BXBX NOVEL Chapter 4: Last Stop of the 5 AM Train
Chapter 4: Last Stop of the 5 AM Train
Part 1
The first midterms of my high school life were coming up.
“Let’s study together again.”
It was Natsuki’s suggestion, to which Shuu immediately agreed.
We studied at the public library near my school. It was a big building in the park, right next to the museum that bore the same name.
Every day during the halt on club activities (where even the elite sports teams got to take a break), the minute school let out for the day, the three of us would dash to the library and get the key to one of the private study rooms. There were a limited amount of private rooms, and they were on a first-come-first serve basis, so getting the key was the responsibility of those involved in sports clubsーnamely, Natsuki and Shuu.
And that’s how we ended up acquiring a private room with a four-person table. Standing from the doorway, you’d see me and Shuu on the right, with Natsuki on the left. We just kind of naturally settled into that arrangement.
As for the studying itself, it went well enough, I suppose. Now that I think about it, we had, also at Natsuki’s suggestion, studied together for high school entrance exams, so it was perfectly natural to assume that we would continue to study together in high school.
The halt on club activities lasted a week, and during that week, we studied at the library together every day―except for the one day where Natsuki left early. It was to go to the hospital or something, apparently.
“Now that’s a bolt out of the blue. You’re in top shape, after all.”
“Girls have certain problems, you know.”
“Are you pregnant, or what?”
“Yuuto, are you saying you did something?”
“O-of course not! I’m talking about Shuu.”
“He would never!”
“Yeah, I know. Well, what if some other guy…”
I shut my mouth right there. It wasn’t impossible. This was a co-ed school; there were a lot of guys besides Shuu and me. Seeing as there was a girls’ volleyball team, there was bound to be a boys’ volleyball team as well, and she likely had some sort of connections with the upperclassmen there. You know what they say, a woman’s heart is fickle.
Shuu must’ve been thinking the same thing as the three of us sat in silence.
“…..I’d be kinda pissed.”
“Yeah.”
I broke the silence with a sigh, and Shuu murmured his agreement.
To be honest, if Natsuki were to date someone other than Shuu or me, we’d feel betrayed. I knew it was a selfish thing to say. It was only a dumb statement of self-derision.
My mind wandered for a moment, causing the mechanical pencil that I’d been twirling between my fingers to fall to the floor. I’d been dropping things a lot lately, and there was still that constant ringing in my ears.
In the end, I put no effort in studying that day.
It was after midterms, and we were fooling around on the way home, which we hadn’t done in a while.
“Yuuto, are you free today?”
“Sorry, I was thinking about going to the hospital later.”
“What’s wrong, Yuuto, you pregnant?”
“Idiot―”
Natsuki didn’t know a single word of the conversations Shuu and I had had in her absence. How much did she know about how Shuu and I felt about her, I wondered.
The two of us parted on our respective paths, and I headed towards the ENT clinic, insurance card in my pocket.
“When did your tinnitus begin?”
“From when I started high school, I think.”
“You’re a first-year, right?”
“Yes.”
“That makes it around March. You’ve had it for a long time, then. Have your ears been ringing constantly?”
“Yes. Sometimes, I’m acutely aware of the ringing, but at those times, I feel like it’s just always been there, maybe.”
“Hmm…”
The ENT doctor thought for a bit, then slowly opened his mouth to speak.
“There are many possible causes for your tinnitus. For example, it may stem from stiff shoulders, or may be a symptom of onset of mental illness. If you really want to know, you should get a more in-depth examination from the university hospital.”
A week later, I skipped morning classes and went to the hospital. My parents were really worried to learn that I was getting a scan done at the university hospital, but I told them, “I’m fine, so don’t worry,” and left the house alone. I mean, technically speaking, I was healthy.
I went up to the receptionist and filled out my forms, and was then directed to the radiology department.
In the examination room, I lay on a bed that was little more than a paper sheet draped over a metal slab. A tunnel-like object descended towards me from above my head and made a tremendously loud clanging sound. This was the device that they would use to get an image of the cross-section of my brain, huh.
My brother had often listened to this kind of music. Aphex, if I’m not mistaken…
“Don’t move.”
At the sound of the voice coming from the speaker, I shifted my gaze upwards.
After about 20 minutes, the noise stopped.
Afterwards, as I made my way towards the stairs that led to the examination room, I thought I saw someone that I recognized.
I only saw her from behind, but… that was definitely Natsuki, wasn’t it? Why was she at the university hospital?
Was it for the maternity ward, as Shuu and I had joked? My flippant mood soon changed to suspicion. I turned to look at the building diagram on the wall. Medicinal Health, Pediatrics, Obstetrics, Gynecology. The medicinal department was where one would go for a cold or something. She wouldn’t come all the way here just for a cold. So then what…?
