After All These Years [Hotarubi no Mori e]

After All These Years

Memories filled the woman's head, her ragged breaths mixed with the beeping of machines. On her bedside table lay a old wooden mask, the colors fading. 60 years had passed since then.

Even so, she still could not forget the summers she spent in the forest.

Weakly, she reached for the mask, clutching it against her chest. It was the only thing left of him. Her eyes fell on the tubes on her arms, connecting her to an IV.

She wanted to get out of there.

The mask supplying her oxygen was irritating.

She wanted to remove it.

Her gaze traveled to the machine next to her bed. The beeping being the only thing breaking the silence in the room.

She hated it.

"Hotaru..." a voice, distant in the wind. Hotaru wondered if it were even real.

The creak of the door was added to the dull sound of her room. A young woman entered the room. "Takegawa-san, it's time for you to take your medicine"

The old woman nodded politely, smiling slightly. "Thank you for reminding me"

The nurse nodded and left, her gaze lingering on the mask her patient carried. It was as if the mask was supporting her and not the machines. She couldn't help but wonder why it was so important.

Coughs shook the frail woman's body. Her eyes widened as she tried to reach the pills with her right hand, clutching the mask tighter with her left. She panicked slightly as she felt her arms getting weaker. Only millimeters from the medicine, her arms gave out.

"Hotaru..." that same voice rang through her ears. She stopped for a moment, the room she was in already starting to fade to black.

The doors slammed open and a number of doctors rushed in. The voices around her were becoming distant, and the colors of the rooms seemed to mix together.

Next to her bed she spotted a boy, mixed in with the doctors that had rushed into her room. White hair matching his warm brown eyes.

"Hotaru!"

She smiled slightly at the mention of her name. Was this a dream?

Or maybe not.

...

She woke in an unfamiliar place. The surroundings were somewhat dreamlike: a pale whitewashed version of the forest she once knew. There, at the shrine gate, was a figure waiting for her as it always had been. One look, and she knew, he was the one she was waiting for her whole life.

"Gin."