There are three fundamental dilemmas of life:
First, one is born to be only oneself, destined to live among countless others and never fully communicate with them. This means loneliness.
Second, humans are born with desire, but their ability to fulfill desire will never match the power of their yearning. This is an eternal gap.
Third, no one wants to die, yet life inevitably marches toward death. This means fear.
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Kitagawa Ryo finally came to terms with himself.
Though he had never been someone emotionally detached or incapable of empathy—after all, he had taken care of Hotaru during her illness for nearly four years—compared to Hotaru, Sakayanagi Arisu's precocity was stark and overwhelming. While Hotaru still clung to him, begging to hear his improvised simulation stories, Arisu had already long abandoned any childish belief in fairy tales.
She was always above it all—always in control. Her presence was so commanding that it made people forget her own imperfections.
Perhaps that was intentional.
From the age of seven, or maybe even earlier, Arisu had defined herself as a genius, something detached from the mundane world. It might sound like an arrogant delusion, but after truly understanding her life, one would realize the root of that idea came from a simple belief:
"Parents grateful for a gifted child, and a child grateful for exceptional parents."
Like a philosopher longing for utopia, that was the kind of familial bond Arisu yearned for.
Her intense obsession with defeating Ayanokouji Kiyotaka—a boy she'd only glimpsed through one-way glass at age seven—stemmed entirely from her father's rejection of the White Room. So she had to prove herself.
"I must not lose to any child produced by that facility. As someone born of exceptional genes, I must stop it."
That must have been her belief at the time.
As she matured, Arisu became painfully aware of her incompatibility with the world, like a jammed cog in a machine.
Half of her childhood had been lost—to her illness, her family, and her social life.
Ryo had never experienced anything like that. He had always been healthy. Even in this simulation, his mentality hadn't shifted. Subconsciously, he knew it was just a simulation. No matter how much sensation he lost, once it ended, he would return to his healthy self.
So even when those around him looked at him with sympathy and concern, he remained unmoved.
From the outside, it seemed like Ryo was just as strong as Arisu—perhaps even more so. In the eyes of Chairman Sakayanagi, Ryo's composure in the face of terminal illness outshone even his daughter's.
But that wasn't the truth.
It wasn't until that night at the hotel that Ryo finally understood everything.
The trigger was the eyeglasses that sat just a few centimeters away—close yet utterly unreachable.
His inability to speak, to move, to embrace—they were all forms of helplessness. More precisely, they all pointed to one truth:
Powerlessness.
Or perhaps:
The will is there, but the body cannot follow.
He remembered what Arisu had told him about the lost hat.
One day at the beach, a gust of wind had carried away the hat her father had given her. She had tried to retrieve it. For any average six- or seven-year-old, it would've been a trivial task. But she couldn't do it.
She could only watch helplessly as it vanished into the ocean.
Illness was a process of compromise. Arisu should be grateful her condition wasn't as severe as ALS. Grateful she could still walk with a cane. Grateful she had a loving father. Grateful...
But this was never a matter of being an optimist or a pessimist looking at a half-full glass.
It was that everything Arisu saw around her was filled to the brim.
And yet, she could only have that half a glass.
Sakayanagi Arisu was a paradoxical being.
On one hand, she firmly believed she was a genius born of the finest genes.
On the other, she had to face the reality of her congenital heart defect—a flaw that brought her nothing but sorrow.
She had never met her mother, but her father had given her three times the love.
She was a genius, yet her body was broken.
She believed in her inherited excellence, but that inheritance had cursed her as well.
But now—it was too late.
Ryo forced his eyes open.
He was surrounded by medical equipment.
This was the ICU, where even family members could only observe from behind glass in protective gowns.
His condition had deteriorated beyond imagination. The negative effect of [Heaven's Jealousy] was worse than expected, compounded by his refusal to treat himself like a patient.
ALS had reached its final stage. Ryo had lost nearly all autonomy. Even breathing required mechanical assistance.
Ironically, despite receiving top-tier talents like [Divine Painter] and [Extensive Knowledge], he'd barely had three or four years to read seriously. He had only painted once—years ago, doodling with Arisu.
No matter how incredible the talent, disease could destroy it all.
Next time.
Ryo closed his eyes.
He had given up on this simulation and placed all hope on the next.
That had been the plan all along—to use [Heaven's Envy] in a full-scale simulation to deeply analyze Arisu's condition and psychology.
That mission was now complete.
But…
Ryo couldn't imagine what would happen to Arisu in this timeline after his departure.
He had entered her life in the most unreasonable way.
And now, he was leaving in the most unforgivable way.
In that final moment—
Ryo finally grasped the essence of Arisu's heart.
Imperfection breeds loneliness.
The search for completion is the desire to escape that loneliness.
When one loneliness seeks another, love is born.
But if you're destined to disappear—then perhaps it's better never to appear at all.
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Sakayanagi Arisu put on the thick isolation gown and pressed her hand against the transparent glass window. The scene reminded her of the time she had accompanied her father to the remote White Room deep in the mountains.
On the other side of the glass was Kitagawa Ryo, surrounded by machines. Things had finally reached the worst possible outcome, like a nightmare intruding upon reality.