I might be overthinking it. No, but this was Natsuki we’re talking about. How should I approach her?
When I opened the door to the examination room, the world faded to monochrome.
I’m in this world again.
There was a female doctor in a white coat sitting inside.
“Ehehe, how’s it look? Does it suit me? I’m Dr. Maki-chan now, okay?”
“No no no no, it looks weird. It’s too weird for Maki-chan to be a doctor.”
“It’s not like I wore a white coat here for cosplay. I’m like your own personal doctor, Yuuto. I’m here to help you.”
“Even so, why bother dressing the part? There’s no real need to wear a lab coat, and what’s with those glasses you have on?”
Maki-chan looked at me with contempt as she pushed her glasses up by the bridge.
“You’ve got to do things by the books. We’re in the examination room, so might as well, you know? Alright, sit down, sit down. I’ll be explaining your examination results now―”
In an attempt to become even more in character, she changed her way of speaking a little.
“There’s just no pleasing you, is there…”
I reluctantly did as I was told, and sat on the small round stool in front of Maki-chan.
She was at the computer, pulling up brain scan images. I could see my name, “Hashidate Yuuto”, above them. MRI images were always monochrome in the first place, so they didn’t look weird in the monochrome world.
“In principle, the human brain never forgets anything. You might think you’ve forgotten something, but that is just a case of being unable to locate existing memories. It follows, then, that the human capacity to form memories is limited. However, over the course of your many resets, you’ve lived much longer than those around you, and so have picked up that many more memories. As a result of this rapid overload of your memory, even if you filter out the unneeded memories, there is still not enough space, here―”
Maki-chan made a circling motion over the center of my brain displayed on the screen. Somehow, I felt a faint buzzing sensation from the back of my neck, as if someone were actually poking around inside my brain.
“This section, your hippocampus, is beginning to atrophy.”
“Atrophy? You mean it’s withering away?”
“Correct. The hippocampus governs memory, so its atrophication is a sign that your memory capacity is also degrading. You forget not only bits of your past, but also parts of your most recent resets. Am I correct?”
“I feel like I’ve forgotten them, but at the same time, those memories seem almost within reach.”
“I see…”
Maki-chan propped her chin up onto her hand. It looked like she was thinking very hard about it, but I couldn’t really tell whether she was actually thinking, or just playing the part as a doctor.
Dr. Maki-chan finally spoke.
“It might not be a good idea to use the button from now on, then.”
“…You mean, I can’t use it any more?”
That would be a problem for me. After all, the button was an indispensable part of my plan to lead a perfect and tidy life.
“It’s not that you can’t use it anymore, per se…”
“It’ll be a problem, a real problem! This is terrible! If I can’t use the button…”
“But the more you use it, the more your hippocampus will wither away. Do you want to keep resetting despite the risks? You want to keep resetting that badly?”
If I were to keep resetting, my brain would slowly wither away.
What would happen after it decayed completely?
I’d die, probably.
As I imagined the consequences, my mind was engulfed in a wave of fear.
The gradual decay of my brain, and my subsequent death, was a harsh consequence to face. However, it might be worth the ability to reset. After all, that button was already such an integral component of my life strategy.
If I told Maki-chan now that I would stop using it, everything that had happened would be for naught.
If that happened, I would be dragged back to that classroom, reeking of feces. I would be forced to live my old life again, with perfection forever out of reach.
No way could I let that happen.
“A strong wish.”
When I raised my head at the sound of Maki-chan’s voice, the world was once more flooded with color. Before me was a male doctor, sitting at the desk.
He studied my face, and spoke.
“Take a look at the monitor, and I’ll explain for you.”
“Eh? ….Uh, okay.”
There were MRI scans once again displayed on the monitor, but they were different from the ones Maki-chan had showed me.
“This is your cerebrum, and this is your cerebellum. Here’s the brain stem, and inside of it is something called the hippocampus. Suppose a blood vessel here were to be cut. You’d have a hemorrhage, and this part here would be all dark. But that’s not what we have here. Yours is very healthy.”
“Uhm…so my hippocampus isn’t decaying…?”
“Your hippocampus? What you’re talking about is Parkinson’s Disease. It doesn’t look like that’s the case, but…do you suspect something? Do you get hand tremors, or anything like that?”
“No, I…ah.”
I recalled how I’d tried to twirl my pencil but dropped it. I wonder if that was because of tremors.
“What is it?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
I’ll just assume that it was all my imagination.
After all, there was nothing I could do about not being able to reset anymore.
◆
The end-of-term exams came and went without a hitch, and summer vacation arrived.
