The Story Of How I, Who Was Sentenced With One Year Left To Live, Met You, Who Had Six Months Left To Live - Sakurai Haruna - Chapter 2
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- The Story Of How I, Who Was Sentenced With One Year Left To Live, Met You, Who Had Six Months Left To Live
- Sakurai Haruna - Chapter 2
The Story Of How I, Who Was Sentenced With One Year Left To Live, Met You, Who
Had Six Months Left To Live
Sakurai Haruna Version
When I heard that I had a disease that would prevent me from living for a long time, it felt as if I had been thrown into a valley of despair.
I skipped my junior high school graduation and cried alone in my hospital room.
Aya-chan came to see me after the graduation ceremony. However, I told her that I didn’t want her to come see me anymore.
I was filled with envy and regret when she showed me her diploma with a smile on her face, and I snapped at Aya-chan coldly.
We are from different worlds. Aya-chan belongs in the sun, while I belong in the dark. She’ll graduate from high school and become a proper adult, and she has a bright future ahead of her. But the future I face is the polar opposite, it’s a very bleak outlook on my life.
That’s why we should no longer spend time with one another.
Aya-chan left angrily after I had coldly told her off without telling her why.
I cried until morning that night.
Ever since graduating from junior high school, I had spent my entire life in the hospital.
I would spend my remaining days reading quite a few books.
Except for my grandmother on occasion, I had no one else come to see me.
I went to the common room for a change of scenery one day and noticed a girl drawing a picture by the window. She was most likely in early elementary school. She was dressed in pajamas, so I assumed she was a hospital patient as well.
“What are you drawing?”
I called out to her.
She was drawing a picture with colored pencils, though it was not a very good looking one.
“…..Heaven.”
“Heaven? Why are you drawing that?”
She didn’t reply.
After a short while, she returned to her own hospital room.
She was back in the common room the next day.
“Hello”
I called out to her, but she did not respond. She was just painting wildly, as if she were possessed by something.
After a few more days went by like this, I once again went to the common room and found her waiting for me, holding two sketchbooks.
“Are these for me?”
She nodded and sat next to the window. “Thank you,” I said as I sat down and painted next to her.
“Onee-chan, sugoi! so good!” (TLN: Sugoi means amazing btw)
I’d never heard her voice before. But when she saw my painting, her eyes widened.
I had always enjoyed drawing. When I was a kid, I used to draw a lot of pictures in the hospital and get compliments from my parents and other kids here and there.
We started drawing together in the common room the next day. Akane was her name. She warmed up to me, and I loved her.
One day, however, she suddenly disappeared.
When I entered the common room, I discovered only a sketchbook and colored pencils kept on the window seat.
I waited all day for her, but she never arrived. For the time being, I decided to keep the sketchbook and colored pencils with me.
Akane-chan did not return to the common room after that day.
So I asked her mother, who worked at the hospital, about her.
I was curious if she’d been released from the hospital after recovering from her illness.
“Masuda Akane-chan? That kid, she… passed away.”
“Eh…?”
My mind was jumbled by the unexpected news. I assumed that another Akane-chan, whom I didn’t know, had died instead. That’s what I truly wanted to believe.
I couldn’t and didn’t want to believe that she had passed away.
Akane-chan was born with damaged kidneys, according to her mother.
She was drawing alone in the common room when she suddenly became ill and was rushed to the intensive care unit. She ran out of energy after several days of wandering between the state of life and death.
I held her sketchbook to my heart and cried for a very long time.
I wondered if she had been waiting for me during her last moments.
Despite her illness, she had been waiting for me to draw pictures with her.
I couldn’t stop crying just thinking about it.
I was reminded of the pictures Akane used to draw.
She used to make drawings of heaven.
I wondered if she was drawing pictures of heaven because she knew she was going to die soon.
I continued to draw pictures in the common room after that. I was convinced that if I waited long enough, Akane would come back to me, so I painted until the sun went down, as if I were obsessed.
Sometimes I painted while crying.
Not long after that, I was told that I only had six months to live.
It did not come as a surprise to me. Rather, I wanted to die soon and get out of this painful situation called life.
I’d be able to get out of it if I just waited another six months. I couldn’t help but smile as I reflected on my past.
Despite being told that I didn’t have long to live, I continued to paint. I continued to paint silently every day to distract myself from my thoughts.
I’m not sure if I’ll keep painting until I die. Will I die alone and lonely, unnoticed, and forgotten by everyone?
While I was painting with these thoughts in mind, a voice from behind called out to me.
“Umm… What sort of painting are you doing?”
He was wearing his school uniform and was looking at me with a slightly frightened expression.
Surprised by his sudden voice, I froze for a few seconds.
“Why don’t you sit there and listen for a bit?” I said, regaining my composure.
My voice may have trembled slightly while speaking to him.
I told him about my illness. I also told him that I only had six months left to live.
He was surprised, as I expected. I’m not sure what he was thinking when he spoke to me, but I’m sure he’ll leave me alone now.
“Sick” was a magical word for me. Everyone would leave me like magic when I said this word.
I cast a spell on him. That’s the end of it. That’s why I can’t be depressed when he leaves.
That has always been the case. When they found out about my illness, they all looked at me with a sour expression and left. So I told him this myself for once. I figured he’d
leave me soon enough anyway. However, he reacted differently than the others.
“Can I come see your paintings again?”
His words perplexed me. Still, I maintained my cool and said, “Fine.”
I thought he must have just been saying that for flattery.
I couldn’t stop thinking about him the next day. What was his given name? What is his age? That was my thought as I continued to paint away.
Then, about a week later, he actually came back. He introduced himself as Akihito.
After that, Akihito-kun began frequently visiting me.
He brought me a gerbera flower, and I was overjoyed.
I was curious as to why he had come to see me. He would have had more fun making friends at school or having fun with his girlfriend rather than being with me.
Nonetheless, Akihito-kun came to see me repeatedly. No one had ever come to see me in such a way before.
Everyone else would have fallen under my spell and abandoned me, but he was the only one who didn’t.