COTE : Three days of happyness

The observer with her knees up

On top of feeling bad enough as it was, it was a hot, restless night. Thanks to that, I had a very vivid dream.

Even after waking up, I ruminated over the dream in my mattress. It wasn’t a bad dream. In fact, it was a happy dream. But there’s nothing crueler than a happy dream.
In my dream, I was in high school, in a park. It wasn’t a park I knew, but my classmates from elementary school were there. The notion of the dream seemed to be that it was some kind of class reunion.

Everyone was having a fun time watching fireworks. Their light colored the smoke red. I stood outside the park, watching them.
I suddenly noticed Kushida beside me when she asked - How’s high school going?

I gave her a sidelong glance, but her face was blurry. I didn’t know anything about her beyond when she was ten, so I couldn’t really imagine how she looked now.

But in my dream, I thought that her face was absolutely stunning. I felt proud to have been acquaintances with her for so long.
Can’t say I’ve been enjoying it, I replied honestly. But it’s far from being the worst.
I guess that’s pretty much my answer too, Kushida nodded.

I secretly delighted that she’d gone through a similarly miserable adolescence.
You know, thinking about it now, she said, it really was a lot of fun back then.

What “back then” are you talking about?, I asked back.

Kushida didn’t answer. She squatted down, looked up at me, and said, Ayanokouji, are you still on the shelf?
I guess, I replied, while keeping an eye on her expression. Checking her reaction.

I see, Kushida said with an amazed smile on her lips. Well, you know, so am I.

Then she added, with a bashful look, good. That’s perfect.

Yeah, it’s great, I agreed.
That was the dream.
It’s not the kind of dream you should be having at twenty. I berated myself for what a childish dream it was. But at the same time, I wanted to keep it in my memory. I would regret it if I forgot it.

I’m certain that when I was ten, I didn’t have much affection for Kushida at all. Maybe only the tiniest bit. The problem was that I couldn’t feel even a “tiniest bit of affection” for anyone else since.

Perhaps that minuscule amount of affection was the biggest thing in my entire life - something I only realized long after she was gone.

Keeping all the details of the Kushida dream in memory, I laid in bed thinking about yesterday’s events. I’d sold all but three months of my remaining lifespan at that shoddy old building.

When I thought back on it, I didn’t think, oh, it could only have been a daydream. I considered the event to be absolute reality.
I didn’t, say, regret selling off the majority of my lifespan in the heat of the moment. I didn’t, say, realize the importance of what I had now that it was gone. Rather, it felt like a load off my shoulders.

What had kept me bound to life thus far had been the shallow hope that something good might happen someday. It was a baseless hope, but discarding it was a difficult task.

No matter how worthless someone is, there’s no proving that good fortune won’t befall them and allow them to write all that off as never having happened.

That was my salvation, but it was also a trap. Which is why now that I’d been clearly told “Nothing good will happen in your life,” I could see it as a blessing.

Now, I could die at peace.
I said, if this is my plight, then I might as well enjoy the three months I have left. I wanted to spend them such that I could think, “It was an awkward life, but at least once I accepted death, I had a reasonably happy final three months.”
First, I decided I’d go to the bookstore, read some magazines, think about what I should do next - but just then, the doorbell rang.
I was not expecting any visitors. I hadn’t had one of those in years, and surely wouldn’t in my last months.