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“—That Midori told me about. An American. Paints up half his body. I know all that shit is fake, but man, that guy’s real.” Eru laughed. “He’s pretty hot, too. And, y’know, he’s a skateboarder, and, y’know, I’ve already been thinking about that, so I might finally pick that up.”
Yui was slowly stirring her drink with her straw. She was looking down at the table, holding her head in her other hand. Her disinterest was obvious.
“But yeah, Brazil was fun. I absolutely need to go back someday.”
“Mm. Yui pushed her glass away. “But you didn’t get hurt, right?”
“Nothing I couldn’t walk off.
“That’s good…” Yui sighed. “You have a place to stay, right? Not just a hotel? You could—”
“I’ve been sleeping on Midori’s couch. That’s the plan until I find a new apartment. Already got a part-time job, too. You really don’t need to worry about me.”
Yui studied Eru's face. “I'm not sure…”
“Yui. You can trust me. I wouldn't do anything dumb like come back to the country without any plans for where to stay. Call Midori if you want. She can verify.”
Yui pulled out her phone and quickly tapped out a message, then set her phone on the table. “Sure.” Eru snorted.
“Didn't think you'd actually.”
Eru continued to eat her breakfast in silence while Yui stared at her phone impatiently. Eventually, Eru finished her meal and set her plate aside, while Yui was barely touching her food.
Finally, the phone buzzed. Yui scooped it up, then breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back in her seat.
“Am I really that untrustworthy?”
Yui frowned. “It's not that… I just want to know you're safe.”
“Well…” Eru laughed. “There you have it.” She stretched, then picked up her plate and stood up. “Oh yeah, tonight I'm planning to go out on a bender. Wanna come along?”
Yui shifted awkwardly in her seat. “I promised Hikari I wouldn't. At least for two weeks. So please don't ask.”
For a beat, Eru just stared at Yui. Then she shrugged.
“Sure. I have plenty of others I could ask to come along with me.”
“You… It might do you good to drink less too, you know.”
“Oh? Funny for you of all people to suddenly care about someone drinking themself to death. But don't worry. When I die, it won't be in a pool of my own vomit.”
“I'd rather you didn't die at all.”
“You're a decade too late for that, afraid to say. And hey, everyone dies eventually.”
Yui frowned, but Eru didn't wait for her to respond. Instead, she turned on her heels and hurried away.
I wonder, sometimes, if I was truly brought back right. After a decade, it seems easy enough to say that there was nothing wrong with me. But in particular, an idea that's lodged itself in my head was the thought that I wouldn't be able to die again. It’s not something I could test, and it's not like my body hadn't changed in the last decade— I’m as short and flat as ever, but no one would mistake me for a child, so that's just how my body is— so I’m probably not safe from old age, but what if I can’t die any other way.
Some of those stunts I’ve pulled should have killed me. The things I’ve survived make me feel unkillable. A bad fall off a waterfall that should have led to me drowning. Hitting the ground too hard, or too much blood loss from an accident. Am I just lucky, or is there something more at play here?
But on the other hand, this new body is a magic construct, so maybe I really will be immortal. Never found the old body, so a new one had to be made from scratch. It was probably lost in the rubble, or treated as an unknown victim. Maybe the original was destroyed when I was reborn. But I think that means I can’t die, because I’m not human anymore. I sure seem human, I sure feel human, but who knows. It’s magic because we don’t understand it. That’s what the one sci-fi writer said, right?
I won’t have any answers to this as long as I live. If I die, I die, no way around that. And when I die, there’s nothing. I know that for a fact. I’ve seen it firsthand already. And if I know that the end of my life will be the end of me, then I need to ensure that I’m not wasting a single moment.
How many people get a second chance?
“So this superhero chick, is she—”
Eru heard a groan. She glanced over to see Midori holding her head. She sighed and paused the TV, then leaned back and waited.
Several minutes later, Hikari looked around. She looked over at Eru, who waved dispassionately. She frowned, then let out a groan.
“I didn't want to front tonight…”
“Yeah? What happened there?”
“I don't know! Midori just dropped out and I showed up. I never know, with the way our brain works!”
Eru picked up her beer from the table and sipped. “I'd think you two would always be on the same page. Same brain.”
“It doesn't work that way.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh.”
The atmosphere in the room was awkward, to say the least. Over the next few minutes, Hikari just sat in silence, holding her head in her hands, while Eru finished off the last of her beer. When she was done, she got up and dropped it in the trash can, then grabbed another from the fridge.
“So, like, do you want to do something tonight? Or are you just gonna be mad at yourself or Midori or your brain or whatever else all evening? Probably not good for you.”
Hikari took long enough to respond that Eru assumed she was being ignored. Until, finally, Hikari stood up. “Fine.” She said it with a sigh. “I want to go for a walk.” She began walking for the door, grabbing a jacket off the arm of the couch as she passed it by.
