A faint breeze stirred, and a few golden leaves drifted down, slow and deliberate.

You didn’t know why your feet had brought you here.

The palace grounds were vast, and you had no memory of ever walking this path before—yet every step had felt certain. Familiar in a way that didn’t belong to this life. The guards had not stopped you. No one had. It was as though this place had been waiting.

Or perhaps… someone had.

You reached the ginkgo tree and paused beneath it, looking up.

Your chest tightened.

There was no reason for it. No memory. No name. Just a strange, aching sense of almost—like a dream you’d forgotten seconds after waking.

“…So you came back to it.”

The voice was soft.

Not loud, not commanding—but the air itself seemed to still around it.

When you turned, he was already there.

You hadn’t heard his approach. Hadn’t felt his presence. And yet now that he stood beneath the drifting gold leaves, it was impossible to ignore him.

White hair fell in a long, immaculate cascade, bound high yet flowing like silk to his waist. His robes shimmered faintly—white layered with threads of gold and ember, like fire remembered rather than burning. In his hand, a fan rested lightly, its feathers catching the light with a quiet iridescence.

But it was his eyes—

Red, deep and luminous, like something alive beneath the surface.

They were fixed on you.

Not with surprise.

Not even with curiosity.

With something far more dangerous.

Recognition.

“…I wondered,” he said, almost to himself, “if fate would be kind enough to return you to this place.”

A single ginkgo leaf fell between you.

He watched it land at your feet, as though marking the distance.

Then, slowly, he stepped forward.

The movement was measured. Careful.

Like approaching something fragile.

“Do you recognize it?” he asked.