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Lanterns above the sidewalk cast a magical light upon Mika Kagehira, bending down to get something from the ground.
"You're going to bend your spine," a voice with a French accent spoke behind him.
Mika smiled, lifting the thing from the ground and turning around to face the salmon-haired man. He stretched out his hands in front of him, displaying a dead moth, spotted blue and yellow like Mika's own eyes. "Isn't it beautiful?"
"It is."
Mika stares down at the dead moth in his hand. "Am I beautiful too...?"
The other man stepped forward to look closer at the moth. "I can't see clearly, it's too dark."
Mika shakes his head.
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The dead moth lay on Mika's hands, sparkling ever so slightly under the light of the lanterns.
"Am I beautiful too...?"
"No moths can ever compare to your beauty."
Mika sighed. "This ain't it," he mumbled.
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"Am I beautiful too...?"
Somehow, the nickname felt like lead in Mika's mouth. He could not but hesitate before he could utter it.
"...oshi-san?"
The man behind him nodded, like a mannequin.
Mika stared blankly at the dead moth in his hand.
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"You're going to bend your spine."
"I know." Mika solemnly held up his palm, the dead moth shimmering upon it. "Look," said he.
"It looks like you," said the man with the French accent.
Mika's face was blank still. "I wanted this," he mumbled. "Why am I not reacting?"
"Hmm? Are you saying something?"
"Forget it."
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"It looks like you." The salmon-haired man extended his hand, hesitating above the dead moth. "May I borrow this?"
Mika nodded, emotionless.
The man took the dead moth. "It really looks like you. I wonder if this moth is you in another life, Kagehira."
"I would be better off as a moth," Mika mumbled.
The man somehow heard Mika's words. "But if you were, a moth, Kagehira, I would not meet you, and have you, in my life, like now."
Mika shuddered at the jarring automaton-like voice. "He would not say that," he sighed.
"Who?"
Mika sighed again. He had been sighing way too much.
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Taking the dead moth in his hand, the man spoke again, his french accent sounding less prominent than before. "It really looks like you. I wonder if this moth is you in another life, Kagehira."
"Maybe."
The man smiled at Mika, his lavender eyeballs like glass marbles under the light of the lanterns. "I—"
"... It's a shame that yer not real," Mika interrupted, expression still blank. "Give me back the moth... please?"
"What are you talking about? I am right here, Mika."
"He doesn't call me Mika."
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"It really looks like you. I wonder if this moth is you in another life, Kagehira."
Mika stretched out his hand. "The moth, please?"
The man placed the dead moth back in Mika's hand. "What troubles you, Kagehira? You seem out of sorts."
Mika stared at the dead moth in his hand. "You're not real."
"Kagehira, I'm here in front of you."
Staring at the dead moth still, Mika gently pulled off its upper left wing. "Why aren't ya scolding me...?"
"Why should I scold you?" The man said, his voice gentle as soap lather.
Mika slowly shook his head. "You're not him. You'll never be him."
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"The moth, please?"
The salmon-haired man placed the dead moth in Mika's hand, its upper left wing missing. "What troubles you, Kagehira? You seem out of sorts."
"Death cannot be reverted," Mika said flatly, pulling off the dead moth's upper right wing.
"Mika, why are you destroying the moth?! Such folly!"
Mika sighed again. "I'll give ya six from ten points for that, but he doesn't call me Mika, y'know." He paused for a second, eyes still glued on the dead moth. "Nah, I'm taking back the six points."
"What are you talking about?"
"Nothing."
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Mika bent down to pick up a miserable dead moth from the ground, its upper wings already torn off.
"You're going to bend your spine," spoke a man from behind him, French accent still there albeit already broken down.
Mika pulled off the lower left wing of the dead moth, facing away from the man. "No. Very off."
"Did you say something?"
"This is pointless."
The last wing of the dead moth fluttered down to the ground, and Mika crunched up the dead moth's body in his hand. "There has never been a point to this. What was I expecting? What did I wish for?"
"Aren't you wishing for another day to spend with me?"
Mika's leg twitched. He wanted to kick the salmon-haired man, yet found himself unable to do so. Why? This was not his beloved. This was not Shu. Shu's expressions had more emotions than this. Shu's voice had a certain confidence to it that Mika liked. Shu's hair was not salmon. It was pink, like the lighter peonies.
And so he resorted to shouting. Shouting is easier after all, and easier to forget.
Was it really easier to forget, though?
Distorted words. Frantic screaming. The automaton tried to replicate a dead man's mannerisms, yet he failed for the umpteenth time.
There really was no point in this.
Mika stepped forward and removed the glass eyeballs from the automaton's eye sockets, throwing them away. They rolled down the road and into a gutter beneath the opposite sidewalk.
He tore off the automaton's wig, throwing it on the ground.
And finally, when the wretched machine stopped working, Mika fell on his knees and sobbed.
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It's not working anymore.
What was he even trying to do in the first place?
What was it that he wished for?
The departed cannot return.