Buying You on the Day You Were to Die, page 14
My father smiled cheerfully. That joy must have been real.
“What’s up? I’m impressed you found me here. Did you come to see your old man?”
“Hey, dad?”
The word ‘dad’ made me think only of Nishikawa’s father. He was a tender, kind man. I’d never seen him raise his voice at anyone. I knew it was stupid to compare my own father to especially Nishikawa’s.
Still, I couldn’t help comparing him to the kind father I’d dreamed of since I was little.
What made someone a father?
What made someone a mother?
What made people a family?
Had we ever fit the definition of those words?
I didn’t for a second expect to receive the answer I was searching for from my father.
“Did you love mom and me?”
My father smiled. It seemed twisted to me, but I was biased.
“Of course I love you.”
I punched him.
I had tried to commit to it, but that split second of hesitation had lessened the force of my blow. My father stumbled and glared at me. I knew he was going to strike back, so I jumped on top of him instinctively. It had been years since I’d hit someone. My fist hurt. As I pummeled him, all I could think of was what a damn shame it was. He was my family. This useless piece of shit was my father. This waste of space I couldn’t help but punch, even if it would change nothing, was my old man.
And that was fine too.
This had to happen. It just had to be this way.
I could never be like Nishikawa. I could only live my own life.
When I got tired and lowered my arm, my father—not fighting back—only curled up, perhaps from the pain. From a little distance away, the woman he must have been living with was watching us.
“I’m his son,” I explained.
Her frightened expression didn’t falter.
“I won’t bother you again.” I got up. I looked down at my father as he remained on the ground.
I had wanted to ask him that for so long. I’d thought there was no point, so I didn’t. But because I would never see him again, I just had to ask, even if he wouldn’t answer.
My childhood...
My mother’s final days...
Was that love? Was that ugly feeling love?
The answer I’d craved for years came not from my father, but from Nishikawa. Now that I accepted that had not been love, my tears were my own answer.
I turned around and left the house. My father said nothing. I walked out onto the street. I didn’t even look back. I would not come here again. I would take the train, go back to my apartment, and return to where I belonged.
I would not come here again.
I had left the car by a nearby convenience store. I knocked on the passenger window, and Toyota, who had been playing with Suzuka, unlocked the door. I got in without a word.
“Look who’s crying.” Toyota smiled, half kind, half teasing. Suzuka leaned over from the back seat.
Their house was exactly halfway between my place and my dad’s. When I told him where my father was, it was Toyota who suggested I stop by. He even found us a car and came all the way with me.
“I’m not crying.”
“Uh-huh. Yeah, sure.”
Suzuka had a plastic bag in her lap. I turned to her questioningly, and she smiled. The girl had become much more talkative and laughed much more than she had four years ago.
“Here, rice balls and a sweet treat. Crying makes you hungry.”
“Thank you,” I muttered in a pathetic trembling voice as I wiped away my tears.
“Just returning the favor,” she said happily.
Toyota started the engine enthusiastically. “All right, let’s head home!”
Our car left the parking lot and entered the main road. It wasn’t just the town I was leaving behind.
I wanted to see him. I wanted him to love me. I said I hated him—that I never wanted to see him again—but deep down, I had wanted him to dote on me the entire time.
I just couldn’t let it go. I wanted to believe I was loved.
I was done with that now.
I had finally given up on it.
Nishikawa had given me that and so much more.
What Nishikawa had one-sidedly handed me was a delusion and could not become love until I recognized it for what it was.
Whether he was aware of it or not, my father had not given me love.
To me, love was the hand that my mother offered me as she clung to my abusive father.
It was love if I thought of it as such, and not love if I decided it wasn’t.
Even my one-sided act of staying with Nishikawa because I wanted to be by his side was love if he saw it as such. Of course, I had no way of asking him about it now.
Nonetheless, I didn’t think it was arrogant to decide this perception was correct.
“Right?” I said out loud before I could help it, but I received no response.