Eru shrugged, then set her drink down and followed Hikari out the door. The apartment was on the second floor, so Hikari hurried down the stairs. Eru, on the other hand, decided to jump over the guard rail. She grabbed the ground to break her fall, then dropped again to land below.
Hikari rolled her eyes as she walked by. “You think you’re so cool, don’t you?”
“I do, yeah.” Eru laughed. “What, you don’t?”
Hikari walked off without humoring Eru with an answer.
There wasn’t much within the immediate vicinity of the apartment, and Eru had been away long enough to forget the area, so she didn’t know where Hikari was heading. But the cold of the night and the heavy clouds overhead created an oppressive atmosphere. A far cry from Brazil.
Eru continued following Hikari until finally she saw the destination. Against the dark of the night, the convenience store’s lights were harsh. They both headed inside, but they didn't stay long. Hikari left with a coffee, Eru with ice cream.
By the time they left, it had started snowing lightly, so rather than return home, they sat down underneath the eave. Against the bright white lights and aged neon signs, the snow glimmered.
Even eating it slowly, Eru finished her ice cream before Hikari had drunk much of her coffee. The other woman seemed to be using it more as a miniature space heater than anything, hunched and huddled around it.
“Not planning on going to sleep early, huh?”
“It's decaf.”
“Right.”
Eru turned up to the sky. By morning, there might be an inch or two of snow on the ground. It had been winter in Brazil when she arrived, but it was a different kind of winter. The winter before, she had been spending time in the American Southwest, so it had been at least two years since she had last seen snow in person. That distance gave it a sense of novelty. Snow had been a facet of her life all throughout her childhood and when she lived in Japan, but now that she was traveling so often, ordinary things had become novel.
That was going to make it a pain to walk back, though. She probably shouldn't have left her jacket in the apartment.
What does it mean for things to be ordinary? What does it mean for things to be common?
We all have an idea of what a “normal person” is, but do any of us know someone like that? Someone who checks all the boxes?
I'm not sure we do. Everyone has their own abnormalities. A salaryman might have lost his dad at a young age, or a waitress’s parents were divorced. Maybe someone is disabled, or queer, or simply just odd. No one is really normal, right?
But we can't tell.
Likewise, what's normal in your everyday life is incredibly subjective. Snow is an annual occurrence for so many people worldwide, but just as many people live in places where it's nothing more than an urban myth or something you see in American holiday specials. Snow itself is a foreign concept, so what about how it looks in person? The way it sounds underneath your feet? The way it tastes as you catch some in your mouth? Can we really convey such things without experiencing them?
If we have the ability to experience new things and widen our understanding of the world and its people, shouldn't we? Sure, there's a voyeuristic aspect, and that's certainly selfish, but there's also an aspect where I simply want to experience life for the sake of experiences. I want to understand as many people as I can in my limited time on this planet. Life is fleeting, so it can't be wasted. Let's do what we can and create as many connections as possible. I won't die a second time without having an impact on this world.
Eru only returned to Japan when her visa expired, but she appreciated the excuse to return home. Her life had developed into a pretty regular pattern since high school ended and she picked up this semi-nomadic lifestyle. Spend some time in Japan, save up some money, then pick a country and live there until she had to leave. Inevitably, her money that she had saved up wouldn’t be enough to last the entire trip, but that wasn’t an issue as far as she was concerned.
As long as she had friends, she had options, and Eru was quite good at making friends. Even if she showed up with nothing more than a translation dictionary for the local language, she would be able to make do. Sure, sometimes she would need to pick up a local job if she really needed money, but she considered that part of the experience.
And the experience was the entire point.
Why live life if you aren’t experiencing it?
As much as Yui would whine and worry, it was working for Eru. She had been doing this for over half a decade and it was working without issue, so surely she could keep at it for the rest of her life.
Of course, that made the parts of her life when she returned home boring, but it was still livable.
For example, working a part-time graveyard shift job at a convenience store. She liked working the graveyard shift because that was when the interesting people came in, but even then, it was mostly boring. She used the time to plan her next vacation.
It had been a few years since she last visited Europe, so maybe Greece or Spain. She folded the corners of those pages in the book she was reading, then kept reading. Australia was also a consideration, or somewhere in Southeast Asia.
Eventually, she grew bored of reading, and since there still weren't any customers to be seen, she pulled out her phone. Any reasonable person would be asleep this late, so she called up Junna, who answered on the second ring.
“Eru, you know I'm at work, right?”
“What a coincidence! So am I.”
She heard Junna stifle a small laugh on the other end. That was followed by a shrieking creaking, what sounded like Junna leaning back in her chair. Seems she was having as quiet a night as Eru was.
“I'm trying to decide. Greece, Australia, or Spain?”
