“If you came up with a vindictive dream, it would be more real than what you see.” 

The small 10-yen gacha machine rings on her fingers reflected the neon lights of Fushigoro. Blinding me from the gaze that had rested on her delicately held chin. So thin. 

“I still love you.” 

Her fingers blended into the wet dank of the night. Her breath dissipated on the moist air of condensation rising from the grim streets to the open window upon which she rested. The displays of purple, yellow, and pink covered her in their dry and uncaring light. Yet beneath them she looked all the more dignified. A princess in her palanquin. 

“You say things, but if I were to live a long time, a hundred years or more, would I still be beautiful?” Her words low and without breath against the wind that crept through the window and brought the smell of her perfume to me again. Blind to the words on the signs and the buildings they adorned, she appeared as though gazing upon a bed of dianthus. 

I went to her side and put a hand on her shoulder. She did not press herself against me, and she did not pull away. Instead she let out a deep breath, visible in the cold air, and solemn as it was melded with the aura of night. 

“You’re being selfish.” She told me. .
“I’m sorry.” 

As a familiar new years tune played somewhere in the distance, I held close my flesh-made marionette.