Short Story: "The Nighthawk and the Two of Us"

They say that "if you talk about next year, the demons will laugh," but three young men, with New Year's Day just tomorrow, were sitting in their shabby first-floor apartment, each sticking their legs into a powered-off kotatsu from three different sides, talking about how next year—whether it's demons or devils or whatever—they really wanted to make a full house of customers laugh their heads off.

Perhaps it was because of their poverty, which kept them from relying on heating appliances, or perhaps it was their shared passion for "comedy," but the condensation on the window dripped down silently, drop by drop.
The second hand of the favorite gray round wall clock that the skinny, bespectacled Orca had bought at 3COINS (he boasted that it absolutely didn't look like it cost 300 yen) had just reached the 12, making the current time 11:50 PM. In just ten more minutes, it would announce the end of this year.

It was one autumn day, with the first-magnitude star Betelgeuse burning red in the sky, that they invited Nighthawk—a heavy listener of their late-night radio show "Chatty Animal Village" and a dedicated postcard writer—to move into the 2DK apartment shared by Orca and the tall, sharp-featured Alpaca, a comedy duo in their fifth year (the apartment had previously been listed on the "Oshima Teru" website as a stigmatized property).

By the way, Nighthawk's face had a large, reddish-black birthmark that clung to it from the center of his forehead to his left cheek.
This had been a long-standing complex for Nighthawk, making it difficult for him to open up to people, but whenever he was in front of Orca and Alpaca, laughing at silly things, he felt as if his reddish-black birthmark had never existed in the first place.

"Nighthawk, can I talk to you about something really serious? Would you like to live with us? You're living alone and working part-time jobs constantly, and you're paying for your own living expenses and student loans, right? If you live with us, you'd at least save on rent. Student loans sound nice, but they're just debt, aren't they? You want to pay them off quickly and feel at ease, right? You've got university lectures, too. You don't need to pay rent or utilities, just split the food costs and cook for us instead. To be honest, we're not very good at cooking. It's a 2DK (even if it is a stigmatized property), and I think three guys can manage, so it's not a bad deal..."

This summer, they had met by chance on a riverbed, and since then, they had met many times at Saizeriya.
Today, in the bustling restaurant filled with students and families, Orca finally brought up what he had been wanting to tell Nighthawk for a long time. Alpaca, sitting next to him, crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and nodded along.

Nighthawk froze for a moment, then slowly flipped over the menu and spread the restaurant's famous "Spot the Difference" page in the center of the table. It was a "Spot the Difference" game that was rumored online to be "too difficult."
"If I were to live with you, what would you do if I turned out to be a terrible villain?"

Nighthawk looked at the "Spot the Difference" game and muttered that he had found one.
Alpaca opened his closed eyes and said,
" 'The roommate was a villain. So, what kind of evil deeds did he commit?'"
He said it as if it were a prompt for a comedy show.
Orca instantly tapped the table lightly with his palm and said,
"He's an extreme cat lover who poaches Iriomote cats and Pallas's cats. He hugs them under his arms and fluffs them every night!" He looked smug. "Two points. Too long and weak!" said Alpaca.
"Maybe I have some terrible habits. Habits that would make it impossible to live together."
Nighthawk pointed to a girl's red ribbon and said, "Found the second one."
"Don't worry about it. Everyone has their quirks, right? My feet smell terrible, and Alpaca snores like crazy. When his snoring is too loud, I just pull his pillow and it stops a little."
"...Excuse me, Orca? You were pulling my pillow?" Alpaca glanced at him.
"Sometimes, yeah," Orca smiled.
"Then, if you find the remaining eight differences, I'll take you up on your offer."
"That's not something someone who's being taken care of should say."
The two of them grumbled and complained, but somehow managed to find all the remaining eight differences.
To tell the truth, they were struggling because they couldn't find the very last one, but Alpaca secretly cheated under the table by searching for the answer on his smartphone. Nighthawk clearly witnessed Alpaca's cheating, but he pretended not to notice.

