CHAPTER 162: SEASON THREE—BEGINNING AFTER THE END

[Renji Takeda’s POV—Hospital Room—Awakening]

Beep.

...Beep.

...Beep.

The sound dragged me upward through a sea of darkness—slow, painful, heavy, like my soul was being stitched back into a body it had forgotten.

Something cold touched my skin.

Fabric.

A blanket?

My eyes fluttered. Blinding white stabbed into my vision, and I winced, breath hitching as the world swayed violently around me.

Where...?

Where am I...?

The last thing I remembered was Alvar.

Bleeding in my arms. His hand reaching for me. His voice whispering, "If there’s no Leif... there’s no Alvar either..."

My chest tightened so painfully I thought the monitor beside me would explode, and tears fell from my eyes instinctively.

My breath faltered.

The heart monitor spiked—Beep—beep—beep-beep—!!

Tears slid down my eyes without permission.

"Alvar..." My voice didn’t leave my lips, but the name pulsed painfully inside my mind.

I don’t know if he is alive. I don’t know if he remembers anything. I don’t know if he’s still bleeding somewhere on that battlefield—or living, breathing, somewhere in this world now.

My chest tightened until it felt like my ribs were collapsing inward.

Please... please be alive. Even if you forget me. Even if you never meet me again. Just be alive.

Just exist.

I can handle the rest.

I... I think.

My chest hurt so much it felt like someone was scraping my heart with glass. But then—

"Renji?"

A voice drifted in—distant at first, like someone calling through water. Footsteps rushed closer. Something warm, something human, a presence I hadn’t felt in... years... leaned over me.

"Renji—Renji, can you hear me?!"

I blinked slowly, heavily, like waking up underwater. The blurry shape sharpened into a woman with trembling lashes and eyes shiny with tears.

My mother—Takeda Haruka.

My throat closed.

...Why?

Why is she here?

Why is the woman who walked out on me—who abandoned me—why is she crying over me like this?

Before I could form a word, she gasped and spun toward the hallway. "Doctor—!! Doctor—!! My son is awake! My son—he woke up!"

My son.

...My son?

My chest constricted. The words echoed in my skull because I hadn’t heard them— not from her—not in so many, many years.

She hurried back to me, hands shaking as she grabbed mine. Her fingers were warm. Too warm. Too familiar. Too foreign.

"Oh, my Renji... my baby... Mom has waited so long... so, so long for you to open your eyes..." Her voice cracked. "After... after one year... finally..."

One year.

I stared at her.

One... year?

A hollow tremor slid through me. The same amount of time I spent as—Leif Thorenvald.

In Frojnholm with Alvar.

A year there. A year here.

My head throbbed violently.

And now... I’m Renji again.

I swallowed hard, trying to pull in air, but everything inside me felt wrong. Like I was wearing clothes that didn’t belong to me. Like my bones remembered being someone else.

My mother kept speaking, her voice warm, hopeful, and overflowing with emotion I couldn’t recognize.

But all I felt was—Empty.

So, so empty.

A cold, hollow ache crawled into my ribs and settled there like a ghost.

A life I lived.

A love I lost.

A world I saved. And here I am again—in a tiny, white hospital room, in a body that feels too small, too weak, too human.

I breathed out a broken whisper.

"...Alvar..."

My mother froze. "Renji? What—?"

I shut my eyes. Because if I looked at her, the emptiness might break out of my chest and swallow me whole.

My pulse throbbed painfully in my ears.

He isn’t here. He isn’t beside me. He isn’t calling my name. He isn’t reaching for me with shaking hands. He isn’t saying—"...there’s no Alvar without Leif..."

A tear slid down my cheek and hit the hospital sheet silently.

She squeezed my hand tighter, mistaking my grief for fear. "It’s okay, Renji... You’re safe now. You’re home."

Home?

***

[Renji’s POV—Hospital Room—Later]

The doctor left with a calm smile, papers tucked under his arm.

"He seems stable," he’d said. "No memory loss. He only needs rest, proper meals, and observation before discharge."

Stable.Healthy.Normal.

If only they knew how wrong that was. Now the room was quiet again—too quiet. The kind of quiet that forces you to hear the thoughts gnawing at your skull.

My mother sat at the edge of my bed, fumbling with her hands, her eyes flicking between my face and the floor.

She tried for a smile. "Would you like some water, my dear?"

...My dear.

I stared at her for a long moment. Something inside me cracked... and the words slipped out, heavy, raw: "...Why are you here?"

Her breath hitched. She flinched like I’d slapped her. "I—I was worried—"

A bitter laugh tore from my throat.

"Worried?" I scoffed, shaking my head. "What interesting words... coming from a woman who abandoned me for another family when I was twelve."

