Archive of Our Own

“Dear Ida, I’m sorry, but we’re just not compatible as boyfriends. I can no longer continue this relationship with you. Let’s continue onwards with minimal communication between each other.”

Aoki hadn’t really meant to send that text. He was only confused and insecure about Ida’s feelings towards him, but to be fair, there was seldom a time that he wasn’t. Like many people, Aoki had that voice in his head trying to dictate to him what others felt about him, even if there was no way to logically know for sure.

Little did he know, though, that lately Ida’s voice had been much stronger. By sending that text, he destroyed into pieces what little sanity he had left.

Ida had always been skilled at hiding his true feelings from others (hence part of the reason for the breakup message), and thus no one knew the events occurring in his life as of late. What words could exist to describe them? Even calling it “pure hell” would not do it justice.

For starters, he had lost his reputation as one of the toppers of the class academically. Ever since his mental state started to quietly plunge, his grades went along with it. He could hear the whispers coming from his classmates and teachers alike.

“Ida, you really need to try harder next time…”

“What happened to Ida? He used to be so smart, but now who knows what he has become?”

“I’m worried for your future if you keep going on like this, Ida…”

That was exactly the point. He had no future, at least from his own point of view. How can someone who struggles even getting out of bed and brushing their own teeth possibly grow up to become a part of functioning society?

However, it wasn’t just a matter of some numbers on a paper somewhere decreasing. He could never put this fact into words, nor did he dare even try, but those numbers were his entire life. No matter how much people say that it’s what’s on the inside that counts, every single person in his life had pinned his worth on those damned numbers.

When they increased, you see, everyone flocked around him. Now that he thought about it, that in itself was a part of the problem. It was like he was their teacher himself. However, unlike a teacher, he received no pay in return, much less any real praise or appreciation.

A student’s life is straight out of hell. The same can even be said for a teacher’s life. When the two were put together, though, Ida had been slowly stripped of all his humanity.

There was no longer time for any hobbies. He quit the volleyball club that he had been so passionately a member before. Also, the pile of manga he used to read avidly now sit in the corner of his room collecting dust.

There was no longer time to eat properly. The number on his bathroom scale was going down day by day.

There was no longer time to even sleep. Dark circles were abundant under his exhausted eyes, their colour in stark contrast to the almost deathly pale shade of his skin, such that anyone who noticed would have been struck with worry.

Ida no longer felt like a human. He hadn’t regarded himself as human for as long as he could remember now, since his ability to recall the past had been lost to his brain fog, such memories only coming back occasionally for a few fleeting seconds.

That was another major problem. No one bothered to notice. Not even Aoki. Some people have that instinct to know exactly when something is wrong with their partner, even when the partner in question themselves doesn’t admit it. Due to his naïve nature, though, Aoki did not possess that instinct. Ida didn’t try to blame him in his heart for even a second, though. It was this clumsiness of his that first attracted him to begin with, and he did not want to ruin that for him, so he continued to wear his crumbling façade of being tough and strong.

Yet, it seemed now that his fighting tooth and nail to maintain Aoki’s love was useless.

As of late, he couldn’t even turn to his mum. She used to be so genuinely loving and caring towards him, but ever since his fall from grace, she preferred to see him as little as possible. When she did see him, it was with a silent look of concern mixed with disgust.

Somehow, that one breakup text suddenly removed all of the protective brain fog at once, allowing him to vividly picture every single one of his failures throughout life. Their negativity was much too strong to be combatted by all the successes he had made beforehand.

As such, for the first time since he was a small child, he buried his face into his pillow and sobbed. Once the dam holding back the tears had broken, he could not stop them. They just kept flowing and flowing down his face into the pillow fabric, coupled with snot that he thought made him look even more ugly.

To make matters even worse, he started to imagine what it would be like if Aoki were here to see this. Would he feel bad for breaking up with him? He attempted to comfort himself by picturing him cuddled up next to him, snuggling all his tears away, yet still surprised at this sudden emotion.

It worked for a few seconds, but when this mirage faded away to again reveal the sheer loneliness of his reality, his sadness only became more profound.

Of course, there is only a limited number of tears that a person can cry at once, no matter how tragic or how dire their situation is. When Ida ran out of tears to cry, he laid there in silence, clutching the now soaked pillow to his chest.

Suddenly, out of seemingly nowhere, the comforting image of death began to dance in his now empty mind. Now, this became the focus of his thoughts.

For starters, he wondered what would happen if he died. Would he be surrounded by the bliss of nothingness? Would the beings of light come to comfort him and finally help him find some peace? Or, as many people vehemently assert, would he continue to suffer for the rest of eternity in the blazing fires of hell?

Then, however, it occurred to him that whatever would happen to him in the afterlife (or lack thereof) didn’t matter as much as the people he left behind. This led to an entirely new set of questions. Would anyone shed tears like he had done just a few minutes before? Would people regret what they had done to make him reach this point in the first place? Would they fondly talk about him, and convey this to their future children as well? Or would he simply become the subject of teatime gossip, to be abandoned within the blink of an eye for the next subject?

Above all, he thought of what Aoki and his friends would think. Would Aoki continue to remember him, or would he be glad that he was finally gone? What about Aida and Hashimoto, the both of which he had started to form actual meaningful bonds with before this whole mess? To be honest, he never interacted with them much, so he figured that he would most certainly be forgotten by them.

Like a bolt of thunder, these thoughts of death suddenly began to take on a more sinister tone. They changed his whole perception, removing what little ability for rationale that he had left, and making it appear that all the worst-case scenarios imaginable would soon come true.

Within seconds, he became convinced that Aoki himself had always hated him, and he would be greatly relieved if he died.

His teachers and classmates would also rejoice at the absence of his sad excuse for a student.

His mum would be overjoyed at no longer having to deal with her useless son.

Nobody cared about him genuinely. They only cared whenever they wanted something from him. Now that he couldn’t provide that, now that he couldn’t be of use to others, there was no point in being alive anymore.

And hence, he came to the conclusion that, in the end, nobody really cares.

He even quickly came up with a method in mind, that he planned to execute at the soonest possible opportunity.

For a couple days after that, he began to wander the school rooftop, in a similar way with which the vulture circles a dead carcass. It was the very same rooftop that had first sparked his and Aoki’s now former feelings for each other. He had almost caught Aoki in the act of what he thought was jumping off the rooftop, when in reality he only wanted to retrieve an eraser. It was a silly little memory, looking back on it, but using this rooftop as his method seemed beautiful to Ida. Poetic, even.

Instead of eating his lunch, he would examine the structure of the safety fence on the rooftop. He noticed that it didn’t do a well job of fulfilling its intended purpose of protecting distraught students from doing the unthinkable. The gaps between the intertwined strands of wire were clearly large enough to be used as footholds, and the edge of the rooftop that lay on the other side of the fence was ridiculously small.

It was almost as if the rooftop itself was beckoning him to fall off it.

Of course, he couldn’t do it right in those moments, because despite everything, he still wasn’t the type of person to act on rash impulses. Besides, he didn’t want the spectacle of his doing it to be public for everyone to see. He let his thoughts carry him away to a carefully thought out plan, but his rumination was sometimes interrupted by two of his classmates. They were the couple Hiromu and Rumi, who also frequented the rooftop during the lunch break.

