I awoke suddenly.
While the world is still asleep, I awake to the chill of the night breeze.
A dark night.
An empty house.
A stranger approaches me from the clearing.
There's a weapon in their hand.
They're going to cut me into pieces just like everybody else.
I don't understand.
I can't stand the black of the woods.
I can't stand the red of the earth.
So instead, I look up at the sky.
A lonely white moon sits high in the night sky.
Bang
"Ah…"
I feel a silent impact, then pain shoots through my body.
I can't see anything.
The world begins to fade.
But that cold light still shines in the darkness.
"Ah... I didn't even notice…"
…Just how beautiful…
…The moon is...
…tonight…
The curtains swayed about as the light of the Morning Star filtered through the windows. He stirred back into the realm of the living.
White.
There was nothing but white.
The walls were white.
The ceiling was white.
Even his own clothes were white.
He couldn't help but squint his eyes as the incredibly bright shade assaulted his eyes.
Where was he?
What was going on?
Why is he here?
His mind couldn't keep up
Kish
"Kh!" A searing pain – like a bullet shot through his temple – assaulted his mind. Like his eyes were being lit on fire.
He gasped for air like a drowning man in a whirlpool.
As soon as he put strength in his arms, a deep pain cut into him, as if his chest was being torn open and his insides violently ripped out.
Taking a deep breath, he inspected his body while lying down. His hands were covered in bandages and from the restraining feeling, so was his chest. His left leg was also wrapped in white plaster.
There was a single tube inserted into his left arm. It was an IV drip, he assumed. He guessed it was because he was still half asleep that he wasn't completely sure of his surroundings. The white room reeked of the smell of medicine. The numerous tubes connecting him to a machine. The scary man in a suit who came to visit. The sight of his sister being scolded by that man. And even the sight of the doctor flashing him with fake smiles and a fabricated tone of voice.
Everything blended together as though it were a dream.
"Huh? You're awake!?" An unfamiliar girl's voice was heard. The nurse put whatever was in her hand at the nearest table and scrambled out of the room to get the doctor.
He couldn't raise his body so he turned to look up at the window. His eyes throbbed as though they were about to crack like an egg being opened. His brain felt like it had been scrambled and blended.
Truly – an unbelievably blue sky.
More than the white rays of sunlight, it was the harshness of that unblemished blue that hurt his eyes. It made him want to just fly into that vast heaven above and fade away.
For a while after he woke up, he couldn't rise from the bed. Looking up, he could see the sky outside; lofty as ever.
The curtains fluttered and swayed.
A dry breeze stroked his cheek.
The stainless, immaculate blue made his head spin.
Where was he? What day was it?
Why was he in the hospital?
It was coming back to him, bit by bit.
All except one thing.
He continued staring through the window, unable to shake off the feeling that he had forgotten something important. A "promise" that was bringing him to tears.
"It's nice to meet you, Shitori Shiki-kun. Congratulations on your recovery"
Saying those words, a man whom I had never seen before reached out for a handshake.
His kind smile and gentle tone gave me the impression of a fine adult.
Shiki was sure he was someone who could swap between a smile and a straight face at the slip of a switch.
His immaculately white clothes – not a thing out of place – suited him perfectly.
"Can you understand what I'm saying, Shiki-kun?"
"...No. Why am I in a hospital?"
"You don't remember, do you? You were involved in a car accident while you were walking down the street. Your chest was pierced by a shard of glass. It was unlikely that you would survive."
The old man said something very grim even for the medical field still with a smile on his face. 'It was unlikely that you would survive.'
With those words, the nausea Shiki had been holding back started bubbling up.
"... I'm tired, can I go to sleep?"
"Yes, please do. You must focus on recovering, do not push yourself." The doctor was still smiling.
To be honest, Shiki couldn't stand that smile anymore.
"Doctor, can I ask you something?"
"What is it, Shiki-kun?"
"Why do you have lines all over your body?"
Those lines haunted his vision, like the ugly face of a demon taunting him to fall into his domain. Like the eyes of death as everything around him threatened to collapse on itself at the slightest touch.
"And there are so many cracks in this room, it looks like it's about to fall apart."
Although his smile vanished for a brief moment, it quickly returned and he stood up from his chair.
The doctor clattered across the floor and vanished behind a curtain.
"...It seems there is some brain damage after all. Contact Doctor Ashiya in the neurosurgery department. I also suspect some damage to the optic nerves. Send him in for an eye examination this afternoon."
