[Hisao] 3159khz Transmission

3159khz Transmission


“So she's gone, just like that?” Kenji flops down with his back pressed against the fence of the rooftop, the red sky evening sky above finally beginning to fade to black.

Stars are starting to show themselves from behind a sparse amount of cloud coverage, the air changing to a bit more a chill. I let out a sigh and stretch my arms far up above my head, continuing to stare into space.

“Yeah. Just like that,” I respond, no real form of anger or regret showing in my tone. It's not to sound like I don't care that Lilly got on a plane and is going back to Scotland. In fact, I feel like complete shit about the entire scenario still.

I let out a huge yawn as Kenji pulls the top off of his bottle, taking in a moderate amount of alcohol with one big swig. I haven't slept well in days, and I'm finally beginning to feel it have a toll on my body. I finally give in and take a seat down beside my hall mate, leaning my head back against the fencing.

“I told you, man. A woman really can't be trusted. With as much damage as they can do in their plans to take over the world, the worst thing they can do is break your damn heart,” he rambles on, letting out a longing sigh. I've heard some... stories, I suppose you could say, about Kenji possibly having a relationship with a girl at some point. I'll be damned if I ever figure out who, but it really seems like he still feels something about that whole scenario.

I choose not to say anything, continuing my staring contest with the darkening horizon. Lilly's up there, somewhere in that sky tonight. On an airplane home to a place she doesn't belong, to a place that has no understanding of who she is or what she wants to be in life.

Maybe I'm just being cynical, selfish even. I had envisioned the two of us being together for longer than what we were, no matter the circumstance. Now, I'm sitting here with a blind kid, who I think I can finally call my friend, with a bottle of whiskey on the rooftop of our school.

“You think I did the right thing?” I ask out loud, more of a rhetorical question for myself than for something that I want him to answer. I don't think there was a 'thing' that I really did in this situation however. In fact, that's what I did to try and solve the problem.

Nothing. I sat back, said my goodbyes and did nothing.

I also felt nothing. Is that really possible? Feeling nothing is almost like an empty feeling, and yet I can't say that I feel angry or upset about the situation. In fact, I'd say that this feeling of nothingness is just exactly what it is.

My parents used to tell me that the right one for me would come along someday. I feel nothing because, I guess that she was the right one. I think this whole situation has had more of a negative physical toll rather than emotional.

“The fuck do you think I am, some kind of prophet? I can't tell you if what you did was right or wrong, man. That's up for you to decide,” Kenji replies, sounding awfully tame compared to what I was originally expecting from this discussion. He sets the alcohol bottle on my lap, leaving an open invitation for me to drown myself with the sorrows of whiskey.

But I don't feel sorrow. I don't feel regret, or anything. With that, I decide to just leave the bottle there, opting to do nothing with it.

Nothing at all.

Is this depression? It's an empty feeling inside. It's not good or bad, happy or sad... it's just nothing. Thinking of all of this, I almost sound like I'm depressed.

But how can I be depressed if I haven't had any major negative reactions to her leaving? I initially thought I would be more upset than Hanako was when the day finally came for Lilly to take her leave. I was completely wrong in the end, as there were no tears or even attempts to make her change her mind.

I just let her go, like a dandelion in the wind.

All of those memories of the trip up to the summer house, the trips to the city, the afternoons in the tea room... none of them are necessarily gone. Thinking back on them actually makes me feel happy, but not overly so. I don't feel bittersweet about them, wishing that they would come back and happen all over again. More that I just take them as they were: positive memories from my days at a school for disabled kids.

Now there's something. I suddenly feel a bit of sadness, looking back to my days before Yamaku.

“I miss how things were before I came here,” I calmly state, closing my eyes and thinking back to the days I spent playing soccer with friends or spending some time at the arcade downtown. I remember this feeling when I first arrived here, not having any friends or knowing what I wanted to do with myself.

Now I miss home. As boring or repetitive, maybe even meaningless as it had once felt to me, it now feels like where I wish I was.

