POV: Hoga Yasahiro

The first memory I have of this world was the phrase that my parents kept repeating throughout their whole lives,

"We'll make you live a perfect life."

This phrase which holds the so-seemingly loving words haunted my life with misery.

To have a goal in life, or to crave something are two things I am unable of feeling.

Other than my perfectionist parents, I had another thing that made me different from the people around me.

As long as I remember, I was able of reading minds.

People's thoughts keep rushing inside my head whenever I look at them.

My parents thought of my gift as a talent and wanted me to use it, to keep living a perfect life to its fullest.

I was then made into the perfect person they both wanted.

The looks, the money, the background and status, I had everything they wished for me to have.

When I finished high school at age of 10, the words my parents congratulated me with were,

"First step into living a perfect life."

When I finished four majors in university at age of 18, my parents hugged me for the first time and told me,

"A perfect life awaits you"

My mom fell ill to an illness with no cure, the words she told me on her hospital bed were,

"I'm sorry, I won't be with you in your perfect life."

After my mother died of illness, my father took his own life from depression, and left a will behind him,

'You might need the money in your perfect life'

Two of the closest people in my life were lost at the same time but what I felt at that time was not sadness, it was the happiness of never having to hear that phrase again.

I left the hospital I worked at, the head doctor's thought rushed inside my head,

'I lost such a perfect doctor'

I left the lawyer office I worked at, my secretary's thought rushed inside my head,

'there goes my chance to get a perfect husband.'

I sat on the bench in a park to breathe the air of freedom, but the passersby thoughts kept rushing inside my head,

'Woah, look at him, he has such a perfect face.'

'isn't he the kid that was on TV a few years back that finished four majors at age of 18 perfectly?'

'I want to invite him to work for me, but he's too perfect to work under me'

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I felt heavy, I wanted to live normally, to be able to feel, love and wish like other people.

But I realized that even without my parents I am unable of escaping this phrase.

People, money, envy, desire, wishes, anything that make my heart carve for it! I was unable of finding anything like that, I kept living every day as meaninglessly as the day before it.

I was a vessel of emptiness.

I went to live with my grandpa after my parents, whom I like to call 'my life makers', died.

Unlike them, my grandpa never sought perfection from me, which eventually, turned my life into a dull one.

One day, my grandpa asked me a favor for the first time,

"Yasahiro, can you become a president for my company?"

At that time, what I should have felt was happiness, that I finally will have a goal, a meaning. but what I thought was,

What a hassle.

As I was heading home in my car, it came down to me, it was on the spur of the moment, no, that was the result of a dull 'perfect' life, what I was thinking of was,

I'm tired of living.

Then for the first time in my life, I had a wish I wanted to come true which was, to die.

I came across a road, I only heard of rarely, it had dim lights and a river, in other words, it was the 'perfect' place to die in.

Living this life is scary. Dying would be easier.

And I headed toward Blickroad, to end this life that I have no attachment to.

I fixed my legs on the ground next to the river and was about to put my legs into the river when I heard a huge explosion on the other side of the riverbank.

My eyes moved to the fire that had risen in the garbage dump across me, it was a truck that exploded.

The chances of people surviving that explosion are zero.

I started moving my legs toward the water again but got interrupted by a high pitched creepy laughter.

I looked around me, but it was too dim to notice anything, I looked closely at the exploded truck where the voice came from.

I caught a glimpse of something white moving inside it but with the poor light, I couldn't see what it really was.

the laughter soon died out, and the white thing started moving from the truck and it stopped in the middle of the riverbank.

the laughter returned as a scream that echoed through my ears, and I put my hands on my ears.

then a faint thought rushed through my head,

Unknown: 'I don't want to die'

I would definitely not think like this at this moment, which has sent shivers down my spine.

I was shocked, it must have been a person's thought, then that would mean someone survived that explosion.

the thought came from the direction of the white thing, is that thing a person?

I started swimming toward the place the thought came from, I was curious about it.

In the place I wanted to die in, there was a person trying to survive death.

I was curious about that person, no, I was curious about his reason to try to survive.

when I reached there, the white person became clearer, I saw that person standing on water, and staring at a place in the water.

As I moved my eyes toward that place, I saw a man who seemed to be in his 20s in the water.

I move closer to him, I don't see him moving, I wondered if he's dead for few moments.

I started pulling him toward the road, out of the water.

and I looked at the white person and asked,

"You won't come here too?"

I couldn't believe my eyes, the white person, suddenly started running towards me.

They moved their face so close to mine and started looking all over me as if to inspect me.

Then with a high pitched voice, the white person said,

"GuEsS TheRe Is nO MeAl THiS tImE"

then glared at me with his dark black eyes, then went inside that man's body and disappeared.

I quickly run over to that man and start checking him.

I only saw it briefly, but while I was pulling him out of the water, his arm and legs were definitely twisted, but now they look normal.

I look over to his stomach where a piece of the exploded truck is still there, then I see it as it starts moving out of his wound by itself, and the blood over his clothes start moving toward the opened wound.

As the blood entered his body, his wound started healing instantaneously like some sort of magic.

I carried him to my car and start driving him to the nearest hospital.

It was only a brief moment that I moved my sight from the road toward the man lying in the backseat curious about what became of him, but that moment has cost me a lot.

I failed to act in time, as a big vehicle approached the car, and it hit us straight and the car started spinning till it hit a big tree on the side of the road.

I opened my eyes and saw the blood rushing out of my body.

that was the first day, I ever had a wish, and it was the same day that it came true.

On that day, I experienced death as I had wished.

Trying to put an end to my 'perfect' life.

-End of Chapter 3-