Time settles slowly in the air, like a layer of dust-light repeatedly caressed, veiling the past that has not yet cooled.
Those fragments of old days float in the depths of memory, like the shadows of stars beneath the water's surface—gently swaying, yet refusing to be extinguished.
When the wind brushes past, it carries away the clear outlines, leaving only the textures and lingering warmth to echo repeatedly within the void. Moments that were once bright are folded into soft creases and tucked into the dark pockets of the years, occasionally gleaming through the silence to remind us that they have never truly departed.
Dusk is always the hour best suited for remembrance. The light becomes hesitant, shadows are stretched thin, and even meaning itself begins to blur. Unfinished emotions are like a stagnant tide, testing the edges of the heart’s lake again and again, yet never overflowing—leaving only a low, persistent resonance.
As night covers all things, memories instead grow clearer. They settle like frost upon old scars—cold and transparent, impossible to ignore. To remember is not to return, but to let things settle—allowing what has passed to slowly develop in the fluid of time, recovering its original shape in the undisturbed darkness.
When all sounds sink into the depths, leaving only a rhythm like breathing, the past is finally laid to rest in a gentle way. At the end of silence, remembrance turns into a faint yet eternal light, illuminating the final instant before oblivion.
If IGCrystal faces the future, then Xirayu stands still within the memory.
Everything in the past was once so beautiful.
On the wall, yellowed photographs hang in silence, yet thoughts surge like a tide, crashing against every nerve of the mind. The warmth in Mother’s arms feels as if it were still there; the first stumbling steps gradually grow steady; the time spent with family, day by day, quietly paves a path of warmth.
Do you still remember that time camping on the mountain with friends? The campfire flickered, illuminating not just the night, but the clumsy yet sincere friendship between us. Standing by the vast river, gazing at the distant shore, the laughter from fishing and catching shrimp mingled with the sound of water; the excitement of crossing the river by steamboat for the first time—so immense it nearly overflowed—still vibrates gently deep within my chest today.
But, there is no going back.
The past did not abandon me suddenly; it merely retreated in silence, leaving me no time for a final farewell. Those beautiful memories gradually fade in time; I reach out to grasp them, but catch only a void. Whenever I think of this, grief surges like the tide, making it nearly impossible to breathe.
If only it could happen once more, how wonderful that would be.
Even if it were just to walk that old path again, to stand by that river once more, to feel—just once—that "now" which I did not know was so precious.
But time has no echo.
It leaves only memory, teaching one to slowly learn how to cherish, amidst the act of losing.