A Story About a Suicidal Girl Who Attempted Suicide But Got Hindered, and Was Taken Out to Play - Chapter 4
- Home
- All
- A Story About a Suicidal Girl Who Attempted Suicide But Got Hindered, and Was Taken Out to Play
- Chapter 4 - Fluttering and Falling
Chapter 4: Fluttering and Falling
“I’m going to rewind time and prevent the girl from killing herself.”
When I came up with that ridiculous idea, I wasn’t intending on stopping her from killing herself.
Just stopping her from killing herself won’t be enough for it to be a happy ending. It will just let you continue from where you left off. From the perspective of a girl who committed suicide just to get herself out of this sh*tty game, it would probably be a thankless task.
Bullying seemed unlikely to be the sole cause of the suicide.
It’s probable that she was struggling with socializing or had a complex about her physical appearance, which contributed to her suicide. If she chose to kill herself because she didn’t want to be hurt anymore, as I did, it would only make her suffer more.
But that doesn’t mean that I could just ignore this completely.
More than anything, it was because I overheard the conversation between those girls. In my mind, the image of the girl who committed suicide lingered as “a poor girl who committed suicide due to bullying.”
I am well aware that this is just my personal interpretation.
However, doing nothing at this point is no different than turning a blind eye to bullying. This leaves a bad taste in my mouth, making feelings of guilt arise. I’m pretty sure that this will haunt me in the days I have left.
I really didn’t want to spend the remaining two years of my life tormented by guilt.
In other words.
It was just an excuse for interfering with her suicide.
I will surely regret this if I don’t do anything right now.
That’s why I will stop her suicide just once.
It would be ideal if she could stop trying to kill herself just like that.
If she still plans on killing herself after that then it can’t be helped. “I have done all I could” is probably what I would say as an excuse after all that.
It was more important for my feelings of guilt to disappear rather than whether the girl commits suicide or not.
It was not to save the girl, but rather myself.
Rather than “Stopping the suicide”, “Interfering with her suicide” would be more precise.
After returning 24 hours to the past, I immediately headed to the bridge. It was a little after three in the afternoon, before the snow started to fall. As I ran, I prayed that the girl hadn’t jumped yet. I wouldn’t be able to use the clock for another 36 hours, so if she had already jumped there was nothing I could do.
The cold air pierced my skin, and I kept running, holding back my ears that ached like they were going to burst.
The bridge came into view, and I was the first to see the sandbar, but I couldn’t see it clearly from a distance due to the rocks. My eyesight was poor, so I had to look down from the top of the bridge to confirm.
Relying on my memory of what happened before I went back in time, I arrived right above the spot where the girl had jumped.
My breath hitched and my legs wobbled. I put my hands on the cold railing and forced myself to regulate my disordered breathing.
Hoping the girl wouldn’t fall down below.
I look into the sandbar.
For a moment, I imagined a girl lying in a pool of blood, but all I saw were rocks and stones lying on the ground.
Feeling relieved, my whole body relaxed while leaning against the railing.
“Why am I so desperate?”
Those words came out of my mouth as I looked up at the clear blue sky. If she was already dead, I could just give up. It should have been fine if I was merely here to make excuses.
After sitting and resting for a while, I looked at the river and waited for the girl to come.
Leaning back against the railing, I waited and fiddled with my cell phone, but I couldn’t stand the cold, so I put it away and put my hands in my pockets. The Silver Watch of Ouroboros I had in my right pocket was as cold as ice, so I was troubled.
After five o’clock in the afternoon, with no people or cars passing by, the snow began to flutter down. The sky was dark and orange street lights lit up the bridge. It wasn’t until it started to snow that I realized I had forgotten my umbrella, but thanks to the light downpour, it wasn’t too much of a problem.
As I was exhaling white breath into my palm, I saw a person walking towards me.
I narrowed my eyes to confirm it was the girl.
She was about the height of a junior high school student, and I was convinced that she was the girl who committed suicide.
The girl walking up to me didn’t have an umbrella, and even though it was dark, I could see her face…….
My conviction was shattered the moment I saw her face.
She was a very pretty girl.
Long black hair, and with contrasting white skin. She had a slender figure and a good-looking face. There was an air of unhappiness about her, but she was a beauty whose transiency could be used as an advantage.
“There’s no way this kind of girl would commit suicide.”
I thought this as my eyes were drawn to the girl walking towards me in the snow.
I had expected the girl who would commit the suicide to have negative traits like I did. I thought I could determine whether they had a dark expression or a body complex by her expression and appearance.
The girl who came walking stopped a little before me, looked at the scenery for a while, and then went back in the direction she had come from.
A few more people passed by, but no one else who looked like the girl who committed suicide came through.
After 8:00 p.m, the snow began to get heavier and I was reaching the limit of my endurance to bear the cold.
The thought crossed my mind that I could freeze to death before the girl arrived. It’s not a laughing matter.
Then I suddenly began to doubt whether the girl would even come in the first place.
It is almost a miracle to find the body as it is pitch black and you can’t see anything when you look down. It’s…… impossible for a girl to commit suicide now and have it found and reported by eleven o’clock in the afternoon.
