The world is a massive waiting room, and I am the most impatient person waiting to be called out.
I've always hated the way the sun rises in Kanagawa. The light reflecting off the sea seems to force optimism upon every soul, but to me, it's nothing more than a reminder that I have to endure another day with lungs that feel like they're filled with glass shards. Breathing is something people do automatically, a trivial reflex. But for me, every scatter of air is an exhausting, monumental project.
I have to be fully conscious to pull the oxygen in, feeling it grate against my dry throat, hearing it crinkle inside my chest like footsteps on dead leaves—like a worn-out radio broadcast struggling to find a signal in the middle of a silent storm. Every breath is the friction of rusted metal, demanding my life as payment.
That afternoon, I sat in the stifling hospital lobby. My eyes were fixed on the television in the corner of the room, broadcasting the evening news in an irritatingly flat voice.
"Cases of lung complications in teenagers have risen sharply... The main factor remains dominated by long-term tobacco consumption started at an early age..."
I felt my jacket pocket, sensing the shape of the crumpled cigarette pack inside. I wanted to laugh, but all that came out was a sharp wheeze from my throat. Once, I felt powerful with every puff of tobacco, feeling like I was in control of my own destruction. As it turns out, I was just a fool digging my own grave with my own allowance. The news seemed to be judging me in public, announcing that I was the one who pieced together every fragment of my lung's collapse, cigarette by cigarette.
With my head throbbing, I stood up. I had to leave. I gripped my grey notebook—a journal filled only with numbers of my remaining life and curses at a God who never answered. I walked quickly through the corridors smelling of carbolic, trying to avoid the pitying stares of healthy people walking by with lungs that were still solid.
Then, at a sharp turn near the pharmacy, my world collided with another reality.
Bruk!
My weak body hit someone hard. All the air in my lungs felt squeezed out at once. I fell to the cold floor, my grey notebook slipping away and sliding across the tiles, falling wide open right under the humming neon lights.
But it wasn't just my book that fell. The girl I hit had also collapsed. In front of me, a large sketchbook of hers lay open. Markers and colored pencils were scattered like the ruins of a shattered dream.
I crawled to reach for my book, but my eyes accidentally caught what was written on the page of the girl's sketchbook. There, in the middle of sketches of disgusting black pests devouring withered flowers, a short sentence was written in striking red ink:
[ "Is this world truly fair to those who are forced to remain silent?" ]
That sentence hit me right in the gut. Fairness? I wanted to scream at her that this world doesn't know the meaning of that word. But before I could speak, I realized she was staring at my book. Her small hand held my grey journal, right at the most naked page I had ever written:
"One year and two months. That is the only time the doctor gave me before these lungs completely stop being a home for air. Turns out, killing yourself with cigarettes takes longer than I thought."
Panic and rage surged through my soul. I snatched the book from her hands violently.
"Don't you... dare... read that!" I barked. My voice broke, hoarse from the lingering breathlessness that choked me. I felt like a thief caught red-handed, admiring the portrait of my own death.
I braced myself to see a terrified face or that sickening look of pity—the look people usually give when they find out I'm an orphan and dying. But the girl just remained silent. She stared at me with eyes that were clear, yet empty. No sympathy. No tears.
Instead, she picked up a black marker that had fallen near my knee and wrote on a blank page of her book with a very calm hand, as if my death sentence was nothing more than a boring footnote.
[ "Death is just a pest that ruins the view. Why are you mourning it as if it's a tragedy, when it was your own choice? The sound of your breathing... it's so noisy. It's disturbing my peace of mind." ]
I was stunned. My head felt hot. The news on TV called me a failure statistic, and this girl called me a noise disturbance. She didn't care that I was dying from my own stupidity. She treated my demise like a nagging mosquito in the night.
"Do you... have no heart?" I asked, my breath growing shorter, trying to suppress the emotion overflowing in my chest, which began to vibrate violently like an old engine being forced to turn without oil.
She only tilted her head, giving me a look that was incredibly irritating. She wrote again in her book, pressing the marker harder this time:
[ "The world is indeed unfair. You have a voice, but you use it to destroy yourself. I have no voice, yet I want to see the world for longer. So don't expect me to cry for an 'Old Radio' like you." ]
Old Radio. That name felt like the perfect mockery for the sound of my chest, filled with harsh, rasping static that cut through the air.
