Chapter 5: Think Ahead and Deal With It
Part 1
I think, came Maki-chan’s voice, you’ve worn yourself out.
Not true, I said. Just, a lot’s happened.
This sort of life was terrible. How many thousands of years have I lived up until now?
Really, though, how many was it? How many hundred, thousands, millions of years?
How long have I been wasting all the time I had?
After all those ages and ages of meddling with time, the conclusion that I had arrived at was to destroy myself so that perfection could be attained.
Why had the life reset b.u.t.ton come to me, of all people?
It was your strong wish, said Maki-chan. I wanted to help you grant that wish.
Also not true, I retorted. I never was able to become perfect like my brother.
I had made a wish, that much was clear, but that wish had been far out of my reach. It was a wish that I never would have been able to deal with.
Well, whatever.
I’ve found my answer now, at least.
Not so fast, came Maki-chan’s voice, again. It’s not game over yet, you know.
That new game with the bonus stage, where I was invincible?
No, that sort of life was terrible. That was the worst of the worst.
Was Maki-chan aware of that too―did she want to warn me―or was she really just that innocent and naive?
This isn’t a New Game, it’s a Continue, she said,
in that incredibly innocent voice.
I got the impression that someone had scolded me.
Pushing that thought aside, I tried to swat away the noise that was flitting around in front of my face. I raised my right hand to a backhand position, at about eye level, and swept it from left to right. There was an effort to put power into the motion, but I saw absolutely no evidence of my having moved. In fact, there wasn’t even the slightest feeling, even, that my hand had moved.
Wait―"I raised my hand,’ could I even say that I had raised my hand? Was I standing? Was I was lying down? Maybe even upside down?
Could I even feel any sensations?
“…..to-kun, Yuuto-kun…..”
I heard a voice. I could hear sounds. I could realise that I was perceiving sound. What I’m getting at is, because I was able to hear sounds, I realised that I was now….uh, I’m not sure what I’m trying to say.
“…..Ah….this is terrible…..this life…..”
Those words that I spoke were the very words that had been circling incessantly in my brain for the longest time now.
So, I could hear, and I could speak.
―Did that mean that I was alive?
“Yuuto! I’m listening! Yuuto!”
“Don’t worry, nothing’s wrong, Mrs. Hashidate. He’s just come to, and he might have some trouble sorting out his memories, but it’ll be temporary. He’ll be back to normal before you know it.”
“I can’t thank you enough, doctor! He’ll be fine, won’t he?”
“Miraculously, he didn’t suffer any major external wounds. Just some minor bruising on his arms and a slight concussion. I would suggest getting some tests done on his head, to be safe.”
Who were they talking about? The voice sounded like my mom’s, but then again, it didn’t quite sound like her, as far as I could tell.
When that guy said “nothing’s wrong,” was he referring to me? I could hear, and speak, too, and this guy who was apparently a doctor had said “nothing’s wrong,” and, uhh, and then. But anyway, I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t move my arms.
Eventually, I came to the hazy realization that I was lying on my back, but I was aware of the fact that my brain couldn’t handle any exertion past that.
Here I was, alive.
As soon as the thought crossed my mind, it was as if the noose of anxiety had been cut loose, and I fell again into a deep sleep.
When my eyes fluttered open, I found myself a.s.saulted on all sides by morning. I swiveled my head to take a good look at my surroundings. It appeared that I was in a hospital room, the small s.p.a.ce lit up by the morning sun filtering through the curtains.
I heard a knock at the door. Whoever it was, they opened the door without waiting for my answer, and all color immediaetly fled from the world. The person standing in the doorway was a girl, wearing a white lab coat.
"Dr. Maki-chan"s here!"
"I figured at much..."
"Not feeling too well, are you. Shall I give you an injection to make you feel better?"
"My instincts are telling me to save myself, so no thanks, I"ll pa.s.s."
Maki-chan stood by the bed, looking down at me.
"You did something stupid, yeah?"
She said it like an accusation.
"Did you save me?"
"Of course not," she cooed. "Why would I ever do something like that?"
Now she was wearing a bright smile.