Perhaps,
“I wondered if the future had changed”
It wouldn’t be surprising if the future changed just like the lottery numbers changed.
That guess was spot on.
Unable to endure the cold, I returned home to find that the news was different from before I turned back the clock.
The weather forecast started without any reports of suicide, and there was no doubt that the future had changed.
I don’t know what caused it, but the girl who committed suicide on the bridge didn’t come.
That’s what I concluded that day.
I suspected that the girl who visited the bridge that time might be the same girl who committed suicide.
The next day, I checked to see if the girl had really killed herself, because it was possible that she hadn’t killed herself on that bridge, but elsewhere.
I spent hours carefully searching the news and the Internet, but I couldn’t find any news reports that related to the girl, and it seemed that she had not committed suicide.
However, I continued to investigate whether the girl had committed suicide.
The girl who committed suicide was an ordinary junior high school student. The suicide of an ordinary person is generally not reported.
I think the jumping from the bridge was reported because it could have been an accident or an incident. There is also the issue of privacy, and it is impossible to report on all suicides in Japan, where more than 20,000 people commit suicide every year. Sometimes it is reported later that a junior high school student committed suicide because of bullying, but even so, only a small part of the total is reported.
The girl might have committed suicide somewhere, but it hadn’t been reported yet and would probably be on the news soon. That’s what I was thinking.
I had several other reasons for looking into this.
“That girl will probably decide to commit suicide again.”
That’s what I thought to myself.
The future won’t change as long as you have a strong will.
For example, I am not particular about what I wear. When I go out, I always wear the first outfit that catches my eye. I don’t have any intention to wear this particular outfit, but rather I wear whatever is chosen by chance, and I don’t necessarily choose the same outfit after I go back in time.
This is just like how the lottery number changes.
On the contrary, if I am the type of person who is particular about what I wear and thinks about what I am going to wear the day before, I will choose the same clothes after I go back in time unless there was a special reason.
It’s an obvious matter.
Unless something changes because of the rewinding of time, office workers will go to work and students will go to school.
The only way to change the future is through luck, such as chance.
Then it might just be a coincidence that the girl did not kill herself.
Let’s assume that the girl was always wondering whether or not to kill herself. Just as I couldn’t take the next step and couldn’t kill myself for years, the girl had been in a state where she could have killed herself at any moment. It’s quite possible that she “accidentally” chose to kill herself at Christmas, and then “accidentally” chose not to kill herself after she went back in time.
If that’s the case, unless the problem is solved, she’ll accidentally kill herself one day again.
And I won’t let it end like this
I would’ve approached the girl if I had been able to see her. I had prepared not only comforting words, but also a solution to the bullying. I was going to give her at least some support to make up an excuse.
But, I didn’t meet her.
The result this time was just a lucky one, but it doesn’t mean that the bullying was solved.
The girl is not saved, and this is not a situation where I can say, “I did what I could.”
It would end badly for me, and for the girl who killed herself.
If I had known it would turn out like this, I wouldn’t have turned back time.
Not “stopping” her suicide, but rather interfering with it or else there will be no meaning.
I was so desperate that I just kept on looking up news related information.
My prediction was proven correct a week later, and the suicide was reported again.
It seemed to be the same person as reports of “a junior high school girl” “falling to her death” “from a bridge” were repeated.
I decided to turn back time after gathering information.
At a nearby police box, he said, “I think I saw a girl of junior high school age near the bridge the day before. I don’t remember what time it was, but if I can find out what she was wearing, I might be able to remember something.”
I turned back time and waited for the girl on the bridge since mid-afternoon.
It was around 6:00 p.m. when the first person who found her reported it. Whether or not the girl would arrive by then, we could determine if the future had changed. Thanks to the information I had gathered, I felt more at ease than last time.
It’s now past 5 p.m.
When the area was getting dark, I saw a girl walking towards me.
It was dark and it was hard to confirm her face from a distance, but she was definitely the girl who had committed suicide, dressed similarly from the information I had gathered.
But, it was the same beautiful girl that was walking.
The girl started to look at the scenery a little in front of me, just like the other day. The fact that she hadn’t killed herself last time wasn’t just a coincidence of whim, it could be that she hadn’t killed herself because I was there.
I wondered as I looked at the profile of the girl looking at the scenery.
“Why would that kind of girl commit suicide?”
With her well-groomed face, long silky black hair, white skin, and slender body, there is not a single negative element to be found in her appearance.
If that were the case, I would think of internal problems such as a bad personality, but I can’t imagine that from her calm and mature atmosphere for a junior high school student.
Then, the only thing I could think of was “jealousy”.
If there was a girl like that in the class, she would stand out even if she didn’t say anything. She would have definitely stood out from the crowd and would have been popular with the boys. It would not be surprising if she became a target of jealousy among the other girls.
It was not her own fault, it was just that she was being bullied. That’s my hypothesis.
If I’m right then it would be convenient.
If she has an inferiority complex or she just plainly doesn’t get along well with others then I’m out of luck but if it was just stopping the bullying then there’s still some hope.
