Title: Trivial Days

Number of Words: 1, 851

Genre/s: Romance, Comedy, Tragedy, Drama, School, SOL

Author: S0ra-Hana

The story was inspired from Yoru Sumino’s “Kimi no Suizou wo Tabetai” light novel.

Next to the hachiko statue, I waited for someone. The sea of people walking around the terminal has different things attend; people that still headed to work, families enjoying their trip on a good weekend, couples who readied themselves for a date, and group of friends that randomly hangs out anywhere.

Similar to them, there was a task that only I could do. The girl that I was waiting already gave me her e-mail so that I could contact her by phone. As I scanned my contact, I only realized that I have very few friends, and most of them were boys like me. Since this was the first time that we’d met on real life, I sent her a message composed of my distinct features. I told her to look for a guy with a white dyed hair and piercing on the left ear. Yeah right, that was probably distinguishable enough. The moment I sent the message, someone grabbed the edge of my sleeves from behind. Looking back, I viewed a girl with a long black silky hair. She was wearing casual clothes and a backpack that perfectly matched her slender body.

“I suppose you are… Yoru-san.” The girl said. Her voice held back in hesitation.

I nodded slightly and answered. “Y-Yeah, I’m Yoru… which means you’re Arisu, am I correct?”

She smiled and nodded back. “Hmm, so you are a bit scary in real life huh…” she laughed and covered her mouth with a hand.

I haven’t offered a rebuttal at her remark, since I accepted to myself that I was like that.

Long story short, we’ve first known each other in the cyberspace or likely called internet. I’ve made a certain forum post on a website and she just happened to be the first to make a reply before it was eventually deleted. After that, we’ve had written conversations almost each day. A few months after, we decided to meet in person.

“So, let’s begin the Suicide Date.” She initiated the topic while giggling.

‘Suicide Date’, that was what we called this meet. We came here for the sole purpose, and that was to kill ourselves before the sun fully descended. We were now on the final phase of Kübler-Ross ‘Stages of Grief’. We’ve already accepted a cruel life to ourselves. We were both sick of existing the unfair world that god created.

I followed Arisu’s footsteps. This was in fact, my first instance to be alone with a girl, at least before I die, I met one.

“Let’s eat lunch first?” She suggested.

We headed to the nearest and most likely expensive restaurant. Both of us had a grand order of the expensive dishes. Though we separately paid the bills, most of the money that I’ve earned from my part time job was exclusively spent.

“This is our last meal anyway… so let’s satisfy our stomachs to the fullest!” the girl happily took a good bite of the luxurious beefsteak before her.

I didn’t cared even if my wallet had gone empty, I also grabbed a bite of the food.

After the precious meal, we began our main objective. Both of us have our own list of various suicide methods.  I suggested jumping from height; however, she hesitated, telling me that she was afraid of heights. It was extremely weird for her to say as someone who would commit suicide. But because we were already inside a 150ft. tall building, she accepted my suggestion. We went to the rooftop, as she demanded to go first. Reasoning that if I went ahead, she would’ve hesitated to kill herself. If we were looking for a lethal method, jumping from height was one of the best. As long as you’d fall headfirst, it’d be a painless death. She stood on the corner edge of the building as her legs trembled. She was obviously hesitating.

Looking back, she yelled. “What if I fell on a person below!”

“I never considered that one. But yeah, in case that happened, you would probably survive, and all that was left would be pain because of various fractures.”

With my honest answer, she immediately went down and heaved a sigh of relief. “Glad that I didn’t do it. You know, I want to make a minimum casualty as much as possible, I don’t want other people to get involved with the insane things that we are doing today.”

Considering the failed attempt, we marked the ‘Jumping from height’ method with an [X].

Next, ‘Jumping under the train’. We returned to the station and planned to trace the tunnel until we go to the overground railway where the train was likely on its maximum speed. However, as we were just on the station where the trains supposedly stop to carry passengers, someone else jumped.

“That’s a bad idea.” I commented.

Arisu nodded and continued. “That guy is foolish, if he jumps when the train is slowing as it comes down the platform, he won’t guarantee death, he’ll just feel pain.”

That was true. The guy who was like ‘us’ attempted to suicide in a very wrong manner. We heard his cries of pain down under, as we took a look at the mess that he did. Arisu covered her mouth with a hand as if throwing up from the gory scene.

“Now that I think about it again, seemed like this method is out of the option. You said that you don’t want others to get involved right?”

