Twilight

“Eh? A gift? For me?” Mrs. Yamabuki asks.

“Yes,” I said, “I heard that the family name ‘Yamabuki’ comes from the yellow flowers that bloom in the mountains around this time of year, so I thought it’d be fitting.”

“Hahaha,” she laughs, “but why so sudden?”

I smiled.

A fake smile.

“I just wanted to show how much I appreciated you for lending me this job,” I said, “I know you didn’t have to because this shift is pretty empty so you’re not really paying me to do anything.”

“Oh, well I wouldn’t say that,” she said, “you’re plenty of help around here. After all, I’m starting to get old and my joints have started hurting in all the wrong places, so having less things to do takes a really big pain off my back.”

Am I really helping her that much? I wondered.

“No, she’s just saying that because it’s polite,” blob-me says.

“But really though, why today?” she asks.

“Oh, I just felt like it, that's all,” I said.

“Haha, if you say so.”

Suddenly, I hear an old man cough behind me, and I flip around to see Mr. Ito, the regular who came by to order pancakes.

“Oh! Sorry, Mr. Ito,” I apologized, “I forgot you came by at this hour. I’ll get your order for you. I didn’t mean to hold up the line.”

“Haha, it’s okay,” he said, “it seems Himari has it ready for me. I was just coughing, that's all.”

He gives me a strange look as if staring right through my eyes and into my mind.

“Ew,” blob-me said, “that’s creepy.”

I ignored the two of them, and clocked into my shift behind the counter as Mr. Ito takes his seat at his usual spot.

“So Mrs. Yamabuki gets flowers, and I don’t?” Himari asks.

“Ah, I was planning to give you some, but sunflowers don’t bloom at this time of year,” I said.

“Eh? Is it because of my name? You know my favorite flowers are actually peonies right?”

“Wait, really?” I asked, slightly embarrassed.

She nodded earnestly.

“Th-then after this maybe we can go shopping for some.”

“Hahaha! I’m just messing with you,” she joked, “I actually do like sunflowers, ironically enough. Peonies as a favorite flower is a fair but boring answer anyway. But enough about that—here comes Mr. Four-eyes right on the dot.”

The salaryman enters the cafe right as the clock strikes twelve, and I instinctively begin preparing his traditional bowl of rice for him.

I let out a sigh.

Let’s just get this last shift over with.

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

I silently stood over the bridge where I had witnessed the sunset with Emuru for the first time.

Everything’s in place, I thought.

I had mailed my parents a final letter, even though they didn’t deserve one. I felt that I had to at least get my grievances out on them before I went. Otherwise, I would feel unsatisfied.

I had also sent over a letter to Mr. Ichikawa. If anyone deserved to know more about how I was doing, it was him. After all, in his point of view, I had effectively ghosted him and ran away from the position he gave me, even though he tried his best to be kind to me until the end.

I also sent a letter to my old landlord to apologize to her about the late payments to my rent. It seemed stupid, but it mattered to me. I wondered how long she tolerated me for before finally kicking me out. Blob-me said that my grandpa died 6 months ago, which meant that the money had stopped coming for about 4 months before I was finally kicked out. I didn’t know if any other landlord would’ve been as tolerant as her.

And lastly, with the flowers given to Mrs. Yamabuki, there’s only one more person left to say goodbye to.

I looked at the large wall of text I had pre-typed for Emuru before hitting ‘send’.

There, I thought, all done.

“Now what are you waiting for?”  blob-me asked, “let’s make the final jump together shall we?”

I slowly climbed over the small white railings until my feet were just hanging off the ledge as I used my hands to hold onto the bars behind me. I looked at the murky waters below.

Yes, this is what I deserve, I thought, I’m a murderer at my core. I’ll kill myself just like how I killed Itsumi—slowly and painfully as I drown and sink to the bottom with no one around me to save me.

Slowly, the colors of the world begin to drain out of my vision as the buildings, the structures, and even the bridge itself start to become transparent.