The two of them usually acted as if they had not a care in the world, but this time they seemed genuinely surprised that Ida was there alone, since they used to go on double dates with him and Aoki. Obviously, he was not willing to open up to them about Aoki breaking up with him, so instead he would invent some lacklustre excuses. For example, he would tell them that Aoki didn’t like the weather outside these days, so he told him that he would eat inside from now on.

It wasn’t the strongest excuse, but it still seemed to satisfy their curiosity, further proving to him that no one truly cared enough to check up on him properly.

A few days later, on a chilly and grey Monday, Ida finally received the opportunity that he had been wishing for to the universe.

A quite major volleyball match was taking place between his school and one of the most skilled schools in the prefecture. If the school won, they would go to the nationals, and be able to compete with schools all across Japan. As this was such a big deal, about ninety-nine percent of the school’s students, as well as the teachers and the headmistress, were leaving to watch the match at the other school. Due to the distance, the event was expected to last until the evening, and Ida finally could have the solace he desired.

He had every detail planned out. The first detail was to tell his homeroom teacher, Mr. Taniguchi, that he wanted to stay behind to catch up on his homework. He knew that he would be delighted at that, since he hadn’t turned in any work for months. As expected, he gladly approved for Ida to stay back at the school. Everyone was expected to leave soon after homeroom period, which was coming to an end with haste. He exited the classroom with a quiet smile, knowing that all his pain would come to an end soon.

Upon his exit, though, he was stopped by one of his former friends and teammates from when he was in the volleyball team. He clapped his shoulder excitedly with his eyes closed as he squealed, as he proceeded to attempt in vain to convince him to attend the match.

“Yo, Ida! I spoke to the coach, and I have some awesome news! Even though you quit the club, coach says you can still at the bench. If someone gets out, you can even get to play again! You know, he tells us every day how much the team has suffered from not having such a superpower like you!”

When the friend opened his eyes, and was able to judge the expression on Ida’s face, his joy disappeared all at once. He already knew what Ida’s response was going to be.

“Oh, um, I truly appreciate the offer, I really do, but… You know, I have so much work piled up… My volleyball skills have gotten pretty rusty anyway, but you guys go and win that match for us. Even without me, I believe in you guys’ abilities so much, more than you will ever know.”

The friend’s tone quietened as he spoke again, still searching for any hope that Ida might participate somehow.

“Ida, it’s not like you to be so sentimental out of the blue… Listen, once you get back out there on the court, I’m sure you’ll remember everything! And please, try to forget your academic worries just this once. I know you work so hard, but this is a once in a lifetime match! Even if you really don’t want to play out there, you can at least still watch and cheer us on, right…? We miss you…”

Those three words dealt a blow to Ida's emotional stability with the strength of a bow and arrow, and once again he was locked in a war with his own self to try and fight back his tears. Thankfully for him, he won this battle, as he again put on a professional look. The Grim Reaper’s image from last night came once again, to tell him that they still only wanted him so that they could use him for his athleticism.

“Please, go on without me, trust me on this one. If it’s any comfort to you, just know that it was really nice having you as a teammate, and I wish things could have been different.”

Before the friend could properly question him about the repeated appearance of a sentimentality which he never even had before, the teachers began to call everyone who was going to the match to gather their things and board the bus. Therefore, the only farewell Ida got in return was a slightly confused nod.

Once the halls of the school had quietened, Ida wandered them aimlessly. This was for two reasons. One, to make sure that everyone was really gone. And two, because this would be the last time, hopefully (in his eyes), that he would ever be in them. Regardless of how much torture they had caused him, it seemed improper to not view them once more, for old times’ sake.

When he was finished with his bittersweet trip down memory lane, he began the trek to the rooftop. Somehow, it seemed to drag on for years. Yet again, though, another obstacle approached his way.

He had done some research on them the past few days, and although he reprimanded himself for this rude and insensitive thinking, he had thought that many suicide notes were corny and overdramatic, although he did not intend to invalidate what struggles they had gone through in the slightest. Yet here he found himself, pondering what trace he should leave of himself as well.

During the period of searching, he also noticed that some people who write suicide notes drag it on for forever, crafting long-winded stories catered to each and every individual in their life. Personally, he did not see the point of that. Depending on the person, whoever finds the note will be far too confused, enraged, or sorrowful to pay attention to the prolonged act of prose.

He wanted to direct his note to one and only one person. Aoki. Moreover, he wanted to keep it, as they say, ‘short and sweet.’

Ida almost chuckled at how ironic that thought was, since the situation was anything but sweet.

In order to prepare this, he sat back down at his desk in the now empty classroom. He sat there for a while, taking the atmosphere in, learning that silence also has a sound. This sound, he observed, was both eerie and melancholy at the same time. Compounding with the melancholy was the fact that recently, the seating arrangements had been shifted, so that Ida was sitting in the same seat that he was when he first met Ida. However, Aoki was no longer sitting in front of him.

It suddenly hit him that he would never see Aoki again, along with the gravity of the fact of what he was about to do. The realisation almost made him want to reconsider.

Almost.

He took a deep breath in, and then let it out, letting the sound of the exhalation echo across the silence of the classroom.

Then, he picked up his pen, and began to write.

**********

With some miracle, he had managed to scale the fence. A few times during his climb, he nearly fell back down onto the safe side of the rooftop. His negligence towards his dietary needs had truly taken a toll on his body. By the time he landed less than gracefully on the other side, that extremely narrow ledge that threatened to topple him towards the ground even before he actually jumped, he was struggling greatly to catch his breath.

At this point, Ida didn’t care about any danger he had put himself in. There was no going back now, so he was going to die anyway; thus it didn’t matter how he fell. As a result of this, he took out his phone to text Aoki one final time. He remembered his request that he never talk to him again, but he wanted to tell Aoki about the note he had written for him in a discreet way. He wouldn’t tell him directly that he was in the process of taking his own life, that would no doubt make him call emergency services on him. Thankfully, he didn’t have to feign too much, due to Aoki’s slight inability to read between the lines.

The text read:

“Aoki. Either today, or perhaps tomorrow, someone will come and give you a message from me. Please read it carefully. I do not have it ready yet at the moment (in reality, he did), so please do not look for me to ask about it. I hope you’re enjoying the volleyball match, by the way. Cheer for our team extra hard, since I will not be there. Anyways, I apologise for going against your wish of not hearing from me. I wish I could have been a person worthy enough of being with you, and I’m sorry.”

Satisfied, he clicked the side button to turn his phone off. He gently dropped it next to him on the ledge; the remains of what used to be him would already be messy enough, and he did not wish to add an extra burden with shattered glass from the phone screen, if he had taken it along with him.

To double check whether the fall would be sufficient enough to fulfil his desire to put an end to his suffering, he looked down towards the ground as well as his shoes. Strangely, he kept them on, not following the tradition of taking one’s shoes off before killing themselves. Taking one’s shoes off was supposed to signify to everyone that it was a suicide and not a murder. Ida, on the other hand, disagreed with this for two reasons. One, an actual murderer could easily take their victim’s shoes off to trick everyone. Two, even though it was not well-built for its purpose, the fence was still considerably high; anyone with even a few braincells could tell that such a fall was not an accident. 