"Yuuto, you fell right smack in the middle of the train tracks~ You lay yourself down so fast it gave me the shock of a lifetime, and the train zoomed right over your body~ But you"re fine. The only injuries that you"ve sustained are on your arms and head from actually falling onto the tracks. Since you hit your head, they"ve run you through tests, but you"re right as rain. Nothing wrong with you now."
"Nothing wrong..."
"Yep. Your little leap into the abyss has no consequences now. You tried so hard, too."
"What about the reset b.u.t.ton...?"
"It"s still here. You can still use it. Only if you want to, though."
"Hey, Maki-chan, why did you decide to give me the reset b.u.t.ton?"
I asked the same question as I"d asked in the dream from earlier―though whether that was really a dream or not, I couldn"t say.
"Well, because you had a strong wish."
It was the same answer I"d gotten earlier. But unlike last time, she continued.
"My kind are able to exist because of the strong desires that humans harbor."
"What do you mean by that?"
"The wishes of people, the strongest wishes, are what brought me into being and continue to give me the power to live."
"...So, like a G.o.d or something?"
"If that"s what you think, then perhaps."
So Maki-chan was a G.o.d...
I felt conflicted. If Maki-chan really were a G.o.d, then what was the meaning behind all the head-bowing I had done at shrines, with my palms pressed together? Had I been barking up the wrong tree all this time? Were those G.o.ds that we revered all really just incomprehensible, cosplaying girls?
"So, then...suppose I wish for everything you"ve done for me to be wiped away. Could you grant that wish?"
"I"ve already granted you a wish, haven"t I?"
"Yeah, but..."
"It was because you had a strong wish that I granted it. Even if you wish for something else because your previous wish didn"t go well, the new wish has little chance of surpa.s.sing the first one in strength."
"I get what you mean, but..."
"Your voice is listless, Yuuto. Weak as water. Your thoughts and wishes, too, are all weak. Are you even breathing?"
"Didn"t you just tell me earlier that I was alive and well?"
"Haven"t you heard of something people call "the living dead"?"
"That sounds really cool, actually."
"It"s not, though. You wouldn"t know if you were dead or alive. Maybe you would call it being half-dead, half-alive?"
"What, like Schrödinger"s cat?"
"More like a picture taken at the exact, decisive instant when Schrödinger swung a hammer down at the skull of his pet cat. I think he won the Pulitzer Prize later that year."
"Don"t just make stuff up."
"Beings that are half-dead and half-alive are about as cool as the lie I just told."
What was Maki-chan even here for? Was she here to laugh at me for trying to die, failing, and ending up in the hospital?
I looked up at her face, which was looking down at me from my bedside, and sure enough, her mouth was curved in a smile. But it wasn"t a sneer; rather, it was a calm smile. One that said "Go on, do what you want," like I was being flung out of the nest.
"Your breakfast will be here soon. I hope you"ll be able to eat it."
For the first time since I"d woken up, I noticed how hungry I was.
Next thing I knew, color had returned to the world, and Maki-chan was gone.
That afternoon, Shuu and Natsuki came to visit me. Having only eaten the bland hospital breakfast earlier, I was glad to receive an a.s.sortment of cakes and snacks from them. Apparently it was Natsuki’s idea.
“I was surprised at first,” began Natsuki.
“We heard that you went and fell onto the train tracks.”
“They said that you were mostly unhurt, so I a.s.sumed that you had managed to slip to the wall and squeeze by, but it turned out you stayed right under the train.”
“I don’t remember that happening at all.”
“Do you have memory loss? Are you okay? I might’ve told you something weird earlier…”
“I think I’ll be fine…”
Natsuki looked at me, worry showing clearly in her eyes. She remembered the last conversation we’d had, which meant there hadn’t been a reset of the world yet.
“How long have I been here?”
“No idea, man. I didn’t ask.”
“I met with your mom, but she mostly just told us to let you rest. Which we plan to do, of course. She also called me late last night, telling me that you had gone out and weren’t back yet. I couldn’t believe that you of all people would stay out all night and fall onto the tracks just in time for the first train to arrive.”
