The Snow That Dances Through Summer Nights（3）

The sound stopped abruptly as the door slowly opened from within.

The old wooden door let out a sharp, mournful creak—like a memory sealed away for too long, suddenly torn open.

A man stood behind it.

Tall and lean, his figure cast a slanted silhouette under the dim yellow porch light.

He was roughly Tarin's height, but far thinner—his once-toned muscles long since wasted away, leaving behind only a stark, angular frame.

The faded, gray-black tank top he wore was stained with oil and torn in several places.

His exposed skin was crisscrossed with scars of varying depths and directions—

and one in particular stood out: a jagged mark that stretched from his chest to his neck,a remnant of some long-ago struggle between life and death.

Through the sunken flesh around that wound, the outlines of his ribs could be seen, faintly rising and falling in the cold wind—shivering ever so slightly.

"Three years."

The man's voice was low and rasping, dry like gravel.He opened the door only wide enough for a single person to pass through.

A faint, forced curve tugged at his lips—somewhere between a smile and something far more broken.It looked more like sorrow than joy.

"Yes… three years. And here we are again."

The sadness in Tarin's words only deepened the hollowness behind the man's quiet bitterness.The air between them grew so heavy, it felt impossible to breathe—

a weight thick with grief, pressing down with merciless finality.

And then, just as the silence threatened to freeze everything solid—the man's gaze slipped past Tarin, landing on the woman behind him.

It took only a second.

"You have the nerve to show up here?"

His voice exploded—no longer quiet, but sharp and thunderous,as though years of buried rage had finally found a crack to escape through.

"Did you forget everything you did to me and Yuina?!"

The eyes that had once gone numb now flared blood-red, rage surging like a hidden undercurrent beneath frozen ice—sudden, violent, unstoppable.

His contorted face radiated such hatred it was as if he might tear the uniformed officer in front of him apart—rip her to shreds, crush the very marrow of her bones and suck it dry.

In that moment, Fabiana's face turned ghostly pale.

She opened her mouth, but no words came out.All the rehearsed explanations, every line she had prepared—were torn to pieces, carried off by the snow-choked wind outside the door.

"It's… all in the past now."

She spoke the words reflexively, almost without thinking—her voice trembling, her tone uncertain.

And the moment they left her lips,she regretted it.

"The past?"

The man let out a bitter laugh—a sound like a blade scraping bone, slicing through the last shreds of her pride and courage.

"Of course you can move on.For people like you—standing on high platforms, basking in applause and honor—everything can be in the past."

"But what about me?"

"I'm the one who had to pay for it.I'm the one who had to spend three more years of my life paying for a tragedy that stole my family—just like it did yours."

Fabiana bit down on her lip.Her knuckles whitened as her fingers clenched tighter and tighter.

Snow settled gently on the brim of her cap, on her lashes, on her shoulders—

like memories turned to ice, layering one by one over her heart.

Outside, the snow and wind continued.Tiny flakes tapped against the old door, rustling softly with each gust.

Tarin stood off to the side, his expression unreadable.He said nothing—just watched.

He knew Dorin had every right to be angry.And Fabiana, every right to grieve.

But more than that, he understood:

three years had driven them to distant shores.Whether a bridge could be built again between them...was no longer something words alone could decide.

At last, the man gave a sudden sneeze.He frowned, clearly annoyed by the cold wind pouring in through the open doorway.

Turning away with a hint of impatience in his voice, he muttered,"Come in."

Tarin gave a slight nod and gently guided Fabiana inside by the arm.The room was dimly lit.Old newspapers were scattered across the wooden floor, mingled with children's toys strewn here and there.

Near the stove sat a girl who looked about five or six.She was curled up with a worn-out rag doll, quietly drawing.

She looked up at the visitors with clear, observant eyes—tinged with a child's natural wariness—then quickly lowered her head and resumed her coloring.

Dorin walked over and gently patted the girl's back.

"Why don't you go play in the other room for a while, hmm?"

The child obediently stood, clutching her doll tightly, and padded into the back room.For a moment, the house fell into an even deeper silence.

Tarin walked over to the fireplace.The bricks were stained a dark brown from years of smoke and flame,except for a single photo frame resting on the mantle—polished to a spotless shine.

He lifted it gently, fingers brushing over the familiar faces in the photograph.

The five of them were smiling brightly,as if they had once lived in another time, another world—a world where youth was eternal,where betrayal, pain, and loss did not yet exist.

