1 1. An Illusion

I walked home alone again. I wanted to buy many snacks and books to kill my loneliness. I decided to go to a supermarket before going home, to the electronics section to buy a small radio, but, "I have a radio at home and it is an energy saving type." I put off my intention for a radio and filled my shopping basket with snacks and some instant noodles, instead.

I walked home with two plastic bags full of food and snacks, opened the gate that was almost freezing due to the weather that dropped drastically. December was yet to come, but the weather had changed. Snow had fallen once, but the rains that bore grains of ice had fallen quite often. I guessed this desert would soon turn green.

"That kid has gone home?" Mickey had waited for me by the door. I unlocked the door and both of us went in together.

"Gosh, can you stop calling him kid?! He is just—" I could not find the right words to describe Shashin. "Forget it!" I turned on the stove and boiled some water for my instant noodles.

Mickey seemed to agree with me. He kept silent for a moment and then watched me. "Will you visit Summer again tomorrow?" He finally asked me after a while.

"Just a short visit. I don't like to see her being left alone." After thinking it through, I really thought it was normal if Winnter was so angry with her. That girl had never told me what really happened. She hid the facts that her sister had killed their mother. Perhaps that made her really hate her twin sister, her greediness. That was why she finally decided to support her father's plans. Her patience had come to an end.

"Winnter is really a strong person, isn't she?" I said as I blew my shimmering noodle soup once in a while. "If only I had such a sister like her, I would really listen to her words." I wished my sister would be like her, but it was impossible.

"If Summer knew that Winnter would give up her eyes for her, I could not imagine how she would be." Summer never realized the valuable things she had, and she would know it when her sister left her.

"Mike, can I ask you?" Mickey tilted his head up, distracted his focus from his food to my direction completely. "Are there anyone who are not tied up with time?" He kept silent for a moment.

"Would you believe me if I say there are?" His words sounded ambiguous.

I got confused, and unable to comprehend it. "What does it mean?"

"Death is for those who are alive, but not for those who are not tied up with time. You got me?" I tried to comprehend Mickey's words. And to be honest, I could not. "If I say there are people who are alive but they are not tied up with time, will you believe me?" He asked again.

"They will eventually die." I was so sure.

Mickey tilted his head to the side. "Or he won't die?" He proposed it.

I guess what Mickey said was correct, too. "Because he is not tied up with time?"

I had heard this issue from a pair of Camellia that death was for those who were alive and were tied up with time. I was thinking that someone who was alive but was not engaged with time, it was possible that he would not not experience death. The question was if there were anyone meeting such criteria. Even thinking about it was quite annoying for me because it was beyond my knowledge.

"I think there is no one like that," I said to Mickey. "All living humans will die. And if there is anyone with such conditions, I am sure he is not human." I was very confident with my assumption.

"All humans as I know are tied up with time. They grow up from babies, toddlers, children, growns up until they eventually get older. that is how it works. I have never heard there was someone free from time. If he is not tied up with time, it means he doesn't grow, and that's not human," I added.

I took a moment to think it through. If there was such a human whose form did not change at all, it meant he never lived or, "my head is in pain," I complained, giving up with Mickey's theory.

I walked to the sink and washed all my cooking equipment I just used for cooking, while Mickey was sitting quietly on the table. I had told him the possibility that it might not be a human, or even that he might never exist, or else? I could not comprehend it. This puzzle had driven me crazy. That day had exhausted me, I wished I could get myself submerged in the bathtub with warm water and after that would have some sleep. The following day my work was waiting again.

...

It was six sharp in the morning. I was about to go to work when I saw someone standing at the front gate of my house. It was just really a glimpse when he suddenly disappeared. He was tall and was wearing a thick black fur coat. I felt that I had seen that person sometime back but it was really weak that I kind of forgot when exactly I had seen him. Driven by my strong curiosity, I rushed out of my house quickly to see who that man was. He might be still around.

But when I was out of the gate of my house to make sure that it was not my hallucination, to my surprise I saw no one. Emptiness. The street outside my house was empty, no signs of other people but me. It was too early for anyone to start the activities for the day.

I tried to stay positive that he might be someone who walked very fast. I glanced at my watch, took my bike, then paddled it. I had to reach the school before it was late. Trying to put positive things in my mind so that negative ones could be sided, like the wage I received from Azalea and my plan to go to Darkmoon to buy my favourite tea, and of course other things such as to keep saving for buying that thing.

"It turns out that having money leads the happiness, too." I ranted, laughed while pedaling my bike.

I still had a bunch of things to do today, such as asking Summer who had sent her to do such things. Sometimes it was hard to believe that my sacrifice of sleeping deprived for almost two months due to coming back and forth to Azalea's place and my once having a meal in a day was merely caused by that crap guy, Summer's boyfriend who had a love affair. 'Why are human beings so selfish and greedy? Can't they just think a bit about the impacts of what they are doing?!' I was still human but I really didn't know how their mind worked.

"Tha?." someone tapped my shoulder and turned around to see who that person was. He was a senior teacher but I didn't know him, not even his name because he taught the classes of final grades. I guessed.

"Can you see things other normal people can't?" That sudden question really shocked me. I didn't know what to say. So far I had always been very careful with this matter. It was not my style to bring together two different problems into one.

"I'm sorry, I can't. I'm not an indigo or such," I replied to him with the necessary politeness. "It seems that you are wrong." I smiled although I knew it didn't touch my eyes.

He looked disappointed with my reply. It was not my problem though. I left that place as soon as possible before I could really get into more trouble. Of course I asked his permission to leave him. It was kind of hard to believe how come this issue was known by my workmates. I felt that I was quite careful enough but I wondered how someone was still able to know this. It was possible some others might be aware too. There might be others, too.

I was walking through the halls of the fourth floor when I felt someone was watching me. I ran my eyes around and I saw a man was looking right on me. He smiled oddly, and stood in the middle of the school yard where I believed the temperature was reaching ten degrees. I didn't understand the meaning of his smiling like that.

I ran my eyes to other directions, but saw no one around me. The hall was really quiet. I looked down again and still found him down there and was smiling at me. Suddenly fear caught me. I pushed my legs to walk faster, leaving that man, rushing to my class and trying to forget the smile of him.

'Ufff I can't concentrate,' I complained in silence. I kept making mistakes in doing my work. That odd smile lingered in my mind and my head I could not easily forget. I looked out of the window several times so that I could get rid of him. But it didn't work well. 'I guess I have ever seen that smile' Yes, I was sure about that but again I could not precisely point out when and where it was.

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