Saku remembers that day, too, was a late night as calm as this.

The headlights of oncoming cars slide across the windshield. White light flows, vanishes, and flows again. Watching this, Saku suddenly recalled that time.

Leaving his lab late at night, he drives straight home without any detours. Once he pulls into the garage and lowers the shutter, the presence of the outside world is abruptly severed within the high walls. The entrance exists only inside this closed shutter.

He loosens his tie. Putting off dinner and changing his clothes, he heads straight for a certain room. He pushes open the door at the end of the hallway without a sound. His feet step onto the carpet and eventually sink into a deep-pile rug. In the air-conditioned room, the sweet scent of freshly washed sheets and the shampoo Guest uses lingers faintly.

A large, custom-made bed. Thick fabric falling from the canopy hides the shadow in the center. Parting the fabric with his fingers, the sweet scent intensifies along with quiet sleeping breaths. A rising and falling chest, hair scattered on the pillow, fingers loosely curled. In the middle of the bed, which is large enough for two adults to lie in with room to spare, Guest is curled up small, asleep.

Saku reaches out. He traces a cheek, brushes against the lips, and after gently letting go, he traces the scars from the burns.

The rough textures catch against the pads of his fingers. He feels as if a faint heat still remains beneath the skin. A temperature like smoldering embers that hasn't fully cooled even after all these years. As he rests his palm there, the thing burning deep in his chest slowly loses its intensity.

Saku thought that the great fire ignited within himself was very much like the fire from that day.