by Yoru Sumino
Apparently, she didn’t feel like giving me time to recompose myself. Still radiating happiness, she continued, “You thought I was acting strange because I was about to die? And I was keeping it from you?”
“Yeah. Your hospitalization was suddenly extended, too.”
She rolled on her bed, laughing so hard I thought her IV might pop out of her arm. I could only be laughed at so long before I started getting annoyed.
“It’s your fault,” I protested. “You’re the one who made me think that.”
“I told you I still had time, didn’t I? If I was going to die so soon, why would I keep practicing magic? That explains why you were reading so much into my pauses and everything. You’ve been reading too many novels.”
When she’d finished talking, she laughed again and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you when I’m going to die.”
Still more laughter. She’d laughed at me so long I started feeling silly, too. I was forced to admit how tremendous my mistake had been.
She said, “When I die, you’d better eat my pancreas.”
“What if I just ate the bad parts? Would you keep living then? Maybe I should go ahead and eat your pancreas for you now.”
“You want me to keep living?”
“Very much.”
I was glad my humor was dry enough that I could speak the truth and have it come across as a joke. If she took the truth as truth, I may have been too ashamed to ever come out in public again.
I didn’t really know how she took it, but she jokingly squealed with delight and spread open her arms to me. “Maybe you’ve taken an interest in other people’s warmth, too,” she said, snickering.
I could tell she was joking because of her laugh. I joked in my own way, by obliging.
I stood and approached her, and—as a joke—I put my arms around her for the first time. She pretended to be embarrassed and put her arms around me. I’ll ask you not to be so ungraceful as to wonder what this all meant. If you think about the logic behind a joke too hard, you’ll only spoil it.
We held each other like that for a while, when I wondered, “Strange. Kyōko-san’s timing must be off today. She isn’t showing up.”
“She has volleyball today. What do you see her as, anyway?”
“A demon who comes to tear us apart.”
We laughed, and the timing felt right to let her go. I did, but before she released her embrace, she gave me one more tight squeeze. We saw each other’s faces, beet red from our joke, and laughed again.
Once we’d settled down, she abruptly said, “Speaking of me dying…”
“You know, that might be the first time anyone started a conversation with those words.”
“I’ve been thinking about starting to write my goodbyes for everyone to read when I’m gone.”
“Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself?” I asked. “Or maybe you were lying when you said you still had time.”
“No,” she said, “I just want to do it right. That means revising and rewriting, so I want to start the rough drafts now.”
“That sounds like a good idea. I’ve heard revising a novel can take longer than writing the first draft.”
“See, I knew I had it right. I hope you’ll like what I write for you.”
I said, “I can’t wait.”
“You mean you want me to die faster? That’s mean. Of course, I know you don’t actually want me to die, because you need me too badly.”
She gave me a grin. I considered nodding in agreement, but I’d had about all the sentimentality I could handle for one day. I gave her a bored look instead, but she persisted in grinning at me. Maybe that was a symptom of her illness.
She said, “Tell you what. Since I caused you to worry needlessly, I’ll make it up to you by visiting you first thing after I’m released.”
“If that’s an apology, it doesn’t sound very humble.”
“So you don’t want to see me?”
“I don’t not want to see you.”
“[???]-kun, that’s just like you.”
What was like me? I felt like I had a vague impression of what she meant by that, so I didn’t ask.
She said, “The day I get discharged, I have to go home first, but after that, in the afternoon, I’ll be free.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know yet. You’ll come back a few times before then, won’t you? We can think about it.”
That worked for me.
Over the next two weeks, we settled on a plan for our “date,” as she called it, even if it wasn’t. She wanted to go to the ocean. We would also stop at a café, location to be determined, where she could show me her greatest magic trick.
By setting plans for what we would do after she got out of the hospital, I felt as if we were tempting fate for something worse to happen—a sudden decline of her condition, for example. But nothing eventful occurred, and the days simply passed by until she was able to go home. Maybe she was right; maybe I had read too many novels.
During those two weeks, I went to see her four more times. One time, I ran into her friend. Twice, she laughed so hard her bed shook. Three times, she whined when the time came for me to leave. Four times, I put my arms around her. Not once did it become routine.
We joked a lot, laughed a lot, insulted each other a lot, and admired each other a lot. I grew fond of our uneventful days together. They reminded me of being a little kid again.
A detached part of me observed this change with surprise.
This is what I would have explained to that observer: I was enjoying human contact. For the first time in my life, I was spending time with someone without ever thinking I’d rather be alone.
Surely no one else in the world had ever been so deeply moved by human contact as I was during those two weeks. For me, the four days we were together in her hospital room comprised the entirety of those two weeks. Everything else just fell away.
And four days wasn’t a long wait at all.
***
The day she was scheduled to be released from the hospital, I woke up early. Most days, I woke up early in the morning, rain or shine, whether I had plans or not. Today, the sun shone, and I had plans. I opened my bedroom window and let the fresh air into my room. I gazed off, as if I could see the flowing currents. The morning felt good.
Downstairs, I washed my face, and when I went to the living room, my father was on his way out. I thanked him for going to work, and he looked happy and slapped me on the back before he went out the door. He was always full of energy, year-round. I always wondered how someone like me could have been born to a father like him.
My breakfast was already waiting for me on the dining table. I said, “Itadakimasu” to my mother, giving appreciation for the meal, then I said it again to my food on the table before eating her miso soup. I really liked her soup.
