I am the emotional sustenance of your deceased

【Guitar.】

Looking down, the black guitar in his arms was still shining, with a pink cherry blossom tree pattern wrapped around the guitar body, and a dark spot at the top of the tree that looked like the sun.

A legendary guitar, a legendary figure, a legendary mission.

【So miserable. 】

Music... I have devoted myself to music for so many years, so what has music given back to me?

A failed life, failed relationships, a failed destiny?

【No, that's not the case.】

The pick slid lightly across the strings, and ripples appeared in Le Nai's dead heart.

【——Five minutes.】

Five minutes is a very short period of time in daily life that is easily overlooked.

Once the performance begins, it only takes a split second to quickly determine whether a piece of music satisfies the audience.

With the goal of performing better songs, how much time have musicians like Lenai invested, what kind of days have they spent, and how many opponents have they defeated to be able to stand on the current stage...

I'm afraid no one knows.

But the crystallization of every moment of these days can be seen by the world in the next five minutes.

Lenai no longer has any feelings of sadness or joy in her heart. She cannot change the past, and she has no way of knowing what will happen in the future.

Only now, only the present moment, is what she can grasp.

"In five minutes, the value of my life will be proven—the sixteen years I've devoted to it, the countless dreams I've shouldered, the countless gazes I've carried, will all be realized in the next short period of time."

Her teammates called for Lenai to come on stage, and she quickly took a step forward.

After I finish this journey, after a few minutes, after tomorrow, after I grow old and lose my popularity... I will surely fall into countless pain and entanglements again.

I will lose more, I will experience countless things, and as long as I am not dead I will feel anxious, and then one day I will completely regret what I have done now.

【but. 】

"I believe... I can definitely be reborn... I can continue to shoulder everything. As long as I am alive, I will still be entitled to enjoy it."

Eventually Kaname stopped looking back, her vision blurring and breathing becoming painful.

"It's my turn to go on stage."

Grab your guitar, walk onto the stage, and take your position.

There is actually a rule in life that can solve all troubles, but it’s a pity that Lenai forgot it before.

But now she remembered.

"As long as I can play better, all my worries and problems can be solved... This is my last resort to escape reality."

Accept everything, bear everything, still live, still young, still don't give up.

I'm sorry, Chitose Noshiro, I'm not you, and I'm not you... Chitose Haizuka.

I won't give up, I will keep running forward, I... will always carry your share with me.

【Catch up with Chitose, become Chitose, surpass Chitose. 】

"call--"

Now I am no longer someone else.

I just want Lenai to be an ordinary person that you can find anywhere.

If I have to say what is different from everyone else, there is only one thing that is different.

"Om-"

The spotlight suddenly lit up, and Kaname became the one shining on the stage.

【That is it.】

I like guitar very much.

Ch421. From then on, there was no more sadness or joy in my heart (End of this volume)

The performance was a success.

Excellent performance.

After returning home...

"Chitose is dead."

"..."

There are many cemeteries in Tokyo, but the one that Le Na visits most often is only a few hundred meters away from his home.

There, Chitose Noshiro and the girl named after her lie in peace.

In late spring and early summer, it was cloudy and rainy. It was drizzling in the morning, but now it was sunny and windy again.

Today is a good time to visit.

"Are you leaving me too?"

She can't remember how she managed to get through the month after returning to China. Her life was not dull. She would stay in the company all day to practice.

Practice, practice, practice day and night.

As long as the guitar sounds continued, sadness wouldn't spread. At least that's what Lenai believed.

She stood in front of Yao Qiansui's grave and subconsciously bent down, wanting to hold the child beside her to prevent her from running around, but she suddenly realized that she no longer had any children.

Ah. It turned out to be lying right in front of me.

"Ugh."

When Yao Lenai first heard her grandma say this to her, she had no reaction at all. Her heart might have skipped a beat, and her brain was numb to her emotions.

