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Dear Professor,
First of all, I would like to apologize to you. Early this morning, I was so reckless as to barge into your room in the Grove before I had thoroughly investigated the situation. I knew that you would be furious regardless of whether my entry was right or wrong, so I must bow down and admit my guilt first. But still, Professor, I had a reason for going there, and it was not that I was impulsive and came up with a new trick to tease you.
Back to the reason why I barged into the room, it was because you cherished what you had if it belonged to your old days, so I tried to protect that. When the Black Tide had destroyed Amphoreus, and the Flame Reaver was waiting to take my life, I was only worried about the chirping mechanical bird and the Dromas lucky bear that you loved so much being broken. So I was bold, I thought I was smart enough to mess around. You can scold me if you want; this time, I won't say anything back.
I visited your new house at least twice after that. No, in fact, I am sure it was more than two, I swear it was more than those time when you talked to me angrily for not calling you Anaxagoras; but I have lost count so long ago that if you were to force me to sit down and search my memory, I could not recall it all. But since you have taught us that less than two is a singular number, I say I have visited you more than that, because it is natural that such occasions occurred many times.
The first time, it was Hyacine who showed me the way. Or rather, she led me, in the form of a pure white bird in the long night sky. I followed her for so long that I saw the sky and the earth filled with stars, making me feel as if I were walking in the void. Would you believe me if I told you I was worried that if I turned around, I would see Castorice standing there waiting for me? I know you will say no, so I admit that I lied. The last time I held a pen, Professor, was a long time ago when you gave me my graduation medal. So if my writing is clumsy and becomes too long-winded for you to follow, please allow me to laugh it off.
After that, I gradually learned to walk there by myself, and my legs sometimes moved even when I was still bewildered. Even so, even if I came in the middle of the night or my body was already broken and covered in blood, you would still welcome me. Your house was windy, I remembered, so I was often afraid that you would be cold. Sometimes I forgot why you would need that, but I couldn't bear to let this habit slip into oblivion.
Sometimes when it was especially quiet, I would sit there absentmindedly, thinking about old memories. Not all of them had the thin face I longed for, but they were all happy memories. I would see Prince Mydei and I soaking for hours in the hot tub, Lady Aglaea thinking as I entered the Hero's Bath in my purple Dromas pant and bright shirt; Castorice furtively buying red stones when the market was about to close, or that day back in the city, with the majestic Trailblazer behind me after a long day of work.
So many, Professor, and then I saw you and your eye-catching turquoise.
To me, green is the color of hope, of the unfading promise of many schools of thought in the Grove of Epiphany. You told me to always look at both sides of things. I kept that in mind, but Professor, I can't find a good idea to say why green is a bad color.
Suddenly, I remember that day when you stood alone amidst all the vile and contemptuous words, my heart was filled with doubt, because since when did Amphoreus become so essential to Anaxagoras that I, his proud student, did not know? I only wondered how you stood so firmly on the platform. I asked myself, Professor, that at the time, was the shadow of death waiting nearby, ready to raise its sword to take your soul, so you played a trick, deciding your own fate instead of entrusting it to Thanatos? My vision is still too narrow; I still cannot understand your intentions after all these years, all these months. Perhaps I should return to you at the Grove of Epiphany, where Miss Hyacine and Castorice are waiting. And perhaps I will become smaller, I believe, so that when I come to you as I did the first time, my shoulders will be only slightly taller than yours. Then the four of us will sit in the classroom again, the sunlight streaming over our shoulders, pouring a pungent smell on the red wood.
You once asked me, “Phainon of the Aedes Elysiae, what is your dream?”
In the past, I said I wanted to follow the fate of a hero, step onto the path of saving the world, shouldering a heavy responsibility. You said I was boring. In fact, I was not happy at that time, not because my life dream was criticized by you as nonsense, but because what everyone told me I should do, all of a sudden, was predicted that it would not be as I expected. At that time, I was young and naive; I thought so, so I did not realize what you had wanted to say for a long time, and then, when I had to really face the precariousness of the universe, I realized what you meant a bit too late.
But Professor, if not me, then who else?
I still can't bear it. When I knew that my fate from now on would move further away from my original wish, the first thing that made me happy was when I realized that besides me, no one else would have to suffer like this.
Only you, dear Anaxagoras, only you, always silently behind my back, poured out your heart and soul to find a way out for me.
Professor, you are truly the most selfish and selfless person in Amphoreus. On that point, I pay my respects to you, as you are naturally the most brilliant scholar in the Grove of Epiphany. Nevertheless, my tears did not fall when you were away. Why, Professor? I’m not sure if I’m capable of providing you with an answer right now. So maybe somewhere in the cosmos or the Sea of Soul, when we finally meet, your brilliant mind might illuminate me with a rightful explanation. In this very moment when my hand can still perform its original function, I just want to tell you all that I know too well but didn’t have the chance to confess.
So, my dream.
To be honest, Professor, I just want to go home. To be once again the boy whose monsters were just old annoying guys with beards, whose sword was no blade but sticks and toys carved from old wood, who dreamed so vividly of the world unknown when sleeping idly beside his childhood friend. I was once an innocent boy, too, standing before the vast sky that seemed to stretch to the end of the universe. If he met me now, he would laugh.
“Why, future me, is it your smile that looks like a weep?”
No, I rethought. My true dream was to bring back the people I like, the ones who shaped me into who I am right now, with no burden on my head. Was that dream expensive? I’m sure it is, Professor, for every lifetime I fought, the life you wasted away always felt like a bit too much to bear for my heart. Here, I held you close to me in your dying breath. I was foolish enough to try to cheat Oronyx to buy you more time by using my hand to stop the bleeding wound. No use, it seems, for everything I have done to bring us back.
Regrettably, I must stop now, for the longevity I have had up. So let me finish off by begging. Professor, if you can still carry that smile you once displayed to me in this loop, come forward to me first, as I might be too shocked to believe you are real. Please walk next to me, using that voice of yours to tell me I’m late, to correct me when I call out to you as “Anaxa” instead of Anaxagoras. For it is what I have desired, and failed to protect in this life of mine.
For tomorrow that we might never have the chance to witness, the one I have promised you to lead us to, I will still fight. Even if all my effort goes in vain next time, or I am certain I will fail again, I will not stop.
For the hope that one day, we will meet each other in the golden field of Aedes Elysiae.
Yours,
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