The ringing in my ears showed no sign of stopping. I still couldn’t tell if Maki-chan’s prediction of the atrophication of my hippocampus was coming true or not.
But there was no denying it. My ears kept ringing. It might have been my imagination, but I felt that I was also experiencing more bouts of shaking in my hands.
As soon as summer vacation started, I visited the hospital a second time.
“You still have the ringing in your ears? But your scans showed no anomalies in your brain… It may be a psychogenic reaction, so let me direct you to the psychosomatics department.”
“Psychosomatics?”
“Sometimes, physical symptoms will arise from psychological problems. In those cases, we usually refer them at first to the medicinal department. We don’t have any specialists in psychosomatics here, but there’s a doctor in the medicinal department who also happens to be familiar with psychosomatics.”
“So if I go there, the ringing in my ears will be cured?”
“It wouldn’t be wise to go in there with too many expectations. There are plenty of patients there with unexplained symptoms.”
He made a call to the medicinal department, and secured an appointment for me. It seemed that I would be able to have an examination immediately.
I cheerfully started off in the direction of the medicinal department.
“Hashidate-kun. Room 5, please.”
As I stood up to enter, I locked eyes with the person who was exiting Room 5.
“…Natsuki?”
“Y-Yuuto?”
Natsuki turned around, fleeing back into the room she’d come from. I chased after her. It was my examination room, after all, and I still remembered the time when I thought I had seen her figure in the hallway of the hospital that day.
Once she stepped into the examination room, Natsuki made a beeline for the elderly doctor inside, hoping to hide behind him. As I reached out my hand towards Natsuki, the doctor interrupted me.
“Calm down. What’s the fuss? Sugita-san, who is this?”
“…My friend.”
“Sugita-san’s friend, why are you here?”
“I’m Hashidate Yuuto…my name was called.”
“Hm? …Ah, yes, you are the next patient.”
He glanced over my medical charts and gave a look of understanding. I pressed the question immediately,
“Doctor, is Natsuki ill?”
“Since she’s at a hospital, she must be experiencing some kind of symptoms, no? But this is a matter of patient privacy, so I’m afraid I can’t tell you the specifics.”
“Doctor, it’s fine. He’s my…friend, you see.”
Once he heard her words, his face took on a troubled look.
“Is something wrong?”
The curtains at the back of the examination room were pushed aside, and a man wearing a lab coat entered the room. He was a doctor too, probably.
“Ah, Dr. Kakitagawa. This one here is the patient’s friend, it seems.”
The doctor, who was apparently named Kakitagawa, looked to be about 30 years old. He had a fearless expression on his face, and really looked like the cool, sporty type.
“A friend? You mean this one?”
“Wait, you’ve got it wrong. I’m the next patient.”
“Um…Doctor? Could you tell Yuuto about it?”
The doctors’ eyes met. The older one nodded, and stood from his seat.
“Dr. Kakitagawa, please give the explanation. It falls under your department, after all.
Now it was Dr. Kakitagawa’s turn to sit in the chair.
"Understood. Sugita-san, and um…Hashidate-kun. First of all, please sit. Hm? …Hashidate….Yuuto-kun?”
“Yes?”
“Do you by any chance have an older brother?”
“I do. He’s in college.”
“Kouga University?”
“Yes. He started a year ago.”
“I see. I’m an associate professor at Kouga University. My name’s Kakitagawa Yuzuru. So…would your older brother be, by any chance, Hashidate Taishi?”
“You know my brother?”
“I know him quite well.”
A professor who knew of my tidy and perfect brother!
I stood a little straighter. My brother, who had just started university, had made an impression on an associate professor! That was nothing to sneeze at. Just as expected of my brother.
“Anyway, we can save the conversation about your brother for some other time. So, Yuuto-kun, you want to know about Sugita-san’s illness, am I correct?”
I nodded.
“How about you, Sugita-san? Are you really okay with me telling him?”
Natsuki, too, nodded.
Dr. Kakitagawa let out a sigh of resignation, and spoke to us as respectfully as he could.
“Sugita-san is also aware of her own situation, so I don’t see a point in hiding it from you, but I’m not altogether pleased to be doing this, either. She has a small tumor that may affect her respiratory and digestive systems.”
“Eh!?”
My mind went blank.
“We cannot perform a full biopsy at this time, so it’s unclear whether it’s a malignant tumor or not―that is, whether it will turn into cancer or not. From what the endoscopy showed, it appears not to be of the cancerous type. However, it is also different from any other case we’ve seen.”
“…What do you mean?”
“It’s possible that this is a new illness, one that we cannot diagnose at this time.”
What the hell is that?
Unknown? A new illness? Unable to diagnose?
They had no idea how to cure it? That’s what he was trying to say, wasn’t it.