She stood up, dusting off her school skirt from the hospital tiles, and packed her stationery without looking back at me even once. She walked away just like that, leaving behind a scent of fresh bath soap—a scent that felt so "healthy" amidst the stifling smell of medicine and death reports on the television.
She didn't make a sound, but her cold attitude just now left a wound deeper than any syringe. She gave me no mercy, and for some reason, it was the most honest thing I had received in the past year.
I sat alone in the corridor, clutching my grey journal which now felt incredibly heavy. There, amidst the smell of carbolic and the scatter of air that was becoming harder to reach, I realized one thing: I hated that girl. I hated the "Pest" who considered my struggle to breathe as nothing more than an insignificant technical glitch.
One year and two months. Time enough to hate her, and time too short to understand why she wrote about justice in her book.
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The world is nothing but a noisy machine that lacks the brain to know when to stop.
I sat in my usual spot—the corner seat at the very back—leaning my head against the cold, indifferent wall. Before me, Class 2-A was nothing more than a billowing haze of chaos that made me want to retch. Morning sunlight filtered through the window, illuminating millions of dust motes dancing serenely in the air. I stared at them with a quiet grudge; they could drift weightlessly without a care, while every single molecule of oxygen in this room had to be stolen with whatever pathetic strength I had left.
"Yo! Did you read the latest chapter of that manga? Man, I can't believe the protagonist actually died!" shouted The Fiction-Loving Classmate from the center row. He laughed—a sound that felt like sandpaper rubbing against my raw nerves.
Died, he said. He talks about death as if it were nothing more than a cheap, entertaining plot twist he could close the book on whenever he pleased. To him, death is a spectacle. To me, death is the sound of static crackling inside my chest—a sound that, unfortunately, has no 'off' switch. I felt a sudden, fleeting urge to stand up and scream in his face: "Want to trade places? So you can find out what it's like to be a character who's actually dying?" But of course, that would be a waste of breath—and breath is a currency I can no longer afford to squander.
"Forget that, look at last night's match. The striker was pathetic; his shot should've been way more accurate!" retorted The Ball-Spinning Classmate.
Look at them. Healthy creatures who are so incredibly wasteful. They hurl words around as if their tongues will never go numb. They laugh as if their lungs are eternal oxygen factories. It's nauseating. Every scattered breath they throw away discussing trashy comics or ball games feels like a personal betrayal. They have no idea that every heartbeat they take for granted is something I would rip out of them just to extend my own expiration date by a few more seconds.
I did not join in. I ceased to be a part of their species the moment that fourteen-month verdict was handed down. I am merely a Near-Expired Spectator, an old radio forced to pick up the frequencies of other people's happiness while the components inside me are already rusted and broken.
Ringgg!
The lunch bell echoed like a sledgehammer striking iron. I didn't move immediately. I waited for the Noisy Healthy People to leave, carrying with them the scent of their sweat and their blindingly bright futures. I didn't need their pity, and I certainly didn't need to brush skin with them. Their warmth would only remind me of how cold I am destined to become.
I stepped out. I walked through corridors that smelled of aged wood and the suffocating remnants of teenage existence—a scent that turned sour in my nose. In the courtyard below, the shouts of boys playing soccer bounced off the building walls like a mocking echo.
"Pass! Over here, I'm open!"
Open. Right. Just like the void in my head. I watched them through the corridor window—mindless ants chasing a ball as if that round object were a spare heart. They can run that far without feeling like their lungs are being pierced by a thousand needles. How revolting health can be.
I kept walking, passing the cafeteria only to buy a bland sandwich. I chewed it without tasting a thing, mere fuel to ensure the rusting engine inside me didn't stall in the middle of the road. I needed higher ground. A place where I didn't have to breathe in the stench of their "life."
The stairs leading to the rooftop were my chosen path. These stairs were silent, dusty, and truth be told, every step was a delicious form of torture. I could hear the faint, grinding sound from inside my chest—the sound of a crumpled cassette tape being forced to spin until the very last drop of blood.
One more step, damn it. One more breath that feels like swallowing fire.
I stood before the iron door leading to the roof. Behind this door, the world was supposed to be silent. Just me, the vast Kanagawa sky, and an honest solitude. But as my hand touched the rusted handle, I felt an anomaly.
A foreign frequency was leaking through the cracks. A scent of clean soap—utterly incompatible with the smell of death I carried with me.
