The Funeral of my classmate, Sakura Yamaguchi,

Was held on a cloudy day, that didn't seem unfitting her when she was alive…

As proof of the value of her life, many persons were covered in tears during the ritual as well as last night's wake neither of which I attended. I stayed in the home the whole time.

Fortunately, the only classmate who which've forced me to attend had already left this world, and it wasn't as if neither our teacher nor her parents had the right or the obligation to request my presence, so i was allowed to stand by my own decision.

Certainly, I, a high school student without being acknowledged by anyone as such, was supposed to be attending school but because she had died in the middle of a school vocation, I was able to avoid going out in the bad weather.

Since my parents were both at work had left me an adequate lunch, I remained holed up in my room. That these actions of mine were due to the loneliness and emptiness of losing a classmate to say so would be inaccurate.

Unless I had been made to go out by that classmate of mine, I'd always been the type to spend my days off in my own room.

Within my room. I would most often be found reading books. More so than guidebooks and self-help books, I love to read novels. I would read my paperback while rolling on top of my bed resting either my head or chin on a pillow.

As hardcovers were too heavy, I preferred paperbacks.

The book, I was currently reading was something borrowed from her - the single magnum opus that have been encountered by a girl who didn't read books. It's position on the bookshelf hasn't been disturbed since I borrowed it.

Though I had planned to read and return it before she died, it was too late for that now.

Since nothing could be done about my tardiness, I made up my mind to return her book after I was done with it. As I greeted her Portrait - that would be good time to return it.

By the time I had finished reading half of book, the evening had arrived. Which using the fluorescent light that filtered through the closed curtains to see, I had learned how much time had passed from a single incoming phone call. The phone call wasn't anything special. It was from my mother.

Though I had ignored the first two calls, I realised that they were more than dinner related, so I brought the phone up to my ear. The content of the phone call were regarding the cook of rice. I confirmed the instructions with her and ended the call.

Just as I put the phone down on my desk, I was struck by a sudden realisation . It has been two days since I'd last touch the appliance. I didn't think I had avoided it consciously. Somehow or other though I wouldn't deny that there may have been some sort of significance to it - I had simply forgotten to touch my phone.

My phone that had a clamshell mechanism - I flipped it open and looked in my inbox. There wasn't a single unread message. It was only natural, completely natural. I continued by checking my sent messages. There, apart from the  call function, the most recent use of my phone could be seen. I had sent a message to her, my classmate.

A message with just one line.

I didn't know she had read it.

Though I about to leave my room for the kitchen. I once again returned to and lay face down upon my bed. The words I had sent her were being mulled over in my heart.

I didn't know if she had seem them.

"I Want To Eat Your Pancreas"

If she had read it, how would she have received the message?

While thinking about it, I fell asleep.

In the end, the rice was cooked by my mother when she returned home.

I met her in my dreams - maybe.

"I Want To Eat Your Pancreas"

We were in the archive in the School Library. While arranging the books on those dusty shelves - our duty as a Library Committee Members - Sakura Yamauchi made an old confession.

Though I was thinking of simply ignoring it, the only ones in the vicinity where her and myself. Since talking to oneself would be a little bizarre, it must have been directed at me.

It couldn't be helped - I responded to her, who was facing another bookshelf with her back to mine.

"Have you suddenly been awakened to cannibalism?"

She took a large breath and promptly choked on some dust, coughing a few times to clear her throat. Only then did she start to explain, her voice tinged with a sense of triumph.

I didn't turn to look at her." I saw it on TV yesterday - if someone in the past had a part of their body that wasn't well, they would eat the corresponding part of another animal."

"What about it?"

"Eat Liver if your Liver is unwell, eat stomach if your stomach is unwell - it seems they believed that doing so would cure their illness. That's why I want to eat your Pancreas."

"Could it be that 'your' you mentioned is referring to me?"

"Who else could it be?" She giggled without looking my way, seemingly engaged in her work. I could hear the slam and the rustle of hardcover books being arranged.

"My little organ could never bear to the burden of something like saving you."

"Seems like the pressure's starting to make your stomach hurt, huh."

"That's why you should find someone else."

"Then who should I find? Even someone like me wouldn't consider eating my family."

She giggled again. As for me, since I would've liked for her to take her work seriously too.

"In considered the possibility that I too need a pancreas?"

"But it's not like you even know the function of a pancreas."

"I do."

I knew it - that seldom - mentioned organ. I'd read up on it before. Naturally, she jumped at the opportunity. I heard her breathing and her footsteps behind me, and knew that she had excitedly turn around. Staying angled to the bookshelf, I took just a momentary glance. Behind me was a sweaty girl, flashing a smile that no one would've expected from the terminally ill.

