Photograph

Yuki sat outside the operating theater, head in her hands, willing her grandmother to be ok. The red light above the door of the operating theater, cast an eerie and ominous glow along the corridor that Yuki and her mother were waiting at.

Click!

The light turned off, and the doors to the operating theater swung open, revealing a surgeon in medical scrubs. Yuki and her mother turned their head and hope-filled eyes towards the doctor as they watched him approach them.

"Are you family members of the patient, Tachibana Arianna?"

"Yes, I am her daughter, and this is her granddaughter."

The doctor had a grim expression as he explained, "The operation was successful. However, her heartbeat stopped halfway through the surgery, but we managed to resuscitate her. The patient is currently in critical condition and has been transferred to the ICU ward for further observation. Within the next 48 hours, if her condition stabilizes, she can be transferred to a normal ward to recuperate."

Yuki and her mother were then brought to the ward that Arianna was currently residing in. They were distraught when they saw the numerous machines and countless tubes attached to her body. Yuki's heart clenched with pain as she looked at her grandmother's pitiful figure, a huge contrast to the ever-smiling grandmother that she grew up with. She couldn't help but bite her lip and swallow her tears as anguish filled her heart. She gently held her grandmother's hand and lamented her two-year absence from home, yearning to rewind time.

Yuki was filled with remorse. "Why? Why was I such a fool? Why didn't I spend more time with my family? Why did I not visit them during the past two years? Why do I only regret when it is too late?"

"-ki… uki… Yuki… Yuki…"

Yuki awoke from her stupor when she heard her mother call her name. "Yuki, let's go home and rest. The doctor says that your grandmother won't awaken anytime soon. She's still under the influence of anesthesia, it'll probably the next day before she regains consciousness." Yuki nodded numbly and followed her mother home.

Over the next few days, Arianna had several brief moments of consciousness. Airi, being the main caretaker, was always by her side as she was afraid that Yuki's grandmother might panic if she were to regain consciousness and not have a familiar face by her bedside. Seeing her mother fraught with worry and exhausted from her daily trips to the hospital, Yuki took charge of the household chores.

One day as she was cleaning the house, she recalled that her grandmother had been in the midst of cleaning the attic before her fall. As such, Yuki climbed the stairs up to the attic, intent on helping her grandmother tidy it up. When she was almost done, Yuki chanced upon a curious box that was partially hidden, having fallen between two pieces of furniture. Puzzled, Yuki extricated the box. It was covered with a thick layer of dust and its surface was rusty. Yuki gently wiped away the dust and pried open the box.

Upon seeing the contents of the box, Yuki felt perplexed. Inside lay a thin bundle of letters, two polaroid pictures and an outdated storage device. The two pictures were blurry with age and Yuki could barely make out the details of the people in the photographs. Giving up, Yuki decided to focus on the bundle of letters instead. They were addressed to Arianna Lee, her grandmother. Yuki was tempted to read the letters but didn't want to invade her grandmother's privacy. Thus, Yuki finally focused on the last object, the storage device. Although the storage device was a piece of outdated technology, Yuki's computer had special port that allowed her to access the memory on such devices.

Yuki rushed down to her room and inserted the device into her computer. She eagerly accessed the data but saw that there was only a single folder named "Yuutarou".

"Yuutarou? Who's that? I don't remember any of my relatives or family friends with the name Yuutarou… I wonder what it means…"

Baffled, Yuki accessed the folder and saw that it was filled with numerous photo and video files. She randomly clicked on one and was dumbfounded when the photo was displayed. The photo depicted a smiling young couple that was evidently very much in love. Although she did not recognize the man, the woman in the photo was a spitting image of her. It was only after she saw the photograph's time stamp did she then realize that the woman was her grandmother. However, she had seen photos of her grandfather in his prime, and the man in the photograph was not him.

"August 2016… 60 years ago… That means grandma was only twenty and she had yet to meet grandpa… Then, who on earth is he? Why would grandma keep photographs of a past lover?"