Chapter 8: When the Cherries Bloom Again

Cheryl kept her word.

During the final seven days, she never asked me to take her back.

She never cooked my favorite meals, recreated old dates, or asked the System about my affection level.

Instead, she spent her remaining time with Jasper.

She brought him to the hospital every afternoon while I recovered.

Sometimes he showed me drawings.

Sometimes he talked about boxing.

Sometimes he simply sat beside the bed and watched cartoons with the volume turned low.

He stopped calling me Daddy every other sentence.

At first, I thought Cheryl had told him not to.

Then one afternoon, he explained it himself.

"Mommy said I shouldn't call people things just because I want something from them."

I looked toward Cheryl.

She stood near the window.

"She said you were my daddy when I didn't want you to be, and then she told me Gavin was my daddy, and then when Gavin was mean, she told me you were my daddy again."

For a five-year-old, it was an unexpectedly accurate summary.

"What do you want to call me?" I asked.

Jasper thought for a long time.

"Kevin."

Cheryl winced.

I smiled.

"Kevin is fine."

Jasper nodded seriously.

"Maybe someday I can call you Daddy again."

"Maybe."

I didn't promise.

He didn't ask me to.

That was progress.

Beatrix visited whenever her shifts allowed.

Cheryl was polite to her now.

The jealousy had disappeared.

On the fifth day, I overheard them speaking outside my hospital room.

"Thank you for saving him," Cheryl said.

Beatrix answered, "I didn't do anything another doctor wouldn't have done."

"You were there."

There was a long pause.

"I wasn't."

I looked away from the door.

Some regrets didn't need punishment.

Living with them was punishment enough.

I was discharged on the morning of Cheryl's final day.

Beatrix insisted on driving me home.

When we arrived, Cheryl and Jasper were already waiting beneath the cherry tree.

The tree looked different.

The season was changing.

Most of the fruit had been picked, and a few leaves had begun turning at the edges.

Jasper held a small paper bag.

"These are for you."

Inside were cherry pits.

I looked at him questioningly.

"I saved them."

"Why?"

"Mommy said trees can grow from them."

Cheryl smiled sadly.

"It's more complicated than that, but he insisted."

Jasper looked at the empty patch near the fence.

"Can we plant one?"

I hesitated.

Then I picked up the small garden shovel.

"Come on."

We planted several pits together.

They might never grow.

It didn't matter.

Sometimes planting something wasn't about guaranteeing the result.

It was about being willing to wait and see.

When we finished, Jasper brushed dirt from his hands.

"Kevin?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you still mad at me?"

"A little."

He nodded solemnly.

"Okay."

"Are you mad at me?"

He thought about it.

"A little."

"Fair enough."

He smiled.

The System suddenly spoke.

"Return mission deadline: ten minutes."

Cheryl's body stiffened.

Jasper's smile vanished.

The moment had arrived.

Cheryl walked toward me.

She looked almost exactly as she had on our wedding day.

Not because of her clothes or makeup.

Because she was crying while trying to smile.

Back then, I had mistaken her happiness about leaving for happiness about marrying me.

Today, there was no misunderstanding.

"Kevin, I'm sorry."

"I know."

"I know saying it doesn't fix anything."

"It doesn't."

She gave a tiny laugh through her tears.

"You really are cold now."

"You spent nine years teaching me."

Her smile disappeared.

"I deserved that."

She looked toward the house.

"I used to think this place was a prison."

Her gaze moved across the porch, the windows, and finally the cherry tree.

"Every morning I woke up thinking about how many affection points I still needed. Every anniversary felt like another checkpoint. Every time you smiled at me, I wondered whether the number had increased."

She lowered her head.

"I never stopped long enough to understand that while I was pretending to build a life with you, I actually was building one."

I said nothing.

"Gavin was the future I kept imagining. You were the life I refused to see."

Tears rolled down her cheeks.

"By the time I saw it, I'd already destroyed it."

The System announced, "Five minutes remaining."

Cheryl looked at Jasper.

"Say goodbye."

He immediately began crying.

"I don't want to go."

She crouched and hugged him.

"I know."

"I want to stay with Kevin."

My chest tightened.

Cheryl looked at me.

For one terrifying moment, I thought she was going to ask me to take him.

Instead, she said, "Kevin doesn't owe us that."

Jasper sobbed.

"But he's my daddy."

Cheryl closed her eyes.

"Yes."

It was the first time I had ever heard her say it without manipulation behind the word.

"Kevin is your father. Gavin never was."

Jasper looked at me.

I crouched despite Beatrix's warning not to strain myself.

"Hey."

He wiped his face.

"Remember what I taught you at the gym?"

He nodded.

"Elbows in."

"And?"

"Keep my hands up."

"And if you get knocked down?"

"Get back up."

"Good."

He threw himself into my arms.

This time, I hugged him back.

The System chimed.

"Affection toward dependent entity: fifty-eight percent."

Cheryl's eyes widened.

Then she laughed.

It was a strange, broken laugh.

"Of course."

I understood why.

