Colorful

by Eto Mori

  “Makoto, are you sad?” Hiroka lowered her voice suddenly.

  “Why?”

  “It’s just like, sometimes, okay? Some people say they get sad when they talk to me.”

  I totally understood how they felt.

  “When people say that, I get sad, too.”

  “I’m not sad,” I lied. “I’m just frustrated.”

  “Frustrated?”

  “If I was rich, I’d buy all your time right now, Hiroka.”

  Whoa, what am I even saying?! My face started to turn beet red before the words were entirely out of my mouth. I was basically no better than that pervy old man!

  But her reply surprised me. “You want to have sex with me?” she asked, the look on her face serious. “We can if you want.”

  “Huh?!” We can?!

  “I could do it with you.”

  “Uh?!” For real?! I thought I’d leap up into the ceiling.

  And then she struck the killing blow. “Yeah. For you, Makoto, I could do it for just twenty thousand yen.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. And then I cursed myself for being so naïve, for getting my hopes up so unbelievably easily. My excitement melted away like the mousse from my bangs in the rain. Only my desire for her remained pathetically as strong as ever.

  “I do want to sleep with you, Hiroka,” I said, feeling a pang of loss as I stared at her adorably full lips, shining peach in the light. “But I won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want to be like that old man.”

  After a moment of silence, she shrugged and laughed. “I get it.” The smile on her face was unusually awkward. “Okey-dokey. I’m gonna go.”

  “Go? Go where?”

  “Back to him. My phone’s been buzzing this whole time.” She lifted her cell phone from its place on her lap to show me.

  “You’re gonna go see him?!” I raised my voice, without meaning to.

  “It was pretty fun when you dragged me off like that, Makoto,” Hiroka said, as though placating me. “Like I was in a TV show.”

  “So then don’t go,” I said.

  “But I feel bad for him.” She looked down at her phone. “He gave me the money and he was all ready to go.”

  “That’s . . .”

  “I have to honor our agreement.” She shouldered the expensive brand-name bag and stood up. “Okay, Makoto, see you later.”

  “Hiroka!”

  I have to go after her. I have to chase her down and say something cool to get her to come back. Hurry, go. You have to go.

  But it was only the panic that started running in my head. The key part of this whole equation—my feet—didn’t move. I just kept fumbling and flailing and Hiroka gradually moved farther and farther away from me. Eventually, she disappeared from view, and as if to take her place, a couple came and sat down at the table next to me. A stern man and a tough woman, both heavyweight class. They polished off their pastries in utter silence, maybe because they were just too hungry to talk. Cinnamon doughnut. Chocolate cream. French cruller. Jelly. Cheese muffin. The coconut doughnut Hiroka liked . . . It was all over now. Too late. I’d completely lost sight of her.

  Somewhere, in some cowardly corner of my heart, I was relieved.

  6

  An unlucky day is unlucky from start to finish, every single minute of every single hour.

  My headache only got worse after that, and when I staggered out of the doughnut shop on unsteady feet, the rain was four times as strong as it had been when I went in, sheets of water falling from the sky. And I’d thrown away my umbrella when I’d plundered Hiroka.

  I was stuck. I pulled my hood tight around my face and started walking through the bone-chilling nighttime city. The wet asphalt reflected the almost-vulgar colors of the neon signs, as if the ground were soaked in red wine. Herds of people swimming in a wine river, eye-catching couples under a single umbrella, day laborers handing out pocket tissues on pretty much every street corner, touts shouting loud enough to be heard over the rain and the wind and the trains.

  I had no strength left in me, and even the drunken laughter rubbed me the wrong way, so my feet naturally turned in a direction where people weren’t. I kept walking, moving farther and farther from the crowds, until I passed beyond the warren of meandering alleyways and overhead train lines and came out beside a playground.

  It was a lonely little playground, nothing but swings, a slide, and a sandbox. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. I could hardly stay on my feet at that point. I sat down on the rusting bench.

