"…Mmm."
My head throbs. Everything feels distant and dull. My first thought is that I'm dead. My second is that I'm drowning. I don't want to open my eyes. Not if this is what death looks like.
I try to move—pain blooms in my temple. My hand drags across my face, sluggish, numb. My senses are starting to come back. I can hear that ringing in my ears again. I can start feeling something metallic and acidic in my mouth again. I can smell something disgusting again. Oh, right, I threw up.
Cold touches my chest. From above? No… that's wrong.
I slowly, very slowly, move my hand away from my face, and start cracking my eyes open. I squint against the light—too bright for heaven, too blank to be real. Everything else fades to gray: the water, the bridge, even me. For a few seconds, all I can feel is the blank, impossible sky burning into my skull.
"Fuck," I rasp, throat sandpaper.
This might be hell. Not fire—just mud, shame, and a blue sky.
I slowly lift my upper body up into a sitting position. I feel wet. I turn my head down, and notice that I'm sitting in a river with a stone bridge in front of me.
"——Ehh?! What the hell is this? A… stone bridge?" I yell out, my voice is immediately followed by a rough cough coming from me. My vocal cords feel strained to death. But what followed my voice was also a curious gaze popping up above the railing of the bridge. A young girl, holding a basket filled with eggs to the brim, is staring at me.
Does my puke-coated form look so intriguing? But I wonder, how she hasn't ran away immediately after seeing me. I must look like some drunk low-life right now.
I peek through my fingers, and—— Ahh, there it is. The young girl had dropped her basket and is currently running away. What did I expect. I chuckle bitterly. Why would you waste completely fine eggs upon seeing this?
I should get out of here. If I die, I at least should die more comfortably.
I painfully stand up on wobbly legs and start walking towards one of the riversides. My whole body feels heavy—mind and muscle both. Once I reach the side, I fall on my knees, face planting into the mud. "——Arghh!" I lift my dirty face, and start half-crawling, half-dragging myself out of the ditch.
I feel completely and utterly humiliated doing this, even though no one is watching.
I finally crawl out. My legs barely hold me as I stumble through high grass toward the bridge. My feet are hurting. Oh yeah, I was too distracted to worry about the vomit in my mouth. I spit on the ground to try and clear some of the foul taste up. When I look down, I see my whole front covered in white-greenish, chunky puke.
Finally, the bridge. Great. What now? I lift my head from the ground and notice the basket of broken eggs in front of me, I also notice a woman running towards me with the young girl from before.
Are they coming, because they're concerned about me wanting to steal the basket? I'm not that scummy.
I can hear the lady yelling at me from the distance, but I can't quite make out what she's saying. I immediately wave my hands in an apologetic manner, and yell back "I don't want to do anything with the basket!"
They're still running towards me. Am I going to get scolded for this, too?
The lady: "Are you alright?!"
Ehh? My eyes flash between confusion and… also confusion. I don't think I could ever put this feeling into words.
They have reached me. Shouldn't I feel scared?
The lady: "Are you… okay?" She asked, voice trembling, lovely in the way concern always is. She blurted that out while hunching forward to rest her hands on her knees, while trying to catch her breath. Her waist-long, silver hair fell over her shoulders and around her face like a curtain covering something precious. Maybe that precious something is her pearly white eyes.
The little girl is now hiding behind her, barely peeking out.
I wanted to disappear, so why am I being found?
"I-I think I am?" I answer her mildly flusteredly, from witnessing the care I've never before received.
What am I saying? Of course I'm not okay. I just tried killing myself, and here I am, hallucinating stuff.
And her clothes look old. Not in the 'thrift store' kind of way though. It's like she walked into a period drama half-way through dressing up. What's up with that? I want to ask so bad. Ahh, fuck it. I'm putting too much care into this, only to get hurt later. A rational thought. From me. Of course now, of all times.
The lady: "You think you are? That's hardly reassuring!" She answered, and snapped upwards to slightly shake my shoulders, which set me off-balance and made me fall on my butt.
"I'm sorry." I react with frantic want to explain myself.
Her facial expression shifts. Both mouth and eyebrows curling downwards into an apologetic expression. She kneels down in front of me and puts her right hand on my left knee. The young girl, startled, takes a big step back and just stares at us from a few meters away.
