Prologue: 199X Spring Setsumi

…It’s hard to remember the last time I wasn’t sick. 

Nonetheless, I was able to go to school. In the summer, I would play until I became completely tanned. Almost every day, I would visit the public pool, riding my bike standing up. I liked the cicada’s chirping in the ocean and the scent of the chlorinated lime after a rain shower.

Then it was June. It was around the time when I was going to enter middle school, so I decided to order a swimsuit. That was around the same time I was first hospitalized. Even now, I still remember it well, just shortly before the first-semester midterm. 

It started raining, and the day was already awfully cold. Strangely though, the overcast sky was pure white in the middle of the rainy season.

I remember in the beginning, everyone in my class would come to visit me when I became sick. Every weekend that I would get discharged, my classmates would come to my house to play with me. They would bring my homework, handouts, and the notes for the day. It was nothing important, but I found it to be pleasant, nonetheless. Such a situation made life a lot more colorful and enjoyable.

But this… 

Was the beginning of a worsening situation.

First approached autumn, then passed winter. Hospitalization. Then discharge. Then going to the hospital again, and again, for regular treatment. And like that, I repeat this cycle of treatment once again. 

From school and society, I have been abandoned. From old friends and classmates that bring me schoolwork, I have been abandoned. When I meet them by chance on the road, I would only lower my head. In the past, they would have called out my name, but now they just call me “You”, and before anyone knew it, I’ve been erased from their minds entirely.

One by one, the seasons came and went, and it seems that my existence has just become some whispers that seemed to go by. Soon, I started to feel unwell again, but this time, they didn’t come to visit. It seems… that I have become nobody.

Several years later.

How many times have I repeated this cycle of entering and exiting the hospital, where paying a visit to someone like me has lost almost all meaning, likely soon to be forgotten by everyone?  

My family tried to move into a single-family house, but we couldn’t get used to the different lifestyle, so we moved back into an apartment. My mother started working at the neighborhood bento store part-time to help provide for our family, which made me realize the steepness of the hospital fees. Though no one would say it out loud, we all knew the burden of staying at the hospital.

At the hospital ward I stayed at, I met and talked to a variety of people about a variety of things everyday, and it was something fun while it lasted. 

Later, we moved to another house. This time, it was an ancient, dirty, little wooden place. On top of it being smaller than the old house, it made my father’s commute over two hours. But on the other hand, it made my commute to the hospital only three minutes. My father used to stand before the old, small apartment, laugh, and say, “Doesn’t the air here feel good?”. My mother would laugh alongside my father to make me feel better. My parents started thinking that the house could be harmful to my body, so they decided to install an A/C unit in my room to try to solve this. Unfortunately, they could barely afford one A/C unit, so there would be no A/C installed in any of the other rooms.

    My mother would eventually return home at the end of the day and always treated me with things like croquette and french fries, telling me that “These are the good leftovers from work.” We ate in the small room, and my mother always tried to be laughing happily for my sake. It was very… difficult, honestly. 

Those fears that lingered in that room… they were unbearable.

I felt grateful, but at the same time, I didn’t feel happy at all.

Instead, I was only full of… guilt.

“It‘s your fault.”

Maybe…

That’s what I wanted them to say.

I wanted to find more reasons why it was my fault. It was a struggle to show kindness when I became exponentially more frustrated at my hopeless self, to the point when I wake up with this burning hatred, this hatred towards myself. If by any chance, a chance that a God exists, I’d pray to him that they would cure me quickly. But if this request is unreasonable, then I would ask this God to at least let me die right now. While society works their hardest to wipe away the proof of my existence, only my parents try to hold on to it, to keep my existence known for as long as they can.

That was the thing that stung the most. 

While people may be kind to me, they may hate me for the fact that I’m unable to repay them for their kind actions. I’m sure there must exist more people around this world, who like me, have this “bad fortune” of being unable to repay any kindness.

It seems that by chance, that this curse fell on me. For every time due to this curse, I was obligated to turn a smiling face and behave cheerfully, but all I could do was stay silent and eat french fries that I didn’t really like. The cooler that was given to me was attached to my room, yet due to my guilt, I rarely used it.

Outside the window, lies rain.

Since the day when I was first hospitalized, I wondered how many times I’ve gone. I stood by the window by myself while I stared at the outlines of the children that attend school, swinging their umbrellas around energetically. It has passed so many seasons, passed the white overcast skies, where I have not needed any companion to talk to.

I unintentionally saw the inside of drawers; things like reference books and textbooks. Like the brand new cooler I had, my English textbook from the first year mid-term test was in fresh condition.

And observing this, I can say that my world’s time has stopped.

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