Even still, Ida was in disbelief that he had reached this point. It was only completely weighing down on his mind now that he was about to die. Although he had desperately wished for this release off his mortal coil for so long, he felt something invisible try and pull him back. He could not distinguish whether this was the primitive instinct that all humans have that forces them to stay alive for as long as possible, or whether his mind was actually trying to get him to reconsider.

Few people die at such a young age that he was at now. He couldn’t help but think what would have happened tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that… all the events that would happen in the future that he had no more chance to witness. What if something good happened tomorrow? What if an opportunity came that would allow him to turn his life around? What if everyone realised how they had wronged him without him having to go to such drastic measures?

For a short window of time, he actually entertained these questions. At first, they were too compelling for him to just ignore.

However, his mind that now felt so corrupted and poisoned took over yet again.

“Stop being so selfish. The world doesn’t revolve around you and your future, not that you were going to have one anyway regardless of how long you waited. Don’t you see? People are so tired of having to put up with you. You want to make them happy, don’t you? Only you disappearing will alleviate all their burdens. You are nothing but a nuisance to them, and nuisances like you aren’t meant to last in this world.”

Now, Ida had run out of thoughts to prove it wrong; it was overpowering beyond imagination. Every single word of it, he took to heart. It was right, he decided. At large, he was nothing but a stain of dirt soiling the earth’s surface.

As if to reinforce his conviction in his mind, he even started to mutter aloud to himself,

“I need to disappear, I need to disappear… Aida and Hashimoto would be better off without me. My mum would be better off without me. My teachers would be better off without me. My classmates would be better off without me.”

Then, as he remembered the most important person, the one that he was supposedly doing all this before, tears uncontrollably rolled down his face another time.

“Aoki would be better off without me…”

Just like before, he couldn’t stop that waterfall of tears and snot. He had no choice but to let it all out, right there, at that teetering edge. In the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but harbour a tiny sliver of hope that someone would find him, and that they would comfort those tears away and talk him down.

No such person appeared.

As the pitiful show came to an end, that hope had brought up the image of Aoki in his head, making his resolve even stronger. A gentle breeze began to blow, ruffling up his hair and his clothes. He didn’t bother to fix him, though, as he knew they would soon be messy beyond imagination anyway. Instead, he turned his head toward the direction of the breeze and let out a whisper to it, as if it was able to carry his message all the way across the lands.

“I love you, Aoki…”

At this moment, it was now or never, so he shut his eyes. He let the wind carry him away.

**********

Several hours later, the students and teachers began to arrive back at the school. As the vehicle was pulling into the driveway, Aoki had started to chat with Aida.

“Aida! You wouldn’t believe what happened while we were watching the match!” Even though he was shouting, he sounded more baffled than his usual hyper nature.

“What? Did pigs start to fly? Did birds invade the gymnasium again?” Aida had a compulsive habit of teasing him every chance he got.

“No! The strange thing is, Ida texted me back there, even though you know that I told him not to talk to me!”

“Well, did you read what he texted you yet?”

“Of course not! I don’t know whether I’m annoyed at him or scared of him right now.”

Aida facepalmed and asked him, in a way that was more like he was telling him,

“Do you want me to be completely honest with you right now?”

“I don’t know, do I?”

Before Aoki could answer his own question, Aida proceeded to rant at him in the way a mother scolds her child.

“First of all, you’re an asshole for breaking up with him for this reason. Sure, it’s your choice, but haven’t you heard of love languages? Everyone expresses their love differently, and just because Ida looks like he’s aloof, doesn’t mean he loves you any less. Don’t you remember the time he was willing to act with you as Cinderella and her prince in the play? Or at the very beginning, when he took the eraser situation so calmly?”

Aoki opened his mouth to speak, but was again interrupted when Aida grabbed his shoulders and looked him dead in the eye before continuing.

“Aoki, he really does love you! The least you could have done is listen to what he had to say to you!”

“I told you, I’m too scared to-“

“If you’re really that fearful, then let me see your phone!”

“Wait-!”

The two of them then proceeded to tumble and tackle each other in the fight for Aoki’s phone.

Meanwhile, the air in the school bus was vibrant with excitement. Their volleyball team had emerged victorious, albeit by a very slim margin; perhaps if Ida had been there, then the win would have been easier to attain. On top of that, there was also a general relief that they did not have to study for today (as mentioned before, the match turned out to take up the entire school day). All they were to do now was to celebrate and congratulate each other inside each other, and then pack up and go home happily.

Before parting from the bus, Mr. Taniguchi had to conduct a headcount to make sure everyone was there.

“Everyone, please calm down! Raise your hand when I call out your name!” Secretly, even he knew that his efforts to quiet down the class would be in vain.

For one thing, the friend that Ida had greeted earlier was practically bouncing up and down in his seat, trying to picture what Ida’s reaction would be when he revealed to him that they won, and that they would be going to nationals.

Similarly to a can of soda, his anticipation continued to fizz and fizz until it bubbled up over a certain limit, causing him to raise his hand to get Mr. Taniguchi’s attention.

“Be patient, I didn’t call your name out yet!”

Ignoring him, he pleaded to be let out early.

“Sir! Can I please, please be let out early to find Ida? You know he used to be in the volleyball team, so he’ll be over the moon when he finds out about our sweet victory! Anyways, you can just mark my name right now. Please?”

Having lost the remaining strength he had to resist his student’s desires any further, he conceded as he kneaded his forehead in frustration.

“Fine, just go…”

The friend practically sprinted off the bus, the doors opening with the hiss of the hydraulics, masking the sound of his footsteps fading out into the distance.

At the same time, a victor had emerged in Aoki and Aida’s catfight. Being the slightly more strength-inclined of the two, Aida had managed to snatch Aoki’s phone out of his hands.

“Yippee! I did it! Now let’s see what Ida wrote to you!”

“Stop it! Reading my texts is an invasion of my privacy, you know! This is embarrassing…”

“Shh! This is your boyfriend we’re talking about, for God’s sake!”

As his eyes scanned Ida’s text, his regular expression of playfulness and mischief faded as his eyes grew wide. Although he was not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it came to academics, his skill in terms of his street smarts made up for that. Consequently, within seconds, he retrieved the dark, hidden true meaning of Ida’s message to Aoki.

“Note…? ‘Don’t come looking for me…?’ ‘A person worthy of being of you…?’ ‘I’m sorry…?’”

Without even gaining permission from the teacher, he jumped out of his seat. Tossing Aoki’s phone, it landed in Hashimoto’s hands.

“Aida, you should sit down. Is something the matter?”

Aida did not answer her. He simply locked his eyes with her, an expression of terror on his face. Knowing that this was extremely unusual for Aida, who normally brushed off everything easily, she became worried as well. Although, she guessed the reason for it wrongly.

“Aida, are you sick…?”

Ignoring her again, he bolted out of the bus before Mr. Taniguchi could even have a chance to stop him.