“Yuuto, you weren’t…trying to leave this world behind, were you?”
“…I don’t really remember.”
I shook my head. It was half-lie, half-truth. M memories of last night’s events were still indistinct, but I knew that the moment I leapt in front of the train, I thought to myself that the world would be perfect if I were no longer in it.
Despite that, I was still alive.
Natsuki, perhaps mistaking the shaking of my head as an indication that it hurt, asked,
“Would it be better if we left for now?”
“No, it’s okay. Actually I’d like for you to stay, Natsuki. And you, of course, Shuu.”
Natsuki broke into a smile, the first smile she’d had since she arrived at the hospital. It was a smile that made me feel at peace all the way to the depths of my soul.
“I’m glad that you at least remembered us.”
“Of course I would.”
“We heard from your mother that your memories might be sort of mixed up, so I discussed it for a while with Natsuki.”
Natsuki and Shuu exchanged glances.
“We were worried that you’d forgotten us, so we wanted to make sure that you remembered our names.”
So that’s what it was. At first I’d been puzzled as to why they had been acting so stiffly, but really, the fact was that I, who never loitered around outside late at night, had stayed out until morning and gotten myself nearly run over by a train. Of course they’d all be worried.
“Have I cleared your suspicions, then?”
“Mhm.”
“Yeah, I’m glad you’re okay.”
After that, the three of us dedicated ourselves to eating our way through the cakes and snacks.
This moment was something that I could truly call happiness. The three of us, noisy and lively, feeling like we would stick together forever, transcending any worries about who stuck to whom, who liked whom, who hated whom.
I was, in a way, totally satisfied with the current situation.
“Just here to check up on you.”
I braced myself for the arrival of Dr. Maki-chan…nevermind, it was a normal doctor. Just like her, he wore a white coat, but unlike her, he actually gave off a feeling of authority.
After a couple of questions about how I was feeling, he examined my arms and head. There seemed to be no serious problems.
I lay down face-up in bed and closed my eyes.
What should I do now, I wondered. Even if I were to reset once more and return to the platform where I had jumped in front of the train, unless I made some decisive changes, the outcome would remain the same. This I knew from the resets that I had done thus far.
The world would become perfect if I were to disappear, but I couldn’t even manage that much.
I heard the door to my room opening, and opened my eyes. Like I"d antic.i.p.ated, the world had gone monochrome.
"Why the h.e.l.l are you a nurse now?!"
Instead of a doctor"s outfit, Maki-chan walked in dressed as a nurse.
"I thought it"d be nice to switch it up once in a while. Does it look good? Which one"s better, the doctor outfit or the nurse one?"
"I couldn"t care less. I"m not into that stuff!"
I raised my voice a bit. I mean, here I was, with all sorts of things to worry about, and she comes sauntering in like it"s all a big game. She was just putting me in these monochrome worlds to get a kick out of bothering me, I thought, and heaved out a sigh with each breath I took.
"I just wanted to wear it for a bit...you don"t have to give me that look."
She pouted for a few seconds before realizing that yes, she had gone too far, and turned to me imploringly with puppy-dog eyes.
I knew, too, that it was immature to pout about things and stay mad, so I blurted, by way of apology, "Sorry. For yelling at you."
The second I finished talking, Maki-chan"s clouded expression brightened, like a switch had been flipped. "I"m sorry too, Yuuto. I didn"t know that you liked the doctor outfit better than the nurse one. I"ll be sure to wear the doctor one next time!"
She was totally on the wrong track, but it would be a pain to correct her, so I let it slide.
"Your friends came by to visit, right?"
"Yeah, they did. They"re both good friends. I"d like to be with them forever, like how it is now."
Oh. Like how it was now. In which case Natsuki would continue to like Shuu, and would continue to be unable to tell him her feelings, and her illness would continue to get worse. And I would just stand there, unable to do a thing.
That was the reality I faced at that moment. In this not-yet-reset world, not one of my problems had been resolved. Without the b.u.t.ton, I could do nothing, and if I were to slip up, I couldn"t steer back onto the right path without resetting.
