I wish life would just pass by like panels in a manga. #CreativeAward2022

Kyusuke has decided to think of the windows of the Nyoi Line train he uses to commute as panels in a manga. He tries to maintain his peace of mind by viewing the complicated things of daily life as if they were fiction.
Yes, just so he doesn't accidentally die.

When the train is running, it feels like those panels are stretching out horizontally, flowing by.
When it stops at the station <Hoshikusayama>, the panel of the open door is suddenly interrupted, and people are drawn into the panel of the window behind the seats. There are almost no panels without people; people are placed somewhere or other. The ones who appear there are usually people who seem to be in a hurry and burdened with the constraints of society.
There are also middle school students from other schools, different from Kyusuke. They are facing forward, but at an angle of about forty-seven degrees, walking with an expression that says being young is not at all happy. But according to the middle-aged men, that is what being young is. Being young...

Now, he takes a quick look around the train, or rather, it feels like he's just shifting his gaze.
Because the gaze behind the mask remains defenseless, he feels a bit repelled.
Everyone, really, that face and that face were there yesterday, and they were there the day before yesterday, too. But that's just everyone being a smartphone parasite.

Kyusuke gets motion sickness if he uses his smartphone on the train, so he avoids it as much as possible.

That's why he doesn't greet anyone there. Not that he wants to greet them, but why is it like this?
The hustle and bustle of weekdays or the crowded trains have a desolate atmosphere where everyone is like, 'I don't know you, it has nothing to do with me.'
It's not about saying everyone should get along.

Even on this train he's used to every day, it feels like invading enemy territory, and a misanthropic air seems to enter his mouth and nose, reaching near-lethal levels in an instant. It's disgusting, or rather, he wants someone to do something about it.

But one day, the station 'Tsubasa 4-chome' was different.

When it stopped, the people on the platform were placed into the manga panel of the fully opened door.

That day, an old woman covered in so much luggage that the person carrying it was barely visible was walking. She was walking forward, hunched over, at a terrifying speed. In the blink of an eye, she disappeared from one panel.

Next to her was a father and children who looked like his daughter and son. They looked like kindergarteners. They were wearing uniforms, hats, and masks. They boarded the train.

When the girl spilled the candies from the tin she was holding onto the floor,
the father immediately crouched down and picked them up one by one, telling the girl that they couldn't be eaten anymore.

The masked child nodded deeply with a look that said she understood everything, watching her father pick up the candies.

The child who looked like the older brother patted the girl's head for a moment. Saying it would be okay, the father stood up and held his children's hands again.

As the train started to run, pictures of empty spaces were drawn there from time to time, and the clock, the station names, and the mall advertisement signs passed by as if weary.

The people in the hustle and bustle are all humans with different faces, but are they all different? What does it mean to be different? Is it appearance, or is it because of something called a soul? Wanting to know that had become Kyusuke's habit of thought recently.

The world is not far away. It is here.

Kyusuke was trying to feel these days, being a middle school student for a moment in this era, as if it were the beginning of a story. It was just a little before that ridiculous disease swept the world.

When he arrived at Jintan Junior High, the temporary homeroom teacher, Hotohara, came.

The previous homeroom teacher, Hiroko Hosohara, had developed a mental illness where she couldn't cross the door of the classroom she was in charge of even when she came to work, and her absences continued. And so, the gentle-looking Mr. Hotohara was assigned. Hotohara was called Hoto-chan as usual. He didn't have silky hair; it was mostly frizzy.
A while after Hoto-chan became the class teacher, he handed out papers to everyone.

The paper handed to Kyusuke had 'Honda Heisuke' written on it. The paper of Haruhi Michida next to him had 'Shinonome Ruka' written on it.

For a moment, he thought it was a mysterious four-character idiom.
He learned for the first time that day that 'Higashi no Kumo' is read as 'Shinonome'.
Just because we are in the same class doesn't mean we talk to everyone equally, so we are almost strangers.

When everyone was fluttering the thin papers, asking 'What is this?', Hoto-chan said calmly, 'It has the name of the person you will become for one week starting today.'

I was muttering to myself, 'Get us to do what? Is this a workshop?' when Hotohara-sensei suddenly singled me out, saying, 'Kyusuke-kun, exactly right.'

'Yes, it's something like a workshop.'