Even though we were in the era of global warming and it was already July, someone had neglected to switch on the Air-Conditioner: I was sweaty too.

"Could it be possible that you've read up on it?"

Her voice echoed a little, and I, who didn't have a choice, answered her question." The pancreas aids in digestion and energy production. For example, it creates the insulin that's used to turn sugar into energy. Without the pancreas, people would be unable to obtain energy and die. That's why I can't let you feast on my pancreas. Sorry."

Having said everything I wanted to say, I returned to my task. She was roaring with laughter. Receiving my jokes like that had become a little specially of hers, though this felt a little different.

"Who would've though - Secret-Knowing-Classmate-kun has really taken an interest in me, huh."

"...Well, there's no exhausting the interest in classmates that suffer from serious illness."

"I don't mean it that way. What about me as a person?"

"...Who knows."

"What's up with that!"

She burst out into laughter once again. The adrenaline from the heat must have made her weird in the head. I was worried about my classmate's condition.

We quietly continued our work, until the teacher in charge of the library came calling for us.

Somehow or other, it seemed like the time for the library to close had arrived. We marked our progress in sorting by pulling a book slightly out of line, after which we checked for forgotten items and left the archive. Leaving behind the sweltering heat of archive, our sweat-soaked bodies shivered as we were reacquainted with the cool library air.

"It's cold!"

She cheerfully spun around, entered the library reception counter, and wiped the sweat off her face with a towel conjured from her bag. I followed vaguely in her footsteps and began drying my own drenched body.

"Good work. We're already closed, so take your time. Here, have some tea and snacks."

"Woah, Thank You."

"Thank You."

After taking a sip of the barley tea that Sensei had brough out, I took another look at the library. It was true - there wasn't a single student left.

"The steamed bun's delicious!"

The girl who pointed out every single positive thing was relaxing on the chair that was a little distance away from her and sat down too.

"Sorry for getting you two to help out, even though tests begin nest week."

"Don't worry about it, it's okay. We're the kind that always get pretty average scores. Right? Secret-Knowing-Classmate-kun."

"Well, if we listen during the class, I guess so."

I made an appropriate response and took a bite of the steamed bun.

It was delicious.

"Have the both of you begun thinking about university?

What about you, Yamauchi-san?"

"I haven't really though about it - I mean, there's still time."

"What about you, Adult-Like-Student-kun?"

"I haven't though about it either."

"That's no good - you've god to think about it properly, Secret-Knowing-Classmate-kun!"

She held out her second steamed bun in her hands while making that unnecessary comment. I ignored her and took another sip of my barley tea. That taste of the familiar, widely-available barley tea was delicious.

"So the both of you haven't really though about the future, eh?

If you continue being lazy, you'll be the same age as me before you know it."

"Ahaha, there's no way that's going to happen!"

While the two of them laughed merrily, I kept a straight face. I munched on my steamed bun and drank my barley tea.

It was as she said. There was no that would happen.

It was impossible for her to become the same age as our teacher, who was in her forties. In this place, it was something only the girl and I knew, which was why she had winked at me and laughed. It was as though she were one of those actors from American films that winked when they told a joke.

But just to be clear, the reason I didn't laugh wasn't because of how ill-conceived her joke was. It was because of that proud face she made whenever she though she had said something interesting - it was borderline mental. Annoyed that I remained expressionless, she frowned at me. Having seen that, the edges of my lips finally curved up slightly. After staying in the library for abut an extra half an hour, we began to head home.

When we got to the shoe lockers, it was already 6 PM. Despite this, we could still hear the ruckus made by sports club members as they gave their all under the equally relentless sun.

"Wasn't the archive hot?"

"Yeah."

"We still have to do this again tomorrow, huh. But at least tomorrow's the last school day of the week."

"Yeah."

"...Are you listening?"

"I am."

I swapped my indoor shoes for my lockers and left through the hatch aligned with the lockers. the school gate was in the opposite direction from the sports field, so the voices of the baseball and rugby clubs slowly dwindled as I walked. With heavy footsteps, she caught up and positioned herself next to me.

"Haven't you learned to listen properly when others are speaking?"

"I have - that's why I'm listening properly right now."

"Then, what was I talking about? "...Steamed buns."

"So you weren't listening! Lying is a no-no!"

She chided me like a kindergarten teacher. She - who was tall for a girl - and I - who was short for a boy - were almost at the same height. Truth be told, it was quite refreshing to be admonished by someone while having to look down slightly to face them.

"Sorry, sorry - I was thinking about something."

"Hm? Thinking about what?"

