“Come now—get inside before it gets any brighter.”

  The Head Pastor’s voice gently urged me out of my frozen daze.

  This chapel… was it designed to form a cross when viewed from above?

  The main white-walled structure stretched symmetrically in both directions,

  with a large cross-shaped window above the entrance—

  almost identical to the one at our school’s chapel.

  Its copper-colored roof gleamed, pristine.

  Even though it stood in the middle of a scorched wasteland,

  its white walls bore not a single mark of soot.

  How had it escaped the fire?

  “What’s the matter?

  Surely this isn’t such an unusual place to you.”

  “Um… why didn’t this chapel burn?

  Was it built with some kind of special material?”

  The Head Pastor smiled.

  That soft expression was exactly like my teacher’s.

  And suddenly, I felt it.

  That I might never return to the surface again.

  The way a lost child might feel,

  realizing they’ve wandered too far.

  “Well now. You ask one question, and I get all this.

  I suppose it’s only natural—

  You’re still just a child, after all.

  Even the child of Medicine is still a child.

  Come in, won’t you?”

  Normally, I’d get upset being called a child over and over like that.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  But not now.

  What I felt was the opposite of anger—

  …I wanted to lean on him.

  If I’m a child, maybe I could just… be one.

  Caught between pride and longing, I couldn’t move.

  As if sensing everything, the Head Pastor stepped forward.

  Without a word, he gently pulled me into his chest.

  And just like that, the ice in my heart melted.

  The tears came easily.

  I cried into his chest, quietly.

  He smelled like a great tree—

  the kind that stood out in a forest of sameness.

  A tree you could use as a landmark.

  A tree no one would forget.

  “Come now. Let’s go inside.”

  The chapel’s interior had a domed ceiling,

  and stained glass that filtered in a soft morning light.

  It felt like I had stepped into the Head Pastor’s heart itself.

  “The stained glass is such a strange color.

  But it’s… beautiful.”

  I spoke the thought aloud, still warm with tears behind my eyes.

  “All of the glass here is clear.

  What you’re seeing is the sun’s doing.

  You wouldn’t know, I suppose.

  That makes me a little sad.”

  “The sun…? That’s its color?”

  He gave a faint, wistful smile.

  “There’s a sky here, even underground.

  But sunlight only reaches us two days a year.

  So we store it.

  And release it little by little each day.

  It’s managed by the Ministry of Solar Affairs.”

  I looked up through the window.

  That beautiful sky—

  and the light I saw there was only the memory of sunlight.

  “Shiro-tsurubami,” he said.

  “…Huh?”

  “That pale, misty gray.

  It’s what we call the color of our sun.

  Isn’t it lovely?

  With time, even light becomes gentler.

  Wouldn’t it be nice if time could do the same for our world’s troubles?

  But waiting…

  Waiting is what humans struggle with most.”

  He turned and began walking down the corridor to the left of the prayer hall.

  “Where are we going?”

  “That hallway leads to the guest rooms.

  Let me make you some tea, child of Medicine—

  No, Tsurubami-kun.”

  He said my name just like my teacher would.

  But I wasn’t his student here.

  And I was tired of always being the good one.

  “I… I don’t want to go to the guest room.

  I want to talk here.”

  My voice came out small—

  too small, maybe.

  But the Head Pastor turned,

  his face bathed in the soft, borrowed light of an old sun.

  He looked intrigued.

  “Very well.

  I’ll bring the tea here.”

  Kurotsurubami, a deep mourning black,

  and Shirotsurubami, a faded grayish white.

  and neither is pure.

  Standing between shadow and light,

  holding sins and prayers in the same breath.