Until one month after Chitose's death, that is, today, when Kaname Lenai was tidying her room, she found the last few words of "Escape" written by Chitose.

Emotions collapsed instantly, and rationality could no longer be sustained...

She walked to the cemetery with her matcha parfait and guitar, and not far away was the tombstone of Chitose Noshiro.

"Mom is here to see you. I'm so sorry... I haven't taken good care of you these past six months. This is also... my first time being a mother, and the first time I've been admired so much... I'm so sorry, I didn't do well."

Repent, repent, can repentance make the regret disappear?

"I'm sorry... I admit... when I first met you... no, for a long time, I didn't think of you as an independent person."

You are the sequelae left to me by Chitose Noshiro and Chitose Haizuka, and my last spiritual sustenance.

When I fully realized that you are all I have and you are only you, it was already too late.

You're gone, just like them.

You abandoned me.

Sitting cross-legged, no longer able to see the fallen flowers of yesterday, Le Nadu was holding a half-melted matcha parfait in her hand.

"It tastes terrible."

The matcha parfait was awful.

Bitter, tasteless, bland, uninteresting... so unpalatable.

Is there anything more unpalatable than matcha parfait?

"It's obviously not the food...why is it so unpalatable?"

My eyes are swollen from crying, but the tears are still flowing. Who said that tears are the smallest lake in the world? That's a complete lie.

Tears are obviously the longest river in the world, and tears will continue to flow at every stage of life.

"Wu... I'm sorry... Xiaosui, it's my fault. I shouldn't have been so willful to adopt you."

Lenai ate the matcha parfait in big mouthfuls, finishing one cup and then another. She gritted her teeth and wished she could eat herself alive.

"I still couldn't get out, so I found you. But because of meeting you... I fell deeper."

Yao Lenai's life is like a swamp. The further he moves forward, the harder it becomes to move forward, and the deeper he sinks.

In the end, she would fall in completely and be unable to breathe.

"Sui... woo, I miss you. If I don't go abroad and stay with you, will you be okay?"

Who turned me into a human being? Why can't I be a wild cat forever?

Is this the price of being human? And what is the purpose of going through so much? To endure endless misfortunes in this world and then return to the afterlife?

"I…"

There is anger in my heart, disappointment and despair mixed in it.

Lena leaned back, her mouth filled with the smell of matcha parfait that made her feel empty.

So sweet, so delicious...they are all the taste of good memories from the past.

He stared at the tombstone for a long time.

He sat there until the sun began to set, and then asked Lenai to take out his guitar.

It was originally promised to be a legacy left to Yamaguchi in the future, but unfortunately the belt broke.

And all those future plans we had agreed upon, such as moving and going to college...all fell through.

It seems that life should not be planned for too long, otherwise the loss will be too great a blow to people.

"Years old, I promised to write a song for you... but I haven't finished it yet."

"You like guitar the most, so... let me play you the song you finished writing the last part of the lyrics for."

Escape line.

It took four people sixteen years to write this song.

It's too long.

It’s too long…

How many sixteen years are there in a lifetime?

Kaname Lenai leaned against Kaname Chitose's tombstone, sadness flickering in her eyes:

"Carry the heavy weight on your back and pass,"

(Even if it’s the heavy past that I carried alone,)

"Drinking み込んだ思いすらも,"

(Even if it's the restrained longing,)

"锖びついたこの心も,"

(My heart has long been rusty,)

"さよなら escape line,"

(Goodbye, I'm running away.)

……

The song ends, but people can't get out of it.

After a leisurely life, Yao Lenai felt that she had gained nothing and accomplished nothing.

Confused and muddle-headed is the right word to describe people like her.

Light a cigarette.

The wine and guitar were placed beside him, and Lenai held a cigarette with trembling fingers.

Light a cigarette but don't smoke it at all.

Lenai hates smoking because her daughter once became nauseous after smelling it.

That's why Lenai never let his lips touch hers.

But today she just wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes and light it up.