In the Moonlight

Kaneko insisted that I go to the hospital, and since the grim reaper told me I should go along with whatever she suggested, I did it. I felt absolutely fine, there was some soreness in my chest when I first woke up, which I assumed that was the result of Kaneko’s attempts at CPR, but frankly I felt better than ever. Whether that was a result of my brand-new heart or just the residual feeling of being granted a second chance at life, I couldn’t tell.

We were both sitting in the waiting room of the doctor’s office. While I wasn’t immediately in any real pain, even surviving a heart attack warranted an emergency, so we would get in to see someone fairly soon. We were currently alone in the room, aside from the disinterested-looking receptionist.

“A-are you really sure you’re okay with me?” Kaneko asked in her barely audible voice for at least the fifth time. Each time she asked, I felt a rush of secondhand cuteness wash over me. But I also felt a pang of sadness that she was insecure enough that she felt the need to ask constantly.

“Yeah,” I said again and smiled at her.

I could see redness in her cheeks through her bangs, and her hands were fidgeting with the hem of her white uniform blouse. Her hands were very petite and quite cute. I kind of wanted to hold them, but I had no idea if it was too soon. I was really bad at reading this kind of thing.

“You sure you don’t need to call your parents?” I asked. I’d already called my dad to let him know what had happened. He was worried initially but audibly relieved when I mentioned that I was okay, and that I was at the hospital to get checked up just in case. I promised to call him back when I was done.

Kaneko’s response to my question was to shake her head, though. She also muttered something, but it was even quieter than her normal speaking voice, so I didn’t catch it but it didn’t sound pleasant. I guess her home life was complicated.

“Well, that’s okay then.” I didn’t want to pry. If she wanted to tell me, she would.

There was a moment of silence before she asked, “You’re really okay with me?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle this time, “You keep asking that like you’re the one who should be. That’s what I should be asking, you know.”

Her head turned, and I could catch a glimpse of her eye peering at me, curiously.

“I mean, I’m nobody special. My grades are average, I’m no good at sports, I’m an utter otaku nerd, and I don’t even have many friends. The few friends I do have are complete and total idiots, not to mention perverts. I was beginning to worry I’d never get a girlfriend.”

Kaneko looked back down into her lap and continued fidgeting with her small fingers, “But… you’re really nice. Not just to me, to everyone.”

I thought about it. I did do my best not to judge anyone too harshly. Everyone had their own problems to deal with, and I just never wanted to be one of them. Even when people were rude or mean to me, I tried not to hold it against them.

“Also, I… I really don’t care if you’re a pervert.” She said this so quietly it was almost inaudible. It was music to my ears in any case.

While I had been careful to avoid listing that as one of my faults from the list I gave her, I certainly couldn’t deny it. I certainly wasn’t like my friends Ishibumi and Honda, who wore their respective perversions on their sleeves. I was a much more passive and silent pervert, but I had always suspected one of two things. Either being associated with those two was enough for people to think of me as cut from the same cloth, even if I didn’t show it; or my attempts at being sneaky when staring at girls’ chests wasn’t quite as stealthy as I intended. I suspected it was likely a combination of both.

“Ah, well, listen,” I began, turning toward her, “you’re the first girl I’ve ever dated, I don’t have much experience with this sort of thing.”

“Me either,” she replied.

I blinked, “Really? Wasn’t there a guy you used to hang out with you all the time when we were in middle school?” I was pretty sure I remembered that right, I could have been thinking of someone else though.

I could see her blush intensify, “He was my brother. He goes to a different school now.”

“Oh,” that made sense. “Sorry, didn’t mean to imply you were dating your brother.” I chuckled awkwardly. What the hell was that? Why did I just draw more attention to it? She was already embarrassed about the comparison.

She simply shook her head in response to my idiotic excuse for a joke.

“Oh! We should probably trade numbers, huh?” I said, getting out my phone. I was happy to have found a way to change the subject.

She did the same, unlocking the screen and then seemed to freeze, “Um…”

I looked over, “What’s up?”

“H-how do I add your number?”

What? She didn’t know? Hadn’t she entered her family’s contacts? Oh right, her family life seemed to be complicated. And now that I considered it, she didn’t really seem to have any friends. Poor girl.

“I’ll show you,” I said, smiling to let her know I didn’t think any less of her. I guided her through the process, pointing at where to tap from a safe distance. I didn’t want to overwhelm her by invading her personal space. As I suspected, the only contacts she had were for her mother and her brother. No contact for her dad, and no contacts for anyone else. I idly wondered when the last time she got a text was.