The more I tried to desperately comprehend what the doctor had just said, the less sense it made to me.
“Doctor, Natsuki is…”
“If you’re asking about what conclusions we drew…”
He stopped his words short.
Natsuki nodded again. The doctor opened his mouth to speak.
“We have concluded that by our best estimates, she has about three months left to live.”
Huh…?
Natsuki was going to die?
Did he really just say that?
“But…Natsuki’s perfectly healthy right now, isn’t she?!”
The doctor explained.
“When we ran blood tests on her, there was no abnormal increase in white blood cells like what we would normally see with a tumor. From a biological standpoint, she seems perfectly healthy. However, from what we can tell from our observations of the disease’s progression over the past three months, we can only predict that in three months’ time, her respiratory and digestive organs will cease to function.”
“B-but Doctor, you might find a cure before then, right?”
“That’s precisely why I was summoned from Kouga University. I will do everything I can to find out about her disease, do further research on it, and find a cure.”
What was all this.
Natsuki had only three months left to live…
But this doctor was going to cure her illness. Could I believe in the words of this doctor, who knew my brother? I had no choice but to believe in him.
Did Natsuki really only have three months left to live? Three months amounted to only half of the second semester, and would end right about halfway through the school year. Not even able to finish her first year in high school…
“Hey, Yuuto.”
Natsuki’s voice pulled me out of my daze.
“I know that I let you know about it, but please don’t tell anyone else about my illness.”
By “anyone else,” she meant Shuu, didn’t she.
She had an incurable illness. There was no way that I could deny her request.
Natsuki and I exited the hospital in silence. We walked together in silence, and eventually parted in silence as we headed towards our respective homes. I waved at her, and Natsuki waved back at me; that, at least, we still had between us.
Huh? What had happened to my appointment?
◆
I decided to become a doctor.
I decided that I should become a doctor and cure Natsuki’s illness.
To get my feet wet, I bought some home-use medical texts and read them. I understood at once that this was far too much content for me to remember immediately.
If I spread myself too thin, I wouldn’t get anywhere. The doctor had said that it would affect Natsuki’s respiratory and digestive systems, so I should concentrate on those. By digestive systems, he must have meant the stomach and intestines, and by the respiratory system, the trachea and the lungs.
I headed to the university hospital bookstore.
From the shelves that were separated by topic, I picked out books that seemed from just the title like they were about the respiratory and digestive systems, and bought them. They were expensive. Thinking about what little allowance money I had leftover was painful.
I did my best to read them.
I came to the conclusion that…I could not understand them at all.
Did one really have to understand all of this to become a doctor?
What could I do to help Natsuki, then?
◆
I managed to change my own hospital appointment to a different day. They gave me medicine to help alleviate the ringing in my ears, and told me to come back to the hospital every other week.
The elderly doctor from earlier, who was in charge of my treatment, wasn’t too involved in Natsuki’s case, and it didn’t seem to me like the right time or place to ask about it. I could only go on believing that Dr. Kakitagawa was researching her illness.
After my appointment, I sat on a bench in the hospital next to the stairs to rest for a bit, and happened to see Dr. Kakitagawa coming down the stairs.
“Are you here as an outpatient?”
“Yeah. Um…How should I say this…Natsuki…”
“Are you asking about her status? Very well, come with me.”
I climbed up the stairs behind him. I thought for sure that we were going to one of the examination rooms, but instead, he went right past the top floor and headed for the roof.
When he opened the door to the roof, the hot summer air slammed into me like a wall. I pushed my way through the heat and stepped foot onto the roof, where I felt a breeze caressing my cheek. Though the weather wasn’t exactly what I’d call nice, it felt good to simply be swallowed up by uninterrupted skies overhead.
“Is it okay if I smoke?”
“Yeah.”
A doctor who smoked, huh. Well, I guess even doctors and associate professors couldn’t be perfect, I thought to myself.
“You hate smokers?”
“No, not particularly.”
“Your expression says otherwise. You’re just like Hashidate-kun in that way. Your words and your face tell very different stories.”
As he spoke, he tilted his head towards the sky and blew out a stream of smoke.
“What do you think of my brother?”
“You curious?”
“He never comes home.”
The doctor, once again, exhaled a trail of smoke.
“He’s got high specs. His grades are good, and he’s sharp… Hearing me praise your brother makes you happy, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess…”
My reply had been fairly nonchalant, but of course I was happy. Yet I had answered with a bit of sarcasm.
“To tell the truth, I’m afraid of him.”
“Why’s that, Doctor? Do you…hate my brother?”
“I don’t hate him at all. I’m simply afraid. Those who are incredibly sharp will sometimes find themselves pushed over the edge and lose control…”
“My brother isn’t the type to lose control.”
