Morning never arrived with kindness. To me, morning was nothing more than a reminder that the timer on my life had just ticked one digit closer to zero.
I opened my eyes. The pale light seeping through the gaps in the curtains felt like needles pricking my pupils. I didn't get up immediately. I waited—waited until the static crackling in my chest subsided into a hum I could tolerate.
On the nightstand, the bottle of pills stood with a silent arrogance. Its cap lay lopsided beside it, left open since last night's explosion of coughing. The chemical grains inside stared at me, reflecting the dull light of the dead room. They were fake fuel. Without them, the junk engine inside my body wouldn't have the strength to even tie a pair of shoelaces.
I sat on the edge of the bed. My head felt heavy, as if my world had just tilted a few degrees off its axis.
I can do this, I thought, trying to steady my legs, which felt like wet rubber. I can walk to school. I can get through this day.
But as I stood, a faint tremor rippled from my toes to the nape of my neck. A whisper that didn't come from my ears, but from the remnants of animal instinct buried deep in my chest.
"I'm scared."
I shook it off instantly. That sentence was a virus. I couldn't let it spread. I walked toward the bathroom, avoiding the mirror. I didn't want to see the face of the stranger inhabiting my body. In the sink, a tiny speck of dried red still clung to the edge of the faucet—a leftover from last night's battle that I hadn't yet managed to erase.
I turned on the water, letting it roar, rinsing the stain away until it was swallowed by the drain. I wanted to be rinsed like that. I wanted all this damage to be flushed away and replaced with shiny, new components.
"I can do this," I whispered to the swirling water. "But I'm scared," replied my desynchronized heartbeat.
I put on my uniform with mechanical movements. Every button I fastened felt like a one-kilogram weight. When I slung my bag over my shoulder, I felt as if gravity were pulling at me with several times its usual force. The world seemed to be tugging me back toward the earth, as if the soil were already impatient to embrace me in permanent silence.
I stepped out of the apartment. The Kanagawa morning air struck my face—cold, sharp, and filled with the offensive scent of life.
In the distance, I heard the sound of a passing train, the friction of tires against asphalt, and the laughter of a mother walking her child. All these sounds felt like a symphony composed with a single purpose: to lead me toward the end. The sun rising slowly wasn't giving me hope; it was acting as a spotlight, clarifying just how transparent my existence had become.
I walked toward the bus stop. Every step was a negotiation between willpower and pain.
One more step. I can do this. One more breath. I can do this.
But inside, behind ribs that were becoming increasingly prominent, that coward's voice wouldn't shut up. It kept wailing, clawing at the walls of my consciousness with the one sentence I hated most because it was the most honest truth.
"I'm scared... God, I'm scared to death."
I clenched my hand inside my jacket pocket, gripping my cold phone. Its dark screen reflected my dim eyes. I quickened my pace, trying to catch the bus already visible at the end of the street. I had to get to school. I had to stay in this "game," even though I knew the card I was holding was a giant zero.
Bus number 42 arrived with a screeching of brakes that sounded like a scream of metal forced to a halt. The doors groaned open, and the first scent that assaulted my senses was a suffocating mix of cheap perfume, the smell of damp coats, and the stale residue of human breath filling the cabin.
I stepped up. Each stair of the bus felt like a climb toward the highest peak in Kanagawa.
Inside, the world was a dense form of madness. Salarymen with rigid faces had their eyes glued to their phone screens, their thumbs flicking rapidly—searching for digital validation or simply killing time. Students from other schools laughed in the back row, their voices shrill, squandering massive volumes of oxygen just to tell jokes that weren't even funny.
I was forced to stand in the middle, my left hand gripping the hanging strap with knuckles turning white. The bus lurched forward, and every jolt felt like a sledgehammer hitting the fragile foundation of my chest.
I can do this, I thought, closing my eyes tight. Just ten minutes. This frequency only needs to hold for ten more minutes.
Right in front of me, a middle-aged man breathed heavily from his rush to catch the bus. I could feel his warm, moist breath hitting my face. He had strong lungs—the kind of lungs that could shout for hours without the help of chemical pellets. He breathed so efficiently, so loudly, and so... healthily.
I felt insulted. On this bus, I was the only person counting my remaining breaths, while they all used theirs as if it were an endless supply of trash.
The bus braked suddenly at a red light. My body was thrown forward. A sharp pain, like the twist of a knife, shot from my right lung toward my back. I coughed quietly, trying to stifle it before it turned into a bloody explosion in front of everyone. I could feel that familiar metallic taste beginning to pool at the base of my tongue.
I glanced at my phone. The screen was dark, but I could see my own reflection—becoming more of a stranger every day. I wanted to scream at everyone on this bus: "You're all thieves! You're stealing the air that should have been my right!"
