by Nisioisin
“A parent’s love is an amazing thing, I guess.
“My mother was annoyed by it, though─come to think of it, she was maybe the only person who didn’t say anything kind to me after my injury.
“What the hell were you thinking, didn’t I tell you to take better care of your body? Now you’ve ruined everything─something like that? That was more or less how it went.
“Hahaha, moms are really something, aren’t they?
“I’m not complaining, mind you. I really didn’t want people to be kind to me at the time, I wanted them to tear me a new one.
“Thanks to my mother’s criticisms, I was able to run away without any false shows of courage or anything.
“But before all that, before we moved and before I escaped, came the event that kickstarted my habit, my bad habit, of ‘collecting unhappiness.’
“It was a teammate of mine, who came to visit me in the hospital. She showed me the path I should take. I really owe her my gratitude.
“We weren’t close, of course. Quite the opposite. We’d hardly ever spoken before that.
“Her name? I don’t remember. I called my teammates by their numbers, not their names, same as with my senseis.
“I feel like it was some ordinary, average name, but I also feel like maybe it wasn’t─which is to say, it’s the kind of info that we could easily do without. I won’t give her an alias either, it would just make things more complicated.
“Once I was myself again after people visited me and gave me their sympathy, I’d feel shell-shocked. I didn’t mind it while it was going on, though. After all, people saying kind things to you doesn’t feel terrible, which is why I was happy when that girl suddenly showed up by herself to see me in my hospital room. But to my surprise, she wasn’t there to offer any sympathy.
“She was there to ask me for advice.
“After some perfunctory get-well nonsense, she dove right in and said, ‘Can I get your advice about something?’
“It was all typical middle-school-girl stuff. One of the girls in her class did this, some boy she liked did that, that kind of thing. Unlike her name, I remember exactly what it was she asked me about─it’s Item #00 in my collection, after all─but out of respect for her privacy, I won’t get into the details.
“Typical middle-school-girl issues.
“I’ll just say that it wasn’t far off from whatever you might be imagining, Kanbaru, having been a middle school girl yourself.
“What I really want you to try to imagine right now, Kanbaru, is my psychological state at the time. Sure, I may have brought it on myself, but when I broke my leg it upended my entire life, even if that had only been fifteen years at that point. So why the hell is this kid opening up to me? What’s she up to? That’s what I thought.
“I assumed her story would end up having something to do with me, with my future, but it never did. Well, what could I tell her? She wanted my advice, but whatever I might say, I’d devoted my entire life to playing sports and didn’t know a damn thing about being madly in love.
“And with a broken leg, how could I solve the problems of a typical middle school girl? I thought to myself─she chose the lousiest possible person to come to for advice.
“But that wasn’t the case.
“After she’d given me her spiel, I tried my level best to be sincere, but in the end all I could manage was some muddled nonsense. When visiting hours were over, the girl went home. That night I kind of beat myself up about it, feeling guilty that I hadn’t been able to give her a decent answer, scolding myself that she’d never come visit me again─but she came back the very next day. Crazy, right?
“Not to visit me. She wanted my advice.
“And she just repeated the same stuff she’d told me the day before─I’d felt bad during the night, but having to listen to the same stories two days in a row, stories that had nothing to do with me, I got bored.
“I’m sure she’s having a hard time, but why should I be filling my mind with her problems? I’ve got my hands full worrying about my own future─that’s what I thought.
“And when I did, everything became clear to me. Perfectly clear.
“She hadn’t chosen the wrong person to come to for advice. I wasn’t the lousiest choice; as far as she was concerned, I was the best possible choice.
“Because she wanted advice from someone who was clearly less happy and fortunate than herself. Yes, from someone like me, for instance─someone whose life seemed like it was basically over.
“Do you understand what we’re dealing with here, my dear, serious Kanbaru?
“No, it’s not a riddle. As proof, I’ll give you the answer right now.
“Let me spell it out for you: that girl may have had worries, may have had troubles, but she didn’t want to be pitied. It was the same as it was for me, with my broken leg, feeling annoyed by everybody’s kindness.
“She had troubles, but she didn’t want some kind of holier-than-thou advice from on high─so she came to me, who clearly seemed to be lower than her, afflicted as I was with grave concerns that the average middle school girl didn’t have to deal with.
“The psychology of it is easy to comprehend.
“I mean, it’s no different from you acting the clown and getting your teammates’ support because of it. Stars and heroes will never be embraced if they don’t have foibles that allow the masses to feel even superior to them. The logic is more or less the same. Pretty much every teenager basks in the satisfaction of finding fault with great historical figures.