“Aida! Aida, get back here! At least tell me! Oh well, why do I even bother at this point…”

Knowing that Ida’s close friend had left before him, he began to look for him in the hope of finding Ida’s whereabouts.

Turns out, he did not have to look. He heard.

“HELP! SOMEBODY COME QUICK!”

That scream came so loudly that it cracked, but its most striking trait was the agony that could be heard. Anyone in the bus, however, would not be able to hear over the sounds of talking that were combined the roaring engine.

The voice made it clear to Aida that his worst fears were coming true. Emotions traveled faster than the sound to him, and he found himself struck with the same agony, dread, and horror. For what Aida perceived as forever, these emotions froze him place. The thing that finally carried him forward into an even faster running pace than before was hope, or more accurately, denial. He voiced the denial aloud, as if saying it would somehow make it more true.

“It can’t be him, can it? It’s all just a big prank, right?”

When he reached the source of the voice, he froze harder than ever before. All of what he had been dreading since the moment he laid eyes on that text was right in front of him.

Ida lay there, dead. The previously bright red blood that pooled around his head and his body had already dried into a nauseating, brownish rust colour.

Aida hadn’t even known Ida that well, at least when compared to Aoki. Until right now, though, he hadn’t realised what difference his presence, however silent it was, had made in his life.

And now, it was all gone.

His knees trembled violently, rapidly giving away as Aida collapsed to their level. What made it all the more world-changing for him was the fact that he had never experienced any major loss before. Both his parents and all four of his grandparents were still alive, although he seldom visited them.

He had heard once that, when someone dies, you miss the memories you made with them rather than the person themselves. His mind was completely blank, save for the sheer shock and grief, but now he knew that this wasn’t true. No matter how little or how much time one spends with someone in their life, and how many memories of them exist in their mind, even having their existence running quietly in the background provides a peace that is never recognised by others. It only gains its deserved fame (or infamy) when it is gone and destroyed, when that person’s existence disappears from this world.

After the shock faded away ever so slightly, but just enough so that Aida could free at least his head from the chains that it created and stand up, he turned his head to see Ida’s friend’s reaction. Unlike him, he was completely on all fours, his body bent over him and his hands on his chest (as when someone performs CPR). Aida observed that he was doing this out of an even stronger denial than his own, driven so insane by the shock of such a sight, that he still believed in his heart that his body warmth and his hands on his chest would somehow revive him.

Even though his own shock and fear was just as fresh as the friend’s, Aida knew all too well that he was long gone. Gathering the courage to lay eyes upon the body that was so gory that it could no longer be associated with a human being, it was clear as day that the option of saving him had vanished since long ago.

Deciding to go against his nature once again, because even he knew that this situation was no laughing matter, he bent down to cover the friend’s eyes. After that, he gently took his hands off the body, so that he could not continue his futile attempts at resuscitation.

“Don’t look down at him any longer. He’s gone, my friend. Come with me, let’s go get Mr. Taniguchi. Seeing him will only hurt you even more.”

He still felt drawn to Ida’s body, but after some time, he reluctantly complied. Finally parting from his side, they went to call for help. Although it had already been established that he was dead, paramedics and police were still needed to investigate further, as neither of them looked up to realise that this had taken place on the school rooftop.

Aida aimed to not distress everyone more than what was needed, and not to have everyone crowded over his body, as that would be disrespecting him. Both he and Ida’s friend knew that some chaos was inevitable, but to at least reduce the chances of that somewhat, Aida momentarily turned back to take off his jacket and drape it over him. Some parts of his body were still uncovered, but it was better than nothing.

When they arrived back at the bus, both of them were shaking heavily. The run itself was short, and should have been a piece of cake, but they could not get the image of what they had just seen out of their minds. Ida’s friend stood outside, as he was still too emotional and did not want to break the news. Therefore, that responsibility fell upon Aida.

Mr. Taniguchi had finally finished with his headcount, and everyone had begun to step off the bus. Before they could have any further, Aida stopped him and stared into his eyes with a dead serious, but still terrified look.

“Aida, what is it now? And why is he standing over there, didn’t he want to go and celebrate with Ida? What’s going-“

He cut off his sentence as the gravity of the situation began to sink in. There was no reason for a student as careless as him to be scared, at least under normal circumstances. Now, he put two and two together to figure out that this was far, far from normal. He too realised that something was terribly wrong.

Despite not knowing what had happened, much less what the two boys had seen, he also knew the importance of not having the other students crowd around the scene and mess whatever it was up even more.

He turned back to shout at the students,

“Please stay right here, everyone, and don’t move until I get back! I’m serious this time, please don’t follow me.”

All of them knew that at least a few students would let their curiosity get the best of them and trail behind the two of them anyway. For instance, Aoki was standing near the back of the line, and he could not see Aida standing with the teacher. As a result, he assumed that something had happened with Aida, and attempted in vain to push through the line due to the excessive number of students in front of him. Nonetheless, his order made him feel a mix of confused, curious, and jumpy all at the same time.

After ensuring that all the students were standing still (at least for the moment), Mr. Taniguchi turned back around and nodded to Aida to show him as well what he had seen. Ida’s friend stayed behind, but when people asked him what was going on, he could not speak a word. This was not because he was attempting to keep it secret, as he knew that they would eventually figure out some way or the other anyway, rather it was due to the disbelief still fresh in his mind. His continuing reluctance to respond to anything his classmates and friends asked or told him made them even more concerned and suspicious than they were before.

As they reached the location of Ida’s body, Aida bowed his head, both as a way of paying respect to him and a way so that he would not have to relive everything he had just experienced so soon.

Similarly to the friend, Mr. Taniguchi first shook Ida’s arm that was exposed from under the covering. Just like him, he vainly hoped that he would wake up from his doing this. He did so with his eyes closed blindly, but when he opened his eyes and saw his body covered with the sheet provided by Aida’s jacket combined with the blood and Aida bowing his head, he came to the realisation that the Grim Reaper had paid an untimely visit to their school.

He could feel the corner of his eyes sting with hot tears yearning to escape, but he resisted. He was the adult here, he was supposed to be the person supporting everyone. At the same time, he was also shocked that Aida had managed to gather the composure to get help rather than simply breaking down completely on the spot like Ida’s friend. Upon a close glance at him, however, he noticed that Aida’s face had started to be stained with tears. With his head bowed, many of them were not apparent, but as he approached closer to him they became as clear as the colour black is on the colour white.

Despite everything and the impressively mature way with which Aida had handled the situation, even with his reputation for being a bit of a troublemaker, he was still just a child in Mr. Taniguchi’s eyes. Calling the emergency services should have been the most vital task in that moment, but the sight of Aida trying his best to act like an adult even though he wasn’t one just yet was all too heartbreaking for him to bear.

Figuring out how to comfort him in at least some way itched at his mind. Seeing his own student suffer so much made him feel utterly powerless. Therefore, approaching him carefully so as not to startle him, he gently offered a hug to him. This lasted for only a few seconds in order to not make Aida uncomfortable.

