Final Episode: But Honestly, At This Point, Isn’t This Just Too Convenient?!
I woke up, and a pure white ceiling filled my vision.
It should’ve been familiar. And yet, somehow, it wasn’t. That vague, unsettled feeling left even me confused.
Light spilling in from the window reflected faintly off the white wall.
Blinking through the haze, a high, bright voice suddenly cut through the fog.
“Hey, Mama, Mama! Great-Grandma Yotsu’s awake!”
Drawn by that energetic voice, I turn to the right.
A small girl was standing beside the bed.
Eyes sparkling, peering right at me.
Behind her, a woman’s face peeked in from the doorway.
“Oh, Grandma Yotsuka? We came to visit, but you were asleep, so we didn’t want to wake you.”
Maybe in her thirties. Somehow, a familiar face.
Something about her eyes felt like they resembled someone.
“Kana~, we’ve got your lesson, let’s get going.”
“Ehh?! Just a little longer!”
“Come on… we’ll come back again, okay?”
The woman gave a small, apologetic smile.
Even that way of smiling felt somehow familiar.
“Alright, Makina-Mama, we’ll head off. See you again soon.”
“Alright. Ene, drive safe. Oh, and tell Nona to come visit sometime too, would you?”
“Nona’s been busy with work, I think… well, I’ll pass it along.”
“Bye Baba, see you again!”
The little girl gave a bouncy little wave.
The door clicked shut quietly, and footsteps faded off down the hallway.
Toward the other voice — this time, I turn slowly to the left.
“…Makina?”
My voice comes out a little hoarse.
But that alone was enough to know, instantly.
Black hair streaked with white, deep lines etched at the corners of her eyes, a face slightly thinner than it used to be.
And yet, that smile — that one thing hadn’t changed at all.
“Morning, Yotsuka.”
“Makina…”
“What?”
“You got old.”
“Are you trying to start a fight?”
The instant reply made me burst out laughing.
“Good.”
“Good, what.”
“No, just… that’s so Makina.”
Makina let out an exasperated sigh.
“Are you still half-asleep?”
“Maybe.”
My head still felt heavy.
I think I’d been dreaming.
“I had, like, a dream.”
“What kind?”
“A really, really long dream. We were high schoolers, you know.”
“That’s quite young.”
“You were there too.”
“Well, that’s good to hear.”
“We lived together.”
“Mm.”
“Started dating.”
“Mm.”
“Got married.”
“Mm.”
Makina nodded along, with a face like she already knew every single thing.
Of course she did.
Because every bit of it had actually happened.
“So, when I woke up and saw you looking old, it kind of threw me for a loop.”
“Would you mind not being the only one who stayed young, please?”
Saying that, Makina held out the small mirror from beside the bed.
“Here. Take a look at reality.”
Looking into the mirror, there was a proper, dignified old woman staring back.
Hair streaked white, deep lines etched into the face, cheeks slightly sagging.
However you looked at it — a proper, textbook example of the “young-old” demographic bracket.
“…Ha ha.”
“What.”
“Guess I got old too, huh.”
“A little late to notice that, don’t you think?”
“But, hey, Makina, aren’t your wrinkles somehow still elegant? That’s unfair.”
“Oh, you can tell? I’ve been doing some anti-aging lately.”
“So it was all real. Every bit of it.”
I trace the wrinkles on my own cheek with a fingertip.
Real. A rough, textured feeling. Rings carved in, like tree rings, layer upon layer.
And on top of that, aches all over my body, throbbing steadily.
“Owww…”
“See, told you.”
“Ahh, yeah, this isn’t a dream.”
This is a hospital, and I’m lying in a hospital bed.
An IV line trails from the thinned skin on the back of my hand, and afternoon sunlight spills through the window.
Rows of photographs displayed on the shelf.
The two of us young, the two of us holding a baby, the two of us walking alongside a grandchild, Kana…
There was no more room for doubt — this was reality.
Makina pulls a chair closer. The small scrape of chair legs against the floor.
“Hey, Yotsuka.”
“Hm?”
“How was I, back then?”
At the sudden question, I thought it over for a moment before answering.
“You were beautiful.”
Makina’s brow furrows.
“Were…? So, now?”
“Don’t nitpick my wording… you’re still beautiful now too, Makina.”
“Fufu.”
She laughs. Just like she used to. Just like back in high school. Just like when we were dating. Just like when we were newlyweds.
The whole time, the exact same laugh.
“Well.”
Makina looks out the window.
The sky was slowly starting to turn orange.
“I think, honestly, there’s a small part of me that wants to go back to that time.”
“What, you want to meet young me too, Makina?”
“That, sure, but…”
Makina shook her head.
“Our daughters were born, and then even grandchildren.”
“Mm.”
“Before I knew it, I ended up this age.”
Her voice was quiet.
“There’s no way high-school us could ever have imagined it, right?”
“Yeah, really.”
There’s no way we could have imagined it.
And yet, all of it came true.
Before we knew it. All of it.
“Spending the same time together.”
Makina murmured.
“Carving the same wrinkles together.”
She takes my hand.
That hand doesn’t have the softness of youth anymore.
But it was, without question, the same hand I’d held over and over, all these years, since back then.
“I want to believe there’s no need to go back.”
“You want to believe that?”
“But.”
There, her words stopped. The hand holding mine was trembling.
“Now that it’s actually come to this.”
Makina’s voice went a little hoarse.
“I keep thinking, we should’ve traveled together more.”
“Mm.”
“Should’ve taken more photos together.”
“Mm.”
“More of this, more of that.”
A small pool of wet spread quietly onto the white sheets.
“Makina…”
“I just keep wanting more.”
Another drop.
“…Hey, don’t start crying now, Makina.”
“Yotsuka…”
“If even you start crying…”
My vision blurs.
“…Then I’m gonna cry too.”
Makina bites her lip. Then, with a face like a child’s, she said—
“Yotsuka.”
“Hm?”
“Don’t ever leave me.”
Her voice trembling.
Her small, wrinkled hand gripping the sheet tight.
“For the rest of my life, always… even after being reborn, come find me again, right beside me.”
“You’re still saying difficult stuff like that, even now, huh.”
I laughed and squeezed her hand back.
The hand of the wife I love so much, that I’d held, over and over, all these years.
“But, you know — when you’re the one saying it, Makina, somehow it feels like it might actually be possible.”
Makina’s eyes went wide. Then, her face crumpled into something between crying and laughing.
We laughed together, just like that. A little bit, crying too.
Outside the window, the orange light was slowly stretching deeper and deeper into the room.
◇◆◇◆◇
“I’m getting sleepy again, somehow.”
“Probably the afternoon medication, I bet.”
“Maybe.”
“I should get going soon.”
“See you again, Makina.”
Falling for Makina, dating Makina, marrying Makina, having a daughter, having grandchildren.
Looking back, it really had been… an unbelievably convenient life.
Like some god out there had granted every single one of my wishes.
But, the older I got, the more I found myself thinking, sometimes.
Maybe this world wasn’t just being convenient for me.
Maybe, instead—
“Sleep well, Yotsuka.”
Drowsiness starts pulling my thoughts away.
“Oh, I’ll turn off the TV, okay? It’ll be noisy for you.”
Beyond the haze of half-sleep.
“Yeah, thanks.”
Faintly, I can hear the sound of the TV.
“This is a breaking news update.”
“Today, humanity has succeeded in the practical implementation of a new life science technology—”
(…Ha. Seriously?)
“Cellular—”
Yeah. No matter how far it goes, all the way to the very end.
“Effectively—”
Our love story really is just… too convenient.
“Im—”
—Click.