1.3 (1/2)

“How was she? Watarase Mamizu.”

After school the next day, Kayama and I were eating ice cream in front of the convenience store on the way home when he suddenly asked me this question. He’d paid for mine, as if in reward for what I’d done. I absentmindedly recalled the previous day’s events as I moved the ice cream to my mouth.

“Well, she really was beautiful,” I replied, thinking that this wasn’t really what Kayama was asking about.

“How is her illness?” Kayama asked.

“Who knows?” I said, even as I questioned whether it was alright to say something like this. “Kayama, do you know her?”

“In the past, a little,” Kayama said ambiguously.

“Come to think of it, are her parents divorced?” I asked, as I was a little curious about it.

“Yeah, probably,” Kayama said. “Her surname was f.u.kami before.”

We couldn’t just eat ice cream forever, so after that, we moved to the station and got on the train.

There was only one empty seat, so I sat down. Kayama dangled from a handle and sluggishly gazed outside the window.

“I have one more favor to ask,” he said.

Outside the window, the green of the trees and the residential areas streamed past.

“Can you meet her one more time?”

“Huh?”

“Ask her when her illness is going to get better.”

What is this guy saying? I wondered. I was already confused when he asked me to go back to that hospital room, but now I had no idea what he was thinking.

“Ask her yourself,” I said, a little fed up.

During this conversation, the train arrived at Kayama’s stop.

“And don’t mention me to Watarase Mamizu.” With those last words, Kayama stepped off the train and left without turning back.

“Oi, wait. What on earth is this about?” I shouted at his back.

In the next moment, the doors closed with a hiss resembling carbon dioxide being released from a drink and the train began moving.

… As usual, I couldn’t really tell what he was thinking.

There was still some time until my station. I was strangely sleepy. I closed my eyes and rested my body’s weight against the back of the seat, and before long, I lost consciousness.

When I came to, the train had arrived at the final station. The signboards of untrendy-looking cafes and privately-managed bookstores lined the station, and in front of it, there was a quiet scene befitting the terminal station of a provincial city, with the green colors of the half-pruned roadside trees. And then I immediately remembered.

This was the station where Watarase Mamizu’s hospital was.

It was seven stations away from the station closest to my house. I had ridden the train way too far. A voice announced, “This train is now returning.” As if being chased out by this announcement, I stepped out onto the platform to see that there was a store at this station. The rows of Pocky at the front of the store caught my eye. The Almond Crush that Mamizu had mentioned was there, too. Before I knew it, I was calling out to the old lady working at the store and asking her for one. I placed the product that was handed to me into my bag and headed for the ticket gate.

Well, since I’ve come all the way here, I suppose I can at least take some Pocky over there, I thought.

When I went to the hospital room, Watarase Mamizu wasn’t there.

Her bed was vacant.

“Watarase Mamizu has gone for an inspection,” someone said.

I hastily turned towards where the voice had come from to see a kind-looking elderly woman staying in the same hospital room speaking to me.

She didn’t know when Mamizu would come back, but since I’d come all the way here, I decided to wait a little.

The snow globe was on the bedside table.

I took it in my hand and shook it, imitating the way Mamizu had done yesterday.

Snow fell inside the snow globe. Feeling like there was some kind of secret hidden in the snow globe, I gazed at it for a while. Of course, no matter how long I looked at it, nothing about it changed.

I tried continuously shaking the snow globe like crazy. There was a blizzard inside it. Getting carried away, I shook it violently, multiple times.

In the next moment, my hand slipped.

The snow globe slid out of my hand and fell. It dropped vertically and crashed onto the hospital room floor.

Smas.h.!.+

A harsh sound echoed out.

Now I’ve gone and done it, I thought hopelessly.

“Oh, it’s you, Takuya-kun.”

Mamizu’s voice came from behind me, and I turned around in surprise.

It was the worst timing.

“Ah.”

A little late, she noticed the gla.s.s fragments at my feet. The ruins of the snow globe, broken to pieces and scattered across the floor. I could clearly see her expression clouding over.

“Are you alright? Takuya-kun, are you hurt?” she asked as she rushed over, looking upset.

“I’m alright, but… I’m really sorry,” I said. I didn’t know what more to say.

Mamizu extended a hand towards the gla.s.s fragments.

“Ouch!” she gasped.

It seemed that she’d cut her finger. A few moments later, a red liquid forced its way through her skin and flowed out.

“Calm down,” I said hastily. “I’ll go and bring you a band-aid now. I’m going to clean this up, so stay in your bed.”

Mamizu crawled wordlessly onto her bed and sat with her back leaning against the wall.

I brought a band-aid from the nurse station and handed it to Mamizu. And then I silently gathered the gla.s.s fragments.

After cleaning up most of the mess, I went to throw the gla.s.s into the rubbish bin outside the hospital room.

When I returned, Mamizu was gazing expressionlessly at the contents of the snow globe. She was holding the snow globe, of which only the base and the miniature log house remained, upon which snow no longer fell.

“It can’t be helped. Everything that has a form eventually breaks… it’s just like how there’s no such thing as a creature that doesn’t die.” She placed the object in her hand onto the bedside table. “Maybe it’s better that it broke,” she said.

Her voice somehow sounded like she was suppressing her emotions.

“Why would you say that?” I asked, despite being the one who had broken the snow globe.

“Because I feel like I’ll be able to die feeling more relieved if I don’t have anything that’s important to me,” she said. That was the strange answer she gave me. “Say, Takuya-kun, how much longer do I look like I have to live?”

Even if she asked me that, I had no way of knowing. Honestly speaking, I hadn’t really heard of any cases of people with luminescence disease living long lives. But at least in appearance, she didn’t seem at all like a person with an incurable disease.

“I don’t know,” I replied, giving up on thinking about it.

“My remaining life expectancy is zero,” Mamizu said. Her voice was completely neutral. “I’m like a ghost. Around this time last year, I was told that I have a year left, and a year pa.s.sed as normal… I’m actually supposed to be dead already. Despite that, I’m quite healthy. I wonder what that’s all about?”

The way she spoke was as if she was talking about someone else.

Why is she saying this to me, someone she’s only just met? I wondered.

“I wonder when I’m going to die?” she said in a strangely bright tone.

At that moment, I felt agitated somewhere in my chest.

I didn’t really know why I felt so discomposed. What is this emotion? I wondered. Even after thinking about it, I couldn’t understand what it was.

Even after returning home, I was still thinking about Watarase Mamizu. I lay down in the corner of the living room, in front of the butsudan, and continued thinking.

TLN: A butsudan is a small, household Buddhist altar.

I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand what she was thinking inside. No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t even make a guess.