But my voice remained trapped in my throat.
Suddenly, amidst the stifling crowd, I caught an anomaly. In the corner of the back row, there was someone not holding a phone.
It was her. The Pest.
She was sitting there, but unlike yesterday on the rooftop, she looked... different. She was clutching that worn sketchbook tightly against her chest, as if it were a spare heart she had to protect from the jolts of the bus. She wasn't looking out the window. Her eyes were closed, and her jawline was set tense.
For some reason, seeing her embrace that book made the static in my head slow down slightly. Whoever this girl was, she treated that stack of paper as if it were the only real thing in a bus full of fakes. She was the only one not "stealing" oxygen with laughter or hollow chatter. She was just... there.
The bus surged forward again, and her figure was swallowed behind the backs of healthy people standing in my way.
"I can make it to school," my defiant inner voice whispered again. "But why is that pest even here?" murmured a corner of my mind that was starting to be invaded by a strange curiosity.
I kept my grip on the handle, trying to survive in a sea of people breathing without a care, while I drowned in a silence that was pure agony.
The bus pulled away, leaving behind a thin trail of exhaust that made my lungs throb in protest. I disembarked with heavy steps, dragging my feet across the damp asphalt of the sidewalk. Every intake of oxygen felt like coarse sandpaper rubbing against my throat—rough, noisy, and exhausting. Just as I had written in my gray journal: breathing was no longer a reflex; it was a grueling, monumental project.
Suddenly, a flat tap landed on my shoulder. It wasn't hard, but it was enough to make me nearly choke.
I turned around and was immediately met by those clear, yet hollow eyes. The Pest.
The girl who had collided with me in the hospital corridor the other day. The stranger who had the audacity to read my death sentence off a cold tiled floor. She stood there in the same uniform as mine, clutching her large sketchbook as if that nauseating incident amidst the scent of hospital carbol had never happened.
Without a word, she tore a scrap of paper from her book and thrust it directly under my nose. The handwriting was done in thick, black marker—the same script that had judged me in the hospital lobby.
[ "Old Radio. So you actually showed up for school today." ]
My jaw tightened. That nickname. I remembered vividly how she had scribbled it when my world had just collapsed under the weight of the evening news and the doctor's verdict. She didn't care what my name was. To her, I was nothing more than a noise complaint.
"I have a name, Pest," I hissed, my voice a jagged rasp. I tried to glare at her, but she didn't flinch.
Instead, she took a step forward, closing the distance between us. Without permission, her small hand suddenly pressed against the center of my chest—right at the point where my lungs were crackling, searching for a signal. I froze. For a moment, I could feel my chaotic heartbeat clashing against her cold fingertips. It was as if she were performing quality control on a piece of junk machinery that was about to explode.
After a few seconds of excruciatingly awkward silence, she withdrew her hand and scribbled quickly on the same paper.
[ "Your signal is getting worse. So much static. Drink this if you don't want to drop dead at the school gate. It would mess up my cleaning shift." ]
She slammed a bottle of cold mineral water against my chest. I caught it by reflex, feeling the chill of the plastic seep into my trembling hands. She didn't wait for me to speak. With a commanding tilt of her chin—an order to drink—she turned and strolled away.
I was forced to follow the stream of other students into the building. The school corridor felt like a giant aquarium filled with fish moving far too fast. The laughter and meaningless chatter about the future sounded like white noise to me. I felt like an alien in disguise, carrying a time bomb in my chest that could go off at any second.
I reached the door of Classroom 2-B. The scent of chalk and wood dust greeted me. I walked toward the back corner desk, my favorite hiding spot. But just as I was about to set my bag down, I saw that back.
She was sitting in the desk directly in front of mine.
The girl didn't turn around. She was busy arranging her markers on her desk with terrifying precision, as if my presence behind her was no more important than the color-coding of her stationery.
I stood still, gripping the edge of my desk until my knuckles turned white. The world, it seemed, was not only cruel but possessed a garbage sense of humor. The stranger who had seen my "insides" at the hospital was now a permanent fixture in my line of sight.
Finally, she moved. Not to turn around, but she slid her sketchbook slightly toward me, revealing a sentence already written in the corner of the page:
[ "Don't die in that chair. It'll be a pain to clean up." ]
I took a long breath, which inevitably ended with a small crackling sound in my chest. As it turned out, one year and two months was a very long time to sit behind a Pest who viewed my passing as nothing more than a classroom maintenance issue.
The ceiling fan groaned in a rhythmic, monotonous hum—a sound that felt like it was counting down the seconds of wasted time. At the front of the room, the history teacher was busy scribbling a series of war-dates on the chalkboard. They were dead numbers, none of them more important than the fourteen-month countdown ticking inside my chest.
