Chapter 7 — The Match
“Where should we go today?”
“I’d like to go to the afterlife.”
“I see. You want to go to the arcade.”
“Not a single word matches.”
It was Monday, May 18th—the second one since I gave away my lifespan. The weather was clear.
On this day, Ichinose attempted suicide for the seventeenth time.
Just like before, she tried to jump from the usual bridge. This time, just like last time, she didn’t call me. The telephone card I’d given her seemed to have become nothing more than a decorative item.
As usual, I caught her just before the bridge.
After “respecting her wishes,” we ended up going to the arcade.
“Even if we go to an arcade, there’s nothing I can do there.”
A gentle breeze swayed Ichinose’s long, beautiful black hair.
“Don’t you usually go to arcades?”
“I went a few times when I was in elementary school… but it’s been years.”
I almost said it was the perfect place to kill time, but advice like that wouldn’t help someone who had no money.
I doubted Ichinose even received allowance from her parents.
Just the other day, after I stopped her from killing herself at the train platform, I suggested we take a trip to a town a bit farther away. She said, “I don’t have enough money to get off the train. So I’ll commit suicide.”
I had to tell her, “Nobody kills themselves because they can’t afford train fare,” and paid for it myself.
When you have no money, the places you can go become limited.
I understood that feeling well. I was someone who hated staying home too. But with a student’s wallet, even killing time can be difficult.
Spring was fine, but summer and winter required creativity.
Ichinose had started her suicide attempts around Christmas… I wondered where she had spent the winter.
“When you don’t want to be at home, where do you usually go?”
Ichinose thought for a moment before answering.
“Parks… or the home improvement store.”
“The home improvement store? The one near the station?”
I’d never gone inside, but I remembered one near the closest station.
“Yes. There’s a tropical fish shop inside.”
“I see. So you look at the fish to pass the time.”
When I asked if she liked fish, she smiled.
“Yes. But there’s also a really cute axolotl there.”
“An axolotl?”
When I asked, she started excitedly explaining why axolotls were great.
Their expressionless faces.
Their fluffy pink gills.
Four fingers on the front legs but five on the back legs.
And how, when you stand in front of the tank, they swim toward you and bump their heads on the glass.
Ichinose was surprisingly animated as she talked.
Rare.
“You like strange creatures.”
Honestly, I didn’t see the appeal of axolotls, so that was all I could say.
“They’re not strange creatures,” she protested, puffing out her cheeks.
“Besides, you like weird creatures too, Aiba-san. Like snakes.”
“Snakes? Why snakes?”
“That thing engraved on the pocket watch you always carry—it’s a snake, right?”
Ah.
That made sense.
“Well, it’s not exactly a snake. It’s something called Ouroboros, a creature from Greek mythology.”
“Ouro…boros?”
She tilted her head.
After receiving the silver watch from the Grim Reaper, I’d looked it up.
The Ouroboros is a snake—or sometimes a dragon—biting its own tail and forming a circle.
The watch only had one engraved on it, but during my research I’d also seen images of two devouring each other.
The Ouroboros symbolizes things like eternity and immortality.
If that were true, though, the Ouroboros Silver Watch didn’t live up to its name.
At most it could rewind time 24 hours, and once used it couldn’t be used again for 36 hours. No matter what, time moved forward 12 hours overall.
Calling something like that a symbol of eternity was a bit of a stretch.
Still, if people could rewind time endlessly, most would trade their lifespan for it without hesitation. The deal would lose its meaning otherwise.
I explained the Ouroboros to Ichinose, but she didn’t seem particularly interested.
Incidentally, the reason I took Ichinose out after stopping her suicide attempts was simple:
to buy time.
For example, if I stopped her ten hours after rewinding time, I’d still have 26 hours before I could rewind again.
If she tried to kill herself again within two hours?
By the time the watch’s power returned, more than 24 hours would have passed since her death—meaning I couldn’t rewind to the moment before it happened.
So until that “unrecoverable period” passed, I had to keep an eye on her.
That’s why I took her out to play.
When we arrived in front of the arcade, Ichinose stopped.
“What’s wrong?”
“Isn’t it suspicious to be at an arcade on a weekday morning?”
Apparently she was worried about getting reported for skipping school.
“If you act normal, it’s fine. Acting nervous makes you look more suspicious.”
“You say that… have you skipped school to come here before?”
“Yes.”
When I walked into the arcade, she followed me with a sigh.
“So you were a delinquent.”
I used to come to arcades and movie theaters often.
Not because I wanted to play games or watch movies.
They were simply places where I could kill time and concentrate just enough.
In simple terms—
escaping reality.
I needed moments where I could focus on something and look away from reality.
Skipping school and spending weekday mornings in empty arcades or theaters.
