Under the Gray Sky: The End

Click here for the magazine 💁

Click here for the previous chapter 💁

I used to laugh normally in a place where no one else was around.

—

Only inside my secret base was I normal.

I would read manga and laugh out loud.

I stopped worrying about whether I was laughing correctly.

When I saw something funny, my mouth moved on its own.

The depths of my chest felt lighter, and a strange sound came from my throat.

I learned that this was what it meant to laugh.

Laughter that no one had ever heard echoed inside the ruined building.

Being there had become a matter of course for me.

In middle school, we were also taught about places of work.

Efficiency.

History.

A life without waste.

The Great War.

The Apathy Movement.

The resulting overthrow of the national system.

Money is evil.

Resources are evil.

Emotions are evil.

But if you get rid of them, people stop moving.

So, rules were created.

Time.

Work.

Meals.

Sleep.

Marriage.

Childbirth.

Lifespan.

The city decided everything.

I listened to this with the same expression.

Around that time, I was hooked on gag manga.

People would trip.

They would say the same thing over and over.

They would make meaningless faces.

Even though they were angry, they would be laughing on the next page.

I didn't know that useless things could be so funny.

At school, I started looking around more.

No one failed.

No one succeeded.

No one was good.

No one was bad.

Everyone wrote at the same speed, stood at the same speed, and walked at the same speed.

The classroom was correct.

That's why it was so inorganic.

In that environment, I started watching one girl closely.

When I looked at her profile, the depths of my chest felt a little strange.

Cute.

It was a word I had read in a book.

But that wasn't all I really wanted to see.

A smile.

I wanted to see her smile.

One day, I spoke to her.

“Class is over, isn't it?”

She looked at me.

“It's over.”

That was all.

Her voice and face were no different from my parents'.

I reached out my hand just a little.

I touched her hand.

My heart pounded.

My palm felt hot.

However, she didn't change at all.

Her fingers, her eyes, her mouth.

Nothing.

From the next day on, I felt like the adults' eyes had become sharper.

The teacher spent more time watching me.

People standing in the hallway started turning toward me.

Since then, I stopped doing useless things.

At least, in front of others.

In the secret base, I was still laughing.

After a while, I wanted to play an instrument.

In the manga, there were people who sang.

There were people who held guitars.

There were people who cried in front of pianos.

But there were no pianos in this city.

There were no guitars either.

I couldn't make them either.

So, I tapped on wood.

Dry boards.

Damp pillars.

Broken desks.

Empty boxes.

The sound was different depending on where I tapped.

Tap.

Click.

Thump.

Clang.

That alone was enough for me.

I felt like even sounds had faces.

After graduating from middle school, I entered society.

No one cried at the graduation ceremony.

Parents didn't come either.

There were no flowers.

There were no songs.

My name was called, I answered, and it was over.

In old manga, everyone cried.

They laughed.

They waved.

They hugged.

I stood there with the same face as everyone else, remembering that.

When I became an adult, I started living alone.

I was assigned a vacant house.

There were many vacant houses in this city.

I became one of the people entrusted with managing the city.

I just checked the numbers that appeared on the charts and carried out the decided procedures.

That person's lifespan.

That person's marriage.

The increase or decrease of children based on population ratios.

Those instructions.

Monitoring health conditions.

The amount of clouds.

Everything was decided by numbers.

In the charts, people were just numbers.

But I knew.

People have faces.

Smiling faces.

Crying faces.

Angry faces.

Embarrassed faces.

Because I knew, it was a little painful.

I didn't make a painful face.

I had become good at making a normal face.

I was not given the opportunity to marry.

I think there was no need for it.

I woke up alone, ate alone, worked alone, and slept alone.

When it got dark, it was time to sleep.

Even so, there were nights I couldn't sleep.

Eventually, my parents died.

They were sixty.

It's not unusual these days.

The room was cleaned up according to the decided procedure.

The decided documents were issued and transported to the decided place.

No one shed tears.

I didn't cry there either.

I cried alone after I got home.

Even though it was time to sleep when it got dark, I couldn't sleep that day.