The doctor inhaled slowly, and exhaled at the same relaxed pace.
“Are you any different?”
“I don’t think I’ll lose control, either.”
He exhaled with a quick puff.
“I wonder about that…”
I didn’t quite understand what he was getting at. It occurred to me that something must have happened between my brother and Dr. Kakitagawa, and that was where the doctor had formed his conclusions. I figured that it would be best not to touch upon this subject any further, and looked to switch to a different topic.
“Is Natsuki doing okay?”
“To tell the truth, it’s hard to tell. We’re having a hard time just holding the disease in check…”
“But you said you’d cure her!”
“Yes, I will. I can’t allow myself not to cure her. Besides, there are other patients in the same boat.”
Having said that, the doctor looked at me, as if waiting to read my reaction.
“There are other patients, meaning that Natsuki isn’t the only one with it, right? Then it should be all the easier to find a cure!”
“We actually haven’t even figured out the cause.”
“Eh? Wait, so, but then, a cure―”
“That’s what I’m researching right now. We never imagined that it would be this difficult to figure out.”
He roughly extinguished his cigarette in a portable ashtray, and walked towards the door. I followed a few steps behind.
◆
Part 2
In August, Natsuki, Shuu, and I started hanging out a lot.
It was Natsuki who’d suggested it.
Seeing as it was the weekend, there was no practice for the sports clubs. It was summer vacation, Natsuki argued, so everyone should take this chance to enjoy ourselves outside of home.
We were to meet at Hachiougi Station, just past noon.
“Where to?”
I wasn’t listening, and Shuu looked like he was waiting for Natsuki to say something.
“Just follow my lead today, okay?”
She dragged us to the ticket gates.
“Keeping it a secret, huh. Well, how about it? Yuuto?”
“I’ll go along with you.”
“Okay…if that’s the case, I’ll just use my card. I have no idea where we’re going, after all.”
Shuu rummaged around in his pocket and pulled out his IC card to swipe us through.
“…How’s your health?”
I asked Natsuki as I walked beside her, while keeping my eye on Shuu, who was in front of us.
“I’m fine. There’s nothing that’s really gotten anyone worried. The doctor said that I should just go on with life as usual. It is summer vacation, after all. You and Shuu both have had summer vacations full of nothing but test prep for the past two years, so this time we should all make unforgettable memories, just the three of us.”
Natsuki, too, had her gaze on Shuu. He was standing in front of the ticket machine, trying to get the machine to deposit the correct number of tickets. That cautious reliability was just so Shuu-like. My eyes met with Natsuki’s, and we burst into giggles.
I had always thought that we would be able to spend our three years in high school just like this. Right now, Natsuki may be standing beside me with a smile on her face, but come summer next year, she…
“We still don’t know.”
“Eh?”
Natsuki tilted her head up to look directly at me.
“Next year, the three of us might come together again and hang out all through summer vacation without having to worry about test prep or anything. We still don’t know what the future has in store.”
“Yeah…you’re right.”
Shuu ambled his way back to us from the ticket machine, and the three of us got on the train that was headed downtown.
My anxiety over Natsuki’s health was showing on my face, catching Shuu’s attention.
“C\'mon Yuuto, what’s up with you, getting all worried over Natsuki like that?”
Not knowing the seriousness of her situation, he minced no words in asking me the question.
“You think it’s weird? But hey, I don’t think it’s just today. He’s always this nice,” Natsuki said to both of us. “Of course, so are you, Shuu.”
And Natsuki was Natsuki, no matter what.
Our destination was the city baseball stadium…or rather, the hero show next to it.
“Natsuki, this is…?”
I blurted it out, without thinking. I mean, wasn’t her love of hero shows supposed to be a secret from Shuu?
“It’s fine! I’ve been thinking, it’s something I really like, so why hide it, you know?”
She sure was putting on a gallant act, but her face was beet red. She kept glancing at Shuu out of the corner of her eye, as if waiting to see how he would react.
“Man, I haven’t been to a hero show in forever!”
At Shuu’s words, Natsuki, who’d been trembling like a rabbit in the brush, brightened up a little.
“Shuu, you like these kind of things?”
“Yeah, I do. When I was little, I bugged my parents to bring me to these shows all the time.”
For Shuu, since his parents no longer got along, each little memory that he had with his parents was precious to him. Today’s events would likewise become precious new memories for him and Natsuki, then.
Sure, I felt kind of lonely, now that the secret between me and Natsuki was no longer a secret, but since Natsuki liked Shuu, I felt like it was something he ought to know. Still, it left a bad taste in my mouth.
We all sat down, with Natsuki sandwiched between me and Shuu.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been to a hero show.”
