One Who Changed, One Who Never Did
The rain continued into morning. It was heavy enough to serve as an excuse for not moving immediately after getting out of bed. Thus, I had time to think about what I should do next.
While I looked at my “Things to Do Before I Die,” Miyagi approached and asked, “How do you plan to spend today?”
I was getting accustomed to hearing bad news out of her mouth, so I waited for her next sentence, prepared to not be swayed whatever she said - but that was all she said, just looking over my list afterward. It didn’t seem to be a question with any deep meaning behind it.
I took another look at Miyagi.
I’d thought this since I first met her, but her appearance was, in its own way, rather orderly.
Well, let me come out and say it. Speaking strictly of appearance, she wasexactly my type. Refreshing eyes, gloomy eyebrows, tight lips, a pretty-shaped head, smooth-looking hair, nervous fingers, slender thighs - well, I could go on.
Because of that fact, ever since her appearance in my apartment, my behavior was thrown for a loop.
I couldn’t even carelessly yawn in front of a girl who so perfectly matched my tastes. I wanted to conceal my broken expressions and idiotic breathing.
If my observer were the opposite of her - ugly, dirty and middle-aged - I’m sure I’d be able to relax more and think about what the right thing to do was.
But having Miyagi here made my overly embarrassed about my warped desires and miserable hopes.
“This is just a personal opinion,” Miyagi began, “but do you consider that list to be the things you really want to do, deep down?”
“Well, that’s what I was thinking about too.”
“If I might say… I feel that you’ve made a list out of things which you feel someone else would want to do before they died.”
“You might be right,” I admitted. “Maybe there’s nothing I really want to do before I die. But I feel like I can’t do nothing, so I’m trying to imitate someone else.”
“Still, I feel that there must be a method more suited to you.”
Leaving me with that presumably meaningful comment, Miyagi returned to her usual position.
The conclusion I arrived at that morning was as follows.
I need to correct my warped desires and miserable hopes a little bit more. I should think cheaper, more impudent, more vulgar, and spend my last months following my instinct.
What needs repairing at this point? I thought I had nothing to lose.
I looked over the list again, and then, preparing myself, called a friend.
This time, after only a few dialtones, they answered.
I left with an umbrella, but by the time I reached the train station, the rain had stopped - an event which seemed to perfectly define me.
Carrying an umbrella under a sky so clear that the rain prior seemed like a lie felt extremely improper, like carrying around a pair of skates.
The wet roads sparkled. I went into the station as if to escape the heat, but it was just the same inside.
I hadn’t taken a train in a long time. I entered the waiting room, bought a soda from a vending machine by the trash can, sat down on a bench, and finished it in three drinks. Miyagi bought mineral water for herself, and chugged it down with eyes closed.
I looked up at the sky through the window. There was a faint rainbow forming. I’d forgotten that such a phenomenon even occurred.
Of course I should have known what a rainbow is like, when a rainbow happens, what people associate rainbows with - but for some reason, I’d at some point forgotten the basic knowledge that “they’re actually real.”
There was something I noticed, having a new look on it. I could only see a total of five colors in that great arching bow in the sky - I was two short of seven. Red, yellow, green, blue, violet.
Wondering what colors I was missing, I mixed the colors on an imaginary palette, only then realizing the other two were orange and indigo.
“Yes, you should probably get a good look,” Miyagi said from the side. “This may be the last rainbow you ever see.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “And if we take it further, I might never use another waiting room, or this might be it for drinking soda, or this is the last time I’ll throw a can.”
I tossed the empty soda can into a blue garbage can. The sound of it colliding with its fellow cans echoed through the waiting room.
“Anything might be the last. But it’s always been that way, even before I sold my lifespan.”
So I said, but Miyagi’s statement had begun to make me feel a little antsy.
Rainbows, waiting rooms, sodas, cans, who cared about that. But… How many more CDs would I listen to between now and when I died? How many books would I read? How many cigarettes would I smoke?
Thinking of it that way, I suddenly began to feel some vague fears. Death means the inability to do anything ever again but be dead.
After getting off the train, I went to a restaurant that was about fifteen minutes away by bus to meet Naruse.
Naruse was a friend of mine from high school. He was average height like me, maybe a little shorter, with an overly-chiseled face.
His head worked fast, and he could speak in a way that captivated people, so he was liked by his peers. It’s strange to think now that a social outcast like me was on good terms with him.
We did have one thing in common. And that was that we could afford to laugh off most things in this world.
In high school, we’d sit in fast food restaurants for a long time, making a mockery of all kinds of daily occurrences to the point of impudence.
I wanted to laugh at everything in that way once more. That was my first objective. But there was a second reason I wanted to meet him.
While waiting for Naruse to arrive, Miyagi sat in the seat beside me, on the aisle side. It was a table for four, but the seats weren’t made very wide, so Miyagi and I were naturally brought closer.
Miyagi continued to observe me at close range. Sometimes we’d make eye contact, but she’d keep staring without paying it any mind.
That Naruse would mistake my relationship with Miyagi, who always dangled behind me wherever I went, in a way convenient for me - that was my hope.
I could recognize what an unbearably pathetic hope it was. But if I wanted to do something, I had to do it. It’s sad, but that was the first thing after selling my lifespan I clearly thought “I want to do this” about.
“Hey, miss observer,” I said to Miyagi.
“What is it?”
Scratching my neck, I said “Well, I have a request -”
I wanted to ask Miyagi to provide appropriate answers to the man who was going to arrive, but I noticed a waitress stood by our table, giving us a full-faced smile. “Excuse me, are you ready to order?”
Giving up for the moment, I ordered coffee. The waitress then started confirming the order, so I turned to Miyagi and asked just in case.
“You okay not ordering anything?”
When I did that, Miyagi made an awkward face.
“…Um, you shouldn’t talk to me in front of others.”
“What, is there something bad about that?”
“I believe I did explain this to you before, but… Well, you see, the presence of us observers cannot be sensed by anyone except for those we observe. Like so.”
Miyagi grabbed the waitress’s sleeve and shook it slightly. Indeed, as Miyagi said, there was no response.
“Any and all sensation I give to a person is treated as if it didn’t happen,” she said, picking up a glass. “So though I may hold up this glass, it is not as if she sees it floating. That said, neither does she see the glass suddenly disappear when I touch it, nor does she think it didn’t move at all - it just didn’t happen. I cannot be perceived as being "there,” but furthermore, I cannot even be perceived as being “gone.” …However, there is one exception. The lone individual who can perceive an observer is the person they observe. Troublingly, while I am essentially “non-existent,” I cannot be non-existent to you who is aware of me. …The point is, Mr. Kusunoki, that you currently appear as if you are talking to air.“
I checked the waitress’s expression.
She was looking at me as if I was a lunatic.
My coffee arrived a few minutes later, and as I sipped it, I considered leaving once I was done drinking, without meeting Naruse.
If he had arrived just a few dozen seconds later, I’m sure I would have done it. But before I’d firmly decided upon it, I saw Naruse entering the restaurant. I reluctantly went over and greeted him.
After he sat down, he showed exaggerated joy over our reunion. He indeed didn’t seem to notice Miyagi beside me at all.
"Long time no see. You been doing good?”, Naruse asked.
“Yeah, I guess.”
Not the kind of thing for a guy with less than six months left to say, I thought.
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