With a calm, soothing tone as he also had to fight against the own breaking in his voice, he reassured him,

“Aida, we know that this situation is… even more than just simply ‘tragic’ or ‘traumatic.’ I understand what you must be feeling now. To tell you the truth, I’m just as devastated as you are. You don’t have to be strong. It’s okay to show others how you truly feel.”

Unexpectedly, Aida turned up to look at him with a glare rather than sadness or gratitude. Now that he had been caught, he found no point in hiding his major trembling and his tear-stained face.

“You want to know how I truly feel? I don’t want you trying to act like you understand when you don’t! You just don’t! He was my friend, for God’s sake, and I couldn’t do anything! Can’t you see that this is all my fault? I’ve been the one handling this since the moment I found him… just lying there utterly lifeless… can’t you notice how the warmth in his eyes is gone now? Ida is gone, fucking gone! All this time I’ve tried to be so calm but no one even bothered to ask me how I felt about all this shit! I don’t think anyone cares… They don’t… And, most certainly not you…”

He let his knees concede again as he began to sob, the first time he let himself sob like this in front of anyone. Not wanting to irritate his already unstable state of mind any further, the teacher silently took off his jacket and used it to warm him up, so at least he knew that he would still be there for him regardless.

As he looked after Aida from a slightly larger distance now, some water from a leaky pipe above dripped onto his head, and he looked upward towards it as a reflex. He had been so focused on the situation on the ground that he, as well as everyone else, had forgotten that this location lay right under the school’s rooftop. Since he had been a teacher for many years, he knew firsthand all this mishaps that could take place there, although none of them had ever come to this before. This experience made him able to quickly recognise what had truly happened, and after this observation entered his mind, he could wait to call for help no more.

Even pulling out his phone, dialling 119 and putting it to his ear proved to be a challenge; his hands were now so shaky that they threatened to let the phone slip any second.

“Hello, this is 119. What is your emergency?”

Sniffling back his own urge to weep, he spoke,

“Please send the appropriate authorities to the local high school. I have reason to believe that one of my students has just passed away from suicide.”

**********

Back at the bus, the students went from impatient to downright anxious.

“It’s been ten minutes, at the least. Where could Mr. Taniguchi have gone, and what could he possibly be doing for so long? I’m beginning to be worried about him…”

This concern came from Hashimoto, and Aoki turned around to face her in her position in the line behind him, reassuring her in his carefree way.

“Hashimoto, you worry too much. Everything’s fine, I’m sure of it. He probably just went to check in on Aida in the bathroom. I told him not to eat so much of that food at the match that was clearly questionable at best, but as we all know, he never listens.”

He believed wholeheartedly in this assertion, but Hashimoto’s friend who was standing behind her stepped into the conversation to support her opinion.

“Although she does have a habit of worrying, I think Hashimoto is right this time. Mr. Taniguchi is always so calm, collected, and organised; he would never randomly leave us to stand out in the cold for so long. It’s been at least ten minutes since he left, in fact. Besides, if Aida was stuck in the bathroom with an upset stomach like you were saying, Aoki, then he could have just asked the school nurse for some stomach medicine. Even in that case, he would have returned by now. Not to mention that Ida’s friend is still so distressed and won’t tell us what’s going on… I think this is serious.”

Some people around them nodded, hummed, or muttered in agreement. The boy at the front of the line, who had witnessed Mr. Taniguchi suddenly leaving with Aida, turned around to shout so that the people towards the back could hear him.

“Yo, guys! Our dude here’s still stuck in shock. We’ve tried everything, but he just won’t budge. We all should go and get to the bottom of this ourselves, since Mr. Taniguchi clearly won’t be returning to us on his own, let’s go!”

His friend standing behind him pulled him back, and this sparked a loud argument on whether they should go or stay in place. No one could come to any resolution, and the argument kept going forward as the distribution of the opinions was just about 50-50. For example, Hashimoto wanted to go, while Aoki was still hopeful for his teacher’s return.

The buses carrying other students of the school had been caught in a traffic jam on another road, so they were only pulling back up to the school right now. The teachers supervising them noticed the row going on through the windows, so they skipped the headcount and let everyone step off hastily. When they went to inquire from them about what the fuss was about and where their teacher had gone off to, and they replied by saying that they had no idea themselves, this only caused more confusion. Adding fuel to the fire, the other students started to join in on the argument as well, although they had almost zero idea about what was happening.

Suddenly, however, all their noise stopped as they heard the unmistakably loud noises of police and ambulance sirens approaching closer and closer. All of the chaos of the situation at once turned into a cloud of dread that collectively hung above them.

Mr. Taniguchi then reappeared out of the blue running towards the police officers and the EMTs. He was only waving one hand in the air to get their attention, because he was using the other to carry a passed out Aida in his arms. Thankfully, after checking his pulse and breathing, he was reassured that he would be fine. The actual reason he passed out was a sudden drop in blood pressure during his mental breakdown earlier, after holding it in for so long.

However, just to err on the side of caution, the EMTs took Aida as well as Ida’s friend (who was on the verge of fainting himself) into the ambulance without even a second of hesitation. This spectacle was public and visible for all the spectators, that were the teachers and the students. Once again, everyone was thrown into a frenzy.

Aoki even attempted to run after Aida, but was stopped by the police, who were efficiently implementing crowd control measures.

“Can someone please just tell me, what the actual hell is going on!?” The sounds of his heart palpitating from confusion and stress reached his ears, but the police offered only a painfully brief response, as they didn’t know the situation yet themselves.

“I’m sorry, but we cannot reveal any information to you just yet. The investigation has just started, and will be ongoing for at least a few hours. Now, I ask you to please stand back.”

“Investigation about what!?”

Before he could receive an answer, Hashimoto pulled him back into the crowd.

“Aoki… Have you heard anything about what’s happening? Will Aida be okay? Why did he pass out to begin with…?”

Hashimoto was pretending to be calm, but she was more prominently known for how emotionally susceptible she was. Silent teardrops streamed down her face, and seeing such a delicate person broken made Aoki wish on everything he had that he could provide her with at least some answers.

No matter how much he wished, though, Aoki couldn’t hide how clueless he was, just like everyone else. Of course, save for the select few.

Craving warmth, Hashimoto wrapped her arms around Aida tightly, sniffling into his chest. Strangely, this made Aoki flashback to when he had a crush on her. Knowing that those feelings for her were no more, and that this was neither the time nor the place for these thoughts, he quickly banished that flashback away. Instead, he embraced her to comfort her as a friend.

“Hashimoto, I promise everything will be okay…” This weak whisper was all he could offer her.

Regardless of what Aoki said, Hashimoto still had a sinking gut feeling that was gnawing at her from the inside.

“No, it’s not going to be okay, I know it…”

As the two of them separated, Aoki noticed one of the EMTs answering a message on his walkie-talkie that came from out of the blue. After he pressed the button to end the radio transmission, the face of the EMT morphed into a more solemn look than it already had before. Immediately, he began calling out to his team in a lingo with jargon that was incomprehensible to everyone else. Seeing more EMTs running into the ambulance searching for something made the crowd reach the height of their uproar.

When they all witnessed them carrying out a white sheet and heading to somewhere on the school grounds out of their sight range, the real situation that had been taking place behind the scenes became agonisingly clear.