The doctor whispered to the nurse in a cold voice, like that of an entirely different person.
"... It's weird. There are lines all over everyone's bodies."
The messy lines were all over the hospital.
Shiki didn't know what they meant, but he felt sick just looking at them.
"...What are these things?"
The lines were on the bed too.
Curiosity got the better of him and he touched one of them with his finger… Poke, his finger sank in.
"-Ah."
If he had something thinner, he could go even deeper.
Grabbing a plastic knife off the shelf, he stabbed it in and traced along the line.
Even though he barely tried, the knife sank all the way to the bottom. 'This was fun' he thought, so he slid the knife along one of the lines on the bed.
Thud.
With a heavy sound, the bed was cleanly sliced apart.
"Kyaaaaaah!"
I turned around, facing the voice behind me.
There was a nurse in front of the door with a disturbed look on her face.
"How did you break the bed, Shiki-kun?"
He kept on asking me 'how' I broke the bed, not so much as why I did it.
"I traced a line and it broke. Hey, why does the hospital have cracks everywhere?'
"Okay. That's enough, Shiki-kun. There are no such lines. So tell me, how did you break the bed? I promise I wont get angry, so tell me."
He already told them how he broke it yet they won't believe him. They kept telling him that there were no such lines and that the hospital wasn't falling apart but that wasn't what the boy kept seeing.
"I already told you, all I did was trace the line."
"... I see. We'll talk about it tomorrow then."
The doctor sighed. Ever since Shiki mentioned the lines, that kind smile of his was nowhere to be seen. He was sure that 'switch' of his had been flipped.
It seemed like the hospital was full of many fragile things.
In the end, no one believed my story.
No matter what it was, if I cut its lines with a knife, it got sliced clean. I didn't need to put any force into it. I could cut it as easily as I could cut paper with scissors.
Whether it was the bed, a chair, the walls, or the floor.
… And even though I had never tried, maybe – no, definitely humans too.
It looked like no one else could see these lines. Lines that only I could see.
They were just like patchwork. The result of stitching up a wound. Marks just like the one on my chest, still not healed even after surgery, which feels as though it could shatter into pieces at the lightest touch.
Because otherwise, there was no way a kid could slice through a wall with just his own strength.
Schlick
Shrrk
Crack
Shatter
The plastic knife in Shiki's hands traced along the wall of the Hospital room causing it to collapse like a sand castle being dug through with a shovel.
"_!"
The nurse was yelling at him again. After staring at the unevenly cut hole in the wall, she glared at me. The shrieking got louder and louder. His hearing had gotten hazy, so he didn't find it too obnoxious.
The never-ending noise reminded me of a cicada lit on fire; it was making him uncomfortable.
Everything is falling apart. Just opening his eyes, just being alive, was sickening enough to make him want to disappear.
'...Ah. I didn't realize it until now,' he thought.
This world is full of stitches. He had no idea it could be torn apart so easily.
No one could see it.
He guessed that was how they could remain so calm. They didn't know that their everyday life was full of holes.
But he could see it…
And it scared him so much, he couldn't even walk.
Speaking which, his ears had been frozen since then, and it had gotten quieter despite the noise. Only the wound in his chest reverberated like a siren.
But when was that?
He tried to recall, but it was no use. He scratched his head, but even that didn't help. He was sure he had forgotten about it because it wasn't very important. Like a faucet that kept dripping water no matter how hard you close it.
'…Ah, I see.'
That explained everything.
It made sense there wasn't a mirror here.
If that were the case, he would have gone insane before anything else.
He was sure he would've been cracking up laughing.
In other words, it wasn't the world around him that was breaking down.
He was the only one that was broken.
That was probably why.
It had been two weeks since then and no one believed him.
It had been two weeks since then and no one had come to see him.
It had been two weeks.
He was alone, living in a world full of cracks –
He didn't want to be in a hospital room.
He didn't want to be in a place full of lines.
He decided to get away from there, and go to a faraway place with no one else around.
A place where he wasn't the one who was crazy.
He jumped out of the window as if to convince himself that there was something wrong with that place.
But the wound in his chest was so painful that he could only run a little.
When he came back to his senses.
He found himself in the field next to the hospital.
He hadn't gotten very far.
"Cough" His chest hurt and he felt so miserable that he crouched down on the ground, coughing.
He couldn't go anywhere and he shouldn't.