I pushed the door open. A sharp wind struck my face, and there, in the middle of the rooftop that was supposed to be my private grave, stood The Pest. She had stolen my silence. She had stolen my air.
"Pest," I hissed. My voice cracked, but it was filled with a pure, unadulterated hatred.
I stood frozen in the doorway. The wild rooftop wind tore at my uniform, but what bothered me more was the presence of The Pest, sitting there as if she owned the sky.
She didn't turn around. It was as if my arrival was nothing more than a stray breeze, utterly inconsequential to her existence. Before her, a large sketchbook lay open, her hand moving with a fluid, maddening grace as she etched something dark and chaotic onto the page.
"This is my spot," I said. My voice sounded foreign to my own ears—thin and crackling, like a radio frequency on the verge of death.
She stopped. With a slow, deliberate movement that oozed a sickening sense of calm, she turned. Her eyes—clear, far too clear for someone living in my smog-filled world—locked onto mine. There was no fear. No guilt. Not a single trace of realization that she had just trespassed into someone else's sanctuary.
She picked up a black marker, scribbled something on a blank page with a few sharp strokes, and held it up.
[ "This roof doesn't have a name on the door. Besides, the air up here is too vast for you to hoard all to yourself, Old Radio." ]
I scoffed. A typical response from someone who didn't understand the concept of privacy. "You know what I mean. You shouldn't be here. You're... an intruder."
She tilted her head slightly, observing me as if I were a fascinating but flawed insect specimen. She went back to writing.
[ "An intruder? Or are you just afraid that your rusted frequency of loneliness is being disturbed? I saw you in the cafeteria earlier. You looked like a corpse that forgot the proper way to stay buried." ]
My hands clenched at my sides. My lungs began to send out a warning—a small, sharp sting radiating toward my back—a sign that my irritation was burning through my remaining oxygen.
"Don't pretend to know me," I hissed. "You're just... The Classmate Who Cannot Speak. We have nothing to discuss. Get out."
Instead of leaving, she smiled. Not the sweet, hollow smile you see in trashy romance novels, but a cold, mocking grin. She reached for a red marker this time, as if to bleed every word she was about to write.
[ "At least I am silent because I actually cannot speak. You have a voice, yet you use it to curse your own life every time you draw breath. You're just an old radio emitting nothing but static, ruining the silence I came here to find." ]
"Stop calling me that!" I snapped. My voice broke, followed by a shallow cough I tried to swallow behind my fist. My chest felt hot, as if the cassette tape inside had just tangled and snapped.
She stood up, packing her sketchbook with an elegant poise that made me feel even more nauseous. She stepped closer. Barely a meter stood between us. I could smell her soap—a fresh, clean scent that stood in violent contrast to the smell of death and bitterness I carried in my lungs.
She stared at me for a long moment, as if she were reading every broken vibration in my chest. Then, she held up her book one last time.
[ "The sound of your breathing... it's so noisy. It's ruining my inspiration. But then again, broken frequencies usually hold more interesting stories than clear ones." ]
She brushed past me toward the door, her shoulder grazing mine—a brief physical contact that felt like a cold electric shock. Before she vanished behind the iron door, she flashed one final sentence written on the back cover of her book:
[ "See you tomorrow at the same time, Death's Teammate." ]
Thud.
The iron door closed with a heavy ring, leaving me alone with a wind that suddenly felt much colder than before. Death's Teammate? What kind of label was that?
I leaned my back against the concrete wall, letting myself slide down until I sat on the rough rooftop floor. My lungs were grinding violently now, protesting the brief confrontation. I hated her. I truly hated how she looked right through me as if I were a boring, open book.
But for the first time in fourteen months, the frequency in my head wasn't filled with the countdown to my end. It was occupied by the image of red ink on white paper, and a pair of eyes that refused to offer a single drop of pity.
I walked out of the school gates with whatever strength remained, feeling like an old radio whose batteries were finally bleeding out. The sun had begun its descent toward the west, bleeding the Kanagawa sky into an orange hue that looked painfully like a fresh burn.
The world at this hour—the hour when school let out—was a special kind of madness.
On the sidewalk, I pushed through crowds of people walking with an urgency I could no longer relate to. I saw a man in a suit talking loudly into his phone, laughing as he squandered his breath for a business deal he likely wouldn't even remember by next year. I saw a young couple whispering to each other, wasting their oxygen on hollow promises that would turn stale within months.
