Uncle from Another World: Our Secret Nights – An Adult IF Route
One day, Takafumi finds an old videotape in his uncle Yusuke's room while he's unconscious. Playing it back, he discovers it contains explicit records of his uncle's 'secret relationships' with three heroines from the other world of Gran Bahamul—relationships no one else knows about.
The first to appear is the tsundere elf. Initially cold, she is drawn to his love for the Sega Saturn. On a stormy night, alone with him at an inn, she clings to him with a sweet voice, saying, 'Just for tonight, l
Uncle from Another World: Our Secret Nights – An Adult IF Route - The Meaning of the Keychain – Uncle Talks About Loss and Passing It On to Takafumi
Silence pooled heavily in the room.
The TV showed nothing now. After that small sound of the deck ejecting the fifth tape, Takafumi remained huddled on the sofa, unable to move. Outside the window, the night had grown deep.
In his mind were the faces of three women. Elysia. Noel. Siena.
All of them had given everything to his uncle alone.
Something that would never happen to him. The moment he thought that, a terrible coldness settled deep in his chest. Nothing remained but a dark resignation, cold enough to freeze him to the bone.
"Hey."
From the bed, his uncle spoke.
"What do you think the three of them are doing now?"
Takafumi didn't lift his head. He couldn't even answer.
His uncle paid no mind and began speaking slowly.
"Elysia is an elf. Her lifespan is four hundred years. She should still be alive somewhere."
His voice was quiet.
"But by elven law, she can only have one partner. For life. It can't be changed. I don't know what she thinks of that old-fashioned custom of lifelong marriage—but most likely, she's either still waiting for me, or she's stopped waiting and closed off her heart."
In Takafumi's chest, the image of the silver-haired elf resurfaced. That sharp, cold gaze. But when she had straddled his uncle beyond the screen, she had called his name with a face on the verge of tears.
"Noel—well, you know. She lost her memories, and apparently she's still doing magical research in the Ice Crystal Department. The night at the Stargazing Hot Spring, the way she pulled my hand toward her on her own—she's forgotten all of it, completely."
The moment that emotionless doll's face had crumpled.
The silver badge engraved with "Thank you for teaching me emotions."
All of it had vanished from inside her.
"And then—Siena."
Takafumi's fingers trembled slightly.
"The mountain folk have a lifespan of a hundred and fifty years. When I met her in the cave, she was fifteen. Nineteen years have passed since then in real time. If time flows faster in the other world than here, it might be even more."
After a pause, his uncle spoke the number.
"If she's alive now, she's thirty-four."
Thirty-four.
In Takafumi's mind, the image of that small warrior girl surfaced. The girl with waist-length golden hair in a ponytail, who had thrown her hundred-forty-centimeter body at his uncle. The fifteen-year-old voice that had removed her own armor and touched his uncle's cheek with trembling fingers, saying, "You can do whatever you want with me?"
That girl was now thirty-four.
(*She's fourteen years older than me—*)
The weight of that number stabbed dully into his chest. Siena was no longer the girl from that cave. She was living as an adult woman, carrying nineteen years of time. In a world without his uncle.
"All three of them might be in places where they can't wait for me anymore."
His uncle's voice merely stated the facts plainly. Only a faint trace of sadness or regret seeped through. To Takafumi, that was unbearably painful.
With his face still buried against the back of the sofa, Takafumi bit his lip.
(*Elysia might still be waiting—but she wasted nineteen years of a four-hundred-year lifespan. There's no way a proud elf would be fine with that.*)
(*Noel remembers nothing—whether that's a mercy or even more cruel, I can't even judge.*)
(*Siena is thirty-four. If time moves faster in the other world, she might be even older. That small body, that golden hair, the way she laughed—all of it might be different now—*)
The shapes of the three losses were each completely different.
They churned together in Takafumi's chest, forming a black mass.
"...Go see."
The voice slipped out. Before he even realized it.
"Can't you... go see them?"
It was a voice wrung out of him. Whether he wanted to see Elysia, or Noel, or Siena—he didn't even know himself. He just wanted to go to that place. The world beyond the screen.
His uncle didn't answer right away.
Silence fell over the room for a few seconds. Unable to bear that silence, Takafumi lifted his head.
His uncle's gaze was directed at Takafumi's right hand.