A person who could see these lines shouldnt be anywhere.
Cough, cough, cough.
There was no one.
It was the end of summer in a sea of grass.
He was going to die here.
But before that.
"Hey kid, you shouldnt be crouching down like that."
A woman's voice reached his ears clearly.
"Eh…?" The woman haughtily frowned "Don't you 'eh' me, You're too small to see if you crouch in the grass like that. I almost sent you flying."
The woman wryly pointed at Shiki. He was a little pissed, admittedly. He was the fourth tallest in his class, so he didn't think he was that short. "Who's going to get sent flying?"
"Don't be ridiculous, that should be obvious. We're the only ones here, so if you count me out, who's left?" The woman crossed her arms and said confidently.
"Well, it must've been fate for us to meet like this, so why don't you keep me company for a bit? My name's Aozaki Aoko. You?" The woman reached to the kid casually as if they were friends. He couldn't find any reason to refuse, so he told her that his name was Shitori Shiki and let her outstretched hand engulf his own.
Shiki enjoyed chatting with Aoko quite a lot. She didn't ignore him because he was a child. She kept listening and talking even as their conversation grew longer.
They talked about many things. About his home. He told her about his family, an old family with a long history, and that his father was a strict man who was very particular about etiquette.
That he had a younger twin sister Sona, who was very quiet and always followed him around.
How he always played with Sona and her friend in the forest-like garden of their large mansion. How the attic was their secret hideout. How he wasn't good at Shiritori anymore. And that he was still expected to grow taller.
About how he used to like the smell of the hospital, but now couldn't stand it anymore. How the cloudless blue sky was so beautiful, but when he looked at it, he felt like crying.
How it was wonderful to be alive, and how he didn't really dislike the doctor with the fake smile.
… Really, he didn't. Trust.
As if in a frenzy, he talked about many things.
"Oops, it's getting late. Sorry about this, Shiki. I have some business to attend to, so let's end this conversation here." The woman was leaving. Shiki felt sad, thinking that he would be alone again.
Aoko saw this and said, "Then, I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow, okay? You should go back to your room and do exactly as the doctor says."
"Ah–" before Shiki could say anything, the woman walked away as if it were a matter of course.
"...See you tomorrow."
'Tomorrow we can talk again, just like today.'
He was glad. For the first time since he had woken from the accident, he felt human again.
It became routine for him to go to the field in the afternoon. The woman would get upset if I called her Aoko. She said she didn't like her name. After much pondering, Shiki decided to call her 'Sensei' because she seemed to be an important person.
Sensei listened to him seriously, no matter what he said and solved his problems with just a few words. After the accident, he had grown uncomfortable talking to people, but thanks to her; He was able to gradually return to his normal self.
Only when he was in that field, did his anxiety disappear. Because he knew that he could be his normal self there.
Because he didn't know who the heck she was. She might've really been a teacher somewhere.
But that was just a 'what if' that had nothing to do with him.
He enjoyed being with Sensei.
It was that simple, that was all that mattered.
"Hey, Sensei. Look at what I can do."
Shiki wanted to surprise her a little, so he used the knife he brought from the hospital to cut the tree in the field.
Crack
The tree's bark groaned as he traced along the line and cut out half of the tree from the middle, like cutting a piece of paper.
"It's amazing, isn't it? I can easily cut anything I see the lines on. No one else can do that."
…
Aoko was surprised. Shiki got really into it, so he thrust his knife into a horizontal line running along the base of the tree.
"SHIKI!"
Aoko propelled herself from her position and…
SLAP
Aoko ran up to Shiki and slapped him on the cheek.
"Sen… sei?"
"Stop it, you've just done something incredibly reckless."
Aoko looked at the young boy with a stern gaze.
Relentless and unwavering eyes that condemn wrongdoers.
'Ah, what a fool I was.' Shiki thought, his eyes watering ever so slightly. He had been enjoying their time together too much.
Too much that he had lost himself in delight and did something that shouldn't have ever been done. These lines should never have been here. And he – who could see them – shouldn't be alive either.
"-Ah…"
A bloody regret stained his heart. He felt like dying because of his own stupidity.
This tree, the only one left in the area. Was a remnant, a remainder from the time this field was once a forest.
And in him wanting to be praised, had killed it for no good reason.
Shiki fell to his knees, his eyes glazed and watering. "... I'm sorry…"
Rustle
"-Shiki."
