25-Chapter 24   Kana



(Cute kid...) I'm Taro Kato.

I'm Kana Sakura. It's nice to meet you.



 I met Kana in college....is there one in this world? 
 It was a school that taught advanced skills, not that I'm a very smart person, but I was.
 After I started school, there was a circle a sort of coterie of like-minded people. Basically, all we did was drink, but I met her at the welcome party for the new students.

 She was very pretty, so she was flirted with by her seniors and classmates.
 I was such a normal looking guy and not that popular with the ladies, so I just introduced myself and exchanged greetings with her, who was very friendly.

 But before I knew it, we started going out together often, and before I knew it, people around us thought we were a couple.

 How could she have fallen for a guy like me?
 I still don't understand it.
 There are so many things about men and women that I really don't understand.

 We spent time in college together and finally started looking for a job.
 At that time Kana and I were planning to get married, and I was trying to find a job in a better place...in this world, it would be like serving in a better place...but just then Kana, who was also looking for a job, fell ill.

 She had acute leukemia..............or is it a disease known in this world? It was a difficult disease to treat anyway.
 Her treatment began in an effort to make a full recovery, and I was there for her whenever I had time between job hunts.

 Kana often said she was sorry that she couldn't find a job, but I didn't mind.
 Right now, I just need to think about getting better at my illness.
 He said I would find a good job and Kana could be his wife and keep the house.

 Women work too.
 What do people in this world think? 
 In the world I was in these days, women also work... Anyway, I tried very hard to get married to Kana, who had been cured of her illness.

 It paid off, and to be honest, I was able to get a job at a company that treated me very well, something I wouldn't have been able to get at the university I was attending, thanks to Kana.

 I thought it was going to be tough even after I joined the company, but I made an effort to have a family with her.
 As for her condition, I treated her as best I could, but unfortunately the doctors said there was nothing more they could do....

 But I didn't want to believe it.
 So I did my best to spend as much time with her as possible when I wasn't working, hiding the fact that I was about to despair, hoping to stay with her for as long as possible.

 Unfortunately, her condition was getting worse and worse, and I think I came to my senses.
 She realized that she couldn't save herself anymore.
 So she said to him

Taro-san, when I die, don't keep questioning me and don't be afraid to go out with a new woman.

''Haha, that's an unlikely assumption since Kana will be cured.''

Taro-san is not a good liar, isn't he? But I think that's why I fell in love with you, Taro.

 I was heartbroken.
 How could she have fallen ill and not survived?
 How could the sweet Kana fall ill and all the bad guys in the world be alive and well?
 Looking back, I was probably too young to despair of the world thinking that way.

 No matter how much I mourned and screamed, Kana's death was imminent and I had no way of stopping it.
 All I could do was to continue to stay by her side.

 The truth is, I didn't have the energy to go to the company where I got the job offer, and I was going to turn it down, but Kana scolded me.

I'm no longer viable, but Taro-san has a bright future ahead of him. You can't give up your life.''

 She would scold me and encourage me, even though she should be more anxious and afraid of the impending death.
 I was a bad man after all.
 I managed to muster up all my energy and was able to join the company safely, but at last my last moment arrived.

The cherry blossoms are beautiful...I want to go and see them...

 These were Kana's last words.
 I think she went to heaven, dreaming of going to see the cherry blossoms with me and the child she might later have had with me.

 After Kana's death, I didn't want to think about anything else, in short, to fill the sorrow of losing her.
 I focused on my work.
 I couldn't get that far in my geography, though.
 
 Even without the aristocracy, I think that's what humans are like.

 It's been nearly twenty years since she died.
 At last.
 It was as if I felt like I had found my feet on the ground.

 Honestly, I was summoned when I was vaguely thinking about what I was going to do with my life from now on.
 Looking back, I didn't feel like I could have gone out with another woman or married her, but I still thought of her....
 In fact, that might have been the reason why I was falsely accusing myself of being unattractive.

 Well, I guess it's like this.
 It doesn't sound like something I would talk about to a young woman.



 We crossed the vast uninhabited area called the Desert Sea in a hastily built little catamaran, where we could only see the desert as far as the eye could see.
 First of all, we drove the boat incessantly toward the southwest, away from the royal capital.

 We occasionally encountered the occasional sand beast, but those were all fine as Larabell-san and Mew would soon defeat them all.
 At night, we stopped the ship and slept in a tent pitched on top of the ship. 
 Anyway, it was a monotonous life and I had so much free time that I told them both the story of my past.

 This unattractive me, this unattractive me, told them the story of a kind fiancée I had lost when I was young.
 It doesn't sound like the kind of story I would tell to a couple of young people, but I couldn't resist telling it because the trip was long and I had run out of topics to talk about.

 I'm sorry, but....

''Lord Kana, I'm sorry for your disappointment...''

'Ugh, tragic love, tragic love. I can't stop crying.

Uh, a handkerchief, please.

I don't flinch, Lord Taro.

Subibasen. Zsuzuba-sen.

 Are these stories a point of reference for young women?
 They were both crying with tears like a waterfall, so I gently offered them the handkerchief I had hastily purchased.

 And Miu Miu, if you bite your nose with a handkerchief, I think most men would be turned off by it.