Clamours arose once again. There was a great amount of grief as well, but until they knew the identity of the person to focus that grief on, it would only remain secondary.

Hashimoto hid her face in her hands and burst out crying, so that she would not have to see them carry the body out, even if it was covered.

Meanwhile, the crowd attempted to shove through with a great force out of a morbid curiosity that made them want to see the deceased person, but the police barricade still proved to be stronger. After some more aimless trying, they finally gave in the the police’s efforts to keep them remaining still.

Before, when the ambulance carrying the other two boys to the hospital departed from the school, all could hear the sirens blaring louder than when they arrived. On the other hand, when the body shrouded in that unsettling shade of white was carried into a different ambulance, no sirens blared. Many people identify themselves as being fearful of emergency sirens, associating with them only tragic and life-changing events.

The people realised suddenly, that they had taken the sirens for granted all along. When they are on, it is a way of letting the whole world know that an optimistic chance still exists, however slim it may be.  

When they are turned off, all hope is gone. The scythe of the Grim Reaper shreds this hope into smaller and smaller pieces, until it reaches the ultimate goal of oblivion. Simply saying this is one thing, but experiencing it firsthand, as in this case of all of them now, is a trauma that no amount of bandages can heal.

The deathly quiet ambulance drove off, leaving the people of the school behind to await in solemn silence the police’s leaving as well, as they wrapped up their work. They perceived each second stretch into a minute, then an hour, and then an eternity. More communications sounded on the walkie-talkies, and the police began to head back towards their cars in their respective groups. Before he left, the chief of the unit informed Mr. Taniguchi that he, the other teachers, and a select few students who were related to the case would be interrogated at a later time. Even his professional outlook was of minute importance compared to their right to have at least some time to process.

Just before he left for good, Mr. Taniguchi stopped him.

“Wait, sir. Do I have your permission to inform the students of their classmates’ passing?”

The chief nodded, but it was a nod the resembled a bow of solidarity rather than simple agreement.

“Of course, and you should break the news right away, As you and I very well know, the youngsters are smarter than we think and far more smarter than we know. They will figure it out at some point in time, no matter how much we try and shield them from the reality. It’s a much better scenario that they hear it from you, their teacher, than from the rumours that spread like wildfire amongst them.”

With that, he tipped his hat in respect to him.

“Good day, sir.”

He watched as the last of the policemen drove off until they could no longer be seen. Now, it was only the teachers and students of the school left alone with their thoughts. They were many in number, but unbeknownst to them, they were all thinking collectively, hence why they are being referred to as one entity. Every one of their minds was running through a list of people they knew. Everyone did indeed feel a sense of absence caving through their hearts, but none of them could put their finger exactly on the source of that feeling.

As they all started to lose their energy that they had used to go through the possibilities, all eyes at once fell on Mr. Taniguchi. At this moment, every single one of them was depending on him, and they were all reliant on him. As such, he had to put his not wanting to believe in this nightmare aside, and put an end to this uncertainty.

Choking back tears, he at last declared the news,

“I’m so deeply sorry to have to be the one to announce this, but everyone, your classmate Ida has unfortunately passed away.”

Unexpectedly, there was no one uniform reaction. Some froze, some weeped (including many who did not even know him that well), some believed still that this was all some cruel joke, and some pulled out their phones to call home to be picked up, not being able to face this fact in front of everyone.

Aoki was an unusual case among these. What struck his heart at that moment could not even be considered guilt; this word would not have done it justice. 

Usually, he was the type of person to misunderstand reality, either taking it way too far beyond what it really was (the usual case) or being overly nonchalant.

Now, conversely, he realised the error of his ways in the most painful way possible. He fell to his knees, doing anything that would hopefully wake him up from this horror, this nightmare. He would kneel there, close his eyes tightly, and then pinch his arm till he winced of pain. When he opened them, he expected to be back in his bed, cuddling onto Ida at a sleepover or some other event of the sort.

Yet, every single time, his eyes would only open back to that same scene.

Trembling, all his thoughts broke through and flooded into his fragile mind at once. Somehow, at the same time, he also knew the cause of death, although that part had not been revealed to the public crowd just yet. In fact, it was a legal grey area to reveal such information until an official autopsy confirmed it, regardless of how distraught the students were and how much they needed closure.

“Ida isn’t coming back, Ida isn’t coming back… He’s dead… Is this all because of me? Aida was right, it was so goddamn immature of me to just leave Ida alone simply because I couldn’t understand his way of expressing love. It’s only my actions that caused him to do something like this to himself.”

All the memories that he neglected before, those memories that proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Ida had loved him with all his heart (even after he had begun to decline) returned far too late.

Aoki would never again be able to cuddle into Ida’s body warmth and be comforted by his heartbeat when he was sad. Nor would he be able to huddle under Ida’s umbrella with him on rainy days, feeling safe and protected under its cover. There would be no more begging Ida to buy him his favourite drink from the vending machine at lunch time until he finally gave in to his puppy eyes, no more sharing erasers, no more staring into his eyes whenever they studied together, and the list just went on and on.

The significance of these silly little moments had never been fully realised by him, but now he came to know that they had always arguably been the most central aspect of his life.

Now, within the blink of an eye, they vaporised into nonexistence. They would never be experienced again.

Furthermore, although he had been correct in most aspects of his thinking, he had failed to realise that it was all of them who had failed to recognise the signs. Perhaps, if even one person had been wise enough to quit being so caught up in their own affairs for only a moment to ask Ida what was really going on in his head, then this could have been prevented.

If that person had been Aoki, then this possibility would have become a certainty.

Five seconds donated from one person’s life to his would have been enough to save it. Now, unfortunately, the five seconds had become an unstoppable eternity that was far, far more sinister.

Aoki desperately hoped to curl into a ball right there on the ground and disappear. However, this plan was foiled by his mum being suspicious of him not returning home, this suspicion being even more heightened by viewing the melancholy of the scene before her.

Normally, she was a woman with a fiery disposition, shouting and nagging at Aoki over the most trivial of things. As she practically dragged her son into the car and observed his expression through the car mirror, however, she suddenly softened. She knew that Aoki would refuse to tell her what happened, but no words needed to be said.

The dark aura looming above him was more than enough to let her know that he was going through a similar situation as she had been in herself, back when Aoki’s father had died before he even had a chance to come into this world and see him.

Feeling more empathy for her precious child than ever before, a tear rolled down her own face as well.

**********

She had intended to stop Aoki when they both arrived inside their home, to at least attempt to console him in some way, even though she knew very well that no words would be able to heal his heart. Even time would never be able to heal his wounds completely, as many people like to say.

As such, she did not understand why she was as disappointed as she was when Aoki ran up to his room and slammed the door, making sure that his mum could hear the sounds of him locking it.

For Aoki, he felt as if his brain was running on some sort of autopilot program, that numbed him enough for him not to make any flashy displays of grief on the way home. After he firmly buried his face into his pillow, his autopilot shut off without any warning, and he let out those less-than-beautiful sobs that he had been holding back all along.

