Chapter 78 – What Love Remembers

About five days later, in the gentle light of early morning, Geneviève sat quietly beside Naosa’s hospital bed, like a guardian angel.

“Auntie Geneviève…” Naosa stirred awake, her voice barely a whisper.

Geneviève gasped with overwhelming relief, tears spilling freely as she gently stroked her niece’s head. “Thank goodness… thank goodness you’re back…”

She hurried to call Naoaki and Alex, who had been waiting anxiously just outside in the hall.

Naosa smiled sweetly with innocent warmth. “Dad…”

Naoaki’s breath caught in profound relief. But when Alex stepped forward and reached out with trembling hands to touch her cheek, Naosa tilted her head in genuine confusion and asked,

“Who are you? Why are you crying?”

Alex felt the ground fall away beneath him, his world crumbling again.

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A doctor was called immediately to examine her thoroughly. She had lost most of her memories, but there were no signs of physical brain damage. The doctor explained that it isn’t unusual for coma patients to experience memory loss, especially if something emotionally traumatic occurred just before they collapsed. He added, clinically, that while some patients eventually regain their memories, others never do. They would have to wait patiently and monitor her progress over time.

While it was an immeasurable blessing that Naosa had survived, for Alex it felt as if he had lost her all over again—perhaps more completely than death itself.

She was discharged with careful instructions to let her rest completely and avoid anything that could trigger another collapse.

Back home, Lu and Kacy were overjoyed to see her alive.
But Naosa didn’t remember them, either.

Kazu had returned, deeply worried about her condition. But when Naosa looked at him with blank, unrecognizing eyes, Kazu broke down crying. Lu hugged him tight, and Kacy turned away, wiping her tears in private.

Even in the joy of her return, an unshakable emptiness settled over the house like heavy fog.
It was as if the sun had disappeared from their world for good.

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Naosa wandered the house restlessly, asking over and over in desperate confusion, “Where’s Mom? Where’s my mom?” Even when Naoaki gently explained that Sarotte had passed away years ago, Naosa wept inconsolably and begged to see her.

Geneviève and Naoaki quietly concluded that Naosa had likely lost all memory after the age of six—reverting to the small child who had just lost her mother.

Before returning to France, Geneviève said softly, with the weight of old wisdom, “The piano isn’t a curse. It was always her guide and protector. Let her play. It may help her remember.”

So Naoaki took Naosa to the music room with careful hope. The moment she saw the piano, she rushed to it like a child running into her mother’s arms.

She began playing frantically—wild, rapid, fiercely emotional. Even when Naoaki tried to calm her, she pushed him away and kept playing with desperate urgency.

Alex eventually guided her back to her bedroom, but she refused to eat and rose in the middle of the night to play again.

It turned alarmingly obsessive. She played until she collapsed, unconscious on the floor from exhaustion.

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Alex carried her back to bed with gentle care and, reluctantly, locked the music room.

The next morning, she woke and went straight for the piano. Finding the door locked, she sat down in front of it and sobbed with heartbreaking desperation.

“Please let me play… just let me touch the piano…”

Alex knelt beside her, trying to comfort her, but Naosa wailed with mounting distress.

“I need to play—I have to hurry—I have to find him…”

The commotion brought Kazu out of his room, concerned.

“Nao, don’t make things harder for Alex.”

Naosa clung to him with desperate hope. “Kazu, please help me. Open the door. I need to play the piano. We’re family, right? Best friends… please!”

Alex and Kazu exchanged a meaningful look.

Kazu asked gently, with careful hope, “Nao… do you remember me?”

Naosa nodded through tears, recognition clear. “Of course, Kazu… You’re Kazu. You’ve always been with me.”

Hope lit everyone’s eyes like the breaking of dawn.

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Alex unlocked the music room immediately.

Naosa threw herself onto the bench and began playing again—desperately, endlessly. Even when her fingers trembled with fatigue or dizziness blurred her vision, she wouldn’t stop. She played until she collapsed. Again and again.

The house settled into a quiet, prayerful rhythm of waiting and hope.

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A week passed. Then two.

One day, she looked up during a break from playing and smiled with sudden recognition. “Lu…? Kacy?”

Her memories of them had begun to return.

But no matter how long she played after that breakthrough, nothing else came back.

Alex watched quietly as Naosa laughed with Lu, chatted warmly with Kacy, and even spoke peacefully with Naoaki—her once-bitter relationship with him seemingly healed by her innocence.

Lu sat beside Alex one evening and said gently, hopeful, “She’ll remember you soon, too.”

But the emptiness in his heart only deepened with each passing day.

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Even though she no longer remembered him, Alex continued living in her room as before—clinging to desperate hope. At night, he slept on the couch beside her bed, never leaving her side.

One evening, Naosa asked with innocent curiosity, “Why are you always near me?”

Alex offered a faint, practiced smile. “I want to protect you. I’m just here to make sure you don’t collapse again.”

Naosa gave him that same sweet smile—the one he used to know so intimately. “Thank you,” she said softly.

But Alex was nearing his breaking point.

The doctors had warned him not to force memories or reveal too much. So he couldn’t tell her who he was, couldn’t tell her what they’d shared, couldn’t explain their love.

A month passed in agonizing limbo.

Geneviève and Naoaki gently suggested postponing the wedding indefinitely.

Alex couldn’t hold it in any longer.

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One night, when Naosa smiled and said innocently, “Good night,” Alex looked at her and whispered, raw with pain,

“Can you really not remember me…? Please, Nao… please remember…”

Tears streamed down his face like water from a broken dam.

Naosa stared, stunned by his anguish. “Don’t cry…” she said, cupping his cheeks with her gentle hands. But when he leaned forward and kissed her with desperate love—

“No!”

She pushed him away on instinct.

“I’m sorry. I—I deeply love someone. I know I do with every fiber of my being. But I can’t remember who! The piano won’t tell me his name! I only know I can’t be with anyone else. Even if you like me… I can’t return your feelings. Maybe I’ll never remember him. But please… forget me. Find someone else and be happy…”

She sank to the floor, sobbing with heartbreak.

Alex was silent—utterly defeated.

He left her room without a word.

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That night, he walked alone to the beach where she had once loved to skimboard in happier times. He sat in the cold sand and cried—like a man who had lost everything that mattered.

“I’ve lost everything… because of what I’ve done in the past…”

Then he took Naosa’s engagement ring from his pocket—the symbol of their love—
and threw it into the sea with finality.

The next day, Alex packed his belongings with mechanical precision.

He left the house that had once been filled with laughter, warmth, and love—now a mausoleum of memories.

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