I could not sleep a wink after that. The next morning, when I went to the living room, I received another lecture, same as I had when I returned home, along with birthday congratulations.
As I did every other morning, I ate my breakfast to the sound of the radio, changed my clothes, and rode my bike to school. It had been a while since I’d pulled an all-nighter, but for some reason I wasn’t that tired—maybe the daily exercise was paying off. Besides, if I did get tired, I could just take a nap during one of our breaks.
Something special had happened last night. And yet my daily life was unchanged. As though my emotions were plain on my face, Tanaka gave me what could only be described as a look of indifference as we passed each other on the way from the bike racks to the main entrance. Even still, she greeted me with a “Yo!” as if she didn’t mind wasting her own boring energy on a boring guy like me.
“Mm.”
“What’re you poutin’ for?”
“I’m not.”
A lie. A flat-out, bold-faced lie.
“You definitely are. With a face like that, the girls’ll be throwin’ themselves at you!”
That’d be nice. But of course, I’d never say that aloud.
“I mean, whatever.”
“That’s what happens with good-looking guys…!”
When I couldn’t come up with anything to reply to this meaningless opinion, Tanaka made herself scarce. When I got to the classroom, she was raucously bragging and showing off pictures of her dog to another classmate.
Normally, I would just spend the rest of our arrival time gazing around in boredom, but today was different. Now I had the girl from the bus shelter to think about. Maybe she really was a ghost. There were plenty of legends about them in this town. She might have only said that she was alive because she didn’t realize she was dead. Or maybe she was an alien, or some other kind of unknown life-form—not that a woman made only of lights had ever appeared in any of the stories or accounts I had read.
I considered a number of different possibilities about her true identity based on what I knew. I honestly had no idea if I would ever even see her again, but it was still a departure from my pointless everyday life. Spending these few moments thinking about something special was not a waste of time. Thinking in and of itself was not pointless until it became so.
The most important thing to consider was this: Should I meet this girl again, and how could I utilize this encounter to make my life into something special? Meeting a non-human being only once was not enough for me to live a special life going forward. What would make it meaningful was what might happen next, such as if she could share some knowledge or information with me that only she knew, which I could apply to my own life in the future. I even had the fleeting thought that if she was a ghost, perhaps she could show me a glimpse of the afterlife, but that was a little too out of the box.
What mattered most to me was that I saw her again.
That day, I sat through my classes as usual, making Saitou wait her turn at the shoe lockers this time, and set out running—as always—the moment I got home. The only way I was going to encounter that girl was by going to the bus stop, so there was no point in deviating from my usual routine.
I ran my normal route before ending up at the bus stop. It was as deserted as ever, the shelter lit by the evening sun refracting off the asphalt and not giving the slightest vibe that any ghosts might emerge from it. I sat quietly within it as I always did, but nothing special occurred. Perhaps she really wouldn’t appear until after dark, or maybe she was already there, and it was simply too bright out for me to see her still. In case it was the latter, I tried striking up a conversation, but there was no reply. No matter what I did, I received no response, and waited there until just before dinner time before I decided to head home.
Today, my family was celebrating my birthday, and as a gift, I received a wristwatch that would monitor my heart rate while running. I had never really paid attention to stuff like that while running before, but I had heard that maintaining your heart rate while running was good for building fitness, so I decided to put it to use.
I ate my dinner and then set out for my walk, as I always did. My mother chided me and reminded me not to go falling asleep in the park again, but I was already fully set on using the same lie today when I set foot out the door. Even if she didn’t show up, I was going to wait there until the clock struck midnight. There was a chance that she might only appear in the dead of night, after all.
I arrived at the shelter once again. There was no one there. I sat in my usual spot, quietly awaiting her. I wondered how she would appear—if she did at all. Yesterday she had been sitting to my right when I was facing the sliding door, at the farthest spot from the entrance. Perhaps she would come walking in from somewhere, the opposite direction from which she had left the night before.
I had not slept enough, but I wasn’t tired. As I patiently awaited her, wide awake, finally midnight came. Though I was reluctant to do so, I decided to head back home. Naturally, my fears had accumulated over the course of the night—how strong the possibility was that the previous night had been only a dream, that another encounter with this girl might never come again.
My life followed the exact same pattern the next day.
And the day after that.
And yet, she did not again appear at my side.
I was anxious, and though I was well aware that my impatience would get me nowhere, I felt a prickling sensation all throughout my body. As if it was obvious to those around me that I was much more irritable than usual, Tanaka hadn’t started up with me at any point in the past few days.
It felt like I was being struck by a fit of some illness. I tried to will myself out of my anxiety, but the feeling of my skin crawling was going nowhere, present as ever. I knew that the only way I would be able to escape this was by meeting her again. If not, I would probably spend the rest of my life visiting this bus stop, the sensation never leaving me.
What a terrible life that would be.
I spent another day hoping that she would be there, half resigned that she would not, heading to the bus stop as I always did when evening came, opening and shutting the door of the shelter futilely.
“Looks like we meet again.”