Look at them, I thought, the cynicism coating my throat like bile. They breathe as if the air is an eternal birthright that will never be revoked.
On the main road, the engines of cars roared—a symphony of combustion. To anyone else, it was just background noise, but to me, it was a cloud of poison dancing in the air, waiting for its turn to enter my chest. Motorcycles zipped by, their horns blaring in sharp, agonizing bursts, as if they were all racing toward their respective graves without even realizing it.
Beep! Beep!
The sound of a horn pierced my eardrums, triggering a throb of pain in my temples. I stopped for a moment at the edge of the road, trying to stabilize my scattered breaths that were starting to lose their rhythm. Above me, perched on the branch of a cherry tree that had yet to bloom, a bird chirped cheerfully. The sound was clear—far too clear. Even a bird had a more defined function than I did. It breathed to sing; I breathed merely to delay my inevitable collapse.
"So damn noisy," I hissed at the world.
I watched the sidewalk, flooded with footsteps. Every thud of their shoes against the asphalt sounded like the ticking of a wall clock, counting down my time. The louder they were, the more transparent I felt. I was a fading frequency in the middle of a broadcast with the volume turned up too high.
My steps led me past a small park. The scent of wet grass and damp earth tried to slip into my nose, but all I felt was a tightening in my chest. I hated how beautifully the world continued to turn, utterly indifferent to the fact that one small component in a corner of Kanagawa was rusting away.
I was a stranger on his way home—to the place where the real silence was waiting. A concrete box I called home, where I could finally stop pretending to be a healthy human being.
But all along the way, the image of that red ink from The Pest remained seared onto my retinas.
"Death's Teammate."
Damn her. That phrase was noisier than every car horn on this street combined. It was as if she had finally given a name to the static in my chest—a new classification that I couldn't simply switch off.
I kept dragging my feet, passing under the shadows of utility poles that stretched out like the long fingers of death trying to reach for my back. I just wanted to get home, lock the door, and let my old radio crackle in the dark.
I turned the key to my apartment with a hand that could no longer hide its tremors. Click. That small sound was the only sign that I had returned to the concrete box I called home. The place where the performance finally ended.
The moment the door shut, all the noise of the car horns and the laughter of the healthy people outside was severed. But the silence that followed was far more agonizing. The silence here was never truly empty; it was filled with the weak thud of my heart and the high-pitched wheeze from my lungs that grew louder in the dark.
I didn't turn on the lights. Light would only clarify the dust motes drifting through the air, reminding me that I was decaying inside a room that was also dead.
I dragged myself to the bathroom. Under the flicker of a humming neon light, I stared into the mirror. The reflection looking back was a stranger. My skin was pale, almost translucent, and my eyes... my eyes looked like black holes that had swallowed all of my futures.
Cough!
A warm, metallic liquid suddenly rose in my throat. I doubled over the sink, coughing until my chest felt as if it were being split open by a rusted saw. On the white porcelain, a splatter of fresh, red blood landed with a sickening silence.
I stared at the blood. The color was an exact match for the red marker The Pest had used to write my new label: Death's Teammate.
"Damn it," I whispered, my voice nearly gone.
I splashed my face with cold water, trying to wash away the smell of iron that stung my nose. The water swirling down the drain reminded me of the time constantly draining out of my own body.
I walked into my bedroom and collapsed onto the bed without even taking off my uniform. The room smelled of the medicine I kept hidden in the bottom drawer—a scent that always reminded me that my life was now governed by chemical pellets, no longer by dreams.
I reached for the small radio on my nightstand, turning the knob to an empty frequency. I just wanted to hear the static. That krshhhhh sound that had no pattern, no demands, and no future. That sound was the only honest thing left in this world.
In the thick darkness, I curled up. The arrogance I displayed on the rooftop had crumbled. The hatred I wore as a shield on the streets had evaporated. All that remained was a coward, trembling because he knew that in fourteen months, his frequency would vanish from this world forever.
"I'm scared."
The thought screamed louder than anything else in my head, though I would never say it aloud.
I found myself picturing The Pest. How could she smile in the face of the end? How could she remain so calm while the world robbed her of her voice? Did she also have a concrete box where she cried alone?
I closed my eyes, letting the radio static drown out my stifled sobs. Tonight, I was no longer a cold spectator. Tonight, I was just a broken old radio, weeping into a frequency that no one would ever hear.