[In the end, you were still one step too late.]
[Toru passed away naturally in the early hours of yesterday morning. He went peacefully.]
[From this day on, you no longer had a reason to live...]
Dead?
After going through so much hardship, finally finding a way to save him,
you're telling me he died just before dawn?
This is a simulation, not a tragic movie...
Wouldn't a joyful reunion ending be better?
Kagarino Kirie clenched her fist, a surge of anger rising in her chest. Even if this was just a simulation and not a real storyline.
Seeing something this dog-blooded still made her lose her temper.
[...None of that actually happened.]
[Toru had simply been transferred into intensive care. His physical condition was still fairly stable.]
"What? You went through all that just to mess with me?"
Kirie widened her eyes, on the verge of cursing.
All for dramatic effect, huh?
Going for a twist, right?
As a popular author, she used to enjoy writing this kind of plot, deliberately tugging at readers' emotions.
She never expected that good deeds would be rewarded, and she would get to experience it herself.
[But when you arrived at the hospital and entered the intensive care unit, Toru's condition took a sharp turn for the worse.]
[The doctors were already filling out the critical condition notice.]
[They even had the subsequent death notice prepared.]
Got it, got it.
You like twists?
Then keep them coming.
[The members of Kessoku Band gathered at the hospital.]
[Yamada Ryo was scouting burial plots, deliberately choosing a geomantically favorable double plot, planning to be buried together with Toru after death.]
[Ijichi Nijika cried until her face was soaked with tears, covering her face and crying through the entire night.]
[Gotoh Hitori appeared calm, or rather, she had lost the ability to think due to the immense mental shock.]
[Kita Ikuyo was considering dying for love alongside Toru.]
[Over these past decades, the members of Kessoku Band had all remained single. Despite their soaring careers, for some reason none of them had found a boyfriend they truly liked.]
"Lurking for dozens of years, these women..."
Kagarino Kirie did not even know how to comment.
This is my husband, can you all restrain yourselves a little?
No, she needed to find a chance to reunite in reality and chase all these women away.
[You ignored the heavy expressions of the nurses and doctors, calmly entered the intensive care unit. The elderly man inside was wearing a respirator. You took out the ring you had been clutching tightly in your palm, never letting go since the moment you obtained it.]
["Sorry, it took some time, but... I finally found it." You moved closer to him, taking his cold hand.]
Wait, cold hand?
[He did not respond to you.]
...No, don't do this.
Please don't.
[The doctor beside you began to cry.]
Why are you crying?
[As a fan of Toru, he had grown up listening to his piano. During the dull years of medical school, it was Toru's piano that accompanied him through countless days and nights...]
Can we skip this unnecessary information?
[Decades later, Toru died.]
Are you sick?
Jumping straight to decades later, trying to break me with this?
Let me tell you right now, this story has already reached this point.
No matter what, there's no way it ends badly.
[...Such a tragedy did not happen.]
See, I knew it.
Kagarino Kirie lifted her small chin, her expression proud.
This is what a professional author looks like.
A professional author must dare to make judgments.
[Although the tragedy did not occur, at the moment you placed the ring onto Toru's ring finger, you easily sensed that something was wrong...]
"???" Kagarino Kirie was full of question marks.
No way, again?
[Perhaps due to the long passage of time and poor maintenance, the ring had lost its original effect.]
[By your estimation, this ring could only allow Toru to live five more years.]
"Simulator, is playing with lifespan theories fun?" Kagarino Kirie laughed in anger.
She almost felt like killing someone.
This plot was completely like cutting flesh with a dull knife.
The more she thought about it, the worse it felt.
The immersion of the simulator was far too strong.
She was promised a joyful simulation experience, yet it pulled this on her, enough to make her stomach act up.
Maybe she should go to the hospital tomorrow and get some medicine.
[The next day.]
[Toru miraculously recovered. The young and promising department director, only fifty this year, hugged his head and cried like a child.]
Is that how you use "young and promising"?
[Before discharge, you considered whether to tell him about the ring.]
[You decided—]
[1. "Tell him the truth and accompany him through the final five years."]
[2. "Hide the truth and continue searching for a way to extend his life during the final five years."]
[3. Personally simulate]
[Please note, this choice will severely affect the simulation ending!!]
"Hard to choose."
Since it would seriously affect the ending, it had to be thought through carefully.
First, hiding the truth.
The goal was simple. For longer companionship, five years was clearly not enough for you.
A few years, to a long-lived being, felt no different from a few days.
"I searched for a year already and found nothing. The only thing I got was a ring that can only extend life by five years..."
If you searched another five years, would you really find something?
Most likely not.
And hiding it from Toru felt wrong at its core.
A well-intentioned lie was still a lie in the end.
In comparison.
The first option.
"Is it too cruel... to make an old man on the brink of death face it once more?"
No.
That line of thinking was wrong.
Toru was not afraid of death at all. He had said before that if he was happy, a short life was fine.
So—
"Choose 1."
Hopefully, this was not the wrong choice.
[In the final years.]
[You chose to accompany him to the end of his life.]
[Compared to illusory possibilities, you wanted to grasp the present.]
[After learning that he could live five more years, Toru did not show sorrow, but there was a faint melancholy in his heart.]
[He feared leaving behind a lonely you.]
[Your personality was awkward, not good at communication.]
[You said one thing while feeling another, and would not admit your true feelings unless pushed to the brink.]
[He felt a bit of regret.]
[In the end, he realized he was also afraid of death, afraid of being separated from you.]
[Toru feared becoming just a passerby in your long life. His few decades were too insignificant to leave a mark in your heart.]
[Yet he was happy enough, with very few regrets.]
[The only thing Toru worried about was you.]
[Over the past decades, he had left behind countless works, all so that after his death, you could feel the proof that he had "existed"—]
[Whenever you were somewhere in the world, hearing a piano play his music, recalling him for a brief moment in your mind, that alone was enough for him.]
[Days passed one by one.]
[Your story moved toward its conclusion...]