The lady: "No, no! I'm sorry!" She tried countering my apology, still out of breath.
Why are you trying so much… when I finally gathered the courage to give up?
This feels so awkward. I grab the basket the young girl dropped, that is now laying on my right side, and offer it to the lady.
She's staring at me like I'm a ghost. Maybe I am. Dead, but still ruining breakfast.
"You shouldn't be. I'm sorry for causing this inconvenience." It feels so useless to apologize though.
The lady: "That doesn't matter right now!"
With that, she reaches for the basket and sets it down to where it was.
The lady: "You're covered in puke. This is bad. We have to clean you up." She continued.
"I don't have any money to pay you back though." I answer. My lips are curling downwards, and I reach up to touch them.
The lady: "Where are you thinking? You don't have to pay for anything." She said with a sweet and innocent smile.
She slightly leans forward, and wipes some of the mud and water from my face away. Is that river water or tears?
"Ah, you sure?" I ask, just to be a hundred percent certain.
I have to be hallucinating. This—river, bridge, girl—it's too gentle to be real. My heart pounds like it's trying to escape into a better body. Or maybe just out.
The lady: "I wouldn't be saying that if I wasn't."
That was all of the reassurance I had to hear. This somehow made me feel better.
"O-Okay…" What's wrong with my voice? Why is it wavering? Why does it feel like my whole face is burning?
She extended her hand towards me. What am I supposed to do? Take it? I don't deserve this. My eyebrows curl into a confused expression—confused by what I should feel. Anger for not letting me finally die? Or sincerity for their help?
I extend my hand as well, and put it in hers. Her hand feels so delicate, so fragile. It's such a sad thing to see someone wasting so much beauty on garbage.
She slowly and carefully pulls me up. Is she… not disgusted? I'm sure she is. Pretending that you aren't won't get you too far.
My mouth and cheek muscles feel weird. I reach up to touch my face once again. Am I smiling? Is this a fucking curse? The result of the narcissistic「God」hexing me?
Nevertheless——
The lady: "——I will take you home and clean you up. Alright? No resistance."
That sounded more like someone trying to kill me than someone trying to help me.
"Thank you." I give a simple answer. It should be able to satisfy her, I think.
Why can't I even die correctly? Why do I always have to be a burden for others? Just thinking about being attended to is such an awful feeling.
She still haven't let my hand go, but she's already walking away, dragging me along. The young girl is walking on her other side, tightly hugging her arm.
A few minutes of walking in awkward silence, and here we are, at a singular house sitting at the bottom of a mountain-side.
A cat walks out. It jumps on the brown, wooden fence, and stretches lazily while opening it's jaw to let out a yawn. Then, it jumps off with a slick move, and nuzzles the lady's right leg affectionately. The lady just looks down and slightly waves at her with one of her taken hands, while smiling at it sweetly. But when it looks up at me, all I see is disgust in those huge eyes.
Even a cat can't sympathize with me. I let out a long, defeated sigh.
My head snaps at the young girl, and my mind back to reality, as she had let go of the lady's arm, and is now running into the house.
The lady: "You seem to have fancy clothes. While I can't give you anything alike, I can hand you simpler ones until I wash these for you."
Fancy? These? Where are you thinking?
The lady: "——But take off your jacket first."
Her hands hover awkwardly around my torso.
The lady: "Will you?"
"Oh, yeah, sorry." I realize what she wants. I'm such a failure, can't even figure out such simple things without it taking a millennia.
I reach up and slowly drag the zipper of my black jacket down.
She immediately grabs the jacket from my hand, and holds it behind her back.
The lady: "Do you want anything? Like water, or——"
"Yeah, water would be great." Ah, sorry for interrupting you.
The lady: "I'll bring a glass to you in a second!" She said cheerily, not even bothered by being cut off just a second ago.
The lady: "Also, I haven't asked for your name."
My face goes pale and I feel something tightening in my chest. I as if I could vomit myself right here, right now—if I didn't puke at the river just… god knows how long ago.
It's just a name. Why am I feeling shame for my own name? This is ridiculous. Unreasonable. Disgusting.
Just spit it out already. Don't cry about this, too.
"It's…" God it feels so hard to say it. "…Rosuko."
The lady: "Lost, huh? Well, that's a beautiful name! Since you gave me your name, I owe you mine in return. It's——"