Under the sky deeply covered with gray clouds, I was being assaulted by suffering. The throbbing head, the swirling memories were choking me; it was unbearable. I wanted to be released from this suffering quickly. Would this hand presented before me save me?
I wanted to go to a place where I wouldn’t feel sadness or pain. A peaceful, calm place without suffering that would accept me…
In my blurry vision, I saw my extended arm. As my fingertips touched the Death God’s hand, as if drawn in, something brushed against my arm.
It slipped gently through my arm and fell to the ground. I slowly raised my gaze overhead to confirm what had brushed my arm.
Snow was falling from the gray sky I looked up at.
“Your voice is beautiful…”
A deep and soft voice that resurfaced in the back of my brain, snow illuminated by the morning sun, a children’s book I read aloud, a name written large on the back cover, the stoic profile next to me on the veranda I sat on.
“Don’t die, Yuu…”
In my clearing view, snow was dancing down.
“Soejima-kun…”
I caught Death God’s eyes popping wide at the edge of my vision.
I pulled back my extended hand, turned my back as if writhing, and stepped forward to rush down the stairs.
The Death God chased me. The sound of his footsteps was approaching my back as I ran down the stairs. There was no time to look back. I mustered all the strength in my body.
My head hurt dully, and my staggering body was heavy. My body wouldn’t move as I wanted it to. My foot, which didn’t match the pace, slipped on the step. I stumbled with the accelerated momentum and fell straight down.
This is bad! I’m falling―!
I tightly closed my eyes and braced myself for the violent impact that would hit my whole body. In that moment, I felt as if time had slowed down.
I had a sensation of my abdomen being caught by someone. Feeling that my falling body was being held by someone, I opened my closed eyes.
My thoughts couldn’t catch up.
There was supposed to be no one at the bottom of the stairs. Yet, now, I was indeed entrusting my body to someone on the step below the stairs.
The footsteps of the Death God were slowly approaching from behind. I lifted my disturbed face, which was reflected in his drooping eyes.
“Ah… Ah!”
His unique tone of voice, the brown wavy hair peeking out from the black hat.
“Why…”
Looking at me, who was stunned, he smiled broadly.
“Man, things have become troublesome again.”
The listless god I’d always wished to appear was there.
There was a small sound of footsteps stopping behind me. Still held by the listless god, I turned around.
“What are you doing, senpai?” The Death God, who had stopped his foot on the upper step of the stairs, said so in an amused tone and showed a full smile to the listless god.
“Please hand her over to me.”
The Death God slowly extended his hand, gloved in black leather. The listless god, who had been holding me, put me down on the stairs and sheltered me behind him, saying in a light-hearted tone, “Don’t make such a scary face.”
“Scary? Me?”
“Your eyes aren’t laughing.”
“I don’t want to be told that by someone whose eyes are gleaming.”
The Death God stepped forward with an even bigger smile. “Please don’t get in my way.”
Scratching his forehead casually, the listless god responded to the approaching Death God, “That won’t be possible. This child is under contract with me.”
“Contract…?”
The Death God furrowed his eyebrows at the listless god’s words, whose face, previously looking rather bored, changed. The listless god thrust his right hand forward.
“Yeah, she’s under my jurisdiction.”
When the listless god swung up the right hand he had thrust out, sparks flew up in front of the Death God with a sharp sound. The scattered sparks melted the snow in an instant. Startled by the sparks, the Death God covered his face with his arm to protect himself.
Pointing his thumb at me standing behind him, the listless god addressed the Death God.
“The fact that she didn’t take your hand was her own will. Disappear!”
With his arm still against his forehead, the Death God let out a small laugh as if he were holding back from bursting out laughing.
“She’s already starting to disappear, you know?”
Then he turned his gaze toward me, trembling behind the listless god.
“Which is what she herself wished for.”
With an audacious smile, the Death God suddenly disappeared. As if following the meaningful gaze left by the Death God, the listless god turned back and looked at my trembling figure.
The tip of my finger that had touched the Death God was starting to disappear. It’s not transparent. My finger is fading out of existence. From my fingertips to my palm, my body was gradually starting to disappear, as if it was being eaten away.
