“Well …” I looked at Koharu to see what she would suggest. She nodded slightly as if to say ‘follow your heart.’

“Thank you, but there’re so many that I don’t know which one to choose,” I said.

“I’m very proud of every single piece of my work,” Kyran declared.

“In that case, I wouldn’t want to take any one of them as they must mean a lot to you,” I said.

“I mean that I’m always pleased and honoured to meet with its owner. A knife knows its rightful owner. When I forge them, they reveal the story of the owners during the knife-making process. Each time the hammer is struck on the iron, I could almost see the face of its future owners. Every knife displayed here has an interesting story. The reason why I do this is to personally witness all those stories with my own eyes. One of them has told me your story and it has been waiting for you.”

“This sounds incredible!” I said, getting up from the table to choose one.

But then, after viewing so many choices, I still couldn’t make a decision.

“Take your time and another look at them,” Kyran suggested.

“Alright,” I agreed.

I went to the end of the room and turned around to look at all of them again, thinking to myself that if the knife could choose its owner, there should be some clues to draw my attention. It reminded me of the scene in the Harry Potter movie where he had to look for clues in choosing his magic wand. But I didn’t see or feel anything special, and finally, I gave up and returned to the table.

“I can’t really make a choice because they are all beautiful,” I tried to make an excuse, but the truth was that I didn’t dare to make a decision.

“I know which one belongs to you because when I was forging it, I saw your story very clearly. I want to prove that you can pick the right one,” said Kyran.

“Oh, this makes it even more difficult for me to choose the right knife out of so many that you have made,” I said, feeling pressured.

I decided to walk around one more time and have another look, and I felt Koharu watching me, as if encouraging me to make the right decision.

“Relax, Tim, just trust your instinct. Pick the one that you like the most,” Koharu said, while I was carefully studying each knife.

As she said that, I was drawn to one knife in the lower-left corner of the shelves. It was the first knife that had caught my eyes when I entered the house but the sight of all the other beautiful and amazing handcrafted pieces had almost overwhelmed it.

“I think I found it,” I said, going straight to the knife to take it.

All the knives had handles and sheaths made of hardwood, with beautiful wood graining in different colours, mostly brown, red, greenish-black, and some even had some dark yellow streaks in brown wood. But the one I had chosen was made of dark wood with minimal grain that resembled black matted plastic. I couldn’t say for certain why I felt that this one was compatible with me, even though it was nothing special. Its overall length was about one foot, with a nine-inch long blade. I thought it looked quite handy, with its curved shape which I thought could be quite practical.

“Congratulations!” Koharu was the first one to comment on my choice.

“Is it the one you expected me to choose?” I turned to ask Kyran immediately.

“As I’ve said, the ore that I use to forge my knives comes from a special mine, but among all the knives on this shelf, only six of them were made from a very special piece of iron. It was the very first piece that showed itself to me when I discovered the mine. This piece of ore was large enough to smelt a total of six knives of which one now lies in your hand,” Kyran explained.

“Wow!” I exclaimed.

“And when I needed wood to carve the handles and the sheaths for my knives, I had to go into the forest and only select those trees that had already fallen or were dead. Then, I only use the core by peeling off the outer parts of the wood and then cutting it into pieces for better portability. But for the handle and sheath of this knife, I spotted a piece of wood floating on the stream when I was drinking some water. It was not a big piece of wood, so I could only made a total of two sets of handles and sheaths out of it. I could tell that it was a very rare kind of wood, as I had never seen such a tree in the forest before. It had a deep black colour without any grain inside. Since I had begun to forge knives, I have only ever made two knives from black wood, and the knife you have chosen is one of the two.”

“This is so incredibly amazing.” I was very impressed by the story of the object that I now held in my hand and I inspected it more thoroughly.

It was really a beautiful knife. When I pulled it out of its sheath, I was even more fascinated. The blade had a nice thickness and weight and had been well polished until it had become as shiny as a mirror. It was also very sharp. Actually, I didn’t like sharp objects, nor did I like carrying weapons, but that knife fascinated me with its fine craftmanship and minimalist aesthetic.

“You haven’t told me yet if I have chosen the right one that you expected me to have,” I asked Kyran again.

“Let Koharu tell you then,” he turned to Koharu.

Koharu smiled at him. Instead of responding, she pulled out the knife she had tucked in her waist. I had never really paid attention to her knife before as it was always covered by her waistband. But when she drew it from the belt, I became fully aware that its handle and sheath were made from the same black wood as mine. They were identical! They had the same shape, except that her knife was slightly smaller.

“My goodness! I can’t believe it!” I exclaimed with excitement.

“Don’t tell me that her knife is the other one you made from that special piece of black wood,” I said, trying to collect my thoughts.

“It is. If you remember, I did say that I had never used black wood again,” Kyran said.

“And of course, Koharu chose her knife on her own when she was 12 years old,” he added.

“This means you made these two knives almost 20 years ago?” I made a quick calculation considering that Koharu was 30 years old now.

“It was much longer than 20 years ago. As far as I can remember, I forged these two knives more than 300 years ago.”

“I didn’t know that you made this such a long time ago,” Koharu said, equally surprised.

“Now I know why you selected this knife for me. But how could such a coincidence happen?” I remarked.

“It wasn’t me who chose the knife, it was you. I’m only an observer waiting to see what would happen,” Kyran said.

“While I was forging the knife, I saw its whole story. In fact, I couldn’t help but feel excited to see what was going to happen today. The story has just begun and I’m glad that the two knives have allowed me to be part of the story between you and my granddaughter,” said Kyran.

“I still can’t believe that all of this isn’t a coincidence,” I replied.

“Whatever you believe, it does not matter to me because. I’ll always be delighted and honoured to have played my role in the story that I had foreseen a long time ago. There must have been hundreds or thousands of stories that were recounted to me, and that’s why I’ve never been bored by my work,” Kyran explained.