A STORY JUST FOR ME

"You reminded me of someone."

He said it simply, as if the words didn't carry the weight of an entire childhood.

The fire crackled in the hearth, its warmth brushing against the wooden walls. Outside, wind stirred the leaves like a restless memory, and inside, everything was quiet—except his voice.

"Someone who saved me… long before I ever saved you."

I sat beside the low table, fingers curled around a chipped mug of tea.

My body still ached from the fall. Eui drifted nearby, silent for once, their glow dim like a sleepy firefly.

The house, though small, had a strange gentleness to it. Maybe because it was full of things that hadn't been moved in years. Maybe because it held memories older than either of us.

The savior looked down at his hands. Strong hands, calloused from work. But tonight, they trembled a little—just enough to be noticed.

"It was a day just like this," he said. "Clouds swollen. The sky is too lazy to rain. I was maybe seven or eight. Back when this village still had laughter in the air… and the river sang instead of slept."

He told us he'd wandered too far from the village that day, chasing a butterfly through the trees. The river was brighter back then, he said. It shimmered—like something alive. Not like now, all silent and still.

"I saw her standing in the water," he said. "Knee-deep. Hair like river mist. Skin pale as moonlight. She was chasing a frog."

He smiled faintly, lost in the memory.

"When she looked up at me, it wasn't like I was a stranger. It was like… like I was late. Like she'd been waiting."

They didn't speak, not at first. Just splashed and laughed, throwing pebbles and catching dragonflies. But he returned the next day. And the next. She was always there, waiting by the water.

"I never learned where she came from," he murmured. "She wouldn't say. But every time we played… it felt like I was touching a dream."

They played games whose names he couldn't remember. Danced on river stones, wove crowns out of weeds, and sang to the wind. Sometimes she'd vanish behind a tree, only to pop out with a fish flapping in her hands, laughing like sunlight.

She never aged.

Not once.

"I used to think she was magic," he said, chuckling softly. "Or maybe I knew, even then, that she wasn't like the rest of us."

And then, the village changed.

It started small — a few crops wilting overnight, a cow refusing to eat, and birds flying away earlier than usual. Then the trees browned, the fish disappeared, and the river slowed. The land itself felt like it was holding its breath.

People grew afraid.

"They said we angered the spirits. That something was wrong with the river. That a curse had taken root."

The villagers tried everything—prayers, offerings, even fire. But nothing helped. They stopped going near the river. Children were forbidden from playing near it. But he still went.

"I found her sitting on a rock, feet dangling in the water. She looked tired. Paler than usual. Like something inside her was fading."

He asked what was happening.

"She said… she couldn't stay much longer."

And the next day, she was gone.

No footprints. No goodbye.

Just silence where laughter used to be.

The village, unaware of his loss, began to recover.

Within days, the trees bloomed again. Crops sprouted green and thick. Fish returned in swarms, and the river glowed faintly under the moonlight, like it had swallowed something beautiful and couldn't forget it.

"Everything healed," he said, eyes distant. "But I didn't."

There was a long pause after that. Even Eui didn't speak.

He looked up at me. Really looked.

"When I found you in the river that night… you were glowing."

My breath caught.

"Just faintly. Like the water was remembering something. Or… someone."

He exhaled slowly. A sound like release.

"That's why I pulled you out. Not just because you were drowning. But because for a second, I thought… maybe the river was giving her back."

The silence that followed wasn't heavy.

It was sacred.

And I understood then that we weren't just staying in a stranger's house. We were being held by a memory. By a boy who once touched something sacred and lost it.

And somehow, I reminded him of her.