“You just got back. Surely you can't be leaving again.”
“I'm not, but it helps to plan ahead.”
“You've never planned ahead in your life. Certainly not this life.”
“Why shouldn't I start now?”
“I hardly think you're finally picking now of all times to finally become responsible. Especially when you're trying to figure out your next long stay in another country. Would it really kill you to stay here for a while?”
“Well, living in Japan already killed me once.”
“And you survived that.”
“Who knows about a second time.”
There was a ringing at the door, so Eru set her phone down. The customer wandered for a couple minutes, then checked out, and left. Once she was done, Eru picked the phone back up.
“Yeah so anyway I'm thinking Greece. Wanna try a Mediterranean climate. Maybe see the ruins. Seems like a fun time.”
“Travel seems stressful. I don't know how you do it.”
“Well, I don't actually travel all that much. Maybe once every six months, once every three months. And then I stay in a place. Maybe move around, visit different cities. That's not travel, is it?”
“It's a vacation. It's tourism. That's travel.”
“Nah. Doesn't count.”
“Whatever.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Whatever.”
“You could bear to be a bit less frivolous, you know.”
“Sounds boring.”
“There's a difference between throwing yourself into danger and being boring.”
“Can't say I agree.” Eru could hear Junna roll her eyes on the other end. She giggled. “This has been fun, but if it's going to turn into a lecture, I'm going to hang up.”
“Sure, whatever. Oh, but before you do, my vote is for Australia.”
“Duly noted.”
What kind of life would I be living if I hadn't died? Would I have studied, made new friends, graduated and moved onto university like normal? Would I have gotten a normal boyfriend, gotten a normal job, and gotten married like a normal person? Had kids?
Can you fucking imagine?
How boring would that be?
Same damn life every single day. Same people I always see. Same stores I always buy from. Greet the same dog every day. Visit the same park every week. Go around corners at a right angle. Never jaywalk. Be nice and tidy all the time.
What a fucking joke.
What goal would I have had if my life didn't completely collapse after I died? I had no aspirations for university, but then, does any middle schooler? Would I have found a passion? Would I have started devoting myself to something? Someone?
Or would I still be just as much a fuck-up as I am now?
I can't imagine what my life would be like because everything that happened after is irrevocably based on that single moment. Every moment after has been defined by my death. My trauma. My healing. My difficulty in recovery, the ways it still haunts me. The way it interrupted my life. My world would not be the same.
So asking myself what would happen if I didn't die is like asking about an entirely different reality. It's not like failing a test or missing a train. It's not even like a friendship that could have been, or a choice I made with multiple different options. It's a decisive point in my life where there is a clear before and after, and everything since has been influenced by my death.
Maybe I would have gone to university. Maybe I would have a boyfriend. Maybe I would even have a girlfriend. Maybe I would still have long hair. Maybe I would have a child of my own already. Maybe I would be single.
Maybe I would be as depressed as everyone else. Maybe no one would be depressed, because they didn't have to see me die. Maybe everyone would be fine if I hadn't died. Maybe it's my fault.
It's pointless to get caught up in these kinds of thoughts because it's an endless void of what ifs and maybes. Life on the other side of possibility is so different as to be unrecognizable. I am who I am, and who I am is shaped by death.
I like my life now. It's not perfect. Far from it. A lot of things suck. I could do without the nightmares. But I'm happy with how things have settled down. And I know that to ask what could have been is to wonder what it would be like if none of this happiness ever existed. If none of the people I've met and grown close to ever knew me. All these connections I've made across the planet, gone.
Dying made my life more interesting. These are the only lives I know, and I need to make sure I enjoy them.
“Graduation is coming up, right?”
“Well, it's still a few months away, but… yeah. I guess it is.”
They were sitting across from each other in a booth at a small family diner. Eru on one side, Yuu on the other. The waiter had already come and gotten their order.
“Hey, congrats. High school is the worst part of anyone's life, and you're finally done. I assume you have plans for what comes next?”
Yuu nodded. “University. Got some scholarships, so I had my pick, but I decided on something local. I've spent too much of my life on this city to leave so easily.”
“That's an awfully weary statement for a kid.”
Yuu shrugged, then smiled. “What can I say? I've had an eventful life already. We all have.”
“Can't deny that.” Eru took a sip of her drink. “So what are you going to be studying, then?”
“Well, I really have my choice, between scholarships and government support, so I'm going for music. I don't know if I want to become a musician, but I'd rather study something interesting in addition to my mandatory classes.”
“Music’s fun. You know, I play guitar?”
Yuu’s eyes grew a little wider, which made Eru snicker a little. “Really? I never heard that.”
“I learned while in Brazil. Some guys I was staying with a while back were in a band, and when their guitarist got arrested, they had me fill in. I sucked, but so did they.”