Ah… that’s better, I thought, this is the world I deserved to live in. No color in sight. Just empty and blank, and lonely, just like I deserve to be. Emuru should’ve never pulled me out of here. I should’ve just stayed here alone until I slowly rotted away.

This is what I get for being such a useless person. This is what I get for wasting my grandpa’s money when he could’ve used it for his medicine. This is what I get for murdering Itsumi in a horrible way.

The legal system didn’t punish me properly, so now it was up to me to make up for the difference.

Well none of that matters anymore anyway. Even the recent idea of atoning for my sins doesn’t matter at this moment. I don’t care about anything. I don’t care about the world. I don’t care—

I don’t care…

I don’t care..

I don’t care.

I take a step as I let go of the railing behind me, letting myself drop into the waters below.

                                                                                   …

                                                                                   ..

                                                                                   ;

But then I felt a searing pain where I shouldn’t have.

It should’ve been in my lungs as I felt the water rushing inside, or in my legs as I felt them crush against the rocky surface of the river below.

But no.

Instead, I felt them in my arms—right below my armpits as I was yanked back up mid-fall. My back slammed against the railings, causing me to gasp out in pain before I was lifted over them and onto the asphalt road.

“YOU IDIOT!!!” I hear Emuru suddenly scream out as I open my eyes to see her loom over me.

And upon recognizing her, my eyes begin to well up with tears—the colors, the buildings, and everything gradually returning back to me. It was then that I noticed that she wasn’t alone either—around me was a small group of people, each of them murmuring different things and checking in on me.

“Are you okay, miss?” I hear a man next to me, “I hope I didn’t hurt your arms too badly.”

I sat up on the road, still wincing in pain, before I felt a hand slap me hard across the face.

“Leave us alone…” Emuru says to the crowd.

“Are you sure?” the man asks.

“Yes.. it’s better that I talk to her alone.”

The man looks to the crowd.

“Alright, you heard her, everyone clear the area!”

One by one, the people began to leave until only Emuru and I remained.

I averted her gaze.

For a moment, everything was silent, but then the sounds of a soft sniffle caught my attention.

“You idiot…” she cried, looking at me with such a mournful expression, it viscerally hurt me to see, “you’re such a dumb idiot… but I’m glad… I’m glad you’re an idiot sometimes.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Did you forget? I told you I was coming back in the evening. Luckily, an off-duty firefighter was riding the same bus as me and we made it in time just before you actually fell,” she said, “...Besides… if you wanted to kill yourself properly, you should’ve at least chosen a better spot… this bridge is too low to actually kill you on impact, and the river is too shallow to drown in. At worst you would’ve injured your legs as you float to shore, and then the people from the bus stop would’ve noticed you and come to help. ”

My eyes widened.

“...how do you know that?” I asked, “how do you know the bridge is too low and the water is too shallow?”

She flashes me a pained smile as more tears stream down her face.

“What do you think, you idiot?”

I tried to reach my arms out for a hug but they were too strained from the earlier force.

Instead, I decided to ask, “so… what stopped you?”

She slowly looks over and points at the twilight sky.

“Remember what I said about sunsets?” she asked, “how did you think I came up with that?”

She pauses for a moment before continuing.

“It was back when my arms and legs were severely injured from the fall and my clothes were wet from floating down the river and onto the shore… While waiting there to slowly die, I stared up at the sky just long enough to realize that things will get better, and I slowly began to regret it. Fortunately, the people coming back from the bus stop noticed me at the bottom, and they came by to help—no questions asked. It was then that I also realized that maybe people weren't so bad after all. Sure, there were bullies, but there's always people there willing to help. It made life a little more tolerable until I graduated high school.”

“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,” I recalled her saying, there’s happiness at the end of it all…

I looked over at the pastel colored sunset. The sun dipped slowly toward the horizon, casting a warm, yellow light spilling across waters below. Hues of deep orange, soft pink, and stark indigo-violets streak through the sky, bleeding into one another like watercolor on paper. The scenery was so beautiful—the meaning was so obvious—that I began to wonder;

How could I have ever missed something like this?