For nine years, she had been obsessed with making a number reach one hundred.

Now the only affection that had risen was the affection she couldn't use to complete her mission.

"Target affection toward host: zero percent."

Cheryl nodded.

"That's okay."

The System said, "Two minutes remaining."

Jasper pulled away from me.

"Will you forget me again?"

The question stopped my heart more effectively than the cardiac episode had.

I looked at Cheryl.

She looked frightened too.

"System," she said. "Will this world's memories be erased again?"

"Upon permanent departure, all unauthorized traces will be removed."

Jasper started crying harder.

"No!"

I felt a surge of anger.

"What about my memories?"

"Target memory retention is unnecessary."

"I didn't ask whether it was necessary."

The System went silent.

"Will I remember my son?"

"Probability of complete memory deletion: ninety-nine point seven percent."

Jasper clung to me.

"I don't want you to forget me!"

I held him tightly.

For the first time since Cheryl returned, panic tore through my calm.

I had accepted losing him.

I had accepted being angry with him.

I had even accepted that I might never love him the same way again.

But I didn't want those five years erased.

The birthday cakes.

The feverish nights.

His first steps.

Teaching him to ride a bicycle.

Carrying him asleep from the car.

Even the painful memories belonged to me.

"Those memories are mine," I said.

The System didn't respond.

"You don't get to take them."

"Thirty seconds remaining."

Cheryl suddenly smiled.

"Kevin."

I looked at her.

"Thank you for loving him when I taught him not to love you back."

Her body began to glow faintly.

Jasper screamed.

"Daddy!"

I held his hand.

"I'm here."

"Don't forget me!"

"I'll try."

"Promise!"

My vision blurred.

"I promise."

Light swallowed them.

Cheryl's final expression wasn't relief like the first time she left.

It was regret.

Then they disappeared.

The yard became silent.

My hand was empty.

For several seconds, I couldn't move.

Beatrix came to stand beside me.

"Kevin?"

I turned toward her.

Something was wrong.

I knew I had been speaking to someone.

I knew someone had been standing beneath the cherry tree.

But their faces were already fading.

I grabbed my head.

"No."

Beatrix caught my arm.

"What's happening?"

"I can't remember."

A woman's name slipped away.

A child's laughter became distant.

The System was erasing them.

Then my eyes fell on the freshly disturbed soil.

Cherry pits.

I stared at them.

Something inside me refused to let go.

Daddy.

The word echoed faintly.

Jasper.

I gasped.

"Jasper."

Beatrix frowned.

"Who?"

"My son."

The memories came back in fragments.

Cheryl.

The birthday cake.

The wedding.

The System.

Gavin.

Jasper wearing boxing gloves far too large for his hands.

I repeated their names aloud until my throat hurt.

"Cheryl Bennett. Jasper Ford. Cheryl Bennett. Jasper Ford."

Beatrix didn't understand.

But she sat beside me beneath the tree and let me repeat them.

Eventually, the pressure in my head disappeared.

The memories remained.

Perhaps the System had failed.

Perhaps my connection to it had always been abnormal.

Or perhaps some memories simply refused to die.

One year later, the cherry tree bloomed again.

My heart condition was under control after surgery and months of treatment.

I still worked at the boxing gym, although Beatrix constantly reminded me that being medically cleared did not mean I was immortal.

She still came over for dinner.

Only now, she didn't pretend she was there to learn how to cook.

One evening, we sat beneath the cherry blossoms as petals drifted onto the table.

Beatrix pointed toward the fence.

"Kevin."

"Hmm?"

"Look."

A tiny green shoot had emerged from the soil where Jasper and I had buried the cherry pits.

I stared at it for a long time.

Against every reasonable expectation, one had grown.

Beatrix smiled.

"Looks like you're going to have another tree."

I crouched beside the fragile seedling.

For a moment, I remembered a five-year-old boy with oversized boxing gloves telling me he could punch.

The memory still hurt.

But pain was no longer the only thing attached to it.

I smiled.

"Yeah."

Beatrix sat beside me.

"Are you going to keep it?"

"Of course."

"It could take years before it bears fruit."

I looked up at the tree that had once represented everything Cheryl refused to wait for.

Then I looked at the tiny seedling.

"That's okay."

For most of my life, I had been afraid of being abandoned.

That fear had made me accept fake vows, borrowed affection, and a family that had already chosen another world.

I didn't fear being alone anymore.

And because of that, I was finally capable of choosing who I wanted beside me.

Beatrix reached for my hand.

I let her take it.

There was no System announcing an affection level.

No mission.

No countdown.

No reward waiting in another world.

Just two people sitting beneath a cherry tree, with no guarantee of what tomorrow would bring.

For the first time, that uncertainty didn't frighten me.

Some people left because they never intended to stay.

Some returned only after discovering the life they chose wasn't as beautiful as the one they threw away.

And sometimes, letting them go wasn't cruelty.

It was the only way to stop abandoning yourself.

The evening breeze stirred the branches above us.

A cherry blossom landed beside the new seedling.

I smiled and left it there.

This time, I was willing to wait.