After adding my number, I had her send a text message to me so I could add her as well.

She sent me a heart emoji. This girl was just way too cute. I sort of wished I had confessed1 to her sooner, it might have done wonders for her self-esteem. I was a little ashamed to admit the thought had never crossed my mind, in fact Kaneko had almost never crossed my mind at all, which made me feel even more ashamed. Especially now that I could see how lonely she was.

I sent her a heart emoji back, and I could almost sense her smiling at her screen, though I couldn’t quite see it.

“Hey, uh, this is kind of an awkward request,” I began, looking at her, “but I’d like to see your face. I don’t really know what you look like.”

Her reaction was far more panicked than I was expecting. She actually began shaking a little.

I raised up my hands, “On the other hand, if you’re not comfortable, I get it.”

“N-no… it’s… I…” she struggled to find the words. After a moment she seemed to inhale a bit to gather her nerves and pulled back half of her long bangs behind her ear. The thing was, she was sitting immediately to my right, and she had pulled it behind her right ear, meaning all I could see was just a black curtain of hair as she faced forward.

Someone like Honda, who had the observation skills of a blind man, probably wouldn’t have noticed or understood the significance of that choice she just made, but it actually wasn’t lost on me. She was trying to hide something about the left side of her face, something that wasn’t on the right side.

She continued to shake and stare forward.

“Take your time,” I said, gently. “You’re not gonna scare me away.”

“P-promise?” she asked, surprisingly seriously.

“Yeah,” I said. I was really beginning to worry about this girl. I’d always known she was quiet, but even just these small glimpses of her true self were painting a much more worrisome picture than simple shyness. “I promise.”

Gradually, she turned her head toward me. More and more of her face got revealed to me until I could see the entire right side of it. She looked… perfectly normal. In fact, she was actually extremely cute, just as I had expected. Slender cheeks, cute button nose, full pink lips, and big, round black eyes. My first thought wasn’t even relief, I felt extremely lucky. This adorable girl was my girlfriend now?

“Wow,” I said aloud.

“U-um… what do you think?”

“I can’t wait to brag to Ishi and Oda about my new cute girlfriend,” I replied honestly.

Her cheeks lit up with a pink color and she stared back down into her lap.

I chuckled and smiled at her, “You should wear your hair like that more often. You really don’t have anything to be so shy about.”

Just then, a door opened up and a nurse poked her head out, “Haru Sato-san?”

I stood up. “I’ll be right back out, then I’ll walk you home. Sound good?”

Kaneko nodded. I noticed as I walked away that she brought her hair back to the way it was before. That did it, I made a vow to myself then and there that I would do everything I could to be the best boyfriend for her. I would make sure not to make her regret working up the courage to confess to me.

The visit with the doctor was fairly uneventful. He ran a few tests on me, spent a long time listening to my heartbeat with his stethoscope, and then explained that it was likely just a freak accident. As far as he could tell, my heart was perfectly healthy, but if I ended up feeling any sudden chest pains, I should get myself to emergency services immediately. More extensive tests could be done if there was a repeat of what happened.

Of course, I knew that wouldn’t happen. The Grim Reaper had assured me that my new heart was perfectly healthy and even better than it was before. But I nodded along and listened diligently to his advice. Besides, in the back of my mind, I was already beginning to wonder if my conversation with **** was just a dream. I guess I wouldn’t know for sure until one of those “Shinigami” guys came and got me.

After getting a clean bill of health, I walked home with Kaneko. We did this mostly in silence, but at one point she slipped her hand into mine, and we went the rest of the way hand-in-hand. Notably, she pulled her hair back behind her ear but only once I got back. As it turned out, my apartment complex was along the way to her house, so I pointed it out to her, but continued to walk her home anyway, despite a flurry of her adorably polite objections. Her home was a small house at the corner of an intersection, and I did my best to commit its location to memory.

“Wanna walk to school together in the mornings?” I asked.

Her reply was a simple, nervous nod.

“Okay, we can meet up at my house, then. I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow.”

Suddenly, she lurched forward and wrapped her arms around my torso, squeezing tightly. Her breasts were being pressed into me, and even through the combined layers of our uniforms, I could feel how delightfully soft they were. Everything I’d gone through up to this point was worth it just for that.