For Nighthawk, who had found it difficult to truly trust people his whole life, the way the two of them treated him, their enthusiasm, was so ticklish and made him so happy he wanted to laugh.
"Alright! That's a complete set! What is this millimeter-level difference! Give it up, Nighthawk, you're going to live with us, right?"
Orca barked, so Nighthawk nodded.
"Yes. Well, I'm not much, but I'll be in your care from now on. Thank you very much."
Nighthawk placed both hands on the table and bowed his head until his forehead touched the table, so the two sitting across from him, mindful of the surrounding customers, hurriedly helped him back into a sitting position.
And so, Orca, Alpaca, and Nighthawk began their life under one roof.

After the exchange at Saizeriya, now in December, Nighthawk seemed to have completely settled into the 2DK apartment.
When moving, Nighthawk packed his minimal belongings—a few clothes, underwear, a laptop, and a smartphone—into a backpack and said, "This is all my luggage," to which Orca muttered, "That's so little luggage... You're like a Frenchman."
"Do I seem like a Frenchman? I'm from Iwate, but Tamo-san once said that the Tohoku dialect is similar to French pronunciation, so French is a good second foreign language to take. So I'm taking French, but was that what you were referring to so suddenly?" Because of this unexpected answer, Orca found the conversation troublesome and shrugged, saying, "Oui."
Nighthawk would never know that deep inside Orca's bookshelf, who couldn't throw things away, was a copy of "French Women Don't Get Fat" bought at Book-Off.
When Nighthawk entered the entrance first, he noticed a "Chatty Animal Village" keychain hanging from the zipper of his backpack and whispered, "Merci, Nighthawk," so he wouldn't hear.

On New Year's Eve, without turning on the TV or radio, the three of them busily made riddles, and whoever came up with a good one would raise their hand and they would score each other.
At that moment, Nighthawk's stomach growled cutely, and Orca and Alpaca laughed and said in sync, "Using your brain makes you hungry, doesn't it?"
"Should we eat something? Is Peyoung okay?"
"Then I'll make it."
"It's fine, I'll just pour the hot water."
When Alpaca ruffled Nighthawk's long hair and headed to the kitchen, Nighthawk just smiled weakly and said, "Thanks."

Alpaca tried to casually take out the "Goku-Gekikara Peyoung Yakisoba" from the cupboard and peel the package, but Orca, standing behind him, gave him a back-fist retort, saying, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, brother! Don't rush to your death for the sake of a joke, we don't need any gags right now."
"If you don't joke around in your daily life, you won't be able to do it when it counts, right?"
To the nonchalant Alpaca, Orca said,
"I don't think a lifestyle like Non Style's suits us. Seriously, that's a vibe killer ↓"
Orca, who hadn't quite mastered the gal slang, had his brow furrowed.
"Hey, Nighthawk. You can finish one box of normal Peyoung by yourself, right?"
"Yeah."
Nighthawk nodded slightly at Orca's voice, so he grabbed three boxes of Peyoung, peeled the packages, placed them next to the stove, and prepared to boil water in the pot.

A few minutes later, Nighthawk also shuffled out of the kotatsu and came to the kitchen where the two were. He scratched his head with a pen and muttered,
"Instant noodles, and..."
A small bubble began to form on the surface of the water in the pot.
"I'll compare it to the great fireworks that color the summer."
Nighthawk looked at them slowly.
"And the answer is?"
The two of them synced up again.
"Both have 'kayaku' (dried toppings) that change the flavor."
"Not bad. For an instant... 7 points. Because they're instant noodles! ...Wait, Alpaca, don't look at me with those dead fish eyes, that's not good," Orca said, quickly striking a Party-chan pose with both hands.
"9 points. I like that kind of thing. It's peaceful. It's comedy that isn't sarcastic and doesn't hurt anyone, it's very Nighthawk-like."
Saying that, Alpaca poured the boiling water into the three plastic boxes. The hour and minute hands of the room's clock overlapped perfectly, and the moment a click echoed in the quiet room, the sound of a bell could be heard faintly from afar.

