Sunset

“Nanashi... Nanashi…! Nanashi! Are you even listening?”

I suddenly snap out of my thoughts, realizing that I was sitting in the same cafe as yesterday.

In front of me was a cup of what Emuru had called ‘juice’ and next to it was a plate of ‘omurice’—the combination of two, of which Emuru referred to as ‘something more childish’ because I couldn’t handle the taste of coffee.

“Sorry,” I apologized to her, “I was just thinking about something that’s all… What were you trying to tell me?”

She sips on the straw of what she called her ‘iced latte’, narrowing her eyes at me as if slightly annoyed. Her color was light purple—the same color as I’ve been all day, but seeing it on her made me feel bad.

“I’m sorry…?” I apologized again, hoping to make her feel better, but her expression remains unchanged.

I couldn’t explain why, but the atmosphere around us had begun to feel more tense.

Finally, after a few moments of silence, she sighs and says, “you’ve been like this all day, Nanashi, but you’re still not telling me why. If something’s bothering you, you know you can always let me know.”

I know that, I thought, but how am I supposed to explain this dream to her? After all, the dream seemed to imply that I…

That I murdered someone. Or at the very least I was the reason that someone important left.

“If you hadn’t come here… she still would’ve been with us.”

The words echoed in my head over and over again. I hoped that I was wrong. I hoped that in the worst case, I didn’t murder someone—that the latter theory was true instead, but either option still made me feel horrible.

I looked towards Emuru.

I wanted a hug from her again, but asking for one felt weird. Plus, if I had murdered someone… I didn’t think I’d deserve a hug from her.

If that’s the case, then I deserve to feel like this forever.

The feeling of deja vu that came with that thought sent a shiver down my spine.

Emuru notices I was staring and asks, “is it because of a bad dream again?”

Damn, she’s good, I thought, but I guess it’s not hard to figure out because yesterday was otherwise a pretty good day.

I looked down at my plate of omurice, refusing to answer, but she only took it as a sign of confirmation.

Suddenly, her spoon flies into my view as I watch her snatch a piece of my omurice off my plate. Surprised, I looked up to see her tossing the spoonful into her mouth.

“Y’know Nanashi,” she says with a smug grin, “you shouldn’t think too much about your bad dreams. Sure, they suck to have, but in the end they’re just dreams—they aren’t real and can only hurt you as long as you're thinking about them. I don’t know what kind of dreams you’ve been having lately, but if they’re particularly bad, the best thing to do is forget about them.”

Forget about them? I wondered, that’s easier said than done, but she’s right… I hadn’t even considered the fact that my dreams might be lying to me…

I looked up at her and smiled, causing her hue to shift to yellow as she smiled back.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing. You just have a ketchup stain on your face, that’s all… you little thief.”

Surprised, she takes a napkin from the side and begins wiping it off.

“Thief?! I’m the one who’s paying for this meal,” she jokingly says, “technically, all the food on this table is rightfully mine.”

“Yeah, yeah whatever you say,” I said, taking a bite out of my meal to finish it quickly so that she couldn’t steal more.

I didn’t know when I started to talk more casually, but it was probably because I started picking up more words and mannerisms from the people around me, especially from Emuru. Being able to hear people and going into places where it was crowded had definitely shaped the way I talked, and more importantly—the way I thought and perceived people.

They looked a lot less like blobs by default now, and instead took the shape of something more humanoid but still blob-like—a similar form to the one I saw Emuru leave in when we first met. Exploring the world was a lot more interesting now.

“Now about finding a job…” Emuru says.

Right, I remembered, I need to get a job.

Although having new clothes was nice, they came at a price Emuru couldn’t really afford. We ended up only taking half the clothes the employee picked out, with the other half on hold for me to pick up later when I got the money. I wasn’t against the idea of working, after all, Emuru had already paid for so much and it was about time I started pulling my weight.

“You can’t do a single damn job correctly, can’t you?”

The words from last night echoed in my head again.

No, they aren’t real, I reminded myself, it’s all just a dream.

“I’m not really sure what I’m good at,” I said, “what kind of job do you think suits me?”

“Hmm… I’m not really sure either,” she said, “maybe we can start off with something easy… something like… that!”

