On the way home from the hospital, my parents started arguing in the car about Evan’s treatment. 

My mother wanted to keep going, willing to take the risks if it meant even the smallest chance of saving him. 

On the other hand, my father disagreed. He said that if the treatment was only stealing Evan’s strength and time, we shouldn’t force him anymore — that we should let him rest at home.

“Evan’s already tried so hard,” my father said, his voice trembling. “What more do you expect him to do? If this treatment can’t really help him and only hurts him more, wouldn’t it be kinder to let him rest?”

“So you’re saying we should just give up on him?!” my mother shot back.

“Of course not! What kind of parent wants their child to die? I love him too — I want him to live. But how can we ask Evan to keep enduring painful treatments that only weaken his body?”

“You make it sound like I’m the one pushing him!” she cried. “I’m the one who’s been caring for him all this time! You were always too busy with work to even visit. And now, suddenly, you act like you care?”

“Pretend?!” my father’s voice grew louder. “You think I don’t care? Maybe you just want him treated so you can feel better about yourself!”

“That’s not true!”

Their shouting filled the car. My chest tightened, and I couldn’t breathe properly.

If there really was a way to save Evan, I’d cling to it too. 

I don’t want to give up. But watching him suffer — watching his life worn away faster — that’s not something I can bear either.

The more I thought about it, the more my head spun. 

I couldn’t stand listening to them anymore. 

There was only one thing I knew for sure: Evan mustn’t hear any of this. It would break his heart.

“Mom, Dad, please stop,” I said.
Tears welled up in my eyes.

“Evan would be sad if he heard you fighting. I don’t want to give up either. I’ll never accept losing him. But no matter how much we argue, it’s Evan who should decide what happens next.”

Both of them went silent. I saw tears glistening in their eyes too.　

I’m not old enough to really understand everything they’re feeling — but I’m not so young that I don’t understand how serious this is.

We’d all agreed that Evan should choose his own treatment. 

Still, asking a fifteen-year-old to make that kind of decision felt unbearably cruel.

I couldn’t stay in the car any longer.

 I asked my father to drop me off and walked toward Central Park. 

Children were running under the afternoon sun, their parents smiling nearby. Couples laughed as they played together.

I stopped in front of the little cage near the fountain, where a small owl slept quietly on its perch.

I’d tried so many times to let Oats escape, but there were always people watching.

 I’d thought that if Evan could see Oats flying freely through the sky, maybe he’d feel free again too — maybe he’d find his strength.

On the one day a year when it’s allowed to lie, I lied to my brother.

I’ve always hated lies. I’ve been lied to too many times myself.

When Evan first got sick, my parents didn’t tell me the truth. 

They said he would get better, that everything would be fine. But it wasn’t. It never was.

Even the doctor smiled and told me Evan would live a normal life. 

But what does “normal” even mean? Everyone lies.

And now I’ve joined them. 

I told Evan that Oats escaped, that he flew away into the bright blue sky.
But it was just another lie.

Even now, I regret it deeply. I only wanted to give him a little bit of hope — a small piece of happiness.

But one day, when he learns the truth — that the owl never left, that it’s still trapped inside that tiny cage — he’ll be crushed.

And I’ll have no one to blame but myself.

I was sitting on a bench, lost in thought, when an old man—he looked about eighty, leaning on a cane—appeared.

As he passed by, he suddenly stumbled. I caught him just in time. 

He looked unwell, so I bought him some water and helped him drink it. After about twenty minutes, he seemed to recover.

“Thank you,” he said. “Let me grant you one wish in return.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Let me grant you one wish in return.”

I thought for a while and then answered, “I don’t want today to end.”

Maybe I should have wished for my brother to get better. 

But my wishes had been shattered too many times before. I’d stopped believing in hope.

Someday—maybe even tomorrow—my brother will find out that I lied to him and be disappointed.

He might even hate me. 

He’s getting weaker every day, perhaps already walking toward death, step by step. 

If that’s the case, I just wanted to stay in this day forever—the day my brother still believes the lie I told him, that our pet oats ran away, not died. The day when we can still laugh together.

“If,” the old man beside me murmured, “this world were a prison, and you had to live inside an even smaller one... could you bear it?”

I didn’t really understand what he meant, but I said I could. 

The old man nodded slowly, then took a golden watch from his chest pocket.

It wasn’t like any watch I’d ever seen. The face wasn’t covered with numbers, but with countless colorful symbols and tiny pictures that I couldn’t recognize.

“I’ll grant your wish,” he said. “I’ll give you something that everyone longs for, even to the point of tears and blood—but no one can ever truly obtain. Just don’t forget: this is made from the blood and tears of me, my family, and my friends.”

He held the watch out to me, resting it on his palm.

Suddenly, a radiant, rainbow-colored light burst out of it and covered around my body. 

All the heavy, dark feelings I’d carried vanished in an instant. It felt like my whole self had been cleaned out, polished, and updated—like a computer program rewritten into something new.

　When the light finally sank into me and faded away, the old man spoke again.

“They say people who win the lottery end up unhappy,” he said. “When you gain too much of something special, you lose your conscience. You waste it. You turn it toward evil.
But I’ll trust you. Promise me you won’t use this for anything bad. Use it only for yourself, and for those around you.”

Inodded, and he gave me a faint smile.

When I went to the restroom and came back, he was gone.

 It felt like the whole thing had been a dream.

It was April Fool’s Day, after all. Maybe the old man was just playing a trick, showing me some strange magic trick.

Because what I’d wished for—for today not to end—was something no one could ever grant.

That night, after finishing my spring break homework, I went to bed just before midnight.