  Just then I began to shiver violently. The moment I let my guard down and relaxed slightly, the pain attacked my head, I was hit with a ferocious chill, and I felt like throwing up. On the verge of total collapse, I desperately worked to keep myself upright in the incessant rain, while I wondered what I was even doing there in the first place. All I had to do was say yes. I could have been in a warm bed all alone with Hiroka at that very moment. I knew this was actually impossible, but when I thought about it now, I wanted to cry. Because I’d said no, she was alone in a warm bed with a middle-aged man instead . . . When this realization hit me, I really did start to cry.

  “I thought you weren’t as weak as Makoto Kobayashi?”

  The rain above my head stopped abruptly. I looked up to find Prapura’s parasol had appeared there at some point, coloring my field of view white.

  “Makoto only tailed them. I, on the other hand, went a step farther, so my wounds are that much deeper,” I shot back.

  “So you regret not sleeping with Hiroka Kuwabara?” I could hear a grin in his voice.

  “Of course I do. I totally regret it. I knew I would from the moment I said no.”

  “But if you’d paid to sleep with her, you would’ve regretted it more later.”

  “I know that, too.”

  “Clever boy.” Prapura flashed his teeth in a smile. “You did passably well. At any rate, you won out over temptation.”

  “Thanks.” I showed a few teeth of my own. “But it’s actually none of your business. Look, I’ll just tell you this now. I’m not especially interested in being clever. I don’t particularly care about winning out over anything. And I definitely don’t need anyone to come along and tell me how smart I am and act like they’ve even got a clue what I’m going through.”

  An evil chill returned to the back of my neck. I wrapped my arms around myself and pulled my body into a ball.

  “The problem here is that even though I managed to go and kidnap Hiroka with these very hands, I couldn’t take her anywhere. It’s not because I’m clever that I didn’t sleep with her or go after her. It’s because I’m a coward.” I squeezed the words out in a hoarse voice.

  Prapura rubbed my back. “Cleverness or cowardice, it’s your saving grace. First of all, you’re only fourteen years old, too early for you to be thinking about trying to rescue anyone. After all, even my boss has a hard time making someone come this way when they’re intent on going the other way.”

  “You can’t do it, either? Bring Hiroka home right now?”

  “Apologies. I’m an angel, I don’t have superpowers.”

  “Wait.” I frowned, slightly. “So then someone with superpowers is better than an angel?”

  “I don’t know.” Blah blah, grumble grumble. Prapura trailed off vaguely. “At any rate, my role is to guide, and guide you I will. But I do not carry people. Say if you were lost out here and running a high fever, for instance, I could show you the way home. But you would have to stand up and walk there yourself.”

  As soon as I heard “high fever,” I felt intensely feverish and in even more pain than before. I didn’t have the energy left in me to walk all the way to Makoto’s house, and even if I had, I couldn’t go back there. I could still hear the mother wailing as I walked away. I couldn’t go home.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I slowly turned my eyes up at the angel. “Can I quit this do-over?”

  “You want to quit after a mere month
and a half?” He shook his head with a sigh. “Please try to remember. You weren’t allowed the first time you asked to ‘pass’ on your second chance. That rule remains in force. The lottery is absolute.”

  I groaned. “So then, if I keep going like this forever, totally unmotivated in this life, and I never remember the mistakes I made in my past life, I’ll be Makoto Kobayashi forever?”

  “There is a limit. Usually about a year.”

  “Usually? What’s that about?”

  “It’s case by case,” he replied. “Some people catch on more quickly than others, essentially.”

  “You’d think you’d have a real rule.”

  “Well, our industry’s managed by the same boss who controls the lower world here.”

  “I see.” This somehow made sense to me. “So what happens to me when the time limit’s up?”

  Prapura’s face tightened. “You fail your do-over and are forever removed from the cycle of rebirth, never to return again. In other words, you won’t ever be reborn.”