A soft sensation.
A warm feeling.
While he was still holding the knife, Aoko had embraced a person like him as if it were only natural. "You don't need to apologize. Yeah, you've done something unacceptable, but that doesn't mean you're the only one at fault."
"... I'm not the only one… ?"
Aoko nodded "Yes. You know what, Shiki? What you did was wrong but if no one scolds you now, it will really be irreversible.
That's why I saw you as a human being.
I treated you as a fellow human and gave you my opinion, got angry and slapped you. If I hadn't used the right amount of force, I might've even killed you."
Those words were really scary.
I wasn't sad because I might've been killed, but because I didn't want this person to have to do such a thing to me.
"Don't cry, Shiki. I won't apologize either.
I just want you to take to heart the magnitude of what you've done."
"... Yeah. In return, it's okay for you to hate me."
"No… I don't hate you."
Aoko smiled in their hug "Then I'm glad. I really think you and I met for this reason."
And then.
Aoko gently asked Shiki about the lines he was seeing, as if to melt away his regret. When he told her about it, she tightened her arms around him even more.
"Shiki… What you see is real. Even though it should never be seen; Even though it's impossible for other humans – Those lines aren't an illusion, it's a reality that exists only for you."
"Ah… So I'm the only one who's strange…"
Aoko nodded
"Yes, you're strange. There's no doubt about it."
Shiki fought back the tears that were coming.
Those very same words hurt many times more when Aoko said it than when the doctor.
But the truth was…
Shiki already knew it was coming.
From the beginning – from the moment he woke up from that incident, he knew that he was a child who shouldn't have existed.
"Don't be hasty."
Once again, Aoko's words knocked the young boy out of his self-loathing reverie and into reality
"That anomaly is just weird, not unexplainable. Humans can face anything as long as it makes sense.
No matter how ridiculous life gets, we humans have the wits and courage to get through it."
Lesson number one, Aoko said, looking a little embarrassed.
Even if there's something abnormal, it isn't a problem in and of itself.
The problem is how we deal with it.
"Then, can you explain those lines?"
"Of course."
Aoko said, her hug loosening enough that the two can meet eye to eye but not enough for Shiki to break free, not that he wanted to.
"Things have a tendency to break easily in certain places. We aren't perfect because we can break too.
Your eyes see the end of such things… In other words, you're seeing the future."
"The… future…?"
"Yes, You don't need to know more than that right now. I'm sure that in due time, if it becomes necessary, you will come to understand the reason behind it."
Aoko shifted and held Shiki at arm's length by his shoulders with a soft smile on her face, like a parent attending to a child.
"It's okay if you don't completely understand. There's only one thing you need to understand for now. It's that you should never play around and cut those lines.
With your eyes, it becomes dangerously easy to take a life."
"Okay, I won't do it if you say so, sensei. Besides, my chest is starting to hurt… I'm sorry, Sensei. I won't do it again."
Aoko smiled, her crimson red hair dancing as a gentle breeze blew right over them
"Shiki, don't ever forget how you feel right now. If you don't, then you'll be happy for sure."
"I won't, I promise."
And so, the arms holding the boy loosened and let go.
The cold but warm feeling left him.
"But Sensei. I feel uneasy when I see those lines. If I touch them, they'll break right? Then it wouldn't be strange if I cut something around me by accident."
"Hmm. I'll take care of it somehow. That seems to be the reason fate made us meet here."
Aoko sighed audibly and then smiled brightly.
"Shiki. Tomorrow, I'll have a special gift for you.
I'll give you your old life back."
The next day.
On the seventh day, Aoko came to the field carrying a massive suitcase.
"Here, if you wear these, you won't see those lines."
What she offered was a pair of plain glasses.
"Glasses? But my eyesight is fine."
"Just put them on. They don't have any corrective lenses."
Aoko gently grabbed the frame of the glasses and slid them on the boy's face. Giggling to herself a bit, she smiled at her "student"
"Whaddya know. It suits you."
Shiki looked around in wonder and awe. What was once a field filled with red cracks soon became just a regular field. His peripherals no longer showed him the collapse of the world around him nor the brutal disembodiment of people. Instead, they act as what any regular peripheral would.
"You're amazing, Sensei!"
Shiki jumped in the air, hands waving in joy.
"Of course, I went to the trouble of stealing my sister's Mystic Eye Killers to make them. They're Aoko Aozaki's best work yet. I won't let you get away with it if you treat them badly, Shiki."