“But just because I understood where she was coming from doesn’t mean it didn’t piss me off. I was angry more at myself than at her, though. Would you look at that, there goes Roka Numachi. Another one bites the dust. I was pissed at myself for being looked down on by teammates whose names I didn’t even remember, for being solicited for advice I was totally unqualified to give.
“Huh? Why didn’t I get angry at her when I realized what was going on?
“Well, because she’d gotten one thing very wrong. She assumed that someone like me who’d broken her leg and lost all prospects of an athletic career, who’d never take to the court again, who had to give up on school and was at her absolute nadir─wouldn’t look down on her, wouldn’t pity her.
“But she was wrong.
“Because listening to everything she had to say was such a consolation.
“Other people’s misery is like sweet nectar. And that didn’t change a bit, even after I’d broken my leg. The thought that I’ve got big problems, but so do other people was a balm for my wounded soul. I could tell it was warming my heart.
“I’ll admit upfront that I didn’t recognize what was going on with my own psychology until I understood what was going on with hers─I believed that, in my own way, I was dispensing earnest advice.
“My god, humans are ugly creatures.
“Licking each other’s wounds, comparing and contrasting their misery. But man, things got fun after I figured that out. I investigated how to draw out her pain and suffering most effectively from every angle, then put my findings into action. I suppose you could say those were the salad days of Lord Devil.
“I devoured that girl’s troubles, telling myself all the while how despicable I was─but also feeling the first hints of salvation.
“I couldn’t just listen and leave it at that, though, so as she was leaving that day, I said, ‘I understand your problems.’ It wasn’t a lie. And I went on─‘I’ll take care of everything, so you don’t need to worry anymore.’
“That part was a lie. A massive lie. I was in the hospital and had no idea what was going to become of myself, let alone anyone else. How the hell was I going to solve whatever problems befell her at a school that I’d already decided to leave?
“And it wasn’t a kindly lie, told with her feelings in mind. I told it because I’d already thoroughly plumbed the depths of her problems and couldn’t stand the thought of her coming back the next day and rehas
hing them for me a third time. It was a selfish lie. A self-centered lie.
“…Come on now, that’s not fair. Don’t forget that what she did was pretty insensitive in the first place. Anyone else probably would have shouted her out of the room. So even though it wasn’t a kindly lie, I’d argue that I was extending her a courtesy.
“She looked puzzled, like something didn’t sit quite right, but nevertheless she said thank you and went home. What the hell was she thankful for? Anyway, I thought what I did had been in pretty poor taste, even if I did feel some hint of salvation, and that night I busied myself with worthless remorse, telling myself I’d never do it again.
“But after some time─I’m pretty sure it was right before I was discharged from the hospital, a surprising thing happened. She visited my room for a third time.
“She had the revitalized look of someone who’d been possessed by a spirit and was finally free from its influence. This time when she said ‘Thank you!’ she was smiling from ear to ear.
“She was in such high spirits that I could barely make sense of anything she said, but I got the gist that her problems had been successfully resolved.
“She kept saying, ‘Thank you so much, it’s all thanks to you!’ But I hadn’t done a thing, how could I? I’d just been lying in my hospital bed like a rock the whole time.
“This is my clear, easy-to-understand example illustrating that ‘time heals all wounds.’ Even if she didn’t swallow everything I said to her, she seemed to trust me at least halfway─enough that she entrusted her worries to me, and once she stopped worrying herself, the problems went and took care of themselves.
“The girl in her class had blah blah blah, the boy she liked was blah blah blah─and I guess maybe her feelings about everything also just cooled off a little as time passed.
“Either way, whatever spirit that had been possessing her was gone.
“I guess you could say a devil had been exorcised─and her worries now existed only within me.
“Excusing her leave-taking, I told her, ‘Come on, there’s no need to thank me. I just did what anyone would do.’ She probably took that as an expression of my humility, but the fact is that since she had no more troubles, I simply didn’t need her anymore.
“And the whole thing came into focus.
“Try thinking it through for yourself, Kanbaru.
“I had relished listening to her problems. And it had helped ease my pain. As for her, not only had she been able to ask me for advice without a second thought now that she felt superior to me, she had liberated herself from worry by entrusting her problems to me, and time─or from her perspective, I─had even seen fit to take care of those problems.
“Right, everybody wins, nobody loses.
“Or rather, everyone finds salvation.
“What is it again, the Pareto Optimum? Or the Nash Equilibrium─whichever.