Huh? I thought, I didn't say that out loud, did I? Then Hotohara said, 'Are you surprised? Is it suspicious? Kyusuke-kun, your lips move sometimes even when you aren't speaking, don't they? Especially when you're dissatisfied. I was just looking at the shape of your lips. That's all. Sorry for surprising you.'

That's creepy, Hoto-chan. I shouted in my inner voice.

As soon as Hoto-chan revealed that, the other students started saying, 'Nine is doing it, he's doing that thing.'

It seems 'doing it' meant they were confirming to each other that my lips move without me making a sound.

As for 'Nine,' it's silly to even explain, but it came from the 'Kyu' sound in Kyusuke. I've learned over the last few years that having a harmless nickname is better than having none at all, so I let them say it. I don't bother saying, 'It's not Nine.' I just accept it gratefully.

'You all look like you're sitting there expecting to be bullied someday. Adults say things like, "Be yourself" or "Just stay as you are." It's easy for them to say. But you are the only ones who know that if you stay as you are, something terrible will happen. Let's stop that. Forget about "being yourself." Just for seven days, try to be someone else, as much as you know how. If you're Hifumi Sato, become Ten Shinoda. To become someone else, you'll have to observe someone other than yourself closely, right? It might be annoying, but give it a try. Isn't that better than wondering when you'll be bullied? Oh, and you don't have to imitate their appearance.'

Hotohara isn't exactly what you'd call a hot-blooded teacher. How should I put it? He was trying to change the classroom space into something different from what it was. It was like when you open a window to ventilate a room, and a breeze of ylang-ylang suddenly drifts in, gently stimulating your brain and making you wonder, 'What is this scent?'

If you don't like ylang-ylang, the scent of clear mint is fine too. It was certainly annoying. But the students were starting to get into it. They were in the mood to do something about their daily lives. Kyusuke also got into it and tried to become Heisuke Honda. From the very beginning of the first year, Honda was the type to exaggerate things; well, he was a natural-born liar. Or rather, that's what everyone thought.

Once, Heisuke said,
He said that snails walk on nights with a full moon.
Nobody asked, 'Where to?' but Kyusuke secretly asked in his heart, 'Where to?'
On full moon nights, they head east. On new moon nights, they head west. He didn't have a smug look on his face, nor did he act like he was sharing secret knowledge, but before they knew it, everyone was listening to Heisuke's words. Even when those around him would retort, 'Did you see it? I don't know about that,' and call him a liar, Heisuke wouldn't be shaken.
'What is a lie?' he would ask, glancing back at everyone.

'It's because they can feel the Earth's magnetic force; they have sensors like that inside their bodies.' He had a look in his eyes like he was bluffing. At that time, Kyusuke reacted the same way as everyone else. But deep down in his heart, he was a little drawn to this unflappability.

There was a time when construction noise was echoing through the classroom, with vibrations as if something had been dropped from a crane far away. In some cases, it was so loud that even the teacher's voice could be heard only from a distance.

During class, Machiya opened his mouth wide and mimicked talking to Hanayama-kun, who was sitting next to him. Hanayama-kun, who was too pure for everything, thought he had suddenly lost his hearing and started pressing on his ears or shaking his head from side to side.

Heisuke killed Machiya's childish attitude with a look of contempt and told Kyusuke, 'That sound, it happens at night too.' Then he gestured to Hanayama-kun's ear to tell him it was okay. Hanayama-kun smiled shyly.

And then he added,
The scale of the crane sounds looks silver. Tashiro's voice when he's angry is orange, and Yoda-sensei's throat-clearing is ocher. And, the new version of <Treasure Island> by my favorite band, Sakana, is purple. That chorus looks purple, he said, and smiled.

He smiled back at Kyusuke in a way that made me want to confirm, 'You just smiled at me, right?' That face was suddenly fixed in Kyusuke's field of vision. Maeda, who was sitting in front, turned around and muttered, 'Is there any such thing?' 'Can't you see those colors?' Heisuke asked back. Even after class ended, the topic kept coming up, and people would say, 'Heisuke is faking it again.' Even when he was dismissed with a 'Yeah, yeah,' he wasn't shaken. In the end, Heisuke started being called 'Fakesuke'.

Kyusuke tried to become Heisuke as much as he possibly could.

When I told Heisuke about Hoto-chan's weird workshop-like assignment and that I was going to be him, he replied, 'Yeah, give it a try,' in a way that made me wonder if he was shy or angry.
I wondered who Heisuke would become, and it turned out to be Keita Hanayama, who was said to be the clumsiest in the class.