Her shoulders stiffened. Her lips trembled. But she didn’t—couldn’t—look at me. "Renji... please. Not now. You just woke up; you need rest—"

"Stop." My voice was thin and weak but sharp enough to cut. "For God’s sake... stop pretending to be my mother."

Her breath caught.

"It disgusts me," I whispered.

Silence.

Her eyes shimmered, but my chest wouldn’t soften—not now. Not after everything. Not after years of silence from her. Not after waking up from a world where my love almost died for me... and returning to a world where the people who should have stayed didn’t.

Tears spilled down my face as my voice cracked apart:

"You should’ve been there." My throat tightened painfully. "When Dad threw me into that orphanage—where were you?!"

My body shook with the force of holding myself together. The heart monitor spiked—beeping harshly.

My mother opened her mouth, shut it, then tried again—voice small, fragile: "Renji... I’m sorry. I—I made mistakes. Terrible mistakes. I know that. But don’t—don’t do this to yourself. You’re weak right now, please..."

I looked away, swallowing the sob building in my throat.

Weak?

No.

I wasn’t weak.

I am empty.

Completely, utterly empty.

After a long moment, I forced myself to speak again—quieter, steadier: "...How did you even know I was here?"

Her fingers twisted in her lap.

She swallowed.

Hard.

"This hospital..." she whispered. "It... belongs to your stepfather. Ishikawa Naoki."

Of course.

Of course.

The universe couldn’t stop giving me things I didn’t ask for.

My lips curled in a broken smile.

"So the only reason you’re here," I said softly, "is because your new husband happens to own this place."

She flinched again, tears gathering in her eyes. "No—Renji, that’s not true. I came because—"

"Because what?" I snapped, cutting her off. "Because your new family

is perfect now, so you came to check whether the old one is dead or not?"

Her breath shattered in her chest.

Tears finally fell from her eyes.

But all I felt was...nothing.

Because while she cried for the past, I cried for a man in another world.

A man who might be alive.A man who might be dead.A man who would never remember me again. A man I wasn’t sure I could live without.

My hand trembled as I gripped the bedsheet.

"Mom..." She looked up immediately—hope flickering. "...home isn’t here."

Her face crumpled.

I closed my eyes, letting a tear slide down my cheek.

My home is Alvar, and he wasn’t here. He wasn’t in this world. He wasn’t in this room. And without him...everything hurt.

But breaking down again wouldn’t help. Not now. Not in front of her.

So I swallowed the ache clawing at my ribs, wiped my tears with the back of my trembling hand, and forced my voice into something flat. Something hollow. Something safe.

"...The hospital bill."

My mother blinked, startled."The—bill?"

"Yes. I don’t want to owe anything to your husband. I’ll pay for it myself."

Her eyes widened, panic rushing into them.

"Renji... no. You don’t understand. Because of this accident you— you lost everything. Your job, your apartment... you don’t have savings anymore. You can’t possibly—"

"I said I’ll pay."

The words cut sharper than I intended, but I didn’t take them back.

I finally looked at her—really looked—and the tears swimming in her eyes didn’t soften me. Not anymore.

"Just think of it as a loan," I continued, voice tightening. "I’ll return every penny. Every single yen."

She opened her mouth, voice trembling—"Renji, you don’t have to—"

"I’m not borrowing your love," I whispered.

She froze.

I stared at my hands—hands that had held Alvar as he bled out in another world—hands that still shook from the memory.

"I refuse," I murmured, "to borrow the burden of something you only remember when I’m convenient."

Silence spread across the room. Thick. Suffocating. Unbearable.

Her shoulders sagged. Her lips parted as if she wanted to say something—anything—but the words didn’t come.

Because there was nothing she could say.

Not now. Not after a lifetime of absence. Not when the only person I wanted to see... didn’t even exist in this world.

I leaned back onto the bed, exhaustion pulling at my bones.

My voice softened—almost fragile.

"...Now please leave."

She flinched.

"I need rest," I finished quietly.

For a moment—just a moment—her face twisted with a mother’s guilt, a mother’s regret, a mother’s ache... But she wasn’t my mother.

She stood slowly, hesitating at the door, as if waiting for me to call her back.

I didn’t.

And eventually—she left.

The door clicked shut.

And I was alone.

Back in my world.Back in my body.Back in a life that felt too small for the grief inside me.

My chest tightened painfully, and I curled a hand over my heart.

"...It’s fine," I whispered to the empty room.

A lie.

"It’s fine... as long as he’s alive."

But the truth hung heavy in the silence: I was alive in a world that had never been home. And the man who was my home... Had forgotten me completely and does not exist anymore.

I stared at the ceiling as tears blurred the lights above.

A new world.A new beginning.

And a heart still buried in a world I could never return to.