“Two birds with one stone: I help people, and it eases my pain─not to mention that the cost performance can’t be beat.
“So it didn’t take me long to make up my mind. I wasn’t possessed of either the conscience or the morals to worry about it─and I do mean worry about it─for even a single night. I may very well have had them before I broke my leg, but if I did, they shattered along with the bone.
“I decided to make collecting unhappiness my reason for living from then on. No, ‘reason for living’ makes it sound too sunny. It was more like I’d found a place where I could lay my life as an athlete to rest. Yeah, I decided to make it my gravestone.
“And so, the Unhappiness Collector.
“Roka Numachi, the misfortune-picker, was born.”
023
Listening to Numachi’s story put me in a heavy funk. She kept talking about the relief she got from hearing other people’s tales of misery, but listening to hers didn’t give me even an iota of relief.
I felt instead like I’d suddenly been loaded down─with a profoundly heavy burden.
However she might phrase it, deriving enjoyment from hearing about other people’s unhappiness was in poor taste, a perverse predilection, I thought.
I mean, sure, pity-bragging plus schadenfreude is symbiotic, mutually beneficial, more than it’s killing two birds with one stone, but life is never that obliging.
Or maybe it is?
Didn’t she keep on collecting─precisely because it had gone so well?
Sometimes life is unexpectedly obliging.
Hadn’t she collected my arm as well─
Precisely because her way of thinking was correct?
While I was choked with tears of joy when my beastly left arm returned to normal─I also felt like that was a totally different story.
Just because I want them to be different, though, doesn’t mean they actually are…
The girl in question really did seem to have been saved thanks to Numachi. She said she didn’t actually do anything, but just by listening she gave that girl peace of mind─salvation enough for anyone, you might say.
But I just couldn’t let it go.
Even if Numachi wasn’t doing anything wrong, I simply couldn’t accept that the way she went about things was right.
And─
“That was quite the autobiography, but…the story’s not over, is it, Numachi?”
“Hm?”
She cocked her head in mock puzzlement, which really irritated me, but I suppressed that feeling and continued with all the patience I could muster.
“Now I know how you began collecting unhappiness. And I understand your motivation, which is a hell of a motivation, by the way. Benefitting directly from your interests, and helping other people in the bargain. I’d even call it admirable.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.”
“But it’s only half the story,” I ignored her heckling. “I understand why you collect unhappiness, but you still haven’t told me how you came to be collecting the pieces of a devil.”
“I was just about to get to that. But first, let’s take a halftime break. I was thinking maybe I should give you a choice.”
“A choice?”
Something about the way she said it, the way she talked, really got on my nerves.
But that itself was kind of mysterious─why did I find Numachi so vexing?
And why, when I found her so vexing.
Did I want to keep interacting with her?
What the hell was she─to me? It wasn’t as if I wanted her to return the monkey’s paw my mother had left me.
I didn’t need Kaiki to tell me that I should be pleased to get rid of the thing, to pass it off to the junk collector who’d come for that purpose. I was having a hard time accepting the sudden happiness that had fallen into my lap, but did that give me permission to get inside Numachi’s head?
“What do you mean, a choice? Are we talking about Easy, Normal, and Hard again? You telling me I need to choose how you’re going to talk about this?”
“No, no, nothing so fancy this time. Just the simple choice: do you want to hear what comes next, or not.”
Numachi completely ignored my mounting irritation and continued the conversation very much at her own pace.
Lackadaisically.
But listening to her talk─really was a test of my forbearance.
Or maybe of simple fortitude.
Conversing with her was exhausting.
I felt my energy draining away─though that wasn’t why she offered me that choice, of course.
This is what she said:
“What comes next is a truly devilish tale. I think it’s probably best for you not to hear it, if you can stand that. You can still just return to a normal life. And I think you should─just go back to making friends and falling in love, reading books and playing with your cell phone.”
“Give me a break, Numachi. I’m not the one who has to choose, you are. You’re the one with a simple choice to make: are you going to tell me the whole story, or are you going to give me back that devil’s hand?”
“Ooh, I’m so scared.”
My words had ended up tinged with a threatening tone, and Numachi trembled in mock fright.
She didn’t miss a beat, huh?
“I’ll tell you, then. About the beginning of my affair with a devil─I warn you, though, that hearing this particular tale of unhappiness is not going to make anyone feel better.”
I muttered, “Too late now.”
024
“I’m probably the last person you want to hear this from, but you’re into some pretty weird shit─at the same time, though, I get why you want to know everything.