‘Six years, five months and eleven days…’

Shuren struggled to pick himself back up from the ground. His vision was blurred by tears and his entire body was screaming in pain. He could only manage to get himself back on his feet after much effort thanks to a nearby wall he used for support.

“They said his body was pretty sturdy.” One of the young men chuckled as he shook his wrist. “They weren’t lying.” He was feeling some pain after having delivered the blow which had knocked Shuren down. “I’ll tell you, this is great stress relief.”

“Why should you get to have all the fun? Step aside.” Another young man walked up to Shuren, who was unsteady on his feet. He grabbed Shuren’s hair and pulled it to raise his head which had been drooping downward. After seeing his face, he clicked his tongue. “Get that stupid smirk off your face! Who told you you were allowed to smile? HUH?!”

“…”

Shuren tried to respond, but he found it incredibly difficult to speak at this time. It also didn’t help that the other fellow had struck his jaw before he could say anything. Shuren again found himself on the floor, but this time, he didn’t bother to get back up.

His line of sight led to the opening of the alleyway, where he saw several people take a glance before going about their business. Some of them had those same eyes. The eyes he saw the most. If it wasn’t malice, it was indifference, but the former was far more populous. He couldn’t help but laugh.

“Ha ha. Ha ha ha. HAHAHAHA!”

The young man who had just punched him was taken aback by his sudden laughter and retreated a step.

“What’s so funny?”

In an attempt to silence Shuren, he kicked him in the abdomen, which caused his laughter to turn into coughing for a while, but he resumed his laughter shortly afterword. This aggravated the young man, provoking him to kick Shixuan repeatedly. But he was unable to stop the boy’s laughter, which grew more and more exaggerated.

The young man turned a questioning gaze to his friends, but they were similarly lost for words. If kicking and punching didn’t work, what was he looking at them for?

After a while, Shuren’s laughter died down.

“Sorry. But it’s funny, isn’t it?”

The five exchanged glances before one of the young women spoke.

“What is?”

“Haha.” Shuren chuckled before speaking once more. “Six years, five months and eleven days. I’ve been keeping count. In six years, five months and eleven days, I’ll finally be out of the orphanage. But, somehow, I keep forgetting that this is all that’s waiting for me.”

Silence resounded for a few seconds. Shuren took the opportunity to turn himself over so that he was lying face-up, looking to the sky. He hadn’t paid attention to it earlier, and his vision wasn’t at it’s best right now, but from what he could see above the walls of the alleyway, the sky was gloomy at this time.

‘Not even the sky will let me have a moment of enjoyment, huh? Figures.’

Shuren closed his eyes and tried to close off the rest of the world at the same time. At this point, he was already too hurt to be able to put up any kind of resistance.

***

“Strange seeing you here. Has the mister fallen ill?”

Her husband usually did the grocery shopping, so it was rare for her to be found at the grocery stores, but today was different.

“No. I just wanted a change of pace today. Is that so strange?”

The cashier smiled mischievously.

“Getting tired of the experiments, are we?”

“N-no… How could I tire of my husband’s cooking? It’s… delicious...”

“Try saying it again with a straight face.”

“… Could you just ring me up please?”

“No problem at all.”

“Thanks.”

“That’ll be 2500 ryo.”

She gave the cashier her money then turned to leave, but the cashier placed a hand on her shoulder before she could.

“I threw in a few travelling rations for you, on me.”

She turned back around and took the cashier’s hand, then nodded her head with tears in her eyes.

“You don’t know how much this means to me.”

“Don’t mention it. Just, when he irons out the issues, send some my way.”

“You got it.”

She waved goodbye to the cashier and went on her way. It was getting quite late and her husband tended to worry about her... being late to try his latest recipes…

She looked down to the bag of groceries she had just purchased, her heart aflutter. Tonight, she could finally eat something fit for human consumption. Normally, her husband would cook, but if she were forced to eat one more ramen bread, she was afraid of what she would do to him. So, tonight, they were having beef stew.

When she saw the lights of her home lit up, her face followed suit and she skipped over joyously. As she approached the door, she reached her hand out for the handle but suddenly looked back with a slight frown on her face.

