Chapter 2 — The Reaper and the Silver Watch

2

“Jun Aiba… would you be willing to give me your lifespan?”

The day a strange woman asked me to give her my lifespan was December 25th, two years ago.

It was the final Christmas of my high school life.

Despite the freezing cold that day, I was standing on a bridge in my hometown, quietly gazing at the scenery.

It was a large bridge connecting two towns across a river, yet few people passed by and cars were rare. Because of that, the gentle murmur of the river was easy to hear, along with the occasional splash of fish or the cries of birds.

I liked being alone.

That said, it wasn’t that I desired loneliness.

I simply couldn’t bring myself to like the people around me.

My classmates, the people walking through town—everyone looked stupidly happy to me. Things that seemed like happiness from my perspective were ordinary to them, while things that seemed trivial to me were treated by them as serious worries.

It was a difference in values.

And I couldn’t endure the friction that difference created.

So I distanced myself from them and made time to be alone. Loneliness was painful, but being among people only made me feel miserable.

Gradually, spending time alone began to feel easier.

For someone like me, this bridge was one of the few places where I could relax, and I came here often during my high school years.

Some might think it’s pathetic to spend Christmas alone on a bridge. But since I was pathetic, there was no helping it. I didn’t want to walk through the crowded streets filled with Christmas cheer, and I didn’t want to stay at home either.

Maybe I was lonely—but that was precisely why I wanted to be here on a day like this.

I had been alone since midday. As usual, no people or cars appeared, and the surroundings slowly darkened as the cold grew harsher.

The streetlights along the bridge began glowing with a dull orange light. When I looked straight down, it was so dark that neither the ground nor the river could be seen.

Without the sound of flowing water, you wouldn’t even know a river ran beneath the bridge. It looked like a pitch-black, bottomless pit you could fall into forever.

I looked around.

There was no one.

Only the dim orange streetlights lined up at regular intervals.

It felt like a world where everyone but me had disappeared. That strange emptiness was comforting.

But then the headlights of a distant car entered my field of vision, dragging me back to reality.

I looked up at the dark winter sky—so black that not a single star could be seen—and let out a long, heavy sigh that turned white in the cold air.

That was when it happened.

The moment a stranger spoke to me.

“Jun Aiba… would you be willing to give me your lifespan?”

The one who called out to me was a woman dressed entirely in black—someone strangely eerie.

She was tall and astonishingly thin.

Even estimating generously, she looked to be in her late twenties. There was no doubt she was older than me.

I still remember how shaken I was when a woman older than me suddenly asked something like that.

Would you give me your lifespan?

Inside my head, I tried to calm myself by organizing my thoughts.

This woman is either messing with me or she’s insane. Either way, she’s definitely not normal.

But then I realized something.

She had called me by name.

The panic that had begun to subside suddenly surged back.

I tried recalling everyone I had ever met, but none of them matched her.

That left only one possibility—some kind of prank.

But I had no friends, no girlfriend, and barely any acquaintances. There wasn’t a single person I could imagine setting up a prank like this. In the first place, I couldn’t imagine anyone who would even bother trying to surprise me.

“You seem confused,” the woman said lazily, almost teasingly.
“Let me clarify something first. This is our first time meeting.”

Annoyed by her tone, I asked her why she knew my name.

More precisely, I meant to ask who had told her my name.

But the answer she gave was ridiculous.

“Not just your name. I know everything about you.”

Then she added,

“To put it simply, I can read people’s minds.”

“…What?”

The word slipped out before I could stop it.

What was this woman talking about?

“It’s natural that you don’t believe me,” she said calmly.
“But what if I told you this?”

Then she slowly began telling the story of a certain boy’s life.

A foolish child who gradually realized the harshness of reality and became isolated because of jealousy.

I quickly understood whose story it was.

It was unmistakably mine.

Everything she said matched my life perfectly—even things no one else should have known.

Hearing it from someone else’s mouth made me realize all over again how meaningless my life had been.

Until she finished speaking, it felt like someone was roughly scraping at a freshly formed scab.

Finally, I asked hesitantly,

“…What are you?”

The woman paused as if thinking.

Then she introduced herself.

“You can call me a Grim Reaper.”

It sounded childish.

But she certainly looked the part.

Her face wasn’t unattractive, but her body was extremely thin. Her long hair was white, and her skin was pale—not the healthy kind, but the sickly pale that made you worry about poor circulation.

Combined with her black clothing, it made her gaunt figure and unhealthy complexion stand out even more.

As if emphasizing that she could read my thoughts, she smiled.

“Perfect, isn’t it?”

“I get that you’re something strange enough to call yourself a Grim Reaper,” I said.
“But what do you want?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she replied.
“A Grim Reaper appears before those who smell of death.”

“What are you trying to say?”

