Hitogokoro Part 5

That night, for the first time in a very, very, very long time, I had no dreams. I know they say that you don’t remember most of your dreams, but trust me when I say that this is the first time in a very, very, very long time. There is more than one reason for why this could happen: stress, more tired than usual, the list can go on. It just struck me as odd that me, the guy who can remember so much when he wakes up, all of the sudden cannot remember a single dream. Maybe I’m overthinking this. Yeah, I’m probably overthinking this. I’m fine. It’s just that yesterday was exhausting. Why am I so worried about dreams? Not like they mean anything most of the time. And even when I am dreaming it’s always the same dream, anyway. Falling. I’m always falling. I don’t know how long I’ve been falling or where I’m falling from, I’m just falling. Falling. Falling. Falling to a place I can never reach in my dreams. Will I survive? No idea. Will I die? No idea. I have no idea. I have no idea what will happen to me once I hit the bottom of wherever I’m falling to… if it even has a bottom at all. What does that dream represent? No idea. Speaking of ‘No idea,’ the world seems to be full of that. Was I meant to work at a conbini? No idea. Were Mawatari-san and I meant to meet? No idea. The world is full of not knowing things. Full of ‘no idea.’

Interrupting my ridiculous non-important thought process, my cell phone rang.

Picking it up without checking the number, “Ryouki Tachibana speaking,” I answered. Nothing. Silence. Emptiness. There wasn’t even breathing. “Hello? Is someone on the line?” But still there was no sound. “Alright, I’m hanging up now,” I said. And still, there was nothing from the other end. Is this some sort of practical joke? No… It couldn’t be, no one who would want to do something like this to me has my phone number.

As I took the phone away from my ear, about to hang it up, I heard something.

“Above you.”

And then the line cut. ‘Above me?’ I looked up, the phone now once again pressed to my ear. But even if I looked really hard, there would be nothing there but the ceiling. It was definitely someone prank calling someone, even if it weren’t meant for me. I brought the phone away from my ear and, after hanging up, set it down on the counter.

Checking the clock I discovered that it was not the time I had previously thought it to be, 0700, but ‘twas actually 1100, much later, to my dismay. One of my pet peeves is over-sleeping. In the first place, I should have been woken up by my cell phone’s alarm. But for some reason it did not go off this morning at 0650. However, the cell phone being basically a computer, it’s bound to have glitches every so often. So I chose to ignore it, no big deal.

I fixed myself some breakfast. A late breakfast, but a breakfast nonetheless. Sitting on the couch, I turned on the TV to see what was going on in the news.

“…yesterday, 4 students and a teacher disappeared from a high school in Hokkaido. All 5 people were from the same class…” the news reporter read from her notes. 5 people. For all of them to go missing at the same time, that is quite strange. The news reporter continued on, “…the police have released the names of the students and the teacher,” pictures of the students and teacher, as well as their names, were shown on the screen, “if you have any information as to the whereabouts of any of these people, please call the number shown…” The names were as follows:
Junichi Sukenobu
Misaka Nakahara
Tomari Yamanaka
Yuki Hano
Mizuki Kirisaka

“I wonder where they went,” I thought to myself. Hopefully they’d be found soon, alive. It’d be bad if they were all found murdered and stuffed in trash bags or something macabre like that.

Not wanting to hear any more unsettling news, I flipped to another channel. A documentary. On the cosmos. I may have mentioned this already, but I’m absolutely in love with space. Especially things like deep space. Ever since I first saw an image of the Horsehead Nebula, I was hooked. The mysterious beauty of it all… it got to me. It became implanted in my memory forever. And, since then, I’ve always found the stars to be so beautiful. Magical, even. One day, I hope to be able to go into space and figuratively touch the stars.

I doubt that will ever happen.

I’ve never even been on a plane, let alone a space-craft. I’m 21 years old and I’ve never even been on a plane. I’ve never left Japan to study abroad. Never left to go on vacation, my grades were never good enough and my parents couldn’t afford it, respectively. I’m probably destined to stay in Japan, working in a convenience store for the rest of my pathetic life.

“You’re not pathetic.”

Mawatari-san’s words rang in my head. She’s right. I’m not pathetic. Just hopeless. It’s one step up from pathetic, but still horrible.

Knock knock. There was a knock at my door. Naturally I went over to check the peep hole to see who it was. But, as soon as I looked through, I became confused. There was no one there. Knock knock. There was a knocking sound on the door again, but there was still nobody there. I opened the door, maybe the person was a child and I couldn’t see them.

Which would be stupid. I should be able to see everyone through this peephole, I thought as I opened the door. And, just as it was before, there was no one there.  “Impossible,” I said out loud. Knock knock. There it was again, even louder this time. KNOCK KNOCK. Even louder! KNOCK! KNOCK!

And I woke up to someone knocking on my door.

Notes: You may have noticed that I am using a few ideas from the scrapped sequel to A Place With No Hope in this story. That’s just my way of acknowledging that the story existed. Heck, it may even one day be completed. But for now, if you’ve noticed any correlations between the writing ideas used in this and Looking For Hope, know that they are purposeful. Also, I hope that my faithful readers will be able to make the connections that are bound to pop up here and there to A Place With No Hope. There was one in this part. You should be able to find this.

-masat01

[continue to part 6]