She pointed to something behind me and I turned around to see a help wanted sign.

“Here?” I asked.

“Why not?”

“I’m just not sure what exactly it is that people do here.”

“Oh. Well you just take orders and bring them out for people. It’s a simple job that anyone can do, but the real tricky part is having to deal with and interact with people.”

Interact with people? I thought, that doesn’t sound so bad. In fact, that’s probably what I need right now. The more I interact with people, the more things I learn about this world, and the more I see. Maybe then I can start living in the same world that Emuru does.

“I’ll do it,” I decided.

“Great!” Emuru said, “now all we need to do is update your residency information for your number card. It’s not really required for the job, but it’ll be good to have everything up to date.”

“Number card?” I asked.

“Yeah, your number card. Maybe you don’t have the card itself, but everyone’s assigned a 12-digit number when you’re born, and the information needs to be updated when you change residency. All we need to do is make an appointment at the municipal office. We can stop by today actually.”

Number card? Appointment? Municipal office?

My head was swirling with all these new terms and phrases.

Well whatever, I thought with a reassured smile, whatever it is, I’m sure Emuru will help me figure it out.

“C’mon now, let’s hurry and finish our breakfast so we don’t miss the next bus,” Emuru said.

                                                                 -✧─✦-. ⁺【❤】⁺ .-✦─✧-

“Oh my god that was horrible,” Emuru says as we hop off the bus back from the office, “I knew appointments like these take a long time, but that basically took up the whole day!”

“That… that was pretty bad,” I agreed, “we don’t have to go somewhere like that again do we?”

Emuru laughed.

“No, of course not,” she replied, “or at least not any time soon.”

I took a huge sigh of relief.

I didn’t know why it would take long just to set where I lived straight, but I guess that’s just how it worked. Most of the time was taken up by waiting in the lobby, and the appointment itself was relatively quick compared to it.

As the bus drives off, we begin to walk over a long bridge back home, and as we do so, something catches my eye in the distance, causing me to stop.

“At least they had food and free tea and water there,” Emuru, “if they didn’t I would’ve—”

She stops as she notices me looking over the bridge at the horizon.

“Ah, it’s your first time seeing the sunset isn’t it?” she says, walking up to stand next to my side over the railing.

I nodded. I didn’t know the sky could be so beautiful. We had gone home a little early yesterday due to running low on funds, but today we stayed out long enough for me to witness the sky change from day to night. The sight was beautiful, but staring at its colors made me sad in a strange kind of way. It reminded me that the day was drawing to an end, and with it, meant that it would be time to go to sleep soon, and I would have to face the same nightmare once more.

“What’s the matter?” Emuru asks, noticing my sad expression.

“I’m still afraid of going to sleep tonight,” I said, “I know my dreams aren’t real, but it doesn’t make it any less scarier to have them.”

“Oh…” she says, staring down at the reflective waters below, “I see…”

For a moment, neither of us says a word as we both stand there enjoying the sunset in silence, and after a while Emuru finally asks, “do you know why I like sunsets, Nanashi?”

“Why?” I ask.

“I like sunsets, because through the sad deep blues, and the layers of sorrowful purples, at the center of it all is a brilliant yellow. It shows that no matter how sad you’re feeling, and now matter how much everything sucks around you, there is happiness at the end of it. The dreams you have now might suck now, but one day you’ll be able to dream peacefully.”

I stare at the beautiful colors dancing and blending across the sky, streaking out from the horizon and reflecting over the waters. I let out a smile, taking in her words, but as I turned back to Emuru, I noticed her colors beginning to change.

Instead of being a complete shade of light green from the sense of longing she currently felt, she was now only merely tinted in it, allowing multiple other colors to show beneath it all. It was here that I noticed the true colors she bore on herself the entire time—her long black hair, her cream colored cardigan over her white shirt, her blue jeans, and dark brown eyes—all of it dyed together in the sunset.

She’s beautiful, I thought, even if greenly so.

Emuru suddenly turns around, catching my gaze.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I said, feeling a lot better now, “thanks for that.”

She smiled, her tint of green turning into yellow.

“Let’s go home.”