Hanayama-kun once tripped over a small bump. Everyone in the class teased him, asking if he was a comedian. He was the class clown.
One day, I saw Hanayama-kun in the corner of the hallway doing something by himself, and it turned out he was practicing how to fall. Ever since he was teased about being a comedian, he was trying to become something like one. I wondered who that Hanayama-kun would become, and it was Kyusuke. But from the next day on, Hanayama-kun kept being absent, and to everyone's surprise, he transferred schools just like that.

It seems Hanayama-kun had been bullied at his previous school too, which is why he had transferred to this school, but he ended up transferring again.

Heisuke was playing the role of Hanayama-kun, who had disappeared. When forced to raise his hand in class, he would follow the ambiguous style Hanayama-kun used—lowering his hand to about ear level, making it unclear whether he was actually raising it or not. Before he knew it, Kyusuke found himself constantly tracking Heisuke, who was acting as Hanayama-kun, with his eyes. Even though he had never once tracked Hanayama-kun with his eyes.

Kyusuke, having become Heisuke, decided to join the track and field club for just one week. Because it was the club Heisuke had been in.
As soon as someone who looked like a senior saw Kyusuke, he said, 'I've heard about your class's situation,' and twirled his finger around his ear. I didn't know what that meant, but it felt unpleasant.
I was told to do a light jog, and since I didn't know that was just a warm-up, I kept running at a slow pace until I didn't know when I was supposed to stop. The person acting like a senior said, 'Heisuke-kun, you know, you're okay with having your butt exposed, aren't you? I thought you were a bit crazy. So, Kyusuke-kun, do you want to try having your butt exposed too?' I was thrown this mysterious phrase. I was able to understand its meaning with my body when I was running a middle distance of about 500m and noticed a strange, numbing pain from my butt to my thighs.

That pain didn't stop even when I was pedaling my bicycle on the way home from school. One of the seniors in the track club who seemed like a nice guy handed me a printout with a practice menu, saying, 'This is for Heisuke-kun.' Kyusuke decided to go to Heisuke's house.

After contacting him on LINE and making plans in front of his house, Heisuke was right in front of Kyusuke's eyes.

Because a teenage girl wearing a hood in the grove looked like she was smiling toward me, I didn't realize it was Heisuke.

Saying, 'The people at home get annoyed if we talk outside,' he let Kyusuke into the entryway.
An oval-shaped piece of frosted glass that looked like rippling water was embedded in the wall next to the shoe cabinet, and the light from the streetlamp shone onto the top of the cabinet. When I looked, something like a family photo was displayed. It was Heisuke, standing there holding both ears with his hands as if his hood was about to be blown away by the wind.
Perhaps noticing Kyusuke's gaze, he said, 'Ah, this. It's the same clothes as today, right? There used to be a lot of these, but I hated them, so I got rid of all of them. So this is all that's left. The people at home said one wouldn't hurt, so...'

The way he called his mother 'the people at home' stuck in my ears.
It was his mother who took the photo. She is currently separated and living in Helsinki, apparently.

The thought that it might not be true crossed my mind. But that didn't matter. The gaze of his mother, who had been properly looking through the viewfinder, was directed straight at Heisuke.

<Truth born from a lie>.

Because Heisuke muttered it, I asked back, 'Huh? What?' It was a title his mother had given it. 'Because I'm smiling, right? When I was faking a smile, it actually became funny.'
He answered with a gaze more distant than usual. Then, Heisuke suddenly said, as if exhaling painfully, 'It's just a rumor, but they say Hanayama-kun died. I even got a DM on Twitter about it.' In Heisuke's eyes, Kyusuke was reflected, and Kyusuke, unable to answer anything, just remained silent.

That rumor gradually spread through the class. However, it wasn't the rumor that Hanayama-kun had died, but rather the rumor that it was a fake by Heisuke that spread more.

The plan proposed by Hotaru-hara to try being someone else for a week had passed the two-and-a-half-week mark, but it was immediately canceled after receiving total backlash from the parents.

Kyusuke never became Heisuke again. But only Heisuke, for some reason, kept playing the role of Keita Hanayama-kun.

It was as if he were mourning Hanayama-kun. His appearance was exactly as if Hanayama-kun were there. Everyone in the class eventually stopped calling Heisuke 'Faisuke'.