She retraced the steps she had just taken, walking backwards as if time were being reversed, until she reached a certain location. There, she turned her head to the left where she heard a commotion.

“Who gave you the right to talk about the future? HUH?!”

“Do you know how many people had their futures destroyed because of you?!”

“I dare you to say one more word!”

Curiosity pulled her closer and closer until she could faintly see what was happening in the dimly-lit alleyway. Five youths were stomping on another person who was lying on the ground. She couldn’t quite make out the appearance of that last person because of the way the youths were positioned, but through gaps in their formation, she could see that he was dressed in patchwork clothing.

‘Bullying a homeless man?’ She couldn’t help but shake her head in disapproval as she sped up. She tried to make some preliminary observations, piecing together whatever she could to understand how this situation came about. There was no smell of alcohol, so chances were, he hadn’t caused this through drunken behaviour. He, himself, wasn’t saying anything or doing anything to provoke the situation further. Then there was the shouting she had heard. It seemed this was fuelled by personal grievance.

She was only a few steps away from the group when she caught a glimpse of the person’s face. Her eyes opened wide and both of her hands found themselves over her mouth. She was so shocked that she dropped her bag of groceries.

What she had thought was the body of a homeless man in the foetal position turned out to be the body of a child sprawled out across the floor. These youths had been stomping all over him, not even bothering to avoid his face.

“Stop!” She wasted no time in getting between the youths and the child, her arms spread out as she faced the assailants. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

The youths were surprised that someone had stepped in. One of them raised a brow and pointed at Shuren.

“See for yourself.”

She turned to look at the boy. It only caused her heart to ache for him.

The youths became further confused when she turned back to them with a frown on her face and no intention to step away.

“Don’t you see who that is?”

“What’s your point?!”

“Huh?” They exchanged glances before one of the boys stepped closer. “What are you getting so worked up for, lady? Just mind your own business.”

“Yeah.” Another of them added on. “We’re just releasing a little stress. It’s no big deal. You can have a go after we’re done if you want.”

Her frown deepened and her breathing grew heavy. When she responded, it was with a volume she rarely produced. “You all should be ashamed of yourselves! How could you do this to a child?!”

“Hm?” Rather than being ruffled by the lady’s yelling, the youths just found themselves less and less able to understand the situation. “What? Are you trying to protect him? Why would you do that? Are you from out of town? Listen, this here is-”

“I don’t care! Let me tell you this, you brats, if you intend to keep harming this boy, you’ll have to get past me first!”

She entered a fighting stance, fully intending to beat the brats off if they came a step closer. None of those present noticed that the boy, who had kept his eyes shut for a while now, had opened them once more. He was recalling words he had heard not too long ago.

Believe it or not, there are those out there who would treat you as their own.

He didn’t put any stock in those words at the time, but for just this moment, he thought they may be true.

Meanwhile, the youths exchanged awkward glances once more.

“… Foreigners…”

One of the young women checked her watch. “You guys. It’s getting pretty late. Do you think we might miss the sale? I wanted to get some new shoes today.”

“Crap, you’re right. I needed to pick up some strings for my zither. My dad will kill me if I make another excuse.”

“Well, this was getting pretty boring anyway. I think I’m gonna go buy some nail paint myself.”

The youths started walking away, treating this situation as just another event in their day-to-day lives.

“Hey, who wants to get me something to eat?”

“No way, where’d all your lotto money go?”

“You mean that 10,000 ryo? How long was that supposed to last? Right now, I’m broke as a joke.”

“Yeah… That sounds like a you problem…”

“Don’t be like that. What about you ladies? Get me something good and you can go out on a date with yours truly.”

“A date? With you? Blegh. I’ll give you the money if you agree to stay away from me.”

“Ah. Your cruelty knows no bounds. But… I’ll take you up on that…”

***

She turned to look at the boy and saw that he was doing the same. Her knees were already on the ground before she consciously made the decision to get closer to him. He remained motionless, only staring into her eyes, his gaze so focused that it unsettled her.

“A-are you okay?”

In response to her words, his brows furrowed slightly before relaxing once more.

“We need to get you to a doctor immediately.”

She wanted to pick him up, but she realised that she didn’t know the extent of his injuries. It may be that moving him would only make things worse.