“D-don’t go,” she whimpered, “I thought… I thought I had… killed…” then she began to cry. I knew what she was trying to say, she thought she had killed me. She wasn’t technically wrong, but the important thing was that I was here now. But I knew that her fear wouldn’t just go away because I survived, she would be worried about being away from me for weeks to come.

“Hey, don’t worry. Everything will be all right,” I did my best to soothe her, stroking her hair gently. “I’m not going anywhere, I’ll be there tomorrow morning, I promise, okay?”

She tilted her head up, looking at me with tears in her eyes still. She sniffled. It was very cute and a little shocking. She really seemed to like me a lot, I was almost a little ashamed of how one-sided it was. That didn’t mean I wasn’t willing to let the feelings grow, though. One thing was for sure, I wanted to make sure she was happy, because watching her cry was genuinely heartbreaking.

“How about this,” I offered, “I’ll send you a text when I get home, sound good?”

She finally pulled herself away from me, sniffled again and wiped away her tears, then she nodded.

“Okay, see you tomorrow,” I smiled, and we parted ways for the night.

When I arrived back at my apartment building, a figure was waiting for me on the sidewalk. He was dressed in the uniform from my school, and he looked vaguely familiar.

“Ah, Sato-san,” he said in a soft voice.

He stood about the same height as me with short, messy, silver hair, and most of his features weren’t terribly masculine, instead hovering somewhere in the androgynous realm of the fabled “pretty-boy” or “bishi-boy”. I didn’t know him by name, I only sort of remembered seeing him in the halls a couple times.

“Ah, hello, who are you?” I asked, wondering what he was doing outside my home in the dead of night.

“I’m Rei Sasaki, class 3-A, I’m a third-year like you.” He bowed.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I’m just here to introduce myself on behalf of the Yuki Academy Spirit Society.”

I blinked, “S-Spirit Society? Our school has a club like that?”

“Not in the official records, no. It’s a club for Shinigami like you and me.”

My eyes widened, “Then…”

“That wasn’t a dream,” Rei confirmed. “You had the thought that it might be at some point, didn’t you? Everyone does, even I did, that’s how I know.”

“Then, you died? How did you die?” I asked.

“Ah,” Rei scratched the back of his head, “I ought to tell you, that question is sort of off-limits to other members of the club, some of us died in… sensitive ways. Don’t worry, though, that’s not the case for me. I was mugged, simply in the wrong place at the wrong time is all.”

Oh, that was a good point. I made a mental note not to ask that anymore. I decided to make up for my indiscretion by telling him how I died, “Well, uh, I had a heart attack because a cute girl confessed to me.”

Rei’s eyes widened before he erupted into a sudden bout of charming laughter, “Ah, I’m so sorry, it’s really rude to laugh about that, but I couldn’t help it. I just had the thought that if a cute girl confessing to someone was enough to kill, I’d be dead dozens of times over by now.”

I didn’t fault him for it, the laughter was infectious and even I managed a chuckle. A clearer image was beginning to form in my head about this guy. My friend Ishibumi hated him for how popular he was with the girls in our school.

“Sorry, that probably sounded like I was trying to brag, I promise you that I wasn’t. Honestly, it’s well beyond the point of eating at my nerves.” He smiled at me, warmly.

I shook my head to indicate I wasn’t bothered. I could definitely see how that might have been annoying, even if it seemed like paradise to me. I was gonna have to disagree with my good friend on this one, this guy wasn’t so bad. I was glad he was going to be on my side as a Shinigami.

“Well, the point of my visit was actually just to let you know that we were around. It’s a bit late to meet everyone now, I’ll introduce you to everyone else after class tomorrow.”

“How many Shinigami are there?”

“Well—counting us—there are seven. One of them is our sensei, though, the club sponsor. Anyway, try to get some rest for tonight, Sato-san. Wait for me outside of class 3-A tomorrow and I’ll take you to the club room. It was nice to meet you.” With that and a final wave, Rei turned around and began walking away into the night with his hands in his pockets, leaving me alone to myself, thinking about the future.

It wasn’t all a dream. I was going to have to fight monsters like the one that emerged from Kaneko, possibly ones even more frightening. But I had been granted a second chance at life, and I was determined not to waste it.

In the end, I didn’t sleep much. I spent half the night messaging Kaneko back and forth in bed. I could hardly believe that I was in a relationship now, I had a real honest-to-god girlfriend. Ishibumi and Honda were gonna be pissed.