A Man

by Keiichirō Hirano

No one can deal with their suffering on their own. We all seek someone else to be the conduit for our emotions.

There is a certain kind of loneliness that can only be soothed by finding yourself within the tale of another’s trauma.”

When we meet a person who will become our beloved, we are attracted to who they are in the present and grow to love them as a whole, including their past. But if a lover finds out that their beloved’s past is in fact the past of a stranger, what happens to the love the two shared?”

“Once the truth came out, they’d have to renew their love,” she said. “I mean, it’s not as if you love someone once and that’s it. You renew your love again and again over the long haul, through everything that happens along the way.”

“Love for another might remain the same love even as it keeps on changing. Or perhaps we can go further and say that love persists precisely because it changes.”