It seems that in the past, people lived to be a hundred.

The current average lifespan is sixty.

What did people who lived to be a hundred see?

Who did they laugh with?

Who cried for them?

The answers were not left in any book.

That day, I had a dream.

My father and mother were laughing.

I don't remember how many years have passed.

I had started drawing pictures by trial and error.

Dried paints.

White cloth.

Torn photos.

Pages of the old city.

Little by little, little by little, I collected them.

One day, while I was reading a book in the secret base, I heard a voice from outside.

It was a child's voice.

There were two of them.

I hid in the shadow of the bookshelf.

The children came inside.

They looked like they were in the lower grades of elementary school.

The two picked up a book that had fallen on the floor.

They flipped through a manga.

They picked up a magazine.

They looked at a photo.

I held my breath.

Perhaps.

That's what I thought.

Perhaps, just like me, they might pick something up.

But the two closed the book immediately.

One said.

“There are unnecessary things here.”

The other nodded.

The two left.

The next day, a report came to me.

Unnecessary items remain deep in the mountain path.

Danger.

Unnecessary.

Subject to removal.

Demolition was decided.

I went to the secret base that night.

I couldn't take everything out.

The manga.

The magazines.

The photos.

The many faces.

I took the white cloth.

I took the dried paints.

I took only a few photos of the city.

I took only one page showing the old sky.

That was all.

On the way home, I heard the sound of the factory.

Thrum.

Thrum.

Thrum.

It was the same sound as always.

No one enters my house.

Because there is no need.

So I spread the white cloth on the wall.

The paints were mostly dry.

There were colors that wouldn't dissolve well even when I mixed water.

Even so, I painted.

On the left half, I painted the day.

A blue sky.

A cityscape illuminated by the sun.

A person playing a guitar.

Children playing in a park.

A road where cars run.

A person riding a bicycle.

A road with flowers.

On the right half, I painted the night.

The moon.

A sky with a little bit of clouds.

A cityscape with lights on.

A family gathered around a dining table.

A person laughing.

A person crying.

A person putting their hand on someone's shoulder.

I was painting a landscape I had never seen.

But I also felt like I had known it all along.

During a health checkup one year, I was told I had a few months left to live.

I pretended to be bedridden.

I didn't have time.

It was to take time off work.

I kept my meals and sleep to the bare minimum.

There were more days when I didn't sleep even when it got dark.

I felt like I understood a little bit why people in the past lit up the night.

I painted.

Painted, and painted, and painted.

When I placed the final color, I sat in front of the cloth.

Blue sky.

Sun.

Moon.

Electricity.

Flowers.

Sound.

People.

Faces.

In my city, no one beats each other up.

No one yells.

No one hates or hurts anyone.

There is no war.

In the world I painted, there are people who laugh.

There are people who cry.

I'm sure there are people who get angry.

I think there are people who dislike someone.

Even so, I painted that world.

Why?...

I think I was laughing.

I don't know what happened after that.

So, from here on, it's a story of what surely must have happened.

After I died, it seems my house was cleaned.

The desk was cleared according to the decided procedure.

The bedding was carried away.

The tableware was counted.

The records were checked.

And then, the cloth on the wall was found.

Someone stopped moving.

The next person who entered also stopped moving.

The person after that didn't say anything either.

There was a sky they didn't know.

There was a blue sky they had never seen before.

There was a bright night city.

And there were many people's faces.

No one could clean it up.

“Under the Gray Sky”
End

Previous

Thank you for reading this far 🍑

For the first time in a while, I was able to write to the end.

I'm tired.
Especially the manga... lol

I thought it would be easy if I used AI, but that wasn't the case at all.
It didn't go as I wanted, and I remade it many times.

I think people who are good at using AI are truly amazing.

And this time, after trying to make something like a manga, I realized it again.

Manga artists are amazing.

Paneling.
How to show things.
The timing of turning the page.
Where to show with pictures, and where to put words.

When I tried it, it was really difficult.

Once again, thank you for reading to the end.

I will update again when I feel motivated.

I would be happy if you would read it then.

Thank you for your support 🙇