Takafumi looked at his own hand.
In his right hand, he was gripping the Sega Saturn keychain. He had no memory at all of when he'd started holding it. But the feel of the plastic, worn familiar in his palm, was so natural it was as if it had always been there.
"That keychain."
His uncle spoke quietly.
"Where did you get it?"
"...I don't know. I've had it forever. It was just there before I knew it."
Takafumi answered honestly. He felt like it had been in his possession for as long as he could remember. He had no memory of his parents buying it for him, or of anyone giving it to him. And yet, for some reason, it was something he'd never been able to let go of.
His uncle gave a small nod.
"I'm the one who gave it to you. A long time ago."
"...Huh?"
Not understanding, Takafumi looked up.
"It's the same as the one Siena had in the cave. In that footage, she was clutching it like a treasure, right?"
A scene from the footage resurfaced in Takafumi's mind. In the cave lit by torchlight, Siena had been holding something precious against her chest. That was—the same thing as this keychain?
"Before I gave it to Siena, I had another one. It wasn't just the memory of the Sega Saturn that I brought into the other world. I kept one on hand for you."
Takafumi's fingers tightened around the keychain.
"You probably don't remember. But that keychain has definitely been in your possession for a long time."
That was true.
He had no memory. But this keychain had been there forever—
"Dimensional rifts... apparently, they can sometimes pull in their owners."
His uncle's voice echoed quietly through the room.
"What are you—"
Takafumi started to speak, then stopped.
The keychain in his hand felt faintly warm.
It's just my imagination. He tried to convince himself of that. But—the warmth he felt in his palm didn't seem like it could be coming from a cold lump of plastic.
At the bottom of his chest, which had been filled with despair, a pinpoint of light pierced through.
It was so faint that he felt he might lose sight of it if he looked away for even a moment.
"That night in the cave—what happened after Siena took off her armor. I stopped the footage partway through, but there was more."
His uncle returned to the topic.
"...What happened after that?"
Takafumi's voice was low and hoarse.
"In that cave, Siena entrusted everything to me. She grabbed my chest with her small hands and whispered in my ear—'When I'm by your side, Uncle, I'm not scared.'"
His uncle's voice carried a weight that transcended nineteen years of time.
"When I heard those words, I gave up on something inside myself. My own weakness, my hesitation about returning to reality—none of it mattered anymore."
In Takafumi's mind, the image of the fifteen-year-old Siena from the footage overlapped with the Siena of now, aged thirty-four.
The girl who had clung desperately to his uncle with her small body.
Now, somewhere, she was living as an adult woman.
Sensual memories and the pain of loss pierced through Takafumi at the same time.
(*Is this—the true weight of love?*)
For the first time, that awareness clearly formed into words. It wasn't something light like liking someone or wanting to date them. It was the resolve to think of someone with your entire being, and as the price for that, to possibly lose everything—
His uncle had faced each of the three in different ways. And all three of them had thought of his uncle, and carried loss.
(*Can I—bear this kind of weight?*)
He didn't know. But right now, something was definitely stirring deep in his chest.
"You might have the right to it too."
His uncle stood up. He moved in front of the window and stared at the darkness of the night through a gap in the curtains. His voice, from behind, was quiet.
Takafumi couldn't lift his head right away.
Until just a moment ago, he had been certain it was absolutely impossible for him. He'd thought he lacked the right, the courage, everything.
But—the keychain in his hand was still warm.
"...Me?"
"I gave that keychain to you. What that means—you figure it out yourself."
His uncle didn't turn around.
Takafumi stared at the keychain. A black plastic, yellowed, tiny miniature of a Sega Saturn. The same shape as the thing Siena had clutched like a treasure in the footage.
The single key to memory that his uncle had brought into the other world.
He gave it to me—
In his hand, the keychain felt just a little warm again. This time, he wanted to believe it wasn't his imagination. From the depths of despair, only the direction of a faint light had become visible.
Nothing was decided yet. He didn't even know if the door would open. He didn't even know if he had the resolve.
But—
Still gripping the keychain, Takafumi let out a deep breath.
Outside the window, a single streetlight in the apartment parking lot flickered orange. His uncle's back looked as if it might melt into the darkness of the night.
There were no more words after that.
All that remained in the room was the groaning sound of the old air conditioner and the quiet breathing of two people.
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