But I would do my best, to, uh...I would...huh? What would I even do my best to do?
"Maki-chan, since you"re a G.o.d, can"t you cure Natsuki"s illness?"
"Does she wish for it to happen? Even if that were the case, I"ve never met Natsuki-chan before, so I don"t think I have any obligation to grant her wishes. Anyway, this world that the two of us are talking in is a world that no one else can see or enter."
I couldn"t imagine what was going on in Maki-chan"s head for her to flippantly give me such a cruel answer.
As a G.o.d, she wouldn"t be expected to have any feelings in the first place, but she"d sat in here, laughing and pouting, hadn"t she? How could she be so coldhearted towards Natsuki"s plightnow ?
".....Hey, Maki-chan, there are many people in this world who wish for things, right? Do you just stand there and worldlessly watch those people?"
"Well, I"m nothing but a stroke of luck."
"You mean like, only people who win the lottery of life will gain happiness?"
"Something like that."
Did that even count as a G.o.d? No, wait, she never even made the claim that she herself was a G.o.d. But someone who was born from the emotions of humans, someone whose purpose is to fulfill wishes―what else could that be, other than a G.o.d?
Even a.s.suming that she weren"t a G.o.d―say, for example, that she were a devil instead, then still, she"s at least granted one of my wishes, which made her, in my opinion, better than any of the G.o.ds to whom I tossed money into the boxes at shrines but who had not once done a single thing for me. If Maki-chan were to meet Natsuki, would she grant her wish? Should Natsuki offer some money at a shrine and ask Maki-chan for a favor? Should she pray and everything? Ring the shrine bell?** Where did Maki-chan reside, normally? Where was her shrine? Oh, maybe I could bring Natsuki into the monochrome world...well, probably not, so maybe I should set Natsuki and Maki-chan up with each other, and have Natsuki make a wish. Ugh...I couldn"t even estimate how likely it was for that to succeed. My brain simply refused to work...!
"Yuuto, does your head hurt?"
Somehow, during course my internal struggle, my hands had reached up to cradle my head between them.
"The doctor said that everything looked fine, right...? In my hippocampus, that is."
"That"s only what it looks like. But if you look closely, with your heart, then you can see that your hippocampus is damaged."
"But the MRI scans showed..."
"I"m just warning you here. Your hippocampus is on the verge of breaking. You can still use the reset b.u.t.ton, but if you keep resetting any more than you have, you"ll never be able to remember or recall anything every again, and just become a soulless husk of a person, a doll."
"A soulless husk...a doll.....?"
"Yuuto, how much of the past can you remember right now?"
".....Even that"s hard to tell right now. It"s not like I"ve forgotten things, just that when I try to recall something, my head starts to hurt. I"ll be able to figure my memories out when that gets better. I"m taking meds, so it"ll be fine, right?"
The innocent air that Maki-chan exuded earlier had now all but disappeared, and her expression darkened considerably.
"Your brain has even forgotten the fact that it has forgotten the past. It thinks that those events could never have happened in the first place."
The cards that she held in her hands were all what seemed to be my memories, fragments of my past that I had absolutely no recollection of. My memories of Natsuki from when we were kids were all surely gone as well.
".....Well, it"s no big deal," I muttered, without a hint of putting up any kind of strong front.
"Yuuto..."
"It doesn"t matter. If I can"t remember them, it"s like they never happened in the first place. Any memory, once truly forgotten, won"t even leave a trace to remember. After all, I don"t even remember that I"ve forgotten them..."
It didn"t matter, right?
That was enough discussion about my tossing aside the past; wasn"t there a future that I needed to save instead? Because of that, although the idea that everything I"ve done in the past is correct is admittedly patently untrue, isn"t it true that they weren"t all mistakes, either?
Anyway, I could accept that there were things that I simply could not achieve.
Would you like the golden axe or the silver axe? What is the happiness that you wish to acquire most? ―I guess they"re pretty different questions, after all. Nevertheless, the happiness that my brother would surely acquire with such deftness was something that I had trouble grasping for. That was all it was.