I tried to focus, but the metallic tang at the back of my tongue—the lingering ghost of this morning's sink incident—felt far too real. Every time I swallowed, I was reminded of how vividly red that white porcelain had looked.
All around me, life was happening with a sickening sense of extravagance.
"Hey, you playing later?" whispered The Classmate Obsessed with Gaming from the side row. His voice was brimming with energy, the kind of vibrancy owned only by those who believe they have an infinite supply of time. "I'm in, just don't suck like yesterday," replied The Classmate Obsessed with Rankings, never taking his eyes off the phone hidden beneath his desk.
I stared at their backs, one by one. Such reckless creatures. They labeled themselves based on hobbies, grades, or shoe brands, as if those were eternal identities. To me, they were nothing more than intrusive white noise. I purposefully avoided learning their names; why build memories of people who would ultimately just be spectators on the day of my funeral?
To me, they weren't friends. They were a flock of people waiting for their respective turns, yet acting as if death was something that only happened to others.
Uhuk!
My chest spasmed. A cough I had been trying to suppress since the school gate finally tore through. It was small—a jagged hiss—but in the middle of the teacher's tedious lecture, it sounded like shattering glass.
The Popular Classmate in the middle row turned slightly. He didn't ask if I was okay. He simply stared at me for two seconds with a furrowed brow, then covered his nose with the back of his hand and turned away, whispering something to his friend.
I knew exactly what he was thinking. To him, I wasn't a human in pain. I was pollution. I was "The Sickly Classmate" who might be bringing germs into their sterile, perfect environment. The shame hit me first, but it was quickly buried by an even larger wave of hatred.
Suddenly, a small movement in front of me cut through my thoughts. The Pest.
Her back remained straight, but her hand moved nimbly, tearing a corner off her notebook. Without turning around—as if looking at me was a waste of effort—she dropped the paper backward. It drifted down, landing right on top of my open history book.
[ "Old Radio, your frequency is leaking again. Drink the water. Your breathing sounds worse than my red ink from yesterday afternoon. It's ruining my concentration." ]
I stared at the words. Sharp, short, and entirely void of pity. She was referring to the "Death Teammate" label she had branded me with on the roof yesterday.
I reached for the water bottle she'd given me, now sweating with condensation on the desk. As the cold liquid hit my throat, the fire burning in my lungs dimmed slightly. I stared at the nape of her neck, partially hidden by strands of hair that shifted as she resumed her notes.
This girl truly lacked a sympathy filter. She didn't ask if I could make it until the final bell. She simply demanded that the "junk machinery" behind her stop emitting the static that disrupted the silence she sought.
In a classroom filled with people who either feigned concern or were openly disgusted, the cruelty of her writing felt like the most honest thing in the room. She was the only one who viewed me not as an object of pity, but as a broken frequency interfering with her world.
Strangely, it made me feel a little more real than when I was watching the dust dance in the sunlight earlier.
The lunch bell rang. To most people in this room, that sound was an instruction to begin their daily rituals of existential validation. I remained seated, letting my back merge with the hard wooden chair. I searched for a position where my ribs wouldn't press too deeply into my lungs—a tedious mechanical adjustment I was forced to perform every few minutes.
Around me, Class 2-A began to transform into a cluster of dots moving without clear coordinates.
The Popular Classmate burst into a loud laugh, a sound that squandered oxygen with reckless abandon. I watched him without hatred—because hatred requires emotion, and emotion requires oxygen I cannot afford to pay. I simply viewed him as a biological machine wasting its fuel on things that no one would remember five hours from now.
Humans, in my observation, are creatures terrified of silence. They broadcast noise constantly, talking about manga, grades, or football matches, as if their existence would be erased from the world the moment they stopped making sound. They feel alive only because there is someone else to respond to their frequency. To me, it was a pathetic dependency.
I opened my bag and pulled out a slice of plain white bread. I no longer cared for the cafeteria menu, filled with the exhausting aromas of life. I chose this bread because it demanded nothing. It was bland, colorless, and wouldn't incite a riot inside my chest.
I tore the plastic wrap slowly. The crinkling sound was the only transmission I allowed into my senses.
One bite.
I began to chew with a rhythm so slow it was almost stagnant. I had to manage every movement of my jaw like an old machine operator conserving circuits. I could no longer chew and breathe at the same time; the systems in my body had lost the ability to multitask. So, I chewed, held my breath, and swallowed the dry clump of fiber with great effort.
One breath.
The air entered, thin and tasteless. It felt like trying to inflate a tire with a broken hand pump. But I didn't complain. Complaining is another form of caring, and I had long since decided to stop caring about the condition of this machinery.