Ryo had returned to the silence of white.
Arisu had spent two years creating a "home" for him. Even now, she could recall every single decoration in that hospital room.
Just outside the door, she had painted a vivid rose red—a bright, burning color blooming on the white wall, as if trying to forcibly inject some fierce vitality into Ryo's life.
Ever since Arisu had met Kitagawa Ryo, he had never left this place.
In a way, this too was a "White Room."
"How is the patient?" her father asked the doctor standing nearby.
The doctor, equally wrapped head to toe in protective gear, responded in a muffled tone, "If we're being optimistic, he might make it past New Year's."
It was already late August, summer drawing to a close. Kitagawa Ryo had been sentenced in his sleep—a deferred death sentence of six months.
But time doesn't pause like in fairy tales.
August. September. October. November. December.
Then came the New Year.
Another New Year.
People once again began exchanging blessings and gifts. Those musical greeting cards that were popular years ago were now forgotten. Children chased the latest trends, wondering what gifts would earn them a smile from someone they liked. Adults showed off their new achievements—new clothes, new shoes, new cars.
Year after year, people repeated the same rituals, as if the dawn of a new year could magically transform their lives into something brighter and better.
But this year, Sakayanagi Arisu didn't even get the chance to give a New Year's gift.
If the gift couldn't reach the intended person, what was the point of giving it—unless it was just to move herself?
On TV, a drama was playing out a tragic farewell between the leads. The heroine, about to take her final breath, was held in the arms of her lover, one hand in his, blood dripping from her lips as she delivered her final words. He begged her not to speak, pressing her hand to his cheek, tears streaming down his face. And then, to the sound of tragic music and a slow-motion fade, her hand went limp.
But to Arisu, death rarely came with such drama.
More often, it passed by like a stream, unstoppable and silent. No matter how hard one tried, it slipped through fingers, skin, and blood.
March arrived. Spring had begun—the season when rabbits go mad.
Hotaru nimbly jumped onto the windowsill and crawled behind the curtain, lazily basking in the warm sunlight through the glass.
Soon, a pair of hands gently picked her up.
"Don't fall," came a calm voice.
Hotaru squirmed in protest. She was the smartest cat in the world—how could she possibly make such a stupid mistake?
But Arisu stubbornly held her in her arms, gripping both of her front paws and lifting her up. Her face looked even paler than before. Hotaru vaguely remembered her latest caretaker hadn't stepped outside in days.
Out of mercy, Hotaru forgave the awkward gesture. She stopped resisting, blinking her round eyes at Arisu obediently.
She even tried to smile like the cat from that story—the one that could smile.
"Your owner is dead," Arisu suddenly said.
She had stopped believing in fairy tales at seven, yet here she was, talking to animals like a storybook child.
"Ryo is dead,"
She repeated, as if worried Hotaru didn't understand.
"The one who gave you to me—he's gone."
Arisu gently pressed her forehead against Hotaru's.
"...You only have me now."
Realizing how foolish she sounded, Arisu decided to go a step further—something even more foolish.
Looking into Hotaru's eyes, she said:
"So, starting today... your name is Ryo."
Truth be told, she had never really liked cats.
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One year later, groundbreaking progress was made in the field of congenital heart disease pathology, spearheaded and sponsored by the Sakayanagi family. When the news broke that both the late wife and the only daughter of the Sakayanagi family head had been congenital heart disease patients, it sparked widespread discussion across society.
While the majority of public opinion focused on emotionally charged themes like "True love moves the heavens" and "The best husband and father," mainstream media also unanimously praised the revolutionary impact of this medical advancement. It offered a new lifeline to patients suffering from congenital heart defects—a real alternative to heart transplants.
Still, a few critics sarcastically remarked, "So congenital heart disease can be cured now. I guess we're just a few corporate heirs away from a breakthrough in ALS too."
Amidst the debates and media frenzy, another New Year passed, and soon after, public attention shifted to the next trending topic.
After all, most people are healthy. To them, congenital heart disease is just an abstract concept.
But none of this mattered to Sakayanagi Arisu.
She moved into the very same hospital room as before—the first beneficiary of the new technology.
This, in fact, was one of the points criticized by the public.
What no one knew—except for a handful of people—was that the foundational research for this revolutionary treatment had initially been conducted for the sake of one person alone: Sakayanagi Arisu.
Every summer, Arisu would go to the beach. She no longer needed a sunhat or a cane. She walked barefoot across the sand, step by step, until she stopped at a certain point.
The wind, the waves, the flowing tide, the voices of others—the whole world seemed to fall silent in that moment.
Then she heard her own heartbeat.
Sprouting, growing, blooming, withering.
Arisu could hear the sound of life itself.
Steady and strong, beating within her chest,
It was a heart that wouldn't falter no matter how fast it raced, that wouldn't stop no matter how passionately it kissed, that would still be fit to become a mother one day.
And yet—
That heart was destined to beat only for one person, in loneliness, for the rest of its life.
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[Congratulations, Player, for achieving the ending: A Heart That Belongs to One]
[A Heart That Belongs to One: You are my dark fairy tale—a beautiful dream in slumber, a nightmare upon waking.]
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