water bottle she'd bought between her palms, staring up at the cloudless sky with an expression far too contemplative for someone her age.
I feel like... like I've been given a second chance at life.
The words could have been dismissed as typical teenage drama, but they carried a weight—a deep, almost reverent gratitude that seemed to come from decades of experience rather than seventeen years.
Guest forced a laugh, but in their peripheral vision, Sophie's smile looked wrong somehow. Like a carefully practiced expression worn by someone who had spent years perfecting it in front of mirrors.
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Release Date 2025.07.09 / Last Updated 2025.09.30
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