Her frown dissolved instantly, as though she had never been upset in the first place. She peeked at me with curiosity written all over her face. After putting a little distance between us. I nodded slightly.

"Yeah, I've always been thinking about it, very seriously."

"Oh! What's wrong?"

"It's about you."

I didn't stop and I didn't look at her direction - I was careful to make it a very ordinary conversation, without any sort of dramatic atmosphere. Because that would make things serious and troublesome.

Cutting past the words I had planned to say nest, she - as expected - responded in a troublesome manner.

"Me? Huh, what, a love confession?! I'll get nervous!"

"...It's not that. Hey."

"Yeah?"

"Is it really fine to spend the little reaming time you have to live on something like tidying up the library?" Having heard my very casual question, she tilted her head to the side.

"It's definitely fine."

"I don't think so."

"Really? Then, what else should I be doing?"

"Well, don't you want to do something like finding your first love, or taking a beach hike overseas and deciding where you want to spend your last moments?"

This time, she tilted her head to the other side.

"Hmm, it's not like I don't understand what you are trying to say. For example, even Secret-Knowing-Classmate-kun has thing he wants to do before he dies, right?"

"...I wouldn't say I don't, I guess."

"But right now, you aren't doing those things, even though both you and I could die tomorrow. It's with this understanding that both of you and I carry on as we do, surely. The value of each and every day is the same - no matter what I did, to me, the value of today won't change. I had fun today, you know."

"...I see."

Maybe it really was as she said. I was frustrated by her declaration, but at the same time, I understood it.

Even I - like her in the near future - would certainly die someday. Even though I couldn't tell wen my time would come, it was inevitable future. Perhaps I would even die before her.

As expected, the words of people who were aware of their own demise had a curtain depth to them. The views of the girl beside me stirred me up a little inside. Of course, what I thought didn't matter to her. Surely there were many people that liked her, so it was natural that she didn't have the time to be interested in someone like me. As proof of that fact, boys wearing the soccer club uniform were running from the direction of the school gate, and they were all looking at her walking.

She recognised one one the boys running over, and she waved her hand at him.

"Do your best!"

"Thanks, Sakura!"

The soccer boys made refreshing smiles as they pass by us. IF i recalled correctly, he should have been a classmate of mine, but he didn't give me a single look.

"He ignore Secret-Knowing-Classmate-kun. He better watch out tomorrow!"

"It's fine, and you should stop. Because I don't mind."

I really didn't mind. She and I were polar opposites, so it couldn't be helped that we would be treated differently by our classmate.

"Gah, that's precisely why you can't make any friends!"

"I know it's the truth, but you're too concerned about it."

"Argh, that's precisely why!"

In the midst of our conversation, we had reached the school gate, Our houses were in opposite directions from here on, so this was where I parted ways with her. What a real pity.

"Bye."

"Hey, about what we talked about earlier. "I, who was turning away without any hesitation, was stopped by her words.

She made a cheerful face, as though she had suddenly thought of something. I realised that I've never really expressed my sort of cheerfulness on my face.

"If I had to choose, I'd use the little remaining time of my life to help Secret-Knowing-Classmate-kun."

"What do you mean?"

"Are you free on Sunday.?"

"Ah, sorry, I have a date with my cute girlfriend. She'll be hysterical if I leave her alone, so I can't."

"That's lie, right?

"And if it is?"

"Okay, so we'll meet at 11 AM in front of the station!

I'll bring along the 'Disease Coexistence journal' too!"

Having said that, without at all having asked for my acknowledgements she waved at her hand while walking in the opposite direction from my home.

The summer sky behind her was still orange and pink, and tinged most slightly with an ultramarine finish, it showered us with its fading glow.

Without returning the gesture, I once again turned my back to her and began to head home.

In the absence of her blusterous laughter, I continued to walk that familiar path home as the warm hues of the dying day made way for the evening blue. Surely, my view of the road home was different from hers.

I'd most probably continue walking on this road until I graduated. How many more times would she get walk on the same road?

But it was true - just as she said, even I wouldn't know how many more times I would get to walk on this road. As such, the roads we walked weren't so different.

I brought my finger to the side of my neck and made certain that I was alive. Taking each step to the beat of my heart, my mood was ruined as I felt my transient life tremble against my will.

The evening breeze blew against me, Distracting me from my thoughts.

Just a little, I started to look forward to out outing on Sunday.

End Of The Chapter 1 - "I Want To Eat Your Pancreas"

It all began in April, When the late-blooming Sakura were still in bloom.

Medical science was advancing towards an unknown frontier. But I didn't know any details about it, and I wasn't interested in finding out more either.