Yuu stared at Eru for a few moments, then let out a little laugh as well. “Eru, I'm not sure that's the same thing.”
“It's close enough.”
At that point, the waiter returned with their dinners. Eru took a couple bites, then jabbed her fork at Yuu. “So you're graduating in the spring. Should be March, right?”
“Right.”
“Sweet. I'll still be around for that, so I'll get to see you become an adult.”
“You're not that much older than me…”
“Six years. That's not insignificant.”
“But it's also not enough time for you to act like some old grandma.”
“Damn kids…”
Eru laughed, and Yuu stifled a laugh in return.
“I'd love to have you there. I'm sure everyone will be there. I might even try and talk Arisa into coming.”
Eru raised an eyebrow. “Really? Good luck with that.” She took another sip of her drink. “Would be a really interesting time to see her in the same room as Yui again.”
“I… would probably encourage her to stay to herself. But maybe if she stays sober, she'll be able to stay on good behavior.”
“I don't think being sober would save Yui in that situation.”
“I wasn't talking about Yui.”
They finished up with dinner. The snow from several days prior was being joined by a new coat falling from the sky. But Eru at least had had the hindsight to bring a jacket this time, and Yuu had an umbrella, so it wasn't an issue. They walked around the downtown pavilion for a little bit, but it was a school night, so it wasn't long before Yuu had to go. Eru bid him goodbye, then continued wandering aimlessly.
Nobody gets a speech. You're lucky if you get a chance to realize that you're dying. Or unlucky. I suppose it depends how you feel about the matter. I certainly didn't get a chance to think about what was happening to me. One moment, I was trying to make sure a Dark Heart didn't hurt any civilians and the next I was being resurrected. If I didn't come back, I would have never realized what happened. There was nothing grand or glorious about it. One moment? I was alive, the next I wasn't, and I never knew the difference. And you know what? I think it's better that way. If I had realized what was happening, like if I had thought to look up and see the rock that was mere milliseconds from caving my skull in, then I would have had to face my mortality in that moment. It took me weeks, months really, to realize what exactly had happened.
Knowing something intellectually is different from understanding it. I knew intellectually that I had died. Yui told me, Junna told me, Arisa refused to talk to me but really that says something too, Yu- Yuu told me, Hikari told me, even the fucking Queen of Light told me. It was undeniable. But then I went home that same night and had dinner with my mom and my dad and everything was normal. You know how much that fucked with me? And then the next day, I saw Yui and Junna and Hikari and Yuu and we had class and recess and homework like every other school day except that unlike the last year, there were no Dark Hearts or forces of evil to worry about. They even got to experience the proper end of things. They're the ones who defeated the Dark King. Hell, they're the ones that got to say goodbye to Aruru. Always found the runt annoying, but I at least wish I could thank him. Cause like, I wouldn't be alive right now without him.
Point is, it was sudden. I didn't get to move on like everyone else. How do you mourn yourself? How do you move on when you aren’t there? How was I supposed to recover? Therapists aren’t shit. Psychologists can't do anything about coming back from the dead.
No one can understand what I've been through. When I say that there is nothing on the other side, I'm called pessimistic. It's not pessimism. It's my lived experience. I've died before and and I know that when I die again, that's it. It shouldn't be that hard to understand. They know I died. They know what happened. But it's like they refuse to understand what effect that would have on me. Because if they understood, then they would feel even more guilt for failing so save me. I know that's already what Yui is thinking. She tries so hard but she can't help shying away in cases like this. She wants to be responsible for everyone but doesn't want to consider what responsibility really is.
Arisa just ran away, and really, I can respect that. That's an ethos, a dedicated way of dealing with her pain. It's not that different from me, in a way. If we met again, I think we would hate each other, and I'm not eager to see that in practice.
Midori is too childish and Hikari is always trying too hard to be an adult. I don't really get them, I don't get what's going on inside, but they argue a lot and it's clearly not working out for them. It's like their arguing is a way of avoiding their problems— after all, when you keep arguing with yourself, you can ignore everything else.
And Junna… Junna just makes me laugh. Wannabe cop couldn't put up with the responsibility so she dropped out of life. She's pathetic. She's more delusional than any of us. She thinks she can save the world again. I want to have an impact, but I have no illusion of what that means. I want people to remember me when I'm gone, that's it. Junna wants to be a superhero, even more than Midori, even if she won't admit it.
And none of them can understand. None of them get what it's like. They're all so caught up in their own pain that they can't stop and give me the time of day beyond vaguely suggesting that it's bad that I died. Does death have no meaning? Is that it? Or is it that because they never saw my bloody body, they can pretend it never happened?
Death is ignoble. I wouldn't wish it upon anyone. Death is painless, but it takes everything away, all at once. Once death comes for you, that's it.
That wasn't it. I survived. Sometimes all I can do is ask why.