Shiki nodded
""Yeah, I'll take care of them! All those liens that I hated so much are gone, it's like magic!"
"Of course it's magic, I'm a magician after all."
If a bit haughtily, Aoko flicked her hair in a manner more befitting of someone like Luvia Edelfelt than Aoko Aozaki.
"But you know what, Shiki? It's not like those lines have disappeared. You just can't see them. If you take off your glasses, you'll see them again."
"They're… not gone…?"
"Yes, and there's nothing you can do about it. You'll just have to live with it."
That was a massive downer for the young boy whose expression almost immediately turned scared and all the blood drained from his skin.
He was on the verge of tears once more.
"... No… I don't want these scary eyes.
If I cut a line again, I won't be able to keep my promise to you."
"Ah, that thing about never cutting the lines again. Silly, you can break that promise any time."
"... Eh? But, you said it was a very bad thing to do."
"Yes, it's wrong.
But your eyes are beholden to no one. That power belongs to you alone.
So it's up to you when to use those eyes. No one else can blame you for having them.
The only thing that can be questioned is what you do with that power, Shiki."
"What… I do…"
The boy gulped. But…
Pat
Ruffle
Aoko leaned over and put her hand over the boy's head and ruffled his hair, looking straight into his eyes as if to stare right into his soul.
"That's what I'm talking about. Yep, those are good eyes.
I'll be honest with you. When I first met you, I thought I'd bumped into a pain in the ass, because by the looks of it, you've lost a lot of things.
Instead, I ran into the most honest human I've ever met.
You've never caused any problems. You're still alive…"
"-So go on, take everything back."
Aoko finished with a smile before standing up leaving the boy in a state of joy. Never will he ever be able to put into words that happiness and warmth that filled his chest at that moment.
'It's all right for you to be here.' she said.
'You belong here' she said
'You're not broken' she said
"Shiki. Even among abilities that other people possess, the one you have is awfully unique. But the fact that you have it must have some sort of meaning.
God doesn't share his power for no reason. There are times in your future when you'll need it, and that's why you have the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. Even though I know how cruel this is–"
"Don't forget. You have an unwavering heart. As long as you remain the way you are now, your eyes will never bring forth any wrong."
"I'm not asking you to be a saint. You can be the person you think is right.
If you accept your mistakes and are able to apologize, you'll certainly grow up to be a wonderful man."
Aoko stood up and reached for her suitcase.
"Ah, but don't take off your glasses unless you have to. Special powers attract special people after all.
Alright, this is the second lesson; an advice from me.
Think carefully about when and where to break the rules to seize victory.
I hope it doesn't come to that, but only take off your glasses when you decide the situation is out of control and use your power responsibly."
"The power itself is not a bad thing.
It's up to you to decide whether the result will be good or bad."
She picked up her suitcase.
Aoko didn't say anything more and began walking away.
Shiki knew that this was farewell.
"I can't do this, Sensei. I can't make things better by myself. I was really scared before I met you. But because of you, I could be myself again.
It's no good. If I don't have you, I don't want to have these glasses…!"
Aoko turned around, stopping dead in her tracks. "Shiki, don't say things you don't mean. Telling lies that you can't even fool yourself with will only make whoever hears you sad."
Aoko raised her eyebrows in a frown and flicked the boy's forehead.
Her frown then turned into a smile.
"You know what you're doing, right? You know you'll be fine.
Then, don't throw away the person you've become by saying such trivial things."
"Well, this is where we part. Bye, Shiki.
Life is full of pitfalls for every human being.
You're capable of handling them, so you should be more cheerful."
Aoko was leaving.
Shiki's chest seized up and his throat burned as if he wanted to let something out and that if he didn't he will come to regret it for the rest of his life.
"Bye bye, Sensei. Thank you… for everything."
Aoko offered a soft smile in exchange
"You're welcome. Shiki. Farewell."
With that, the red head turned around and continued on her way.
Shiki watched as the towering figure of his mentor grew smaller until it was only a spec on the horizon and eventually, dipping over it.
Turning around, Shiki began heading back to the hospital.
Death would never again meet the mysterious Blue Magician. But Death doesn't mind. Because the mysterious Blue Magician had left behind something much more important than her constant presence.
The Blue Magician had given Death, Life.
Life, equally precious as it is fragile.
Like a piece of blue glass moon.