“Man, the fuck are you going on about now? You've got so much going for you here with friends and all of that shit, and now you wish you could go back home? That makes even me feel bad, dude,” he replies with a tad bit of hurtfulness in his tone.

To me, what he said really doesn't mean anything though. I get that this is just a momentary phase, but I just wish I could go home and see everyone again. They left me while I was in the hospital, but I mean... who wouldn't? I understand it's supposed to be a friendship thing, that we're all supposed to be together until the end. But, in that sense, life moves on with or without preparation for what's going to lie ahead.

I never tried to get closer than what I was with any of my friends. That's a big time regret, because it cost me in the long run. I didn't move forward at a quick enough pace.

Now I'm caught in the dust and still losing position in the race. I lost my friends because of a heart attack, I lost my girlfriend because of my own selfishness and lack of preparation. It might sound silly, but maybe that's what it is; I don't feel anything at all because it's not how I feel about situations. Moreover, it's how I feel about myself.

Right now, I absolutely hate myself. If I could kick myself in the ass for every time I'm done something stupid in this whole learning process while growing up, I would have enough bruises to cover the entire thing.

Silence still remains between the two of us as he takes another swig from the bottle.

Maybe normalcy is what I want in life. I want to be normal, even if there is no such thing; I just want to be your average kid who doesn't have to jump through hoops just to live his life. I just want to be along for the ride, not be the conductor of the train.

My thoughts are quickly interrupted as Kenji clears his throat.

“Let me tell you something, Hisao. I may sound like a fucking idiot sometimes to you, even if I'm not at all, but sometimes it's all fun and games. I do my thing because it keeps me from falling back into some depressed moron that I used to be. Maybe my way isn't a good way of doing it, but I'll be damned if it isn't fucking awesome,” he pauses for a moment, seemingly gathering his thoughts.

“Let me tell you what my father told me, literally the greatest advice to exist on this god-forsaken planet: he told me 'son, there's gonna be some times where you feel like shit. You're gonna wish you were dead or something crazy like that, and you're going to wish you could go back to the days when you were younger. But, to move forward, sometimes you gotta go back and reflect on your own mistakes and bullshit that has come from it. Once you come to terms that you're better off from in at least one single way, you'll feel like the better person from it.' So take that for what it is, but shit man, don't get depressed over some fucking whore and what you used to be. That shit makes you better each and every day, even if you don't feel it at first.”

I'm lost for a moment in the silence. Looking up into the crimson shades that are slowly fading in the distance, it feels like I've come back to the present.

I finally feel it. It's not nothing anymore, just something. It's something positive, maybe not necessarily happy or life changing, but just... something. It makes me feel a bit more whole as a person, as if I just had a minor realization.

I think I know what it is now.

Everything that has happened in the past is just a learning experience. Painful, exciting, saddening or infuriating... everything teaches a lesson. Maybe Lilly and I just weren't meant to be, rather our relationship was just preparing us for something better in our futures, even if that means we were never meant to be together for the rest of our lives.

I may miss my friends back home, I may miss that old lifestyle that I used to have. Yet I can't get down on something that's already happened and is in the past. Relationships, friendships, just in general moving forward, are going to come and go.

I know there's someone out there in the future. It could be 20 years down the line, or it could be in two weeks.

The important thing is that I need to be myself and not worry about the repercussions. I just need to feel like me, and nothing else.

I stand up from my seat, a small grin forming across my face. From behind me, Kenji speaks up.

“You leaving already?” I turn around and look at him, finally taking my eyes away from the horizon and coming back to reality.

“Yeah. You should come with though. Let's round the guys up and take a trip this weekend, I'm feeling adventurous.

He pops up to his feet with a big grin on his face, giving me a big smack on the back while holding his bottle in his off hand.

“That's my boy!”

I take a step towards the stairs leading down from the roof, feeling rejuvenated. Some things just aren't meant to be. Yet, they happen to make every individual stronger.

I just need to be me.




3159khz Transmission is a song by Sorrow.