Don't you need my kiss for your youth? - Chapter 0
TL: Starry Galaxy Cat
ED: SevenTails
I couldn’t help but hate my inadequacy, unable to suppress the resentment except by shouting.
In contrast to the imperfect me, the evening sky looked bright and clear. The first-class river flowed into the sea. The sun, perfectly round, was about to finish its duties and disappear behind the mountains.
I was the only one that was incomplete. I couldn’t do anything because I am not perfect.
There was a cat by the riverbed.
In the bushes by the riverbed, the tattered cat licked a dirty can of cat food. Its fur, which should have been white, was smeared in mud, and it looked like a calico cat. It looked skinny and pitiful.
I found myself thinking about such a miserable cat.
I wondered if it also felt lonely.
“Hang in there,” I muttered to myself as I stood there in front of the bushes.
“Hang in there, hang in there, hang in there.”
As if my words were meaningless, the cat continued to lick the dirty can.
“Hang in there, hang in there, don’t lose, hang in there.”
I wondered to whom my words were directed. What was the meaning of these words that just blended in and disappeared into the evening sky?
But I could only do so much.
My cries became nothing more than muttering.
“What are you doing?”
I looked up in shock.
A woman stood right beside me, wearing the same high-school uniform as I.
“I’m cheering for it.”
“What? Cheering for the cat?”
“Is it bad?”
She exclaimed with a ‘U~n’ while I thought about her long eyelashes.
“That makes no sense at all,” she giggled.
“What you’re doing makes no sense at all,” she now laughed.
She smiled with a bright smile that seemed to almost vanish under the evening sky.
I didn’t want it to.
I didn’t even know her name, but I didn’t want her smile to just disappear.
“It’s not meaningless!” I shouted.
I shouted something without even knowing what I was saying.
There was no sound in a two-metre radius area around us, only a world of orange sunlight.
When her cheeks lit up, she opened her mouth and smiled.
“I hope you’re right.”
For the first time, her smile was seared into my mind.
This time, I thought it wouldn’t easily fade away.
EN: A first-class, or A-class, river stands for ‘important river’ in Japan’s water system.