Paralogism (I)

Not sleeping brings, besides the obvious exhaustion, fatigue, brain fog, and hypersensitivity. The last one is just a polite way of saying “shitty mood.”
Nothing to worry about, I mean the last part.

I doubt I got more than three hours of sleep—if that even happened, it’d be a miracle. After all, if my day started shitty, it was only logical it’d end even shittier. I’m not talking about the discomfort of sleeping on the floor or the cold. I’m talking about the universe’s constant need to fuck with me right when I’m finally about to drift off.
A branch smacking the window in the wind.
The usual old pipes groaning.
Obviously all that’s normal for a place like this, and the real problem was my head—or rather, not my head, but my state of pure suggestion.
Add to that the bang that sounded like it came from the mountain, and yeah, no one could sleep through that.
Not a real explosion, probably—just sounded like one because I was wide awake and hyper-aware. But I couldn’t stop thinking the guy I saw climbing the stairs last night had finally blown his own head off up there.

I knew there were maybe a thousand other explanations, but again: suggestion.
Everything was fine, yeah—except for a mild neck ache.
No. Big fat lie: I was stuck in a town I wanted to escape, I’d witnessed something I didn’t want to see, and on top of everything, I’d ended up pseudo-manager of a rundown inn. NOTHING was even remotely close to going how I wanted.
Sure, I could’ve taken the bus out, but that meant six hours with three different line changes.
Shift of focus, then.
Can’t leave?
Stuck running a place I don’t want?
Perfect. I had the whole weekend to make as much money as possible, pocket it all, and bounce on the first train out. Let’s see how the owner likes coming back to an empty inn and zero cash.
Can’t even lie to myself—the place was already like that when I got here…
f most shops open around 10 a.m., I had about two hours to make the inn look semi-decent.
Plan solid, time on my side…
So why the hell was I climbing the mountain to check what happened last night!?
“143 steps…” I muttered, catching my breath at the top. I leaned against a tree because my knees were killing me. “Did no one think of round numbers two hundred years ago or what?”
Step by step along the lamp path—those moss-covered stone ones typical of temples. I wasn’t nervous, just walking slow because my legs felt like rubber.
Graves, mostly old—probably as old as the town itself.
Some, unfortunately newer, well-kept, grass trimmed short around each one. Apparently some people still cared about their dead.
The grass started feeling weird under my feet, like I was stepping on bugs constantly.
“What the hell…?” My eyes followed the “bugs” and realized they were beans scattered everywhere.
My gaze landed on what used to be a very improvised campfire.
If two plus two is four, then the noise I heard last night was these beans. But now I had an even bigger question: Who the hell is dumb enough to try opening a sealed can by putting it straight on the fire?
Or a simpler one: Who’s dumb enough not to notice cans always have a pull-tab?
Or—who doesn’t use a goddamn can opener!?
“Definitely… chronic idiocy…” I muttered, crouching to inspect the “corpse” of the can. Yeah, it had the pull-tab, but that side was charred, so logic said the moron grabbed it upside down and didn’t even bother checking.
“Thanks for the free insult.” I didn’t see where the guy came from, but he was wrestling his way out of his sleeping bag, crawling towards me.

Reminded me of nature documentaries, a larva hatching from a cocoon.

“Eh!?”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” Low voice, visible exhaustion, idiocy even more visible.

“You didn’t scare me… just startled me.”

“That doesn’t count as a scare?” He asked, twisting around to look at me. Yeah, peculiar situation.

“Technicalities,” I answered, watching him squirm. “Need help with that zipper?”

“Ugh… no, no… trust me, I’m good…” He said it in pieces—after every word he tried to reach the zipper with his teeth while his arms flailed inside the bag.

“Okay…” I left the can where it was, wiped my hands, and stood up.

“Of course I need help! I was being sarcastic!”
“Wow, is that how you talk to people?” I asked, barely bending down. He didn’t smell bad, but just in case I stretched my arm as far as possible and pulled the zipper.

“At least I don’t insult people for no reason,” he shot back, finally emerging. The larva hatched… into a terribly disheveled guy.
“That over there is a reason…” I said, pointing at the can. “You could’ve set the whole mountain on fire if that stupidity had gone worse.”

“Yeah… sorry, I… didn’t think it through.”

“I noticed.”
“Uh… I’d say nice to meet you, but I’d be lying.” He kicked dirt toward the dead fire, like he thought it might magically relight.

“Same here. Anyway… you know camping isn’t allowed in temples, right?”

“I wasn’t camping…”

“Hobo?”
“What!? No, fuck…” He tried to fix his appearance the second he heard it. “I just came here for… some stuff…”

“Uh-huh…”

“What?”

“Suicidal tendencies?”
“Seriously, are you unable to say ANYTHING nice or what?”

Now that his hair was tied back, I noticed the bags under his eyes, the lack of color in his skin—could’ve been the cold, but something told me this idiot had been living off canned food for a while.

“Look, only two kinds of people do this, so again: hobo or suicidal?”

“Do I look suicidal to you?”

“Fine, vagabond it is.”
“Hell bi! And who are you, the temple caretaker? Or do you just pick random people to insult?”

“I came here as a trav—Actually, I’m the manager of the inn at the foot of the mountain.” I flipped my hair a little and crossed my arms. “And I don’t like outsiders defiling the sanctity of this place.”

“Ah… dammit, sorry then… wasn’t my intention…”
Yes! This officially counted as my first win of the day.
For a second—literally one second—while the guy slowly packed his stuff... annoyingly slow, I locked eyes with a girl who seemed really into reading the names on the graves.
Before I could count to two, she was centimeters from my face.
Reminded me of those idiot Japanese horror movies Aranara used to watch—the ones where the ghost slides across the floor too fast for a jumpscare.
Either way, two things I had to keep in mind right then.
First: pretend she wasn’t there.
Second: the fact that he acted like nothing was happening told me he couldn’t see her. So back to point one.
In summary: play dumb—or sane, whichever fits the situation better.
“Hey, hobo, I haven’t opened the inn yet, but if you get there on time I can offer you some breakfast.”

“Great, now you’ve downgraded me to someone who needs charity…” he muttered, stuffing things into his backpack with zero organization. “You know? I could be a serial killer.”

“Meh… a friend taught me sometimes it’s not bad to lend a hand…” I answered, turning around. “And for the record, I could be a serial killer too.”
“Ha! Sure…” He laughed while finishing packing.

“Whatever, hobo. See you later…” For some reason I still felt victorious and planned to keep it that way. No focusing on the leg pain from going down those steps again.
I’d won.

“Otaru… that's my name. Use it.”

“Uh-huh. Mine’s Sayo, and again, back to what you said—not a pleasure to meet you.”