Love Across the Distance

What they lost was not love, but the time they could have spent together. What they gained was not pain, but the distance of a final parting.

He can no longer love, unless she appears again. She can never come back, unless fate works a miracle.

When he remembers the stretch of bamboo forest dyed red by the setting sun, and hears in his mind the laughter that once filled their journey, he gazes up at the stars and feels a wave of emotion rise within him. He can't help murmuring to himself, “Which star do you belong to now? I... miss you so much.”

But the endless expanse of the starry sky still cannot give him the answer he longs for.

And what about the promises they once made? Is there no longer any chance to keep them?