As I enjoyed my breakfast, my mom finished up with the dishes and sat across the table, where she began drinking a cup of coffee.
“Hey, you,” she said.
“What?”
“When did you get a girlfriend?”
“Huh?”
What had gotten into her? Was that seriously the first thing she wanted to say to me in the morning?
She said, “If it’s not a girlfriend, then it must be someone you like. Whatever it is, you should bring her over.”
“It’s neither, and I won’t.”
“Hmmm. I would have sworn.”
I wondered where she had gotten that idea. I guessed it was her parental intuition at work. Even if she was wrong.
She said, “Just a friend, then.”
That wasn’t right either.
“Well, it doesn’t matter what she is,” my mother said. “I’m just glad someone has come along who can see you for who you are.”
“Um… Okay?”
“Did you think I hadn’t seen through your lie? Don’t underestimate your mother.”
I stared at her. I appreciated my mother, but I had indeed co
mpletely underestimated her. Her eyes had a strength and a brightness that mine didn’t, and she really did look happy for me. I felt put in my place. I smiled with just the corners of my lips. My mom had already turned her attention to the TV as she continued sipping her coffee.
Since I wasn’t supposed to meet the girl until the afternoon, I spent all morning reading. The book she’d lent me, The Little Prince, was still waiting its turn. On my bed, I read a mystery novel I’d bought not that long ago.
The hours passed quickly, and a little before noon I changed into some simple street clothes and left the house. I wanted to go book shopping first, so I arrived at the train station quite a bit early and went into a large bookstore nearby.
I browsed the store for a while, bought one book, then went to the café where we were to meet. The place was a short walk from the station, but since this was a weekday, there were plenty of open tables. I ordered an iced coffee and claimed a seat by the window. I was about an hour early.
The coffee shop was pleasantly cool, but I felt hot on the inside, and the iced coffee was refreshing as it went down. The coolness spread through me, as if it was circulating through my body; of course, that was only in my imagination. If the coffee really did circulate throughout my body, I’d be the one who died first.
Between the A/C and iced coffee, I managed to stop sweating, and soon my stomach began growling. Thanks to my healthy lifestyle, my appetite was right on schedule for lunch. I thought about ordering something to eat, but I’d promised to have lunch with her. If I satisfied my hunger now, and she whisked me away to another all-you-can-eat place, I’d regret my decision. She could have that effect sometimes.
I thought back to when she dragged me out to lunch those two days in a row, and I chuckled. That was more than a month ago now.
Deciding to wait for her responsibly, I took out my current paperback and put the book on the table.
I’d intended to read the novel, but my gaze drifted outside; I didn’t know why. If I had to give a reason, all I could say was I just felt like it, which was the sort of carefree reason I expected from her, not myself.
Outside, people passed by each other in the bright daylight. A man looked like he was overheating in his suit; why didn’t he take off his jacket? A young woman in a tank top trotted toward the train station; was she off to do something fun? A high-school aged boy and girl walked together, holding hands; a couple. A mother pushed her baby along in a stroller and—
I noticed what I was doing, and I was taken aback.
The people outside were strangers. I would likely never have any connection to them the rest of my life.
If they were strangers, why was I thinking about them? I wouldn’t have done that before.
I thought I had no interest in the people around me. Or rather, I had decided not to take any interest in them.
I chuckled to myself. Had I changed this much? I was enjoying this, and I laughed again.
I pictured the face of the girl I was waiting to join me.
She had changed me. She’d changed me, and I knew it.
The day we met—not when we got put in the same class in school, but when we actually met—I was put on a path of change, in who I was, in the course my life would take, and in my views on life and death.
Then I remembered what she would say if she heard those thoughts—that I had made the choice to change myself.
I chose to pick up the lost book.
I chose to open that book.
I chose to talk to her.
I chose to train her how to be a student librarian.
I chose to accept her invitation. I chose to eat with her.
I chose to walk next to her. I chose to go on a trip with her.
I chose to take that trip wherever she wanted to go. I chose to sleep in the same room as her.
I chose truth. I chose dare.
I chose to sleep in the same bed with her.
I chose to eat the breakfast she didn’t finish. I chose to watch the street performer with her.
I chose to suggest she learn magic.
I chose to buy her the Ultraman figure. I chose the souvenir we ate on the train.
I chose to tell her I had fun on the trip.
I chose to go to her house.
I chose to play shogi. I chose to push her away from me.
I chose to pin her to the bed. I chose to hurt the class representative.
I chose to yield to him. I chose to make up with her.
I chose to visit her in the hospital. I chose the gifts to bring.
I chose to teach her what I had learned in class. I chose when to go home.
I chose to run from her best friend. I chose to watch her magic trick.
I chose to play truth or dare. I chose my question.
I chose not to run from her arms. I chose to get an explanation from her.
I chose to laugh with her. I chose to embrace her.
Again and again, at every point along the way, I made a choice.
I could have made different choices, and the ones I made were of my own free will and nothing else. My free will brought me here—as a changed person.
I came to a realization:
No one was a boat of reeds, not even me. We choose whether to flow with the currents or turn against them.
She had taught me that. Even though she would soon die, she looked more to the future than anyone else, and she took possession over her life. She loved the world, she loved its people, and she loved herself.
Again I had that thought.
You teach me so much that—
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
I just got home! I think I might be a little late. Sorry!