The Nishikawa residence had been inspired by western architecture, but his grave was in the standard Japanese style. Though, of course, it was crazy huge. What remained of his bones was buried beneath the stone engraved with his name, but it was clear that he wasn’t actually there. Still, I couldn’t help speaking to him.
Standing beside me, Kasumi-san smiled. I felt a twinge of pain in her expression, but I realized it had lessened. I had a sense of what was about to happen.
“I suppose I won’t be seeing you until Golden Week,” she said.
“Yeah, perhaps. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m kidding.”
Kasumi-san was all right with just about everything I did.
“It’s okay. Go wherever your heart takes you. You don’t need to go out of your way. You’ve made Kadzuki very happy already.”
I couldn’t say anything to that.
My backpack had been hanging off of my shoulder, so I put it on properly. The number of my belongings had grown so much that even ten cardboard boxes weren’t enough to contain it all, and I’d had to hire a moving company instead of using the postal service.
The other day, I received a photo from Toyota. Suzuka was posing in the uniform of the junior high school she’d be attending in the spring. Apparently, Toyota had won custody of her in the end. The silent, expressionless little girl had grown up, smiling more confidently than ever.
So much time had passed, and it had been kind to us, but at the same time, it felt so cruelly short.
I turned away from his grave and started walking.
March had come to an end.
Our five years together were over.
Only I remained alive, so only I got to move on. There was no guarantee I would return here, in a year, in ten years, in twenty years... I might go somewhere far away, or I might not even be alive then. One day, I might even fall in love with someone else.
I was letting go of his hand. It felt too early, but there was also no point in stopping now. Just like I couldn’t keep myself from smiling every now and then even though the world was a darker place without him.
I could already sense the flame losing its intensity in my heart. I doubted I could keep my love for him burning at the same temperature for the rest of my life.
But even so, just like the flames of a bonfire that had gone out, it had left its mark.
I would likely spend the rest of my life with him. My feelings might fade, but they would never disappear completely.
He’d given me something I could call love.
Right now, I just... No, I was certain I would always miss him.
That was my proof. I would always carry this indestructible sandcastle in my hands.
Afterword
Touka Shikisai no Saika was supposed to be the last thing I wrote with the aim of becoming a writer. I intended to quit after that. I couldn’t stop writing entirely after doing it for ten years, but I wanted to write with the hopes of becoming a writer in mind one last time.
That novel went through the second, third, and final rounds of selection, which I had always been unable to pass, and won an award, becoming this book, Buying You on the Day You Were to Die.
I still have a lot to learn, but I’ve made it this far, so I intend to keep going.
My protagonist, Sakata, repeats the same question over and over again like he’s delirious.
What is love?
The answer Sakata comes up with in the end will not be true for everyone. It is the right answer for Sakata, and he decided Nishikawa was right, despite going about things the wrong way, and these are their truths.
I don’t have my own answer yet. I hope to ponder it in the course of the life I’ve been given—a kind and peaceful form that I can cherish and keep deep within my heart forever.
Please join me in searching for your own answer.
This book was awarded the Selection Committee Encouragement Award at the 29th Dengeki Novel Prize.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone involved in its selection and publication.
I would like to thank the editorial team who chose this work and everyone involved in the selection process, the selection committee members who critiqued it, Enjin Miyamaru who brought Sakata and Nishikawa to life with their beautiful art, and my editor Y-san, who worked so hard to ensure that this novel reaches you in the best possible form.
My friend A, who taught me how to write novels, everyone in my high school literature club who read the first stories I was brave enough to show people, my advisor, my coworkers who congratulated me, and my family for always laughing with me.
Above all, to those of you who read this book, thank you so much.
I hope to see you again.
Narito Shiki
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Copyright
Buying You on the Day You Were to Die
by Shiki Narito
Translated by Aleksandra Jankowska
Edited by Carly Smith
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 Shiki Narito
Illustration: Yamimaru Enjin
First published in Japan in 2023 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo
English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.
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The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Ebook edition 1.0: December 2025
Shiki Narito, Buying You on the Day You Were to Die
