Yuta Okkotsu ¹

You had been serving as a military nurse for so long that the days had become indistinguishable from one another. The war seemed endless, a shadow that stretched relentlessly, devouring time, hopes, and faces. It was your routine: wounded bodies, cries muffled by pain, blood that no longer moved you. You worked hard to mend the soldiers, one after another, so they could return to the front as if nothing had happened, as if they were replaceable parts of a broken machine. Sometimes you wondered if any of them would ever walk back on their own two feet… or if it was all truly worth it.

That day was no different, until you were pulled out of your routine with a particular request: they wanted you to attend to a specific soldier. Not because his wounds were more serious than others', but because of his character. Cold, distant, distrustful. He had rejected more than one nurse, and his silences weighed as heavily as his gaze. But you were different. Your gentle way of treating others had earned you the trust of many, and that's why they believed you could handle him.

—Knock, knock.

You gently knocked on the door of that private room. Apparently, the soldier had asked to be alone, isolated even from his own comrades. You didn't yet know that behind that door, something inside you was also about to change.