“Wait here, I’ll go get help.”

It was then that a quiet voice responded.

“Doctors… Doctors are for people.”

She didn’t understand what he was saying, and as she was about to get up to find help, she heard his voice once more.

“Do you have a moment?”

“Hm?”

“I would like to ask you something. If you don’t mind.”

“Now isn’t the time for talking. You need help.”

He smiled.

“Why?”

“Why? You’re seriously injured, that’s why.”

“No. I meant why do you want to help me?”

“… Because you’re injured…”

He was silent for a while but his smile, mangled though it may be, never left his face. She really wanted to stop wasting time talking to him, but she found herself drawn in by the boy who was smiling despite his having just been beaten to a pulp. He also found himself intrigued by the lady.

“Are you new to town?”

“Something like that. Why?”

“Ah. That’s why.”

“Why what?”

“Your eyes. I’ve never seen any like them before. They’re pretty.”

“You think my eyes are pretty?” She was taken aback. “They’re just regular brown eyes.”

“If there’s a place where eyes like yours are regular, I would like to go there.”

“…”

She was left without any words to say. His words sounded hopeful, but she could tell that he didn’t believe in such a place. While she was lost in thought, he began to move, attempting to sit up.

“Don’t move. You must be in excruciating pain.”

He shook his head and got up with much effort, bringing himself to her eye level. He smiled at her, who raised her hands to catch him should he fall.

“This is the easy kind of pain.”

He stumbled and almost lost his footing, but managed to steady himself. Looking at her face, he could see that she wanted further explanation.

“All you have to do is wait a little bit and it goes away by itself. It’s easy.”

“Then… what other kind of pain is there?”

His eyes shook and his entire body shivered at the thought.

“Hunger.”

“Hunger?”

“Yes.”

“It’s worse than this?”

She couldn’t understand him. Being hungry for a little bit should pale in comparison to the injuries he’d sustained. But by the way he spoke of it, it would seem that he would take this over hunger any day.

“Much worse. They don’t even compare. But even so, hunger can also be fixed. All you have to do is eat. There’s one more pain that never goes away.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know, but I feel it every day.”

“A chronic illness?” She frowned. “I’ve studied a little bit of medicine, so I might be able to tell you something about it. Show me where it hurts.”

He made to wave his hand but realised that it was too painful to be worth it, so he stuck to using words.

“It’s not like that. It doesn’t actually hurt, but when I feel it, my throat feels funny, and my breathing becomes short and choppy.” His gaze lowered to the floor as he thought of the other symptoms. “Sometimes, water comes out of my eyes, even though I haven’t gotten injured. When that happens, my nose gets runny as well.” He remembered one last thing. “Oh, right. My hands start shaking as well when it gets really bad. Have you heard of it before?”

To his surprise, when he looked up to her face, he saw something familiar. Short and choppy breaths, water building up in the eyes… Wasn’t this what he had just described?

“Do you have it too?”

“No!” She wiped her eyes using her sleeve. “You poor thing. I used to go through similar things a long time ago, but then I found the cure.”

“Really?” His days would go by much smoother if he could find the cure for this particular ailment. “What is it?”

“Love.”

His air of expectancy quickly faded back to neutrality, then to a smile. He now knew the name of what he had seen back in the forest. The only thing was…

“Then it’s not for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s the same reason I can’t go to a doctor. Those things are for people.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m a monster. No one will treat me, and no one will love me. It’s not for me.”

“…”

“Then, I should probably get going. It was nice to meet you, Miss. If we ever have the chance to meet again, I hope your eyes will still be as pretty as they are now.”

After bidding her farewell, he walked back down the alleyway. It was as he was entering the street that he heard her voice from behind.

“You’re wrong. There’s no such thing as someone who can’t be loved. Even monsters don’t come into this world alone!”

His footsteps halted for a moment before he continued on his way.

After exiting the alleyway, he took a moment to look up to the sky. It was surprisingly beautiful. He recalled the sky he had seen earlier. It didn’t match up. He turned back to the sky above the alleyway and saw that there was a chimney nearby, from which black smoke was spreading.

‘My view is too narrow, huh?’