Even through these muffled cries, however, he could hear his phone’s notification bell ringing multiple times. Of course, he never bothered to pick up his phone to check any of them. The first notification was an e-mail from the school’s headmistress, announcing that school would be cancelled for the rest of the week in light of the terrible events, and that there would be an assembly on suicide prevention on the day that everyone returned.

The next notifications were a chain of texts coming from Aida. He had been promptly discharged from hospital and allowed to return home after the doctors ascertained that his fainting episode did not cause any real damage to his body. 

Still, even despite what Mr. Taniguchi had told him earlier and the fact that he had just arrived home from hospital, Aida still felt the need to take on the responsibility of being the mature one in this situation; no one else was doing it. He feared the possibility of Aoki following in Ida’s footsteps, since he had been the closest to him. Worry took Aida over at first when no response came to his checking in on Aoki, but the rational side of him reassured him that he just needed some time, and he was persuaded easily enough by this.

For some reason, all the crying that Aoki had been doing seemed to exhaust his energy and upset his near-empty stomach greatly. At least two or three times, he had to run back and forth to the washroom to throw up, although very quickly his stomach had run out of contents that it could regurgitate. By the second round, all that was coming up was his own stomach acid.

The loud vomiting sounds also nauseated his mum, who was seated alone with a pensive expression at the dining table. She felt like a deer in headlights, hearing her own child be in so much pain, yet also knowing that she would not be able to remove the cause of that pain. This made her yearn for Aoki’s childhood, when a kiss and a hug from her combined with the occasional plaster were the only things needed to cure any discomfort he encountered.

Eventually, she came to the decision that the least she could do was make Aoki’s favourite dish for him, so there would at least be something inside his empty stomach. All the events of the past hour, though, had made her forget that she needed to do the groceries. She only remembered this once more after she was greeted by almost completely vacant shelves, upon her opening the fridge.

The last thing she wanted to do was leave Aoki alone at a time like this, but she also refused to let him be hungry. Figuring that she at least ought to inform him that she was leaving for the shops, she made her way up the stairs and stood in front of his bedroom door.

By then, the cries had quietened down to sniffles, so she had no doubt that he would at least be able to listen, regardless of whether he decided to give her a response or not.

Knocking on the still locked door more gently than she had ever knocked before, she began to speak in as soothingly of a tone as she could.

“Aoki… I know you don’t want to come out of there and see my face, but please, at least let me make you some food… I have to go round the shops to buy the ingredients, and I know that you most certainly don’t want to come with, but I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be back as soon as I possibly can. I’ll keep my phone with me nonetheless, so if you need to talk to me about anything at all, please know that I’m just a ring away.” 

She took a deep breath in and out after saying all this and stood silently for a moment, still hoping that Aoki’s voice would come and break the silence.

Yet, this never came. She sighed once more and turned around to leave, but she swung back around when she suddenly heard the door behind her fly open, slamming loudly against the wall.

After his mum had finished speaking, Aoki had barely managed to wiggle his way out of the cocoon he had unintentionally made for himself out of his duvet in time. Before she could react, Aoki embraced her with a tightness that she didn’t know was possible.

In contrast, the embrace that she offered back was soft and warm. She gently pulled on him so that they were both sitting down on the floor, then proceeding to rub his back and rock back and forth slowly, just as how she had comforted Aoki when he was a child. The nostalgic feel of this made Aoki feel safe enough for him to let out his tears again, even in front of her.

“Mama…” The last time he had called her that was ages and ages ago. “I loved him… I really, really loved him, but now he can never come back to me… He’s dead, mama, and it’s all my fault…”

For reference, Aoki had never told her about his relationship with Ida, nor about his romantic preference for boys. In this moment, although it might have been best told earlier, he was finally confessing all of these things that had previously gone unsaid.

To his surprise, she couldn’t care less about who he was with or which gender he liked, especially given the context of the situation.

“My poor baby, I felt the same way as you do now back when your father died. It obviously hurt beyond imagination that he wasn’t going to come back, and that he wouldn’t get to see his first child being born or growing up. But what hurt the most above everything else was the guilt. Although it was a freak accident and obviously I couldn’t have done anything to change that, for years and years, I even went to the extent of believing that his blood was on my hands. I know it might be hard, and I don’t expect you to forgive yourself right away, but-“

Suddenly, she felt compelled to go silent. She realised that Aoki wasn’t truly absorbing anything she was saying, and that giving such a long-winded speech might not have been the best idea. His gaze looked painfully… dead. The shock and guilt was still ever so fresh in him, and she knew that the best solution at this time would be to just leave him be for some time.

“Well… I’ll be going now. Again, if you need anything at all, or if you want me to come home, I’m just a ring away. Alright? And please, try to get some rest.”

In return, Aoki offered her what was only the shadow of a nod. Standing up and gazing back at him one more time, her look shifted into a helpless pity, as she slowly moved away.

Even after he heard the door thud shut, Aoki still could not find the strength in him to get up. A thought crossed his mind, that if Ida was here, he would calmly advise him not to be so dramatic, and then help him get back up on his feet. Rather than comforting him, this only exacerbated the gap that Ida had left behind. He desperately searched in himself for some other tears that he could let out in response, but it seemed that the stores of water in his eyes had now run dry.

Now, Aoki felt too numb to do anything. He could only barely drag himself back into the bed, whose gentle softness also failed to comfort him. Nonetheless, he hoped that if he shut his eyes, he could at least drift off to sleep. Falling asleep would grant him a temporary respite from his world that had just been shattered into pieces, and who knows? Maybe he would even be reunited with Ida again, through his dreams.

He shut his eyes as tightly as he could, growing ever more weary of everything and everyone around him. A tiny wave of relief splashed over him as he finally felt the sensations of sleepiness kick in.

Finally, he too would be free.

Unfortunately for him, he was yanked back to the real world by the nagging noises coming from the incessantly ringing doorbell downstairs. As annoyed and irritated as he was, he didn’t say anything out loud, because it might have been his mum at the door; he wanted to show at least some respect for all the love and care she was attempting to show him, even if this was futile.

Then, he remembered, that it couldn’t be her. She had a distinctive pattern with the way she would ring the doorbell, and this did not match it in the slightest. Aida also rang doorbells in a quick pattern, but it couldn’t be him either, because after ringing it a few times he would give up and call Aoki again and again until he finally answered the door. In spite of his current state, curiosity overtook him, and he shuffled halfheartedly down the stairs. At this point, he didn’t care about what whoever-it-was would think of his dishevelled appearance.

When he slowly creaked the door open, he became even more annoyed. A police officer stood in front of him. He had a hunch that they were only there to tell him what he already knew, so although he was most certainly not the type to yell in anger, he raised his voice almost involuntarily.

“I know that Ida’s dead, okay!? You don’t need to tell me again! Now please, just leave me alone!”

He threw the door shut, but just before it slammed all the way, he stopped it upon seeing the police officer motioning at him to keep it open.

“Ugh, fine. Just get to the point. What do you want from me? I’m really not in the mood for an interrogation right now, though.”

The officer shook her head.

“I promise you, we’re not here to bother you. I actually came here to give you something.”

Intrigued as to what this could be, he opened the door all the way again to see more clearly.