  “What happens to my soul then?”

  “Your soul slips out of Makoto Kobayashi’s body and disappears.”

  “Disappears.”

  “Yes. Fwsh!”

  Fwsh. I envisioned my eensy soul vanishing like the bubbles in a glass of soda. All the hassle, all the problems, all the dead ends—all of it vanishing in an instant, gone forever. Fwsh! The image was heartrending and endearing at the same time.

  “But then . . .” I gave voice to a question that had been bothering me for a while. “If my soul leaves, what happens to Makoto Kobayashi’s body?”

  “When your soul disappears, Makoto Kobayashi’s physical body will also find eternal sleep,” Prapura said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. “His heart really will stop this time. His body is actually long dead, after all.”

  I looked at Makoto’s body, chilled to the bone, with mixed feelings. It was as pathetic as ever, enough to even make me miserable, and I was only borrowing it. Still, though, I felt kind of bad for Makoto when I realized it didn’t have long to live either way.

  You had nothing good going on, huh?

  And now you’re gonna die like this . . .

  Hiroka. His mother. His father. His malicious brother. His unchanging height. His isolation at school. Even I didn’t know which one was the last straw, the thing that pushed Makoto entirely over the edge. Maybe they all tangled up together, growing heavier and heavier with each passing day. And then there were more and more of those heavy days, so that they grew even heavier until finally he couldn’t take another step forward.

  The rain fell onto my forehead and then slid down my cheeks before dripping down my neck. During this brief moment, I prayed for Makoto for the first time.

  When I finished my silent communion, I turned back toward Prapura. “I’m done with the questions. I don’t need any more guidance today. I’m not going home. And I’d appreciate it if you could just let me be alone right now.” The rain was easing up, so I figured I could just sleep outside tonight.

  “You’re going to sleep in a place like this on a day like this? Are you in your right mind?” Prapura objected.

  But I wasn’t having it. “You were the one who just said you can’t make someone come this way when they’re trying to go the other way.” I felt like I wanted to throw it all to the wind, let the cards fall where they would.

  He finally gave up the fight. “Listen. You’re still not seeing how serious this day is. You’re being naïve. An unlucky day is utterly unlucky right up to the very last second. If you’re not going to go home, you should at least get out of this playground.” The angel then disappeared, leaving me with this ominous prophecy and his parasol.

  But I was already drifting off. Plus I thought it wasn’t actually possible for the world to hit me with anything worse than what I was already going through. Ignoring Prapura’s warning, I lay down on the bench and half passed out into sleep.

  An unlucky day is utterly unlucky right up to the very last second.

  I came to fully understand what he meant by this when I woke up in the middle of the night to a sharp pain in my head. It felt like the handle of an umbrella slamming into it over and over.

  The pain was totally different from the earlier dull throbbing of my headache. The intensity was on an entirely different level. It was like my scalp was being ripped off. The staggering torment was not inside my skull but exploding outward from one side. Where was it coming from . . .? My eyelids slid open slightly, which was when I learned that I was, in fact, being hit with the handle of an umbrella. I was stunned.

  The playground was pitch black, not a single streetlamp around to offer up a pool of meager light. The rain had stopped at some point, and in its place, several pairs of eyes pored over me. Black shadows surrounded the bench, looking down on me. One of them was reaching into the pocket of my hoodie.

  Ah! My wallet!

  The instant I twisted away in surprise, I was hit with a savage punch to one side.

  “Unh!”

  It worked. And as a bonus, they stole my wallet.

  I curled up, clutching my stomach, and someone’s fat hands yanked me up by my collar and began shaking me. And then slapping me. Whap! Whap! The sharp hand caught my face coming and going. My cheeks grew hot, and a bolt of electricity shot through my hazy brain.

  Dammit, how shitty can this day get . . .

