On an autumn day, when preparations for winter grew hurried,
I found a walnut beside a fallen tree.
It was the walnut you had hidden,
and I was the one who discovered it.
In the forest, everyone is desperate just to survive.

The next day, you were standing there, frozen in place,
and then you were taken away by something with wings.
There was no doubt—
you would not survive.

I saw everything.
And strangely, I felt relieved.
I thought there was no longer anything I needed to worry about.
Soon, the cold winter arrived.

Inside the nest, waiting for spring…
I lay awake, remembering something I couldn’t name,
watching the snow through the gaps between fallen leaves.

In this forest turning white…
when I felt how lives are connected,
I decided to leave a single walnut right here.

“That is the story tied to this tree,”
they said, talking together in the branches one summer.
Then a creature carrying a mass of iron arrived,
and without hesitation, cut the tree down.

For someone to live,
so that someone else may live.

As you looked up toward the spring…
your eyes were faintly filled with tears.
A gift from me to you.

When you touched that thing made of wood…
and felt the light connecting us,
you gently forgave everything I had been that day.

“That is the story of how her papa and mama were brought together.”
And so, they say,
her name might be—Kurumi.