I looked around the unfamiliar stage in fascination.
“Well, I haven’t been to one in forever,” remarked Shuu.
“Fufufu, I’m warning you now, the hero shows here have really stepped up their game lately…”
Natsuki was right.
Smoke billowed out from behind the curtains, filling the stage, and as the heroes leapt out from the smoke, the arena was filled with cheers.
The performance was overwhelming from beginning to end. They dashed so quickly, it seemed to me as if I were watching a sped-up video. They flew from one end of the stage to another on wires, beating up enemies, the final blows accompanied by huge explosions.
As I watched the story unfold on stage, I recalled an event from my childhood.
There was a hero charm strap that Natsuki wanted more than anything, so the two of us had gone to the toy store to look for it, but since it was a toy that had come out quite a while ago, it was sold out at the time. The displays were full of all the new hero toys, and once a show finished airing, they would clear out all the merchandise from the shelves to make room for new ones.
I wanted to find one for her so badly that the next weekend, I went around on my bike, visiting every single toy shop I knew of. I even went to places that I doubted would have it in stock, like the toy booth at the shopping mall and the radio-controlled car store. The next week, I visited all those stores again, and finally found it in an ancient little store that looked about ready to collapse. That Monday, I was in high spirits, all ready to present it to Natsuki, when I saw that she already had one attached to her backpack. Turned out that her dad had bought it somewhere online. I didn’t say a word to her, just ended up keeping the strap and taking it home. It might still be buried in my room somewhere.
Once the show ended, they let people get onto the stage to take photographs with the actors.
With a cheerful “C\'mon, let’s go take pictures with them!” I pushed Natsuki towards the stage.
“N-No, I’m good…”
Natsuki shyed away, embarrassed to be seen doing the same thing as all these little kids.
“Aww, come on, let’s do it, for memories’ sake.”
Flanked by Shuu and me, Natsuki had no choice but to be dragged along. She made a cute face like she was being forced to do it, but she was all smiles as the three of us walked to the stage. When we got to the front of the line, Natsuki said, “Let’s take it together!” and it was her turn this time to drag us up.
We posed in front of the heroes, with Natsuki in the middle, and had them take the picture. It felt just like the day we graduated middle school and took that picture.
After it was developed, the photograph was framed and given to us. Our smiles looked so genuinely happy. Behind us were the heroes, standing like they were protecting us.
“Thank you so much! I’ll treasure it forever!”
Natsuki held the picture tightly to her chest the whole way home.
“There was a hero show at Hachiougi station earlier, too! I wish we could’ve gone!!” The entire time we were on the train, Natsuki couldn’t contain her smile.
We were sitting in a row on the train, with me on Natsuki’s left, and Shuu on her right. Whenever we were all in a row, it was in this order.
The train continued on towards the setting sun. We had fallen into a comfortable silence, gazing at the city landscape outside the window, now dyed in the orange of the sunset.
“I wish summer would never end…” murmured Natsuki.
Shuu laughed. “Natsuki, don’t say such childish things.”
You don’t know the half of it, Shuu. Natsuki doesn’t have much time left. Who knows just how many more sunsets she’ll be able to enjoy like this?
“Let’s hang out again next weekend,” I suggested to both of them. “You’re down, right, Shuu?”
“Yeah, sure thing, but…”
Natsuki’s eyes met with mine. She gave me the faintest of smiles, and nodded without a word.
The next week, we went to the zoo.
The week after that, we visited an aquarium.
Though I knew it was all in vain, I devoured medical texts from Monday to Friday, while Natsuki and Shuu did their club activities, and on the weekends we would all go out to play.
If only this fulfilling summer could continue on forever.
If only these times where Natsuki’s health was perfect, and Shuu and I could stay by her side, could continue on forever.
If only they could continue on forever…
Here, now, in this instant, I felt that I was truly happy.
That’s not to say that it was perfect. I knew that there was a complex balance to be maintained. Natsuki’s illness was set to take a turn for the worse once second semester rolled around. And then autumn would come, and she might be gone by then.
There was nothing I could do to help here, was there? No matter how many medical texts I read, if I didn’t understand them, then I was utterly useless.
If only second semester would never come.
Then Natsuki would be able to live.
Right, I should just let it drag out!
I should just repeat these few weeks over and over again.
I took out the reset button, and held it in both hands.
Then I recalled Maki-chan’s warning about my hippocampus decaying.
But Natsuki was far more important than my health.
That’s what I believed.
I closed my eyes, and let a scene from the past come to mind.
I put all my willpower behind my thumb, and
―Reset.
The first midterms of my high school life.
As always, Shuu, Natsuki and I studied together.
Summer vacation. Studying. Clubs. Hanging out.