Arisu nodded as I continued. “In case we really did successfully die with this method, we’ll eventually cause plenty of problems to other people. Just like this, the gory scenery can inflict traumatic experience to most of the passengers around here. The train drivers as well…”

“Not only that…” Arisu interjected. “The one’s who’ll feel the most terrible experience is our parents and relatives.”

After that horrible sight, I eliminated the remaining suicide methods that involved wounds on the list. Perhaps our minds were just inflicted by pain. Because of the series of failed attempts, we went to the merchandise store to take a breather. As Arisu glanced at a thick rope, she immediately purchased one and suggested for me to do the same thing. The equipment was for hanging –another suicide method. After we bought the item, Arisu suggested for the method to be our last resort in case we failed everything on the list.

On her list, she suggested cyanide poisoning, but I quickly declined because obtaining cyanide is nigh impossible. Because of that, I then suggested Drug over dosage, but same as me, she objected reasoning that the method itself was not lethal.

On the last method on my list, there was plastic bag suffocation. Since it was a painless method, we agreed to do it. We entered a corner of the park with no people present. Securing to ourselves that we were alone, we began placing a thick plastic bag on our heads, and then tightly tied an elastic band on our necks. The plastic bag was transparent so we could see each of our faces until we struggles for oxygen. Much to my surprise, after fifteen minutes I instinctively removed the bag on my head as if afraid of dying. On Arisu’s however, she didn’t removed it. She strenuously breathes as I removed the bag on her head.

We sat on the grass as she burst out laughing. “We really aren’t prepared for this after all!”

She stood up and grabbed the two ropes inside her backpack. Seemed like it was time for the last resort –that was what I thought. Instead of making a knot of the rope, she tossed it to the trashcan.

“I guess it’s time to stop, I’m already tired.” She had given up.

“How about we do this instead?” With her proposal, she drew out a plastic box from her bag, and then she gave me a pen and a piece of paper.

“Let’s write our impressions to each other, also… our experience for this day.” She demanded with a resolute voice.

Without arguing, I wrote my impression of her as a fun girl and easy to get along with. I’ve also written this experience as a one of a kind, and something memorable. After writing each of our impressions, she obtained the piece of paper from me and placed the two inside the plastic sealed box.

She faced me and said. “Let’s consider this time capsule as our reason to live. We’ll bury it here in the park, and when time comes that one of us die, the remaining person will dig it up. How about considering that as a promise to ourselves, with that, we have a reason to wake up every day, right? We’ll forget committing suicide that way.”

I nodded, as everything that she said was simple and true. To tell you the truth, both of us had a terminal illness. I have a Pancreatic Cancer, while she had a Coronary Artery Disease. Our time now was limited, and all of our hopes about living had diminished. I first had a written conversation with her through a forum post on the internet. I posted that I was sick of my life and invited other users to commit suicide with me. That was mainly the reason why my post had immediately deleted by the moderators. Because of that, I met her. We treated this day as our last; who would’ve thought that this was just the beginning of our story.

Her suggestion might be stupid. Thinking that our goal on living was for one of us to dig up a sealed box someday, it was plain pathetic and funny. Despite that, I was happy… I was happy that from now on I have a reason to wake up.

We buried our greatest treasure and washed our hands on the faucet nearby.

We sat on the bench as the sun sets slowly.

“It was fun to be with you, Yoru-kun.”

“Me too, I had fun… I never expected this to happen.”

She laughed again and smiled from ear to ear. “Oh! From now on, let’s do good things. Who knows, maybe god will let us go to heaven after we die. Right!” She clenched her fist and pointed it up. “Let’s do good things starting tomorrow, let’s secure a spot in heaven, so that we’ll eventually meet in the afterlife.”

Her ideas were extraordinary, but that means it was unique and one of a kind.

We waved our farewell at the train station. As I went home, I grabbed a stick of cigarette, but then I remembered what she just said.

From now on, I’ll do good things. I told myself as I returned the stick to its package.

On that weekend of March, I met a girl that would change my life. My seventeen years of existence might be worthwhile on the next days.

Furthermore, when the time comes that one of us leaves this world, our promises will be fulfilled. That way, we have a goal, proving to everyone that our life isn’t meaningless.

-END

Author’s Notes:

I tried to make a unique story, although based on the scenes I’m not sure if this could be called a ‘Romantic Comedy’. That being said, this won’t be a winning entry!

-S0ra-Hana