His mannerisms were well-practiced, and it was as if he were in a second stage now, imitating even the way he took breaths when reading aloud, and even the way he would write 'in short' when it wasn't 'in short' at all.
During music class. Even the part where he would be a half-tone off during the chorus. It was as if it were becoming Heisuke's life work. He was even acting out Hanayama-kun's earnestness.

The day before Hanayama-kun disappeared, Kyusuke saw the two of them behind the gymnasium in the afternoon.
The two were wrestling. There was an atmosphere that suggested that if they were pretending to wrestle, it had turned into a real fight.
Hanayama-kun's arm was wrapped around Heisuke's back, and Heisuke's arm was wrapped around Hanayama-kun's neck. No one was there, and there was no one to stop them. But Kyusuke felt like he had seen something he shouldn't have. The foreheads of the two, breathing heavily and sweating, were shining brightly.
The moment they let go of their arms, they hugged each other tightly as if they couldn't bear to part.
Kyusuke was terrified, wondering if something had happened to his eyesight. Because Hanayama-kun looked like Heisuke, and Heisuke looked like Hanayama-kun.

At that moment, Kyusuke wished strongly: Hanayama-kun, go to hell, and me too.
When Hanayama-kun quit school, Kyusuke was surprised. He became scared, wondering if his twisted wish had come true.
The one who spread the rumor that Hanayama-kun had died was actually Kyusuke, who had wanted to die. He would regret for the rest of his life that he had blamed Heisuke. No, he would probably forget it someday. But he would become a fake man, Honda Heisuke, right? He would play the role of the liar Heisuke, right? So that's fine, he thought. So he was trying to tell himself that he had properly become 'Faisuke'.

About 10 years have passed since that day. Kyusuke had become a lowly salaryman.

That day, he saw Hanayama-kun's figure in a digital advertisement on the train.
It was the Nioi Line, which he used when commuting to school. It was no different from the scenery back then. Only, people's mouths were not covered by masks.
After that, the number of people with a phobia of taking off their masks increased. Getting used to something is
like that. I often heard voices in SNS comments saying it was better for masks to become a part of the face.
Because of that, there were colleagues who had received counseling. Perhaps Kyusuke doesn't value himself enough to want to hide.

That day, he rode the Nioi Line for new business development.
He was blankly looking up at the advertisements. As usual, he didn't look at his smartphone on the train. It was because he had become more prone to motion sickness than when he was in junior high school, and his dizziness had become severe.

<Delicious Izakaya Series Assault Report>

The person there was, by all appearances, Hanayama-kun.
He had truly become a comedian. While surprised, Kyusuke watched him with a sense of awe, feeling relieved from the bottom of his heart that Hanayama-kun was alive.
He apologized to Heisuke himself for the fact that the rumor that Hanayama-kun had died that day had been blamed on him.
"I knew that," Heisuke muttered behind the gymnasium.
The sunset was hitting the left side of Heisuke's face, making it look as if he were crying. Kyusuke dreamed for a moment that the sunset on his cheek would just burn itself into place there.

"Kyusuke, I used to like you, you know. I don't know about now, though."

He realized he had been scorned. He told him to think about the cruelty of lying that a person had died. Heisuke never said a word about correcting the fact that he had been made the villain. He was simply, intently, thinking of Hanayama-kun.

I heard that Keita Hanayama-kun later graduated from a very prestigious university.

As he looked up at the small digital advertisement in the train car, thinking, "Ah, Hanayama-kun became a comedian," the moment he focused his gaze again, Kyusuke was stunned. That wasn't Hanayama-kun; it was unmistakably Heisuke.
Heisuke had a reddish-purple bruise on his neck. Just above where he gripped the microphone, that bruise was projected on the digital advertisement screen.
Heisuke had become the comedian Hanayama-kun wanted to be, and had even perfectly copied the rest of his life.

That day, Kyusuke realized he was once again terribly jealous of Hanayama-kun.
To think I'll become an old man while still harboring this kind of jealousy—it's the worst. I wanted to get off the train right then and there.
I am no longer at an age where a forty-seven-degree slanted gaze suits me.
In the train window, where I should have been, I felt like I could only see empty panels and the scenery passing by.

Heisuke, this was the song you and I sang our hearts out to at the karaoke box for the first time.
You said you liked the lyrics about hoping we'd still be doing flower fortune-telling 1,000 years from now. Even if I'm not forgiven 1,000 years later, I'll probably still be tearing off petals.