Ah, my prince.
I’m always waiting for you.
Crunch, crunch
My prince. You appeared in my dream last night, too.
You held me gently and said to me:
"You don’t have to be afraid."
"The wound I gave you doesn’t hurt anymore."
"So close your eyes and rest easy."
Crunch, crunch
My prince.
My prince, who only thinks of me.
You even forgave me for the mistake I made because I couldn’t trust you.
Even though I’m trapped here, unable to go meet you.
Crunch, crunch
My prince.
I believe you’ll come save me.
Just imagining you coming into this dark, cramped prison to rescue me makes my heart race.
I’m always waiting for you.
My prince, I love you.
Crunch, crunch
It’s been five years, but I can wait ten years—no… even a hundred years.
My prince. I miss you.
I love you, my prince.
I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.
Rumble—
Boom!
Thud, thud, thud—
"What? The power suddenly went out!"
"There’s chaos because the pipes flooded from the typhoon!"
"Isn’t there anyone in the duty room?!"
"……my prince."
My prince, whispering his love to me with eyes like beautiful jewels.
Was it a dream?
If it wasn’t a dream—if only once, I’d touch you with my own hands.
Ah, my prince.
-
Rumble—
Thud, thud, thud—
Rattle—
A typhoon is a disaster that can even bring down a comfortable home.
Even though it was built of concrete, the mental health detention facility, constructed more than seventy years ago, seemed to shudder ominously on all sides as if frightened by the thunderous roar.
The entire facility was already without power, leaving nothing but darkness.
Five years was more than enough time for me to become as familiar with this treatment detention center as the lines in my palm.
The emergency generator that powered the closed-circuit CCTV was almost embarrassing to call a generator, but I’d taken care of it long ago.
Across the way, the frantic sound of duty officers’ shoes running back and forth and their loud shouts echoed along the walls.
"……."
A stale, rotten stench filled the room.
Even with darkness settled over everything, the smell remained the same whether there was light or not.
I slowly lowered my gaze and stared at Matsui Tadaomi, lying neatly on the bed and stretching out his skeletal hand toward me.
The end of someone erased from society, stripped even of the right to be remembered.
The 100-kilogram brute was gone, leaving only a gaunt skeleton like a dry branch, looking up at me with a wheezing breath.
A living corpse. A criminal surviving through five frozen years, still unable to accept what he had done to the very end.
"Ka...oru...?"
Even though I’d hidden my face so not a single strand of hair showed, he somehow recognized me. A sliver of light flickered in those rotting, murky eyes like decaying flesh.
He called my name, but not because he truly knew me.
The emaciated, mentally incapacitated man before me seemed to be in such a severe state that he was identifying anyone who entered his narrow room as me.
More than five years had passed—now nearly six—and instead of improving, the madness blooming in those rotting eyes had only grown stronger.
The massive body of the villain who had once thrust a kitchen knife at me, trying to pierce my stomach like a skewer, was gone, but that look in his eyes remained.
"……."
I couldn’t stay here long. Even if an emergency alert had been issued because the typhoon was sweeping over the place like a broom,
the fact that the treatment detention center had lost power and the inmates were effectively beyond control made this an even more dangerous situation.
I slowly walked toward the living corpse, who was staring at me while bound tightly in restraints.
Rumble—
Boom—
Thud, thud, thud—
"Prince! Prince Kaoru! I waited for you! I love you! I should have killed that bitch first! Then Prince Kaoru would have looked at me! I should have killed that bitch who stole you from me first!"
"……."
To the very last moment of those five long years.
This time, too.
Rip— slash—!
"Ghk— kehh— gurgle—!?"
Feeling that my judgment had been right.
-
< The attacker who stabbed Kamiki Kaoru with a weapon, Matsui Tadaomi, found dead by hanging in a solitary cell >
< Matsui Tadaomi takes his own life using the bed restraints >
< Facility management failures at treatment detention center come under fire... investigation closed as suicide in solitary confinement >
< Typhoon-related blackout damage... 2 million households lose power >
"……."
Ai quietly turned off the TV with the remote and fidgeted with her fingers.
I could feel her worried eyes brush over me for a moment, but I didn’t show it.
There was no need for my wife to feel uneasy, so I smiled softly, wrapped my arm around Ai’s shoulders, and patted her.
She—Ai—wasn’t the kind of person who could harbor ugly feelings like hatred or malice toward others.
She was foolishly kind, the type who took it for granted that others would dislike her.
On the other hand, she was also foolishly kind and pure—someone who didn’t even know how to hate others.
"……Kaoru."
"Yeah."
"Phew...."
Ai’s small, soft hand fussed over my right palm.
I liked that touch. Even knowing she was tracing the faint scar that had now almost disappeared.
I liked it so much.
So I simply lowered my face to the top of her head, enjoying her scent and feeling that warm, gentle touch.
A resolve to protect the precious everyday happiness of this life, so I would never repeat the pain of my past life.
"Think only about good things, Ai."
"Okay. Mm... I’m happy just being next to you. That’s enough."
"Ai."
"Hm?"
I raised my right hand and stroked my wife’s moist lips, glossed with lip balm.
A tiny tremor and her warm body heat traveled through my thumb.
"Thank you for becoming my [Light]."
"……."
For becoming the light in my life, which had been nothing but darkness.
For loving me so that I could become someone who feels gratitude for love, for the preciousness of it, and for a happy everyday life.
Thank you.
"Hehe. Then... what’s my reward?"
Her brilliant, starlit eyes looked up at me steadily.
Confirming that the dark emotions that had once lingered in those eyes were gone, I lowered my head and kissed her, giving my wife the reward she wanted as the corners of my mouth curled up playfully.
"Mm— chu—♥"
The taste of the lip balm on her lips lingered in my mouth, but it didn’t matter.
Because soon it would be filled with my wife’s scent anyway.
Instead of my left hand, which had been stroking her small, slender back, I reached out with my right and turned off the lamp beside the bed that lit the master bedroom.
Darkness settled in, but I wasn’t afraid.
"The babies... are asleep, right?"
"...Probably."
"Mm—♥ chu-"
Because my light was always by my side.
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