All I could say was that at the very least, to medical science, it was progress to give an everyday life to a girl trapped in abnormality - a terminal condition that interfered with her life and would end it within a year. Which is to say, humans had gained the ability to extend their human lifespans.

I thought that it was machine-like to be able to move despite suffering from such an illness, but something like own impressions didn't matter to someone who was actually afflicted with the sickness.

Regardless of my unnecessary thoughts, she had been once more fully enjoying the benefits of medical science. That was why it couldn't be blamed on anything else but her had luck and the sudden turn of events that caused me, who should have only been a classmate, to find out about her illness.

That day, I had taken a break from school. It was because of my appendectomy - not the surgery itself, but the removal of the stiches. My frequent visits to the hospital for follow-up treatment were coming to an end I was supposed large hospital had sapped me of any remaining enthusiasm for learning, and I remained loitering in the hospital's lobby. It was a trivial feeling. In the corner of the lobby, sitting on a lonely sofa, was a book that had been left behind. I wondered by whom it had been abandoned, as well of its content. My curiosity sparked by a love of books took control, and I began to walk over.

Navigating through the spaces between patients, I arrived at the other end of the lobby and sat myself down on the sofa. Judging by its appearance, the book was an approximately 300-pages thick paperback. Its secrets were guarded closely by a dust jacket from the bookshop near the hospital.

When I removed the dust jacket to check the title, I was met with a little surprise. Beneath it was not the original cover that should have been wrapped around the book inscribed upon it instead were the words 'Disease Coexistence Journal' handwritten with a thick magic marker. Of course, I'd never heard of the title or the publisher. I wondered just what it could be, but since I couldn't think of a suitable answer no matter how much I thought about it, I flipped to the first page.

The words I saw on the very first page were not printed in a typeface that I was accustomed to. They had instead been carefully handwritten with a ballpoint pen - which meant that this article had been written by a person.

"23rd November 20XX

My everyday thoughts and activity in Japan - I plan on writing them down in this disease coexistence journal. No one other than my family knows about it, but I am going to die in few years. Having accepted this fact, I am writing for the sake of living with my illness. To start things off, pancreatic diseases like what I've been diagnosed with a little earlier are the kings of sudden deaths. Even today, my symptoms have been mostly unnoticeable..."

"Pancreas... Die... "

Without thinking, words that weren't uttered on a daily basis spilt out of my mouth.

I see, evidently, it seemed like this belong to someone whose lifespan had been determined - a disease confrontation dairy, no, a disease coexistence diary. It wasn't really something that I should have looked at.

Having come to that realisation, I closed the book. Still seated down, I heard a voice from above my head.

"Erm..."

I lifted my head in response to the voice, my shock not showing on my face. To my surprise, I recognised the face of the voice's owner. I kept my emotions hidden, assuming that she had approached me for something unrelated to the book.

With that said, even someone like me may have been in denial of the possibility that my classmate was shouldering the fate of having her life cut short.

Having been approached by a classmate, I put on an attentive look, quietly anticipating her reply. She extended an arm to me, looking as though she were snickering at my response.

"That belongs to me. Plain-Looking-Classmate-kun,

Why did you come to the hospital?"

Incidentally, I didn't know anything about my classmate except that she possessed a bright perkiness that was the antithesis to my usual silence. Which was why I was taken aback that she could flash a brave smile in this situation, where in a mere acquaintance like me had found out that she was suffering from a major illness.

Even so, I decided that I would pretend I didn't know about anything to the best of my ability. I believed that for both her and me, that would have been the best choice.

"I had an appendectomy a while back, but I still have to go for treatment."

"Ah, I see. I had a check-up for my pancreas.

Otherwise I'll die." Why would she say something like that? In no time at all, without noticing, she had crushed my consideration into piece.

I observed her expressions, trying to no avail to read her true intentions. Her smile deepened as she sat down beside me.

"Are you surprised? You read it, didn't you? The 'Disease Coexistence Journal.'"

Seemingly unbothered, the girl talked as though she were recommending a novel to me. Which was why I even thought that I, an acquaintance, had fallen for it.

See, I've exposed the bluff.

"i was surprised. I thought that I'd lost it, so I came here searching for it in a huge panic, but it turns out that it was just with Plain-Looking-Classmate-kun."

"...What does it mean? This."

"What does this mean? That's my 'Disease Coexistence Journal'. Haven't you read it? It's like a diary that I've been writing since I found out about my pancreatic disease"

"...You're joking, right?"

Even though she was inside a hospital, without any hesitation she roared with laughter.

"Just how tasteless of a person do you think I am? I wouldn't make that kind of dark joke, you know? Everything that's written down is true - i can't use my pancreas and I'm going to die soon, yup"

- BE CONTINUED TOMORROW -