TFOA Chapter 9

To get home, she had to cross a stone bridge over the stream.

After saying goodbye to Gilbert in front of the stream, Niksi didn't go straight home but crouched by the stream to observe freshwater crayfish in the ditch.

It was when she'd picked out one crayfish that she realized the rising water had made the stone bridge impassable.

She'd even given it the name 'Nelson,' planning to raise it until it became a lobster.

Looking quietly at the muddy water rippling by, she set off with Nelson toward the bridge upstream in the fields.

Nelson was petty. Less than ten minutes into their journey, he just died.

Niksi sadly shook the crayfish's limp claw as she walked.

'Should I bury him?'

Burying a dead comrade on a rainy day was foolish.

Not because of respect for the dead comrade, but because even if you buried them, the soil would wash away quickly and the comrade would peek out again.

So Niksi decided to float the crayfish down the water. Though she didn't want to.

She could see the stone bridge in the distance.

'Huh...?'

Niksi wiped her eyes to clear her rain-blurred vision.

If she wasn't mistaken, the person sitting on that stone bridge was probably—

"Painter?"

Benjamin looked at his noisy neighbor who suddenly thrust an umbrella at him.

She was soaking wet, as if she'd been swimming somewhere, holding a dead crayfish.

He slowly blinked, feeling the drowsy haze of the sleeping pills he'd just taken.

"What are you doing here?"

Benjamin quietly looked at Niksi. It had been five days since they'd run into each other.

'How could telling her not to talk to me last less than a week?'

He refused the umbrella. He was already soaked through anyway, and he'd been about to head home.

"You'll catch a cold if you stay out."

"You should worry about yourself first."

"Me? I'm sturdy, so I'm fine. But you took medicine, didn't you?"

Benjamin didn't answer.

This noisy woman acted like she was missing a screw but had sharp eyes in strange places.

Niksi grabbed some ivy clinging to the stone bridge.

She tightly wound the moderately long plant stem around a small stone and the crayfish's body together.

Benjamin wondered what she was doing and briefly watched Niksi, but quickly looked away. This strange woman doing strange things wasn't a new occurrence.

Niksi, who had stuck a clover flower in the crayfish's claw, floated the fallen warrior down the water.

"Now it won't be a lonely funeral."

"You have a hobby of holding funerals for animal corpses too."

"I don't like it. I'm doing it out of duty as someone who was its owner for ten minutes."

What are you talking about? Benjamin thought.

Niksi sat down next to the railing where Benjamin was leaning.

He hoped she would pass by quickly, but seeing her plant her bottom down firmly, he realized she wouldn't leave easily.

Unaware of Benjamin's wish, Niksi was giving him what she considered great care and attention.

To her, he looked like a depressed capybara.

A capybara that lives by water and, when it meets predators like jaguars or hyenas, rather than being torn apart, jumps into the water and commits suicide.

So when she encountered him on the bridge, she thought 'Finally, what I expected has come!'

"I hope Nelson is the only one having a funeral today."

It was a river with water deep enough to reach one's knees, but they say when someone is determined to die, they can drown by sticking their nose in a washbasin. This man who looked ready to die every day might drown even if only his nose got submerged.

Benjamin let out a hollow laugh at Niksi's muttering.

"I was just watching the rain."

"What good does watching that do?"

To Niksi, rain was nothing more or less than water vapor condensation.

"I like the feeling of being rained on."

"I see."

'What an unusual taste.'

Niksi pulled away the damp hair stuck to her face.

'Come to think of it...'

"I think this is the first time I've heard you say you like something."

He was a painter who only showed that he disliked everything. Especially disliked her chattering the most.

When they first met, she'd gone through the usual process of asking about likes to become friends with him, but got no results.

She'd wondered if he was a five-year-old brat who only disliked things.

"Don't you like anything else?"

As expected, Benjamin looked at her as if asking why she was asking that.

Well, the reason for asking that was...

"Actually, I don't really know what 'liking' is."