Like Ichinose, I didn’t get along with my parents. I didn’t receive much allowance either, so going every day wasn’t possible.
Those days of escape were special to me.
My only enjoyment.
It only became easy to come here thanks to the Ouroboros Silver Watch.
Even if it didn’t live up to its name, the watch had helped me.
The arcade we entered was an old three-story building.
The first and second floors had crane games, fighting games, and medal machines.
But the third floor was a batting center, which gave the place a slightly different atmosphere.
Since it was a weekday afternoon, there weren’t many customers.
Perfect for us.
The first game that caught my eye was a gun-shooting zombie game.
It allowed cooperative play, so I chose that one.
“I’ll just watch,” Ichinose said, keeping her distance.
Ignoring that, I inserted coins for two players and handed her one of the guns.
“Here. Help.”
“I’ve never played before…”
She looked at the gun from different angles, confused.
Meanwhile, the game started.
“Eh? Eh? What do I do?!”
Realizing the game had begun, she hurriedly aimed the gun.
“I don’t know either! Figure it out while playing!”
Not exactly helpful advice. Honestly, I’d expected a tutorial first.
At the beginning the zombies were weak, so even beginners like us could defeat them easily.
Gradually we got the hang of it.
At least until—
I died.
“Sorry. I’m dead. Do your best.”
“H-Hey! I can’t do this alone!”
With only one player, the zombies quickly closed in.
Left zombie.
Right zombie.
Ichinose frantically swung the gun between them.
Watching her panic, I laughed beside her.
“Don’t laugh! Help me!”
I tried to continue—but I had no more coins.
I told her I’d exchange money and ran to the machine, but as soon as I inserted the thousand-yen bill—
“Don’t come near meee!”
Her scream echoed.
I knew I was too late.
“You died because you were too slow, Aiba-san!”
After returning, she lightly punched my shoulder repeatedly.
Next we played darts, which I had experience with.
Ichinose had never played before, so I let her practice first.
“Take this!”
The dart she threw missed the board entirely, hit the wall, bounced back in an almost artistic trajectory—
—and struck my head.
“Ow!”
“Ah! I’m sorry! Are you okay?!”
At that moment I wondered if we were dealing with a problem far bigger than winning or losing.
We chose Count-Up, a simple rule set.
Each player throws three darts.
Repeat eight rounds.
Whoever has the highest score wins.
Simple.
Since it wouldn’t be a fair match if I tried seriously, I deliberately aimed for low scores.
Even so, it was fun practicing my aim.
Ichinose kept aiming for the bullseye, the high-scoring center.
But every time she threw, the dart landed somewhere else.
The problem was—
Those “somewhere else” spots were often triple rings, which multiplied the score by three.
Her score kept rising.
At this rate I’d lose badly.
I started trying seriously to catch up, but in my panic my throws drifted right.
My darts kept landing in low-scoring zones, while Ichinose’s beginner’s luck showed no signs of stopping.
The game ended.
I lost.
Fair and square.
And it was frustrating.
Meanwhile—
“Yaaay!”
Ichinose raised both hands in celebration.
Today she seemed more energetic than usual.
Maybe this was her true self.
Watching her smile made the outcome feel unimportant.
Well…
That feeling disappeared when she started saying things like:
“Maybe I have a talent for darts.”
“Did you actually aim when you threw?”
“Don’t get cocky,” I snapped back, my competitive side showing.
After all—
losing is frustrating.
“I’m going to die soon anyway, so I might as well enjoy being cocky now.”
She flashed a peace sign and grinned victoriously.
Anyone could see it was my complete defeat.
With no motivation left for revenge, we went up to the third floor batting cages.
I wasn’t confident since I rarely played baseball, but I figured it was the best way to release my frustration.
When I tried it, I was relieved to at least hit the ball.
But I couldn’t send it flying properly, and the session ended unsatisfyingly.
Ichinose didn’t try it—she was scared of the incoming balls.
Instead she pointed to the Struck-Out pitching game next to it.
“That looks like something I could do.”
So I handed her a 100-yen coin.
The game involved throwing balls at a board numbered one through nine.
But the ball she threw from her slender arm…
rolled slowly along the ground before even reaching the board.
No matter how many times she tried, the ball never reached.
Eventually I took over.
I managed to knock out one full line and won a prize of cheap candy, which I gave to her.
After that we played other games—air hockey, racing games, and more.
Ichinose seemed to enjoy them all.
Before I knew it, I was having fun too.
Even though I lost most of them.
After playing for a while, I fled from the competitive games and moved to the floor with medal machines.
We sat at one where you drop medals into slots to push other medals forward.
The ones that fall collect in the center chute.
Pick them up.
Insert them again.
Push more medals.
We repeated the process quietly.
Over and over.
