The Death and the human behavior documentaries

It’d been a while since I’d truly rested.
Let me be clear—sleeping and resting are two entirely different things.
That said, I’ll repeat: it’d been a long time since I’d rested.

I woke up earlier than usual. There was noise downstairs, in the kitchen—like a cat crashing into furniture before realizing the window was open.
By the time the noise stopped, it was impossible to fall back asleep.
I’m not a heavy sleeper.

I got dressed slowly, no rush. The scent of damp grass from the night before seeped into the room.
As I walked toward the stairs, I noticed her bedroom door slightly ajar.
After last night’s situation, I wasn’t sure how to talk to her, so I decided to keep going. Still half-asleep, I went down the stairs step by step. There was something—a strange smell of burnt honey and warm flour stabbing my nose.

The kitchen was a disaster. I would’ve preferred a cat, a bear, a kaiju.
But there she was, sitting at the table.
Two cups, two plates. My cup was steaming more than hers.

“Good… morning…” I said, first scanning the kitchen, which looked more like a war zone, then looking at her.

She didn’t reply, just curved her mouth into a faint smile and gestured toward the breakfast with her eyes.

“You made this?” I asked as I sat down, though the answer was obvious.

“Yup! I woke up with a weird feeling in my stomach… but when I started tasting what I was making, the feeling went away. Guess that’s what you call hunger.”

[The black tea’s oversteeped. The dorayaki looks like something from a horror movie, but it’s fine. It’s actually fine.]

“My tea’s hotter.”

“I figured you’d wake up later, so… I wanted to make up for the time by heating it more.”

“You put two dorayakis on my plate.”

“If you’re going to work, you need double the energy,” she said, raising her fork.

She was oddly cheerful—not in a mocking way. She seemed genuinely happy, though I didn’t dare ask.
Of course, the breakfast tasted awful. She ate like it was nothing—guess that’s the perk of just acquiring a sense of taste and having nothing to compare it to.

I was scratching my neck again. “Why… why are you doing this?”

“Because I’m hungry.”

“You know what I mean…” I said, catching my reflection in the tea. Though the tea was dark and oversteeped, my reflection was clearer, less distorted.

“You said you’d help me become human. That means we’re gonna keep living together,” she said, lowering her head a bit, even her voice. “I guess… we have to get used to it… like the people on TV…”

“What people on TV?”

She jumped up and rummaged under the living room TV. After a while, she came back carrying a stack of old DVDs that belonged to my grandma.

“I analyzed these ALL morning and finally got it. Look!” She shoved one of the DVDs at me. “The man and woman cook together. They sleep in the same room, though I guess every human has different habits.”

[Those are…]

“Look at this one! In one part, the woman talks about how her pulse races when she’s near the man. It’s like what happens to me—even the color of her face changes.” She kept handing me titles as she spoke. “I don’t know why you have documentaries on human behavior, but I’ll give you points for being indirectly useful.”

“Aranara…”

“What? Wanna watch one?”

“Aranara… they’re not documentaries… they’re movies…”

“Huh? W-Well, they’re still great for learning.”

“Romantic movies, Aranara…”


And there it was—the red she’d just mentioned, flooding her cheeks.


“W-Well… I watched them from a scientific perspective.”

“Uh-huh… You’ve been dealing with humans for thousands of years—how do you not know this stuff?”

“I’m not the omnipresent one, Eiji. Besides, the humans I was with were suicidal, or did you forget? I was only there for their final minutes,” she said, throwing up an imaginary wall.

“Back to before… So your pulse races around me?” I asked, teasing her a bit.

“Ah! Uh… yeah… no. I don’t know… I feel a few more ‘beats’ than before…”

“Let me check.” I reached my hand toward her chest.

She leaned back, hugging herself.
Was she embarrassed?
Could she really have changed this much in so little time?

“Come on, I just wanna confirm something…” I repeated, resting my hand on her chest. Her skin was warm, even through her clothes.

The first time her heart beat, it was once every five minutes.

As I’ve mentioned, a human heart beats roughly 60 to 100 times a minute.
Hers was beating about 140 times a minute, and with her so close, though she avoided my face, I could see her pupils slightly dilated.

“E-Enough?” she said, pushing my hand away.

“More than enough,” I replied with a laugh.

“So… what? You’re not gonna give me a whole explanation like last time?”