"......"

"The emotion of liking, I mean. I thought if you don't dislike something, then you like it, but they say that's not right either."

The drizzle settled down.

The raindrops weren't thick, but their already wet clothes grew heavier and heavier.

"They also say it's something you can't live without. Then do I like air? That seems kind of weird."

"Think about that yourself."

"Don't you like anything else?"

Benjamin returned the umbrella that had been forced on him without his consent to Niksi.

Niksi, who had been quietly listening to the tap, tap sound of raindrops on the umbrella surface, folded it.

"I hate the sound of raindrops on umbrellas."

"......"

"Also the sound of cutting carrots on a cutting board. Dandelion roots too. Fireworks too. High heels too."

Her voice got smaller toward the end.

The list of 'things she hated' had no pattern.

Benjamin stood up to go home. It was about time for the sleeping pills to take effect and for him to doze off.

Niksi was still sitting on the railing, looking up at the rainy sky.

"Rainy days too. The sea too. Me too."

—Rumble!

The sky turned white for a moment, then thunder filled the space between the raindrops.

Benjamin quickly reached out and grabbed the clothes of the woman who was falling backward over the railing.

But he couldn't overcome the weight of her falling under the bridge.

He fell under the bridge with her, clutching her clothes.

—Splash!

For such a dramatic gesture, it made a modest splash sound.

'Ow...'

Niksi rubbed her ringing tailbone.

She looked at the heavy hand resting on her stomach.

A hand full of scars.

Following that hand upward, there was a man looking down at her with an annoyed expression.

"Hey, painter? Why are you here?"

"......You suddenly jumped into the stream."

"I didn't jump. I was startled by the thunder."

It really was just a moment.

Benjamin heard Niksi's faint scream amid the distant thunder.

Wondering if it was another prank, he glanced over to find she wasn't there.

Niksi was about to fall into the ditch.

He'd reflexively reached out, but the result was diving into muddy water.

Really, this annoying woman.

Benjamin buried his face in the stream water with a thud. It was because the medication was starting to take effect.

"Hey, you'll die if you sleep here. Do you want to be nibbled by crayfish?"

Niksi shook Benjamin awake as he closed his eyes.

Regardless, Benjamin was tired.

He was already drowsy from the sleeping pills, and being buried in the lukewarm spring stream water made drowsiness wash over him instead of waking him up.

It might be okay to just fall asleep like this.

Of course, it wasn't okay at all. But at that moment, he was too tired for rational thought.

Drowsily. The soft sounds of breathing before sleep.

Even with his nose buried in the shallow stream and in danger of drowning, Benjamin appeared completely unconcerned.

Afraid she might actually end up holding a funeral, Niksi struggled to roll Benjamin's body over.

With less water in his nose, his expression became as comfortable as if he were lying in bed.

Niksi let out a small sigh and muttered.

"I hate thunder too."

It made her feel like her pupils were shrinking sharply.

Thunder sounded like the first shot of artillery, signaling that bombardment would soon begin nearby.

It made her feel like an empty plastic bottle about to be crushed in the deep sea.

"Hey, Benjamin."

"......"

"I think I'm depressed right now. But I don't know why. Is it because I talked about things I hate?"

"......"

"What should I do? How do I get out of this? Hey. Say something."

The sleeping man couldn't answer.

But Niksi felt she had to spill everything right now.

If she didn't, she felt like she'd collapse any moment. Even gravity felt crushing, every bit of air pressing against her body.

Her miserable, soaked body felt like it would be squashed flat as a pancake.

Maybe because she was so hollow inside.

—Splash.

Benjamin raised his hand.

His hand covered the mouth of the woman who kept muttering.

"Just don't do anything. Like now."

"......"

His hand fell like sleep talk.

Niksi looked incredulously at the hand that had carelessly swept across her face before falling.

"......"

"......"

"......But painter. You're really hot."

"......"

You idiot! That's why I said you'd catch a cold!

Niksi picked up his body and stood.