The man was standing at the front gate. Without ringing the bell, without calling for a maid.

The moment he came face to face with Roxia, he removed his hat and gave a slight bow.

It was a flawlessly courteous greeting, but Roxia couldn’t focus on it. Because she could not make out his face at all, even with the hat removed.

She couldn’t take her eyes off him, not even after he lifted his head and put his hat back on.

“I apologize for the intrusion.”

“…… Oh, no. Please come in. Let’s talk over some tea.”

Roxia steadied her surprise and quietly led him to the sitting room.

The man followed her inside, and the moment he passed the entrance, turned left. Even though no one had told him where the sitting room was.

While Roxia set out two cups of tea and placed them before him, the man looked quietly around the room. He seemed moved by something, or perhaps simply sad.

She felt it instinctively. He had been here before. Many times.

She poured his tea and asked, carefully.

“How long have you lived?”

“This year makes two hundred and forty-one.”

“Are you tired?”

“…… I think I was, at first. Now I’m not sure.”

Everything is worn down by time. Even the sharpest grief, the sharpest joy — each is only a moment in the end.

Memories fade. Recollections lose their color. The only things that don’t change are the sun rising and setting each morning, and the dull procession of days. Not living, just enduring.

Roxia felt it clearly. This man had already nearly reached his limit. Once the purpose that had sustained him until now was gone, he would fall apart entirely.

Whatever that fragile first impression suggested, the man’s manners were impeccable.

The way he held his cup, the direction of his gaze as he swallowed a sip of tea, the straightness of his posture — not a single thing went unnoticed.

She let out a quiet sigh.

My sweet little lark really did meet her prince.

Roxia smiled faintly. If a man this noble had endured all that time and come to find her, there could only be one reason.

She spoke aloud a truth she could barely bring herself to believe.

“Alisa…… how did my daughter die?”

The man’s hand, holding his teacup, stopped in midair. The back of his hand went white with tension, and blue veins rose beneath the skin.

He whispered in a suppressed voice.

“She died in my place, saying she would save me.”

“…… Tell me a little more. In detail.”

The man swallowed what must have been still-scalding tea in one go. Even after that, he cleared his cracking throat several times.

“The first time I met Alisa was in the attic of this house.”

Starting from those words, the man began to tell the story — from the day he first met Alisa, to the execution of Leonard II. The foolish things he had done, and how all of it had worn him down. And so, how Alisa had come to die in his place.

After hearing it all, Roxia was silent for a long time. Her lips seemed to have sealed themselves shut, and no words would come.

Some people would call this ending beautiful. Roxia herself had dreamed of a love like this when she was young.

But she had never imagined it would be her young daughter’s future.

That Alisa had found someone she truly loved was a joy. But if that love was truly going to cost her her life, Roxia would have wished for her a dull and unremarkable existence instead. A peaceful, uneventful life that no one noticed and that held no particular meaning.

The man’s quiet voice continued.

“…… Right after she died, other people couldn’t see me.”

“……”

“Then…… after several years had passed, it seemed people began to faintly sense my presence again. From then on, I wandered and shouted. That I, I was Eden. That I was the one who was supposed to die.”

“Did anyone believe you?”

“There were barely any who could hear me to begin with. And even those who heard couldn’t see me, so they treated me like a ghost.”

“For you to be able to have a conversation like this now…… it must have taken roughly a hundred years. Because everyone who knew you had to have died first.”

“That sounds about right.”

“And even now, you still can’t show your face.”

“You’ve understood correctly.”

Two of the same person cannot exist in the same era. If someone from a different time died in his place, he was as good as dead already. That was why others couldn’t see him.

Alisa had truly died in place of his very existence.

Roxia resented the man in front of her. If they had never met, Alisa would never have loved him. And if she had never loved him, she would never have died.

But Roxia herself bore some of the responsibility for Alisa’s death.

Crossing through time required an intense sense of displacement. The feeling that there was no place for you in this era. A loneliness that cut to the bone.

The fact that the two of them had met meant that Alisa, having lost her mother, had been that lonely.

Roxia asked the man.

“You have something you want to ask of me, don’t you. Sending Alisa’s letters for thirty days without showing yourself, unsettling my heart — there was a reason for that.”

If he had come looking for someone to die in his place, she would be disappointed.

Under her sharp gaze, the man opened his mouth calmly.

“There is only one thing I want. For everything to unfold as it was meant to.”

“…… As it was meant to?”

“I want Alisa to survive.”

“Young you dies, and Alisa spends the rest of her life unable to forget you?”

“No, that won’t do. Please make it so Alisa never meets me at all. If she doesn’t spend her childhood in Montrau, she won’t have any reason to cross paths with me.”

The man’s voice as he said this was the lightest she had heard from him. As though he had held on until this very day for the sole purpose of erasing every one of those memories.

Those light words carried a weight almost too heavy to bear. Roxia found herself asking before she could stop herself.

“Did you…… did you not love Alisa? My daughter?”

“I loved her.”

“……”

“And because of that, I want more than anything for her never to have met me. It would make Alisa happier.”

Roxia fell silent, her words failing her.

She, too, had lived as a wanderer for a long time.

She had loved things, lost them, and loved again. Time dulls pain, but the grief that remained without fading was what had kept her human.

Losing is painful.

But she could not have chosen not to love out of fear of losing.

‘And yet he’s saying he’ll give all of it up.’

So they would never cross paths to begin with.

So she would never even have the chance to fall in love.

So he would abandon the young version of himself, lonely enough to cross through time……

Now she could truly believe it. That this man had endured all those long years for the sole purpose of saying these words to her.

Roxia gave a slow nod.

“All right. Then let’s do it this way. I’ll be the one to die in your place — I don’t have long left anyway.”

“What…… you can’t do that!”

Roxia grabbed the arm of the man who had started to rise from his seat.

“In return, I need you to do something far harder for Alisa.”

“…… Please tell me.”

Roxia smiled at him and said.

“Watch over her while I’m gone. That’s something I can’t do.”

“But my lady. Alisa cannot see me.”

“Stay by her side. When she’s lonely, be there with her. When she’s sad, listen. When she’s happy and wants to run to someone and chatter away about it, let her do that. That’s enough.”

The man was silent for a long while, then bowed his head.

“…… Thank you. Truly.”

His voice broke apart. Listening to the sound of tears working their way into it, Roxia pressed both fists tight against her lap.

“Even if everything goes well…… you know you won’t be able to have anything, don’t you?”

Two of the same person cannot exist at once. If the young Eden lives, the older Eden disappears.

Even if Alisa survived, even if she showed her love for Eden — it would not belong to the man sitting across from her now.

The man ran his fingers slowly over the surface of his teacup for a long moment, then lifted his head.

He answered with a smile.

“I have already lost her.”