I came back to the same old iron fence, rusted and crooked, wrapped around that looming black building. There she was — Yuki — sitting in the snow again, just like before.

She saw me. I forced a smile, though my throat burned.
“Hey, Yuki.”
I crouched by the fence. She didn’t answer — maybe she did, but it was swallowed by the wind.

That scrap of my scarf was still tied to her sleeve. Somehow, that hit me harder than anything else.

“What is this place?” I asked gently, trying to catch her eyes.

“I sleep here,” she murmured, head down, voice thin. Still couldn’t look at me.

“You’ll get sick, sitting in snow like that. Wet pants are no fun, right?”

I reached my hand through the bars — into her world, or maybe out of mine. It felt colder on the other side. Not just the wind. Something deeper.

She placed her fingers in mine. Cold and birdlike. I pulled her to her feet.

And for the first time, we stood eye to eye.

She was so small. Hollow-cheeked. Bones under skin.

“Are there others here with you, Yuki?” I asked — part concern, part curiosity.

Her hand twitched in mine. Then, a small nod.

I sighed, instantly knowing what was going on. “They’re not nice to you, are they?”

She looked up. A tear slipped down her cheek, and she nodded again — slower this time.

I squeezed her hand, harder than I meant to. I couldn’t cry. Not now. She’s just like me, I need to help her, she can’t take matters into her own hands like I did, I don’t care if there’s a reason to why it’s happening, I don’t want to know.

This place… it had to be an orphanage. She never called it home.
She wasn’t alone — but she was still abandoned.

And then — she squeezed my hand back.

I looked up, and for a second, it was like our roles had flipped.
She smiled at me.

She… smiled.

Something bloomed in my chest — slow, unfamiliar, radiant like the first golden ember in a frozen hearth.
Hope.
Warmth crawled through my ribs, into my throat, my eyes. For the first time in both my lives, the future wasn’t a curse to endure — it was something I wanted to build. For me.
For her.

I turned to Yuki, unable to stop the smile breaking across my face like sunlight through storm clouds.
“Hey, Yuki? What’s your last name? Your family name?”

The smile she wore — fragile and trembling — vanished in an instant, like frost snapped underfoot. Her eyes dulled, lips parted slightly as if caught mid-thought, then closed again.
She released my hand. Slowly. Like letting go of something once precious.

“…Kokkonen,” she whispered. The word was heavy, too heavy for her thin voice — it dropped into the snow between us like a stone.

The air seemed colder now. Even the wind paused, holding its breath.

I hesitated, guilt pricking my skin like needles. But the question clawed its way up from inside me, relentless.
I needed to know her. To understand. That was how you helped someone… right?

“…Where are your parents?” I asked, softer this time, barely above the hush of falling sleet.

Her breath caught. She gripped the front of her coat, fingers clenching the fabric over her chest as if her heart had suddenly begun to ache. Her eyes, wide and glassy, slowly lifted to mine — and what I saw there rooted me to the spot.

Not fear. Not sadness.
Betrayal.

Without a word, she turned and bolted — boots crunching the snow, white hair trailing behind her, swallowed by the iron-gated orphanage door.

“YUKI, WAIT—!” I lunged forward, snow spraying beneath my feet. “NO, PLEASE COME BACK—!”

But she was gone.
Gone like a dream chased from waking breath.
Gone like I hadn’t mattered.

Silence wrapped around me like a burial shroud.

No. No no no.
You fucking idiot.

You saw it — the way she froze at her name. The way her voice cracked. You knew.
And you kept digging. Kept picking at her wounds just to satisfy your pathetic curiosity.
Because that’s what you do, right? You tear things open to see how they work — and break them in the process.

Disgusting. Selfish. Pathetic.

You’re not better than the ones who ruined you.

You never cared about her.

Kam Foraster, you’re the worst.

No.

You're not Kam Foraster.

Just an immitation.