Nurse Maki-chan was smiling. A white-clad angel**. Or would you have to call her a white-clad G.o.d instead?
Or maybe she was a devil, dressed in white?
No, none of those worked. Maki-chan was just Maki-chan, nothing more and nothing less.
Maki-chan was exactly what she was, and I couldn"t imagine her as anything beyond that.
The purest existence, an embodiment of purity itself.
Maybe what I"d meant by "perfect and tidy" had been this girl, the epitome of purity.
If that were true, then that would, perhaps, make her the cruelest being of all.
I finally returned to school in late September.
“Hashidate Yuuto will resume his attendance at school, starting today.”
My cla.s.smates acknowledged the teacher’s announcement with nods. I waved at them uncharacteristically, still kind of out of it.
“We have one other announcement. Sugita Natsuki-san?”
“Yes.”
Natsuki stood from her seat.
“It’s slightly ironic that I’m leaving the day Yuuto comes back, but I’d like to let you all know that starting this afternoon, I will be staying at the hospital as an inpatient.”
Upon hearing what she had to say, the cla.s.sroom descended into chaos.
“I’m sorry for not saying anything about it before. I’ve been ill for a long time, and my doctor has informed me that it’s now time for me to be hospitalised. So I’ll do that for a while. It might be for a long time, but I’ll be sure to come back.”
I was jerked back to reality. Yes, this was really happening.
The cause of Natsuki’s illness remained unknown, and her 3-month fate remained sealed. Counting forward three months from mid-July…that meant that she had but one month left to live.
What would she do in the hospital for that one remaining month? Had they found a way to cure her yet? If so, she might make it.
The cla.s.s, oblivious to her situation, took the announcement lightly, saying, “M"kay, do your best,” and laughing through their farewells. Only I knew the truth. She looked healthy at first glance, but I knew she didn’t have long to live.
Recalling what I’d said to Maki-chan, I wondered if this final month would continue like how it was now.
Natsuki left school early, before noon.
When school ended, Shuu came up to me, saying,
“Are you going to go see Natsuki?”
“…..Yeah.”
Shuu stood in the bus headed towards the hospital, gazing outside in silence. I, too, watched the scenery rush by. We were never too fond of spoken conversation anyway, normally linked by some unspoken thread of communication. But today, even that felt…faint.
We asked the receptionist for Natsuki’s room number, and headed for the inpatient ward of the department of internal medicine. Natsuki had a private room.
She brightly greeted us with a full smile.
“That’s funny,” remarked Shuu. “Are you hiding anything from us, Natsuki? Your sudden hospitalisation is one thing, but having a private room when you’re acting like there aren’t any serious issues? Now that’s unusual.”
“Oh, come one, who cares…”
The light dismissal that she chirped in response only served to unsettle him further.
“There’s no doubt you’re ill, but what I want to know is, why didn’t you tell me about it? Aren’t we friends?”
“…..Friends. That’s right, we’re friends, yes.”
The tone of Natsuki’s voice dropped a notch.
“So since we’re friends and all, wouldn’t you think to confide in me?”
“Well, Yuuto knew.”
The conversation was suddenly jerked in my direction, and I fumbled for a reply.
“What’s the meaning of this?”
“Ah, well, you see…..that time that I went to the hospital, I b.u.mped into her here, so that’s how I came to know about it.”
It didn’t seem like a good idea to disclose the details of her illness.
“So I was the only one who didn’t know. So, what were you diagnosed with?”
“We don’t really know.”
“Give me a break! What have you guys been doing behind my back this whole time?”
No, that’s not what’s happening, really.
My knowledge of Natsuki’s illness was purely accidental, and she would have kept it from everyone if she could have. I think she tried especially hard to keep Shuu from finding out.
Point was, Natsuki was going to die, right? In a month?
Was that something so easily confided to others, even close friends?
Furthermore, Shuu was special to Natsuki.
“You don’t know anything, so don’t go around saying whatever you want.”
“Yeah, well the reason I don’t know anything is because you never bothered to tell me.”
“Like I would tell you these things! Get out of my room!”
“Fine, I will!”