“No, stop!” I let out a scream. The listless god dropped his gaze to my disappearing fingertips and seemed to immediately notice something, looking down the stairs and muttering.
“He’s coming this way, looking for you.”
Looking for me? Could it be…? Clasping my vanishing hand with the other, I looked up while trembling.
As if seeing through my thoughts, the listless god gave a small nod and lifted his right arm, pointing his index finger.
“Don’t abandon hope until the very last moment.”
With a thud, a pain as if I were being punched hit my head again. When I opened my eyes, that I had involuntarily closed due to the pain, the listless god was nowhere to be seen.
Along with the pain, my past memories raced through my mind like a revolving lantern. Suddenly, I noticed I had lost sensation in one of my hands. When I looked down, my arm had already vanished up to the wrist.
Will I make it in time?
If I can recover my memories before this body disappears. If I can remember who I am!
I bit my lip and stamped on the stairs. Dragging my unsteady body, I started climbing up the stairs. Despite the fear of disappearing making my legs want to give in, I moved them, looked upward, and took one step after another.
There were things I wanted to say. If I could meet Soejima-kun in a form other than a spirit, there were words I wanted him to hear. Things that I couldn’t put into words, buried deep in my chest, motivated me.
The top of the long staircase appeared in my foggy field of vision. There, I could see my younger self from when I was a sixth grader. Is it a phantom of the memories that overflowed from the consciousness that I’m seeing?
Memories were racing through. The past me existed in those memories. The me who always held her breath, and was spending each day hiding, was coming back to life.
That’s right.
I could only protect myself by hiding in order not to get hurt or catch anyone’s eye.
I was always living without feeling like I was truly alive, wandering each day like an incorporeal spirit, hoping to vanish entirely yet always wishing to be found. Wishing to be noticed.
Amid these conflicting desires, where is the real me? Is it in the painful past that clings to me or in the future full of nothing but anxiety?
Living now as if I were half-dead, I cried countless times, thinking it was all over. But still, I faced my weaknesses. Even if no one noticed me, I stood up time and time again.
The half of me that hid was not really weak. Remember! I am-…!
“Yuu!”
I turned around toward the source of that voice. The sound of footsteps rushing up from below the stairs brought up a surge of emotions. I stared at the figure approaching, my eyes on the verge of overflowing with tears.
My legs started to crumble. My feet were beginning to vanish. The fingertips covering the vanished arm were also becoming ambiguous from the edge of my body. My disappearing feet could no longer support my body, and I almost fell onto the stairs on my knees.
The sound of footsteps stopped a few meters away.
I desperately lifted my face. The moon, hidden by the clouds, appears, illuminating the figure a few meters away. There, in front of me, was Soejima-kun, his face pale.
“Why… There’s still time…!”
Before Soejima-kun’s words ended, I moaned again with a painful headache that hit me.
“Could it be your memories?”
With a stunned expression, he walked one step at a time. With the remaining hand that was disappearing, I somehow managed to prop myself up.
The center of my body was rapidly becoming transparent.
“Soejima-kun, I…”
I mustered the words welling up from my throat.
“…want to see you again.”
Memories whirled around my head. How many times had I wished that tomorrow wouldn’t come?
Despite trying to smile, a tear trickled down from my eye. There were still things I wanted to say, but my voice didn’t come out anymore.
I remembered the translucent night sky.
You didn’t miss my vanishing voice and smiled gently. You don’t realize how much it mattered to me. You don’t understand how every aspect of your existence, which you call broken, matters to me.
Even if everyone says you’re strange, I don’t think so. You’re like a light that illuminates my darkness.
Soejima-kun, who was rushing over, tried to say something to me with a desperate face. But I couldn’t hear anything anymore…
The last thing that jumped into my eyes was the sight of Soejima-kun reaching out to me, who was disappearing.
Snow began to fall from the sky, dyed in the twilight. It was falling on Soejima-kun, who was standing alone on the stairs.
When he slowly opened his hand that grabbed the air, the fallen snow melted from the warmth of his palm. As if there was nothing there in the first place, leaving no trace.
“I wanted us to be together. That’s why I…”
Soejima-kun’s voice no longer reached me…
In the falling snow, leaving Soejima-kun standing alone, my body vanished.