Chapter 34: Some Sketches Remain in the Soul

It's too quiet.

It's too slow.

Does time even move in the sky?

I wasn’t afraid.

I wasn’t sad.

To me, there was actually clearance.

I have calculated it before.

The body's breaking point.

It only takes 20 feet to kill a normal adult.

And now, falling 8 stories, with my estimate of 90 feet, I guess it would be more than a miracle to survive this.

I painted the cliff, the lake, the river and the bridge, because I was too afraid to meet my own demise.

And now, I'm here, a bird without wings, Icarus, making it happen.

This is the feeling of falling.

Will there be pain when I hit the ground?

I hope not.

My body feels weightless, drifting through air that feels too still for a storm.

And all I can do is…watch.

Watch my life play back before me like someone flipping through the pages of a forgotten sketchpad.

“Now, what does the sky need?”

I remembered picking the dark shades of blue back then when my mother asked that question.

I see it now—black, filled with droplets of rain and hues of lightning.

Did they see the same thing when they left quietly that night five years ago?

So this is the real colors of the sky, huh?

I guess I will grip the paintbrush tighter when I get to paint on the other side.

Though, what would I paint?

The dango stall?

A self-portrait?

Kousaka-san?

Will the creatures there praise me with surnames like Monet, Vermeer or Sisley?

Or the three of them are there to teach me?

Man, I'm excited.

Yet I'm terrified.

I thought that dying alone was senseless and doesn't make the world any greater at all.

What about the people I'll be leaving here?

Mikoto-san.

Tsurugi-san.

Watanabe-san.

Kousaka-san.

If she hadn't appeared, this life wouldn't have meaning at all.

I would still be burning my fingers on skewers and smiling at strangers who wouldn't remember my name.

I would still be floating around people, surviving, because that's where I'm good since then.

Now, I always crave to see that golden silk framing her.

My days will feel incomplete without her sass in French.

I wouldn't be reminded of my own existence without those ocean blue eyes boring holes to my skin.

I wanted to love her for longer, but it looks like this tragic fate was already carved in stones before I even realized it.

“You're a dirty bug in the proximity of my personal space.”

Ah, that.

The umbrella.

That stupid, faded umbrella.

The rain had caught us both.

And when I offered to share it, she didn’t even thank me.

But she walked beside me.

She kept pace.

And for the first time in forever, someone was watching me not out of pity—but with interest.

I didn’t realize it then, but now, I was craving to feel it when I wanted to breathe again.

We were just two silhouettes beneath a broken sky, and for some reason, that memory hurts the most.

Because back then…there was still so much time left.

She nursed me when I was sick.

Told me to stop pretending I was okay when I clearly wasn’t.

Scolded me in French, called me an idiot in ways that sounded like lullabies.

She filled my quiet world with noise.

Noise that made me feel alive.

Noise I thought I had time to repay.

And yet—what did I do?

I tried to “surprise” her.

With gifts. With a career path I didn’t want.

I let a stranger drag me into a trap, thinking it was the only way I could afford to give her the life she deserved.

But she never asked for any of that.

She just wanted me.

Me—without masks. Without lies. Without trying to be something else.

And now I see it—

Too late.

The air is colder now.

I can feel the weight of gravity returning.

That heaviness in my chest isn’t fear.

It’s regret.

Man, I really messed up.

I should've asked what she felt about those ideas before acting on my own.

I should’ve written her love letters on those dango wrappers.

I should’ve held her that night when she trembled on the bench.

I should’ve stopped her from tearing those calendar pages.

I should've told her how terrified I was of being left behind again.

She gave me her world.

And I offered her silence and vanishing acts.

Are you still mad at me?

I’m sorry, Kousaka-san.

For being too blind to see your pain.

For not being able to lean on you when you wanted me to.

For acting impulsively on my own.

For making you think you weren’t enough—when you were everything.

If this is the end—I’m okay with it.

Because I reached you.

Because I pulled you up.

Because you’re still breathing.

So please—don’t waste that breath.

Don’t come after me.

Don’t jump.

If you do…I’ll be furious.

Because then this—everything I gave, everything I broke—will have been for nothing.

Live.

Please live.

Draw every place you want to see.

Shout at rude French baristas.

Find someone who makes you smile without sadness underneath.

And if you ever see a lonely dango stall in the corner of some memory…

Smile for me.

Can you promise me that?

Thank you, Kousaka-san.

For everything.

I have no regrets.

And I love you so much.

Let's find each other and fall in love again, okay?

***

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…

…

…

Impact.

A cold splash.

A scream trapped in water.

Pain shot from everywhere, but it was all manageable.

“Am I…saved?”

I tried to open my eyes…

And just at the thought that everything was alright…

I slammed into something—unexpected.

Not pavement.

Not concrete.

A splash.

Pain.

At the back of my head.

Hard.

It hit the tiled bottom of the swimming pool—probably the one she once swam in before the night she called me and slept whilst in it.

It hurts.

Blue water…now bleeding red.

And the last thing I saw before the darkness took me—

Was the light above the surface.

Golden.

Flickering.

Like that flower I offered an umbrella back then.

Before everything was swallowed by darkness.