“Don’t see the need.”

“If these things are gonna happen, I need to know why they happen, Eiji.” It was more a tantrum than a reprimand.

“Uh… uh…”

“Come on.”

“Okay, look.” I took her hand and placed it on my chest. “Just focus on the beats.”

She closed her eyes and put her other hand on her own chest.
It was only a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity.
My heart pounded.
Hers answered.I couldn’t deny the absurd cliché of the situation. Surely a scene like this was in one of those DVDs, but as much as I hate to admit it, it felt good.

[Please, someone knock on the door.]

The closeness, the faint warmth radiating from her body, the way she was avoiding my eyes.
I felt myself leaning closer to her. It was a strange situation.

[Seriously, it’d be great if someone knocked right now.]

The scent of honey lingered faintly in her hair. That red now spread to the tips of her ears.
She barely turned her face—I hadn’t realized how close we were, but our noses were touching.

“A-According to the… movies… this would be the kissing scene…?” She pulled back—not avoiding me, just making a bit more space.

[Yeah.]

“Isn’t that supposed to happen at the end? Always the finale… it’s a kiss…”

[I don’t care about the stupid rules of a movie.]
[I don’t care what some idiot novel author wants either.]
“It’s always after a fight or something… when everything’s resolved.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. “When everything’s resolved…” I repeated, not realizing I’d leaned back a bit.

This was just another morning.
A different one, but still just another morning, and I was getting carried away, like everything was already resolved.
Things were far from resolved.

[What am I doing?]

“Eiji…”

“Huh? Yeah… what?” Her voice snapped me out of my head.

“We can keep going like this…”

“What do you mean?”

“Even if the thing with Sayo doesn’t work out… this… I like it.”

What was that supposed to mean?
Leaving everything as is wasn’t what she wanted, or what I wanted.
Was she lying to herself? To me?

“It’s gonna work,” I said, returning to my chair.

“What if it doesn’t?”

“I think my stomach’s acting up.”

“Eiji, what if it doesn’t work?”

“Let’s go downtown.”

“Why won’t you just answer the question?”

“Because I want us to go downtown.”

“Sometimes I don’t get how you think, Eiji,” she said, standing up. She leaned to grab the plates for the sink, but I caught her wrist before she could.

“Simpler than you think… or than I think…” I said, turning my head this time. “Let’s go out together.”

“Uh… that’d be…” I caught her glancing at the DVDs on the table out of the corner of my eye.

“A date.”

Honestly, I didn’t know why, or what was making me act like this. I’d like to think the breakfast was so bad it poisoned me.She didn’t answer, just pulled her hand away. She stood, grabbed her parka, fixed her hair, and walked to the door.

“Well, it’s gonna be a really boring one…” she said, opening the door.

“I doubt it.”

“No one else can see me—what’s the point?”

“I can see you. For now, that’s what we’ve got,” I said, closing the door behind me.

The cold of the season was starting to fade little by little, and now the sun felt a bit warmer than before, though we were still in spring. Not the season, but the spring we’d carved out for ourselves.

“What’s fun about being silent all day?” she asked, walking with her arms crossed.

“This time, you don’t need to take a vow of silence.”

“People are gonna see a lunatic talking to himself, Eiji.”

“Just a lunatic, but I won’t be talking to myself.”

She stopped abruptly and yanked me by the collar of my jacket. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I think we need some practice.”

“You saying you want the crown of the town nutcase now?”

“No, definitely not,” I said, her comment making me laugh. “You’re Death. Or rather, a Death…”

“Amazing talent for stating the obvious.”

“What I’m trying to say is, I wasn’t scared of you—except the first time, because you were horribly cryptic.”

“Uh-huh… go on… Where are you going with this?”

“I shouldn’t be scared of showing what I feel.”

“What you feel?”

“Yup,” I said, starting to walk again.

I went quiet for a bit. The neighborhood was the same as always, but it didn’t look the same. The silence of the houses, the near-nonexistent traffic—it was the same, but it didn’t sound the same.

“Now you’re the cryptic one, Eiji…”

“Guess so.”

“Well, just say it already…” She flailed her arms a bit, looking like a penguin trying to fly.

I almost scratched my neck again but stopped myself. “What I mean is, I don’t want to die, but I like 'a Death.'”