It was a blissful few months.
Eventually, the end drew near.
I held the button tightly.
―Reset.
The first midterms of high school.
As always, the three of us competed against each other for grades. They turned out so-so.
We studied again for the finals. We got pretty high scores.
We headed into summer vacation in high spirits, and enjoyed clubs, studying, and playing around.
As September approached, I took out the button.
―Reset.
―Reset.
――Reset.
―――Reset.
――――Reset…..
I reset our lives, over and over again. Our fun-filled days never changed. They didn’t get stale. They didn’t grow old.
I’d thought that if I kept working on attaining medical knowledge, eventually I would know as much as doctors did. But reality wasn’t that kind. Sure enough, it seemed like my hippocampus was losing capacity, and I started forgetting everything I had learned. Meanwhile, I started to care less and less about my grades.
All I needed was for Natsuki to live.
All I needed was for these three months, where Natsuki could live her life, to continue forever.
That was all I needed…
The school days I repeated didn’t dull, but my academics sure did. My memories became muddled, and my decision-making abilities went on the decline.
One time, I went to the summer festival with everyone, and dropped a chicken kabob.
At the poolside, I suddenly felt dizzy and fell right into the pool.
I became unable to recall my own home phone number.
With these little slip-ups, I slowly became an altogether different person. I started drifting away from perfection.
I was becoming a different person… No, actually, resetting was my sole purpose in life. I absolutely had to reset, for Natsuki’s sake.
August, once again, drew to a close.
I took out the button.
―Reset.
As we exited the hospital together, Natsuki spoke.
“Hey, Yuuto, this might be a really insensitive thing to bring up right now, but will you hear me out for a bit?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“I really like Shuu.”
“…I know.”
“Oh, so you knew…sorry.”
“Don’t sweat it. Shuu’s a good guy. And the three of us can stay together this way.”
“Yeah but…I kind of feel really bitter about it.”
“Bitter?”
“I like him, but it seems like no matter how hard I try, I can’t close the distance between him and me.”
“That’s probably because you guys are friends…”
“It feels like I’ll keep falling behind, bitterly, for the next hundred years. Forever, maybe.”
“What are y-…”
“I wonder why do I feel so bitter? I mean, in a hundred years, I’m not even going to be alive anymore, so why do I hear a voice in the back of my mind telling me, that I’m probably going to go on feeling bitter until the end of time?”
“You really feel…bitter?”
“…Yeah, I do. Just living makes me feel bitter. Isn’t that weird? Despite the fact that I’m not doing anything out of the ordinary, despite the fact that I’m going to die soon.”
“You won’t die, Natsuki. You won’t die. It’ll be fine. I promise.”
“That’s not it…that’s not the point here.”
Natsuki pressed her palm to her throat, her pain evident in her expression.
“…I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I’m scared. It feels like this bitterness will never go away. It feels like I’m just running around in circles, always in the same place, like I’ll never be able to stop the pain. When I think about how this might go on forever, it makes me want to die then and there. Ridiculous, isn’t it? Have I finally gone off the deep end?”
She stared right into my eyes, anguish written plainly across her face, as if she were trying to express to me directly just how much she was hurting. As if she were accusing me, “It’s all your fault.” Fear clutched at my heart, and I stumbled backwards, my breath caught in my throat, unable to croak out an answer.
“B-but…Natsuki, you…Natsuki…”
I see…
Every day that I repeated was, to Natsuki, another day where her attempts to get closer to Shuu would be in vain. Even when she did feel like progress had been made, all that was always wiped clean by my actions. This never-ending cycle of bitterness was no doubt more painful than any hell in all of Buddhist scripture. For the dying Natsuki, every day was more precious than the last, but each time I pressed the button, I was reducing those precious days to nothingness…
Ah!
I’ve been running around in circles this whole time.
I’d just assumed right off that bat that Natsuki and I had the same view on this―that she, too, wanted to stay with us forever, to keep on living.
But that wasn’t what she wanted.
What have I done? Nothing. Nothing but make Natsuki feel bitter.
The ringing in my ears came through like a wrecking ball, scattering my thoughts.
◆
This life is terrible, just terrible, sang out a voice from somewhere.
It really was.
It was terrible, through and through.
After dinner, I told my parents, “I’m gonna go buy something, be right back,” and went outside. With no destination in mind, I plodded on, my feet like deadweights, until I reached the shopping district. This was the first time I had ever been out so late. The whole area was surprisingly well-lit.
The idea of committing some sort of petty crime occurred to me, but I realized that I couldn’t think of single thing a higher schooler like me out in the shopping district in the middle of the night could reasonably do.