The group looked toward the window, exchanged glances, and lifted the corners of their lips.
"Happy New Year."
"Happy New Year."
"Happy New Year. Let's hope that, like the Year of the Rabbit, we can appear on 'Love it!' this year."
They exchanged their own greetings and took turns draining the water in the sink, and the bottom of the sink, hit by the boiling water, made a loud clunking sound.
"New Year's Eve Peyoung isn't bad at all," Alpaca said deeply as he carried the cup yakisoba mixed with sauce to the kotatsu, followed by Nighthawk and Orca saying, "It is," and "Oui, Monsieur."

Looking back on this past year, Nighthawk felt strongly that it was, without exaggeration or bravado, the most blessed year he had ever spent since he was born.
The large reddish-black birthmark from the center of his forehead to his left cheek was shaped like a hawk spreading its wings.
When they first met Nighthawk, who had only been known to them through the radio, Orca had said, "Nighthawk, sorry for the weird way of saying this... What complex? Your look is incredibly cool! The birthmark, too, it's like a hawk, it's super cool!" while his eyes were wide and he was excitedly spraying saliva, and when he conveyed his feelings like that, Nighthawk felt as if all his pent-up feelings of the past 20 years had been thrown into a dust chute.
His single word had given light to Nighthawk's 20 years of darkness.

On that riverbed where the Cygnus constellation woven by the summer stars shone brightly, Nighthawk, who had been nothing more than a listener, could only thank some invisible "something" for the miracle of meeting them.
As they slurped their Peyoung, saying things like "Wait, which way is the lucky direction this year?" "No, that's for Eho-maki!" and acting like fools despite their age, Nighthawk thought about how nice it would be if he could meet his old, crybaby self and tell him, "Your future will surely be bright," as he spent time with these two who were so serious about making someone smile.

May this life, like the warm spring sunshine, continue forever and ever. I don't mind sacrificing everything for that. On the night the bells rang, Nighthawk prayed quietly to himself.
"Hey, the noodles are getting soggy, Nighthawk."

(The End)

The story of how Nighthawk met the two of them is
"Nighthawk's Light"
↓↓↓

The story of Nighthawk, the two of them, and also [redacted]
"Yakisoba with U"
↓↓↓

[Afterword]
This story is a sequel to "Nighthawk's Light," which I contributed to the joint paper "Kikoeru" (Audible) at the recent "Literature Flea Market Tokyo 35." (I later wrote on note that the title was "Nighthawk's Star," but the original title was "Nighthawk's Light.")

When I was gratefully asked to contribute, I was a little lost as to what kind of work to write.
That said, I knew that the picked-up works from the "100-Character Novel Grand Prix" would be published, and I was afraid that if I didn't harmonize with the atmosphere of the other writers, I would stand out too much, so I respectfully borrowed a little from Kenji Miyazawa's work.

The booklet "Kikoeru" was published by the Dolphin and Horse Literature Village (+ Crow was involved in proofreading and bookbinding), and since I have met the three of them, I used a very dirty trick: if characters similar to common acquaintances appeared, the other contributing authors would feel some sense of familiarity when they read my humble work.

Nighthawk, Orca, and Alpaca have completely different personalities from the original Crow, Dolphin, and Zebra. The real names that appear in the work don't even come close.
In the first place, the three of them aren't this flashy, and they don't have birthmarks like Nighthawk.

I personally like comedy, so I hope I can go to a Party-chan live show next year. I also want to go to a Michiko Shimizu live show someday.
They say that if you talk about next year, the demons will laugh, but even if I set goals for next year, I forget them immediately, so I would be happy if I could just fill my stomach with delicious food every day. Also, I want to live a long life.

If you would like to purchase the "Kikoeru" booklet, please buy it from the Literature Village website ( ⚯̫ )📖

The four short-shorts written by Zebra are incredibly interesting.
Well then, everyone, please stay warm and have a happy New Year.

Your friend forever
Arisa Yasutani

👹Wah-ha-ha-ha-ha!