[Hikaru No Go Fanfiction] Six Records of a Floating Life

Shindo suddenly remembered a line he'd once glimpsed while his lover was studying Chinese. He had leaned over to bother them and happened to catch sight of it:

When the red leaves fall, they turn to ash.

His lover had explained it to him in detail, but back then, he hadn't understood.

Now, comparing the words with the scene before him, Shindo felt he might have begun to understand something.

Higher up, even the dark brown leaves had all fallen, leaving only bare, withered branches. And snow had already begun to fall atop Mount Nikko.

It wasn't ordinary snow. The flakes were so tiny they were almost impossible to make out, each a speck of weightless white, like the trace of a passing breeze. They drifted by without leaving a mark.

Shindo held out his palm. The snow didn't settle on it. Though it had clearly landed in his hand, he felt only a brief chill before it melted away like air.

At a hot spring inn in Kinugawa, Shindo had heard the proprietress say that this kind of snow was called kazahana, windblown flowers.

They bloom only in the wind, and wither there, too.

Before the first snowfall arrives, kazahana falls once or twice. After that comes light snow.

That's right.

Once the red leaves have fallen, there is still kazahana to look forward to.

After the kazahana, there is still light snow to look forward to.

And after the light snow?

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