At some point, the ringing in my ears had changed from a high keening sound to a more rumbly sort of sound. I managed to continue walking upright, but I couldn’t even tell if I was going in a straight line or not.
I continued with my ungainly walking, and pondered.
God, it was all my fault. It was all my fault that Natsuki was suffering.
I kept going forward, my feet heavy. I felt like a machine. I couldn’t stop. Neither my thoughts nor my body would stop.
This was all part of the thing Maki-chan had said about my hippocampus withering away, wasn’t it.
With each and every reset, I was gradually wearing my body down to its limits. All for Natsuki’s sake, or so I’d thought.
Natsuki and I had something special between us―or so I’d thought.
All that was just a delusion. A selfish assumption on my part.
With each reset I made, Natsuki’s suffering increased. She had simply withstood it all without even knowing where it was coming from, had felt it weigh more on her heart with each passing day. This pain in her heart was probably even worse than the pain from her illness.
I’d thought it had all been for Natsuki’s sake…
For Natsuki’s sake…
…Had it really?
…Had it really been for Natsuki’s sake?
Hadn’t I just been doing this for my own sake―my own perfection and tidiness―all this time?
Hadn’t I just been resetting for my own sake while convincing myself that it was for Natsuki?
Hadn’t I just been resetting because I wanted the three of us to stay together?
Ah, exactly.
It was my fault.
This was all my fault!
I had reset the world―god knows how many times―all for the sake of my own ego, and hadn’t even managed to save Natsuki, let alone anyone else. In the end, I had, in the name of perfection, done nothing but continuously cast ripples in the fabric of time. In truth, it was the world that was already perfect, and my actions were nothing but radio static, weren’t they? Were my resets throwing the world off balance?
Maybe that would explain why Natsuki was going through so much.
Maybe my resets were the direct cause of her pain.
If only I hadn’t reset so much.
If only I had never pressed the reset button―
But there was no going back.
There was no knowing if I might just vanish off the face of the earth if I tried to go back.
After all, I was nothing but noise, upsetting the balance of the world.
If I didn’t exist, the world would be so much better.
If I didn’t exist.
……
If I vanished, the reset button would vanish along with me, and the world would surely become perfect and tidy, with not a single blemish.
It was I who was ruining the world.
…..
…..
Well, I guess there was my answer.
I’ve figured it all out after all.
That was all there was to it, wasn’t it.
Even if I were all perfection and tidiness, there was nothing I could do.
I wobbled to my feet, dragging my feet one way, then another. I headed off in no direction in particular.
I got the impression that someone had tried to rope me in for a sales offer.
I got the impression that I had bought something at a vending machine.
I got the impression that I had eaten a beef bowl.
I got the impression that I had entered a manga cafe.
Maybe there was no such thing as reality. Only impressions.
But even so, even if that were true, I still didn’t know what I was supposed to do to kill all this time.
Morning came. I was at the station. At the concourse where I had confessed to Natsuki.
I was an idiot. A huge idiot.
Maybe if someone had told me sooner, things woud have turned out a little differently.
“You are different from your brother. You’ll never become perfect.” Ah, if only someone out there had scolded me with those words. Maybe then I wouldn’t have chased after his shadow incessantly like a complete fool…
If only someone had told me that my life would never be perfect.
I tried to move into the station itself, but my steps faltered, and I bumped my way through the turnstile. Neither my hands nor my legs would move the way I wanted them to.
Figuring that I wouldn’t be able to make it down the stairs without falling, I rode the escalator down to the platform.
The first train of the day was scheduled to leave soon. There were people around, only a few, scattered here and there.
I’m sorry, everyone.
I’m so sorry, everyone.
I’m sorry for tainting this world.
For making it imperfect.
Please let Natsuki be happy, in a world without me.
I stood at the edge of the platform.
I glanced down in the direction of the reset button, nestled in my bag.
It was true that the button had been a great help to me, but that was no longer the point.
If I kept using the button, I would eventually lose all my memories, crippling my mind. If that was how things were going to end, then might as well end it all right here instead.
After all, wasn’t that really what it meant to “reset one’s life”?
It didn’t mean to go back so I could fix my own life and everyone else’s.
I wasn’t one to believe in reincarnation or the circle of transmigration or any of that. That just meant that I wouldn’t just disappear, I’d go to the instant right before my birth. As a human child, with any luck.
The afterlife? I didn’t think there was such a thing, either. The world, as it was, after my life was over, and the world that had existed before I had entered it―both were worlds that didn’t hold a trace of my own existence. They were the same, in that respect.
Five AM. The first train was coming.
The sound of a horn, blaring.
As the train rushed in, I calmly tipped my body forward, letting myself fall right onto the tracks.
I watched the platform slip by me in slow motion, and slowly closed my eyes.