She smiled.

“You want to die, don’t you?”

A chill ran down my spine.

The Grim Reaper’s smile was disturbingly confident.

It was the kind of smile that didn’t even consider the possibility that I might deny it.

But maybe the reason it felt so unsettling wasn’t the confidence.

Maybe it was because she had hit the mark.

I wanted to die.

Even if I searched through my childhood memories, I could count my happy moments on one hand.

There were far more memories I wished I could forget.

Still, I had endured life thinking that someday things would get better.

But things only kept getting worse.

Then, in the summer of my first year of high school—

something happened.

And after that, I began thinking about suicide.

Every time I came to this bridge, I would look down and tell myself:

Jump.

But I could never take that final step.

Two years passed like that, and my high school life was coming to an end.

Of course, I had never told anyone about my suicidal thoughts.

I didn’t even have anyone I could confide in.

Still, even without being a mind-reading Grim Reaper, it wouldn’t be strange if someone thought I looked like a guy who hated life—or someone who might kill himself.

Years of negative emotions show on a person’s face.

Every time I looked in the mirror, I felt like my eyes looked dead. My expression looked darker.

Even a stranger might be able to guess just by looking at me.

“You’ve been suffering because you couldn’t bring yourself to commit suicide, haven’t you?”

The Grim Reaper smiled sweetly.

She didn’t look sympathetic at all.

“So I’d like you to let me help.”

“Help?”

“Yes. I’d like you to give me your lifespan.”

She quickly added,

“Of course, not for free.”

Then she pulled something from her sleeve.

A silver pocket watch.

“This is called the Silver Watch of Ouroboros.”

It was a silver pocket watch with a chain—nothing unusual in appearance.

If there was one notable feature, it was the engraving on the lid: a dragon-like creature biting its own tail.

“The Silver Watch of Ouroboros is no ordinary watch.”

She continued.

“This watch can rewind time.”

Holding the watch out toward me, she began explaining.

To summarize what she told me:

• Only the owner who gave up their lifespan can use the Silver Watch of Ouroboros.

• To use it, simply hold the watch and strongly imagine the time you want to return to.

• Time can be rewound up to 24 hours at once.

• After using it once, it cannot be used again for 36 hours.

• Only the owner retains memories from before the rewind.

• As an exception, anyone touching the owner when time rewinds will also retain their memories.

You couldn’t rewind time endlessly—there were strict conditions.

“Would you exchange your lifespan after three years from now for this Silver Watch of Ouroboros?”

Immediately after asking, she added as if remembering something:

“To be precise, I will take the lifespan you have three years from tomorrow onward, so you’ll only be able to start using the watch tomorrow.”

In other words—

My life would be reduced to three years.

In exchange, I would gain a watch that could rewind time.

It sounded unbelievable.

But after hearing her perfectly recount my past, it didn’t seem impossible either.

Even if I kept rewinding time by twenty-four hours, the watch required thirty-six hours of cooldown.

Which meant time would still progress twelve hours forward each cycle.

I couldn’t prolong my life forever.

Even after understanding that, I accepted the deal.

There was no clear reason why.

Maybe it was because dying this way seemed easier than jumping off the bridge.

Maybe it was because I had been drowning in melancholy that day and was driven by a self-destructive impulse.

Maybe I simply wanted to see whether the Grim Reaper’s story was true.

Like a stack of books collapsing the moment it tilts slightly, the many factors piled up until my balance gave way.

“Thank you. Let’s begin the transaction right away.”

The Grim Reaper placed her hand on my chest.

My body was already cold from the winter air, but even through my clothes I could clearly feel how cold her hand was.

“Now then, I will take your lifespan.”

At that moment—

a violent chill ran through my entire body.

It felt like something was being sucked out of me.

A freezing, nauseating sensation unlike anything I had ever experienced.

My head began to feel light, and I nearly lost consciousness.

It might have lasted only a few seconds.

But it felt much longer.

“It’s finished.”

Her voice snapped me back to my senses.

My legs wobbled and I nearly collapsed backward, but I managed to keep my balance.

The chill had disappeared.

But it felt like there was now a hole inside my heart.

Something important had been taken away.

I couldn’t put it into words—but something had definitely changed.

“From today onward, this silver watch belongs to you.”

She handed me the Silver Watch of Ouroboros with her skeletal hand.

The watch was cold and heavier than it looked.

The ticking of the second hand was loud and clear.

“You will die at 12:00 AM on December 26th, three years from now.”

The Grim Reaper slightly lowered her head.

“Please enjoy your remaining three years.”

When I heard that, I thought:

Three years is long.

If I was going to die anyway, sooner would be fine.

Because I was thinking like that, I barely paid attention to the warning she gave before leaving.

“Whatever you do…”

“Never regret giving up your lifespan.”