Summary:

Centuries pass, nations rise and fall, names change, but Ilya remembers.

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Hasegawa Shigeru opened his mouth to reply, but Ilya was lost.

No longer warm, an icy wind cut through rough clothes to bite at the patches of skin that he’d bared to the elements. White snow and black, tall trees. A man trudged beside him, his hood up, his feet sure in the snow. He turned and smiled and Ilya’s heart tipped over with love. Hasegawa Shigeru. It was Shigeru, but dressed in clothing in a style much older than those Ilya had worn on his own shores, but still undoubtedly home.

Shigeru spoke to him, but not in a language he knew. Old words and old clothes, and an old love, so deep that it brought tears to Ilya’s eyes.