Shuu really did end up leaving the room. I looked over at Natsuki, who looked so lonely, having been left behind and now stuck in the bed.
“Natsuki, I’m sorry,”
“Why are you apologizing?”
I couldn’t answer that. I knew that if only I were gone, then the world would be perfect, but I couldn’t tell her that.
I didn’t want our friendship to become strained like this. I just wanted the three of us to stay friends. Natsuki, Shuu, and I were all at our limits.
The more I thought about it, the less it made sense in my head.
We sat in silence for over ten minutes. Someone knocked at the door, and Natsuki let them in. It was Dr. Kakitagawa.
“Today, I brought someone I wanted to introduce to Sugita-san.”
A tall man appeared from behind the doctor. He wore a black jacket and black necktie, and his hair was slicked back in a professional manner, revealing a sharp gaze―
“Meet Hashidate Taishi.”
“Taishi!”
“You look well, Yuuto. I didn’t know you would be here.”
“Hashidate-kun here is going to be my a.s.sistant starting today. He’ll be contributing to finding the cure for Sugita-san’s disease, as well.”
My brother was here! If anyone could cure Natsuki, it would be him.
Despite the fact that we hadn’t met in years, I still saw the boldness written in his face, and to me, that meant hope.
I left for the roof with my brother.
The last time I had come here was that time with Dr. Kakitagawa.
It was hot up on the roof, but I felt incredibly free.
“Taishi, you’ll be able to cure her, right?”
“How much did Dr. Kakitagawa tell you?”
I explained what I knew about Natsuki’s illness, about how she had a tumor that would affect her digestive and respiratory systems, the existence of other people with the same illness, and how a cure hadn’t been found yet, as well as I could.
“The first death from the disease occurred yesterday.”
“Death? You mean…..?”
“The number of patients has been increasing. There are no clear symptoms, so diagnosis often comes too late. The one who died yesterday was a 30-year-old salaryman. Being completely healthy otherwise, it never occurred to him to visit the hospital. He coughed up blood in his home, was brought here by the ambulance, and was p.r.o.nounced dead upon arrival. It was only after they administered an autopsy that signs of illness were found. There will be more patients in the near future. It’s a shame that it’s fatal.”
“No…Dr. Kakitagawa said that he’d find a cure…..”
“The research is still ongoing, and we have an understanding of the disease, to a certain extent. A cure has yet to be found. We can slow the progression of the disease by treating its symptoms, but that’s all we have for now.”
“B-but, you’re here to help find a cure, right?”
“Yes, I am. But seeing as I’m not even certified as a doctor, treatment is outside of my jurisdiction. The most I can do here is a.s.sist with testing patients. Here, Yuuto, I’ll do as much as I can to examine Sugita Natsuki and the others for clues. Then I’ll write up a report, and a.n.a.lyze the data. That’s my role here.”
“O-okay. Got it.”
Like I mentioned earlier, my brother was a college student, and only a second-year, at that. The fact that Dr. Kakitagawa had asked for his help despite that showed the trust that he had in my brother’s skills. Just by knowing that, you could tell that my brother was incredible.
Everything would be okay. Everything would turn out fine, because Taishi was here now.
A sense of relief spread through my body.
The last thing I asked before we parted was a question that I’d wanted to ask for a long time but had never gotten the chance to do so.
“Hey, Taishi.”
“What?”
“Why did you choose to go to university?”
He gave me that bold smirk of his, and answered.
“I wanted to create a perfect world.”
Oh, wonderful. My brother was the same as always, perfect and tidy.
Later that day, Taishi drove me home in his car. I hadn’t known, but at some point he’d acquired a license and his own car. It was a blue sports car, secondhand, bought cheap from one of his uppercla.s.smen from college. Taishi was, I thought as he handled the sports car with ease, really cool in the simplest of ways.
Notes:
** These are all things that are often done at shrines. The money box is called “saisen” if you want to Google it and get a better visual.
** In j.a.panese, a common word for nurse is 白衣の天使, lit. “white-clad angel,” so here’s it’s not just like a wild metaphor appeared.