I told myself that it would be okay and I approached the girl.
“Did something bad happen for you to have a long face?”
When I called out to her, the girl looked around and then pointed at herself.
“There’s no one else here” I said while smiling and she replied with “I’m fine.”
“No, I think someone who says that they are okay are usually not okay.”
“…………..”
The girl fell silent and seemed to be on guard.
“Do you like this bridge enough to come here on such a cold day?”
“…………”
I tried to lower her guard by talking to her, but she just nodded silently and didn’t engage in the conversation.
We are not going to get anywhere at this point so I decided to get to the point.
“Right now, I’m going to guess what you are wondering about.”
The girl didn’t look at me, she was looking at the scenery in the distance, but her body seemed to sway slightly.
For a moment she looked upset, but she quickly put on a calm face.
“Maybe you are wondering whether you should jump from here or not.”
With that comment, the girl’s face finally turned to look at me.
The facade of normalcy was nowhere to be seen. I could see the emotions of surprise, confusion, doubt, and perplexity swirling in her face.
“No?” I asked and she gave a small nod.
“And the reason for your suicide attempt is bullying. Is that right too?”
The girl opened her mouth while looking puzzled.
“How did you know?”
And to that question, I replied with, “I can’t answer that.”
On the contrary, I asked her if she had anyone she could talk to, either her parents or teachers, but she just shook her head in silence.
“Well, you’ve endured all this time alone.”
From my point of view, it was just a word to make her guard loosen.
But it worked better than expected.
I could tell right away that the girl’s eyes were about to burst into tears. I was convinced when I saw the way her big, puffy eyes glittered.
The girl wanted someone to help her, I thought.
I was relieved.
If she desired assistance, there were numerous ways to help her. It seemed to me that I would not end up being complacent and that we would be able to resolve the issue amicably.
This is the final stage of the plan.
“I’ll give you some advice.”
“Advice………?”
Everything is going according to my ideal. It was probably because I thought things were going well that I made such a bad move without thinking about it.
“Well, just because I’m giving you advice doesn’t mean you need to be strong.”
With that, I held out a thick envelope to the girl.
“What’s that….?”
The girl asked.
I answered her.
“1 million yen”
“………..?”
She doesn’t look like she knows what I’m getting at so I told her how to use it.
“Look here, you need to give this money to someone who is the most outgoing in your class. That way, when you are bullied they might be able to help you. Then the people around will act accordingly as well. People are strong in a group. However you shouldn’t give this to the person who bullies you, you’ll just end up being tricked.”
I really thought that this was the only way to stop bullying. However, the girl turned her head and refused to accept the envelope.
Not paying attention to her, I made a mistake.
“Don’t be shy. You’ve been through enough bad times to deserve it. If you have any money left over, spend it on whatever you want. You can also forget about being bullied. Someday you’ll laugh about it…….”
It was at that time.
“…….n’t need it”
The voice was so quiet that I almost missed it.
“Nn?”
When I stopped talking, the girl opened her mouth wide.
“I don’t need it!”
The voice was loud enough to resound in my ears.
From the way she looked at me, I knew right away that I had stepped on a landmine, but I was too agitated to guess the cause.
Despite this, I continued to make bad decisions at the time.
“No, you should use this money for the group in your classes.”
Tears began to trickle from the girl’s eyes as she looked at the envelope that was presented to her again.
“Just because I got this money doesn’t mean I can just pretend it didn’t happen! As if I could do that!”
The girl’s hand flicked the envelope and it fell out of my hand.
The impact of the fall caused a wad of bills to protrude from the envelope.
Then the wind blew, and the wad of money that had come off flew through the air.
“H-Hey!”
As I hurriedly collected the money, the girl wiped her tears with the back of her hand and fled away.
While I was grabbing the bills that were fluttering in the air, the wind kept blowing and the wads of bills were disappearing from the envelopes with great speed.
The bill fluttered down to the sandbar where the girl had originally jumped.
I muttered to myself on the bridge as I watched the scene.
“What a wasteー…….”
That day, there were no reports of suicide, but instead reports of what had happened, such as “hundreds of thousands of yen were scattered under the bridge.”
At any rate, I succeeded in interrupting the girl’s suicide.
And so this is a happy ending……. or not. I made a girl cry for the first time in my 18 years of life. I didn’t think she would react that way. And she’s also younger than me, so what is this feeling of guilt?
In hindsight, it’s no wonder she was angry. It was as if I had told her to forget it all with the money after all the bad times she had been through from the hand that was finally extended to her.
If she commits suicide, it would be as if I had put the finishing touches on it.
Oi oi, please spare me from that.
The situation is worse than before I turned back time, worse than when I interrupted the first suicide.
It would be bad if she killed herself.
If I want to spend the next two years in peace, I have to get rid of the guilt at all costs.
For that, she needs to be alive.
“I’ll just have to interfere until she stops.”
Thus like this, the story of a girl who wanted to die,
The days of interfering with Tsukimi Ichinose’s suicide have begun.
—
Translated by: Xen
Edited by: Loki