In front of me, The Pest's back remained in place. She didn't move, didn't join the other dots busy socializing.
I watched a stray strand of her hair move slightly in the draft from the ceiling fan. She was an anomaly—a silent frequency in the middle of a noisy broadcast. Suddenly, The Loud Classmate hurried past our desks, bumping her shoulder roughly enough to shift her sketchbook.
"Ah, sorry!" he tossed out, a hollow formality that was immediately swallowed by the laughter of others.
The Pest remained silent. She didn't adjust her posture; she showed no sign of being disturbed. She simply placed her palm on the cover of her book—a small gesture to ensure her world didn't fall to the floor.
I took another bite of my bread. I felt no pity for her. Pity is a feeling for those who still hope the world will treat them well. I merely saw her as a fellow dot that happened to be placed at a coordinate near mine. Both of us were equally irrelevant to the commotion in front of us.
Heat began to crawl up my chest—a warning from wires beginning to short-circuit. I stopped chewing, closed my eyes, and counted my own heartbeat. One. Two. Three. I didn't need this world, and this world clearly didn't need me. That realization didn't make me sad; it provided a sort of cold clarity.
I reached for the water bottle she'd given me, which was now half-empty. The cold water slid down my throat, which felt as if it were made of rusted metal. Once finished, I crushed the plastic bottle in my grip.
Crunch.
The sound was small, insignificant compared to the laughter in the front rows. I leaned my head against the cold wall and let my eyes drift shut. In front of me, The Pest remained mute. The lunch break continued, consuming time that would never return, while I sat there—a spectator who had long ago lost interest in the performance.
The final bell rang—a long, agonizing signal that severed the day's tedious transmission. Class 2-A immediately erupted into a small, chaotic explosion. Those clusters of matter scattered toward the door, colliding with one another, creating a wave of noise pollution that made my nerves throb. They spoke of afternoon plans, of club practices—of the remnants of a youth they squandered without a second thought.
I remained still. I needed time to gather what little energy I had just to stand. To me, rising from a chair was no longer a reflex; it was a heavy, operational procedure.
Only when the room was nearly empty, leaving behind nothing but the scent of dust hanging in the afternoon light, did I begin to pack my bag. My movements were slow, measured, and calculated. Every time I leaned over even slightly to reach for a book, my lungs felt as if they were being clamped between two plates of hot metal.
Suddenly, a shadow fell across my desk.
The Pest stood there. She was already wearing her bag, her face as expressionless as a television screen receiving no signal. Without a word, she laid her open sketchbook in front of me.
[ "Follow me. There is a frequency you need to see before your battery runs out today." ]
I stared at the writing, then tried to speak. But the voice was trapped in a throat that felt increasingly narrow. "I'm... going home," I whispered, each word feeling like I was pulling shards of glass out of my pleura.
She didn't wait for an answer. She snapped her book shut—thwack—and turned to leave. She walked with a light, effortless stride, a jarring contrast to the heavy atmospheric pressure I was feeling.
I tried to take a breath. It felt like inhaling wet cement. I forced myself to stand. My knees trembled, sending warning signals to my entire nervous system that the foundation of this body had nearly reached its load-bearing limit.
I began to follow her into the corridor.
Step one. I had to ensure my heel hit the floor perfectly so my balance wouldn't falter. Inside my chest, that rattling sound returned—creak, creak—like an old engine being forced to run without oil. Every step sucked away a massive percentage of my remaining oxygen. I could feel my vision narrowing at the edges, small black static dots beginning to dance in the periphery.
Step five.
The long school corridor suddenly felt like an infinite path. I watched her back, five meters ahead of me. She didn't look back. She didn't offer help. And for that, I was grateful. If she had shown me pity, I might have truly collapsed right there.
I had to stop near the lockers, pretending to fix my shoelace when in reality, I just needed time to synchronize my breathing. I gripped the cold edge of a locker. The metal felt more honest than my own flesh.
Ahead, she stopped. She didn't turn around; she just stood there waiting for me in total silence. She seemed to know I was malfunctioning, yet she gave me the space to remain a "self-reliant human," even in this broken form.
I took a deep breath—a mistake. A sharp, searing pain stabbed from my diaphragm up to my collarbone, forcing me to hunch over. Damn it. This battery was truly below five percent.
I resumed my walk, dragging my feet across the polished linoleum floor. Our shadows stretched long under the copper-colored afternoon sun. Rust in the sky, rust in my lungs. Everything was heading toward the same decay.
I didn't know where she was taking me. I only knew that inside her bag, there was a small notebook perhaps waiting to record my increasingly erratic heartbeat. And for reasons that defied logic, I kept moving, following her silent frequency out through the school gates.