"Dorin," Tarin said at last, his voice low and rough,as if dragged from somewhere deep in his chest."What really happened that day?How did you get caught up in Azure Emerald?"

Dorin didn't answer right away.

He walked up behind Tarin, pulled a cigarette from his pocket, and lit it.

Taking a long drag, he let the smoke drift around him—as though it could carry him back to that night.A night he could never forget.

"You really want to know what happened that day?"Dorin's voice was low, with a faint edge of warning.

"Some things are better left unknown.At least if you don't know, your heart doesn't have to carry so much."

"Look," Tarin said, holding up the photo frame before Dorin's eyes.He pointed at the five figures—three men, two women—captured in the picture.

"Back then, we were still brothers. Still friends.Back then, we could entrust everything to the people we believed in."

"And now… is this all our so-called friendship has come down to?Just this one photo?"

Dorin took the frame from his hand, carefully blowing away a light film of dust that had settled over the glass.

"…Does saying all this still matter?"

He placed the frame back on the mantle.As he turned away, his shoulders trembled slightly—whether it was a sigh,or the echo of a sob long held back,no one could quite tell.

As his old friend turned away, Tarin allowed the faintest smile to cross his lips.

It wasn't discomfort at Dorin's coldness—rather, it was the smile of someone who had expected this all along.

He glanced toward Fabiana, and in his eyes was a flicker of something like amused pity—as if to say, "It's time."

And just as Dorin's emotions were still unsteady, caught in the moment of his turn—

Tarin suddenly thrust out a hand.

With the same mischievous force he used back in their academy days,he gave Fabiana a sharp push forward.

"Hey—!" she cried out, stumbling forward instinctively.

Dorin's expression shifted the moment she drew closer.The weariness vanished, replaced by a sudden, glacial stiffness.His gaze turned sharp—like the edge of a blade.

His lips twitched slightly, as if he meant to speak—or was holding something back.

His hands—those same hands that had once gripped a rifle like iron on the front lines—fell slowly to his sides, fingers clenched so tightly his knuckles turned white.

Fabiana's face flushed deep red.She had already been trembling with nerves—

now she looked like a cornered cat, bristling with the last remnants of pride and defiance.

She shot Tarin a glare over her shoulder, her eyes practically shouting:"How could you do this?"

But Tarin only shrugged,his gaze drifting away as if he had nothing at all to do with it.

Left with no choice,she forced herself to take another step forward.

The fire in the hearth flickered softly, casting its glow across her cheek—illuminating the blush of shame that had bloomed there,making it all the more vivid.

Like a crimson flower struggling to bloom in the dead of winter,it burned with a courage that had nowhere else to go.

"Dorin, it's… been a long time."

Her voice was quiet—barely more than a breath—but it struck the silence like a single drop of water landing on ice:sharp, fragile, and instantly shattered.

The stillness that followed was almost unbearable.

But Dorin, it seemed, wasn't interested in peace—he didn't turn around, didn't even blink.He simply kept staring out the window,watching the snowflakes drift smaller and smaller beyond the glass.

Not once did he acknowledge her presence.

He had no intention of giving Fabiana a moment of redemption.No forgiveness.

He had spent a lifetime not wanting to see this woman again.

The room turned cold once more,as if his silence alone had stolen all the warmth from the fire.

"If I had the choice, I'd go my whole life without ever seeing your damn face again."

Fabiana flinched.That single sentence felt like it froze the blood in her veins.

Her face flushed a deep red—not from shame,but from the crushing collision of memory and reality,tearing her in two.

She opened her mouth, trying to speak—but no words came,only a soft, shallow intake of breath.

Tarin stepped forward, attempting to ease the tension with a few words,but two sharp glares—one from each of them—sent him stumbling back in retreat.

He slunk back to the hearth, leaned silently against the wall,and gave a small, defeated twitch of his mouth.This reunion was going to be far harder than he'd thought.

"…I'm sorry," Fabiana said at last, "for letting you carry so much of it alone."

Fabiana's voice was low and rough,as if dragged from the depths of her throat.

It wasn't an excuse.It wasn't deflection.It was a plea—the raw, aching plea of a soul that had waited three years to gather enough courage to ask for forgiveness.

She knew how hollow an apology sounded now.And still, she spoke—clinging to the hope that these pale, inadequate words might prove something to him.

That her guilt was real.That her grief was not some performance.

Even if she knew, deep down, that the rift between them could never be mended.

Even if she fully understood that the wounds had long since shattered what they once called friendship—leaving behind nothing but broken pieces too sharp to pick up again.