A single cat appeared in the overgrown garden of an aging estate.
His name was Muku. With his gray fur, he sat on the stone path as if he’d always been there.
“Old man, this garden is special.”
Saburō wasn’t even startled to hear the cat speak. After living alone for so many years, he had grown accustomed to strange occurrences.
“Special? In what way?”
“This garden has the power to stop time.”
Saburō lowered himself onto a bench and scanned the grounds. The century-old estate’s garden boasted a great cherry tree surrounded by flowers that bloomed in every season. And yet, he had noticed something odd during his many years of tending it.
The flowers never withered.
No matter how many years passed, the same blooms remained, and the trees never shed their leaves. It was as if this garden existed outside the course of time.
“Do you wish to return to the past?” Muku asked.
Saburō felt his heart tremble.
He had moved into the estate after losing his beloved wife, Misaki. Had instilled the garden with life when they had tended it together in their younger days. But when Misaki succumbed to illness, time became nothing but a burdensome weight on his shoulders.
“If I could go back… to when Misaki was still alive,” he whispered.
“You can,” Muku assured, walking toward the cherry tree, tail gently swaying, guiding him as if by instinct.
“However, there is a price,” the cat warned.
“A price…?”
“If you go back, the world as it is now will be erased. This garden, this time—everything will vanish because you altered the past.”
Saburō closed his eyes and pondered quietly.
To return would mean once more seeing his younger self and Misaki, sharing the joy of nurturing the very garden before him. Yet to do so was to erase the world he now inhabited.
Everything he had known—his memories, this estate—would cease to exist.
“What will you choose?”
Muku asked. Saburō remained silent, then smiled softly.
“This is enough.”
The cat’s tail flicked in surprise.
“But wasn’t this your wish?”
Saburō gently touched the cherry tree’s trunk.
“The moments I spent with Misaki already live within me. Even if I cannot go back, standing here in this garden lets me feel her as though she’s right beside me.”
A single cherry leaf drifted down, landing on his shoulder.
“That is enough,” he murmured.
Muku looked at him, narrowed his eyes, and nodded.
“That is a good choice.”
And with that, he vanished quietly, as if he had never been there at all.
From that moment onward, Saburō continued his lifelong routine.
He cared for the immortal blooms, spoke to the cherry tree, and lived on in quiet reverence of his memories of Misaki.
When he finally passed away, time resumed its flow.
The flowers withered, and the cherry tree shed its blossoms.
In a corner of the garden, the gray cat reappeared, sitting in silence.
“Old man… that was a life well-lived.”
With those words, Muku softly departed from the garden.
—The eternal garden had finally come its time to bid farewell.