The policewoman pulled a small object out of her pocket, but because she was standing some distance from the door, Aoki was unable to discern any specific details. Nonetheless, he had a faint memory of what the object was, put he couldn’t place his finger on it exactly.

Observing his distraught and confused expression, she proceeded to explain the situation more.

“We found this at the scene of the incident yesterday. As you will soon be able to see, there was ‘For Aoki, and Aoki only’ written on this small box. Because of this, we thought it might be good to give it to you.”

His interest suddenly skyrocketed, as he visibly perked up. What could this be?

“I assume you’ve already looked through it, haven’t you?”

“No. Well, we did put it through the scanner of course to make sure there was nothing harmful in it. Other than that, though, we decided to respect the victim’s right to privacy.”

Now that there was nothing further to elaborate on, a silence that was awkward to the point where it was palpable hung between them.

She looked at him in pity, but at the same time, she didn’t know what she could possibly say to give the youth any consolation. Knowing that no such words existed, she simply walked up the doorstep to hand the box to Aoki. As soon as he accepted it, she offered only a brief nod as a goodbye, and thus sprinted off into the distance.

When the policewoman was out of sight, Aoki finally looked down to observe the box with his own eyes for the first time.

Except, he realised, this wasn’t the first time.

A flashback came to his mind, and although brief, it was potent enough to send a new wave of pangs of grief through his heart.

Just this past February, not so many months ago, Aoki had been complaining nonstop about his persistent habit of losing small things. The last time he was able to count on his fingers how many times he had misplaced his erasers, pencils, small class notes, and even the keys to his bicycle lock was years and years back.

Tired of having to see Aoki suffer through the same trivial plights again and again, on Valentine’s Day Ida had gifted him a small, heart-shaped box that he purchased from a specialty handicrafts shop.

Aoki reacted to his excitedly, like a petite mouse who sees some cheese. However, he was never able to get himself into the habit of actually making use of this gift. He hadn’t meant to do so on purpose, it was just that he always had trouble adjusting to any change, even if it was positive.

For weeks, the beautiful little heart box sat idle on Aoki’s shelf, with the sole purpose of collecting its dust. This sight made Aoki’s friends uncomfortable as they pitied Ida. Therefore, to end the box’s misery, Aida had retrieved it from the shelf one day in secret. He and Hashimoto presented it back to Ida, expressing their many apologies for their friend’s forgetfulness.

Now, though, he sat on the floor and traced slowly all the tiny and intricate designs on the heart box’s surface. For every detailed carving of some butterfly, plant, heart shape, or star that ran below his finger, he felt that the box was somehow not as vibrant as before.

Yet, this seemed strange. By some miracle, there was no damage to the material of the box; everything was exactly the same as when he had first received it.

So, why was it that the box felt… as if it lost the very soul that had made it what it was?

The answer, he found, lied in the note with his name on it.

Without a doubt, it was Ida’s and only Ida’s distinctive handwriting on it, acting as the only concrete memorial to his existence. Yet, seeing it did not give him nearly the same extent of childlike joy that it used to. Now, to him, the writing was nothing more than the amalgamation of a few pen strokes meaninglessly fumbled together.

After some time searching in vain for this vanished ‘spirit,’ he now came to know that it had never originated from the hands with which the box was made. Rather, the life energy that flowed through it always came from the hands who so gently and carefully offered it to him. Now that the warmth of those hands was no more, the box’s ‘raison d’être’ was gone as well.

In turn, this became the reason for the present state of things. That was, the beauty of the heart box no longer existed. Yes indeed, this was the true damage that had been done to it, that not even the most skilled craftsman in the entire world could repair.

Or, as another side of Ida’s psyche then pointed out to him, it could also be the case that his taking this beauty for granted had inflicted irreparable harm upon it long before.

A common riddle came to mind: If a tree fell down in the forest, but no one was around to witness it, then did it really make any sound? 

This seemingly silly question particularly resonated with him, because his dilemma was similar. Specifically, he was never around to appreciate the beauty that the box held inside. As such, it was only natural to him to compare the two questions.

“Did the fallen tree make any sound?” He pondered.

And if this was not so, then the real truth was that the beauty of the little heart box never existed at all.

Although he knew that the actual heart inside the box had died, the mystery of the material things inside still drew him in enough to cautiously remove its cover.

To his surprise, yet another heart lay inside, this time in the form of a folded paper.

Aoki’s own hands shivered and trembled with anxiety and anticipation as he softly took it out. For a while, he only stared at it, contemplating on whether unfolding the paper would be a wise decision. The problem here was that he had a strange delusion that made him believe that the paper was guarded by some curse, and that by revealing it, a dragon or another monster would emerge and maim him.

When his fears subsided just enough that he came to his senses to realise no such monster was real, he sighed as his fingers got to work uncovering the folded message.

As this task was finished, Aoki’s eyes encountered Ida’s handwriting a second time. It was still distinctly his, but it was different from the one on top that had his name attached. In this one, it was clear that the handwriting was made with much more care, and not a single fault could be found in the way that the letters and words were stringed together.

However, as it is known that appearances are too often deceiving, Aoki read the note silently just to ensure that there was no kind of deception involved and that this was not fake (it most certainly wasn’t).

Finally, the words of the note were:

“My dear Aoki, I know that no form of flowery language will be able to ease your confusion, so I promise to keep this as brief as possible. By now, you know that I indeed took my own life. Whether this affects you or not, maybe you’re still wondering why. In short, it’s useless for me to be in this world. I’ve always been a failure who is incapable of being loved by anyone, much less you, the best person to have ever existed in my life…”

Aoki’s mind was racing far too fast for him to comprehend every single word. Even if his letter had been only  a singular word, this still would have been true. Ida’s last note was being addressed to him, and no one else. Therefore, it felt as if he was carrying the weight of a whole world on his shoulders. Although this specific world no longer existed, this weight seemed to double rather than lessen.

As such, he was only skimming through the words. However, it did not require much attention for him to get the gist of it.

“No, I was the one who made him feel like this… If I hadn’t been so petty, he would still be alive…”

This one thought ran through his mind again and again like a broken record, with no companion.

The only force that was able to halt this were two small sentences at the very bottom of the page, written in pink ink instead of the regular blue. To draw attention to it even more, it was underlined and even boxed as well.

There was a reason why so much emphasis had been placed on these few words. For if Aoki had been there before he took his last breath and lost all ability to voice himself, this is what Ida would have said to him.

“But even though I couldn’t be loved, never doubt how much I loved you. For you were always the person I loved most.”

On account of these words, a new wave of grief pounded through his already shattered heart, by building it up only to tear it apart once more. This time, the guilt was stronger than ever, ever before. What made it even more stranger was the fact that he believed that he had already surpassed that limit.

As a result, his eyes gained a brand new supply of water in the plenty. He clutched the paper as close as he could to his heart, hoping that it would heal it like a plaster on a wound, but this only made his breakdown even worse.

Despite this, he managed to get a few unheard words out. They came far too late, but had they come on time, it would have made a world of difference to Ida.

“I love you too, Ida, I love you…”

Perhaps somewhere in the vast and endless universe, Ida was listening to him, and realising that he was loved all along… more than he would ever know.