  When I came to, I had been dragged down onto the ground. As I tried to crawl away in the muck, the kicks came fast and furious, landing on my back, my arms, my legs. Each time a foot landed on me, I groaned and my cold-numbed fingers twitched. Finally, one of my attackers got on my back like I was a horse, and just as I was about to throw up, someone grabbed hold of my ankles, tight enough to cut off the circulation. There was a yanking on my toes, some tugging, and then my feet were instantly lighter . . . Why?

  “Aaaaah!” The second I realized what they’d done, I flipped out. “Give back my sneakers!” I screamed.

  I didn’t even know why I was freaking out like that. I didn’t know I still had that kind of strength left in me. But somehow, I leaped to my feet and challenged the herd of black shadows, fighting back with all the might my small body could muster. “Give my shoes back. Give them back!”

  Their only reaction was ridiculing laughter. With a tap to my chest, they flipped me over onto the ground, a move that was quickly followed by a punch to my jaw. When I threw a hand up at the overwhelming shock, my palm came back dyed red with a warm liquid.

  “I said, give them back!” The familiar taste of blood quickly filled my mouth.

  Covered in mud, I kept getting up to throw myself at them over and over, even though they only returned laughter and beatings.

  “Give them back! Give my sneakers back! My sneakers! Give them back! Give them back!” As I howled the words, I started to cry, although I knew it was pathetic.

  My precious treasure. I’d bought those sneakers with Makoto’s savings. I thought they would give me at least a tiny bit of confidence while I was stuck in his body. They were the best life hack I could manage. The world was full of sneakers that cost 100,000 or even 200,000 yen. Why did they have to steal my 28,000-yen kicks?

  “You cheap bastards!” I snarled, and the umbrella handle hit the top of my head once more. The world twisted around me, and I fell into the distortion.

  “Hey!” Just as I was on the verge of passing out, I heard a voice from far off. “What are you doing?! Stop!” I’d heard this guy’s voice before.

  “It’s the cops!”

  Approaching footfalls, fleeing footfalls. The circle of shadows around me disappeared, and in their place, a single shadow shook my shoulders.

  “Makoto! You okay?”

  Oh, right. That’s Mitsuru’s voice . . .

  “My sneakers . . .” I kept groaning, persistently, unable to let go, even as all the strength drained out of my body now that it seemed that I was finally saved. “My sneakers
, okay, the sneakers I, sneakers . . .”

  The words played on repeat in my muddled brain, and I felt something push up into my throat abruptly. I didn’t have the strength left to stand again, so I vomited with my mouth pressed against the cold sludge on the ground.

  Mitsuru stroked my back as he grumbled under his breath.

  Once my stomach was empty, the cold abruptly closed in on me, and this time I really did pass out.

  7

  The constant shudder-sway of the night train. The snow falling beyond the window. The roar of the waves. Hiroka’s fair skin.

  I immediately knew this was a nightmare.

  Hiroka and I were on a night train together. We were apparently eloping and she was laughing, in high spirits—“It’s like a TV show.” We pressed up against each other fondly, and then our happiness was quickly shattered with all the illogical absurdity of a dream.

  The steam train pulled into the terminal station, and the middle-aged man was there waiting for us on the platform. Hiroka’s attitude changed instantly.

  “I have to go with him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re barefoot, Makoto.”

  With a gasp, I looked down to find that I had no shoes. My 28,000-yen sneakers were gone.

  Stunned, I stood rooted to the spot while the middle-aged man whisked Hiroka away. The chilly station platform. The snow falling on the tracks.

  And then the dream flew ahead and away, and before I knew it, the out-of-service night train was rocking me back and forth in my seat as it headed back to the yard.

  Even though there were no other passengers, the conductor came through checking tickets. “Your ticket, please.”

  I held it out, and the conductor shook his head.

  “This is the former Makoto Kobayashi’s ticket. I need to see the ticket for the current Makoto Kobayashi.”

  “Are they not the same?”

  “They are not. I can tell the difference, even if no one else can.”