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501 – If There Were a “What If” Phone Booth, the World Would End 3,000 Times a Day
🕑 Added 2025-09-06 15:00:13 +0000 UTCThe girl’s cheerful voice floated lightly through the city night, drifting from Keio Department Store to Odakyu and then toward the west exit of Shinjuku.
Whether it was the dazzling neon signs or the shadowy back alleys, everything seemed to be dyed with her joy.
Her slender, delicate hand sometimes held tightly onto Kyousuke’s, and sometimes boldly looped around his arm.
Like a lively little bird, she hopped, chirped, and fluttered with excitement.
She even went so far as to buy a crepe loaded with double strawberries.
But after licking the cream twice with her small tongue and stealing away one strawberry with her lips, she handed the crepe off to Kyousuke.
So, right there at the entrance of the subway station, Shouko stood quietly with her eyes curved into crescents, smiling softly as she watched Kyousuke finish the crepe.
She knew he loved sweets—so much that even during times of financial crisis, he’d still buy discounted bread nearing its expiration date just to make French toast.
And he knew she loved sweets too.
But more than that, he knew she cherished the moments when the two of them shared one treat together at a subway entrance like this.
That was why he ate slowly.
After every bite, he’d lift his gaze to her as if to say, “I really am going to eat it, okay?”
And each time, she would purse her lips into a gentle smile that seemed to say, “Watching you eat makes me happier than eating it myself.”
People flowed in and out of the station.
Nearby was not only the famous night-view spot—Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building—but also upscale department stores, electronics retailers, and countless izakaya packed with delicious food.
Tourists flocked here by the thousands, and Tokyo’s weary salarymen, like zombies drawn by sound, shuffled in after work.
One such man, around thirty, trudged up the station steps with exhaustion written across his face.
The moment he stepped out, he let out a heavy sigh, only for the taste of energy drink still clinging to his mouth to send a shiver down his spine, as if he’d been thrown straight back into overtime hell.
He hadn’t slept in two days.
Without those energy drinks, he doubted he could even make it safely out of the Shinjuku labyrinth, let alone walk in a straight line.
All he wanted now was an ice-cold beer and a long, deep sleep.
Both were brown, yes, but beer and Zena were the difference between heaven and hell.
Thinking this, Matsuya sighed again, shrugging off his jacket to drape it over the arm carrying his briefcase.
With his other hand, he tugged at his tie to loosen it—but not too much, just in case the department head messaged him about more overtime.
Tying that knot always felt like slipping his neck into a noose.
Once a day was bad enough; twice was unbearable.
Just then, he thought he felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. Heart sinking, he pulled it out—only to find it was a false alarm.
‘Must be the fatigue…’ he thought hazily as he shoved the phone back into his pocket.
Out of the corner of his eye, something caught his attention.
Before he could focus, someone coughed behind him.
He hurriedly stepped aside, bowing and apologizing as others passed.
“…excuse me,” he muttered under his breath.
Standing beside a trash can, he finally got a good look at what had snagged his attention.
A young couple.
This was Shinjuku—couples were everywhere, both locals and tourists.
He couldn’t understand why his gaze stuck on this pair.
He cared enough to delay his long-awaited beer, just to keep watching.
Almost instinctively, he melted into the crowd loitering near the subway entrance.
Normally, he would’ve sneered at such people—drifters living off their parents, or the so-called winners in life who never had to lift a finger to get what he could only dream of.
He was neither.
He had clawed his way up in this city of mazes, step by step, with his own strength.
But now, he hid among them, just to watch that couple.
The boy was tall.
Tokyo had no shortage of tall foreigners, yet somehow, standing near him, everyone seemed to shrink.
It was the same sensation as bowing to a superior at work—no matter how tall you were, you could never stand taller than your boss.
The boy was handsome too, though Matsuya stubbornly ignored that part. That wasn’t what caught his attention.
The girl was beautiful. Her outfit was simple but elegant, accentuating a slender yet full figure.
But what drew the eye wasn’t her looks—it was her aura.
She stood there quietly, yet everyone who saw her seemed to feel a calming presence radiating from her.
A hearing aid?
Matsuya frowned slightly, but soon his focus was pulled elsewhere.
Because neither the boy’s height nor the girl’s beauty was the real reason they had caught his attention.
The boy held a crepe, overflowing with cream and strawberries, ready to spill.
The girl simply stood there, gazing at him with soft, starry eyes.
‘Why am I so fixated on them?’ he asked himself.
Was it the way the boy looked up at her after each bite? Or the happiness shining across her face?
He thought and thought, until a different couple brushed past him on their way down the stairs.
In that instant, he understood.
The crepe couple radiated something pure.
Other couples—whether salarymen with girlfriends, students hand in hand, or wealthy elites draped in jewelry—exuded “trendiness.”
They talked about the hottest izakaya, carried the latest brand-name shopping bags, laughed as sweetly as honey, and kissed in public without a care in the world.
But none of that stirred anything in him.
He knew someday he would be just like them—dating, shopping after work, grocery trips with a wife on weekends.
Yet he would never be like this crepe couple.
He would never treat something as simple as a crepe with such precious care.
The girl clearly loved sweets, yet she had given her only crepe to the boy.
And when she looked at him, her eyes held nothing else—like the whole world was contained in that gaze.
The boy clearly disliked sweets, yet he couldn’t bear to reject her feelings.
Every time he looked up, trying to hand the crepe back, her eyes sent him fleeing, forcing him to take another bite—another taste steeped in love.
Neon lights flickered, music and chatter filled the air, crowds surged past.
But there they stood, holding a single crepe, like two people who had found an island in the middle of a vast ocean.
Small, fragile, barely enough to stand upon—yet in that moment, perfectly happy.
If Shinjuku Station was a labyrinth built by demons, then Tokyo itself was a bottomless maw that devoured lives.
In a city drowned in desire, to still find such a simple couple, such pure love—it was almost miraculous.
Matsuya sniffled hard, his eyes suddenly burning. A sharp ache welled up in his chest, and all at once, he understood.
‘So that’s it. What I’ve been watching… is my own lost youth.’
A dizzying weightlessness rushed over him.
Back in high school, he too once had that kind of innocent love—a love where a single crepe could bring happiness for an entire day, where even one strawberry had to be savored in three bites.
‘She…’
‘Wait. Who was she?’
Matsuya’s smile froze. He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember the name of the girl he once shared a crepe with.
Her face? What did she look like?
Short bobbed hair, sometimes tied into tiny pigtails. A green hairpin that held her bangs neatly in place.
She was never scolded by the disciplinarian for a skirt that was too short, because her sharp eyes always spotted trouble in advance.
And afterward, she’d stick out her tongue at him, flashing that mischievous little smile—
Hold on. Was she smiling at me?
His Adam’s apple bobbed painfully.
Why… why are all my memories of “her” from a third-person point of view? Why can’t I remember a single moment of her talking to me directly?
‘Idiot!’
The curse tore through his mind.
And as the memories sharpened, he finally realized—there was never any “Crepe Couple Incident” in his life.
He only knew that tall, handsome guys hated crepes because he himself hated them.
And he only hated them because once—he saw the girl he liked sharing a crepe with some other jerk.
Yes. Back then, he too had just stood off to the side, staring like a fool.
“Damn it!”
The bitterness seared through him, clearing his dazed head.
With a sudden burst of energy, he kicked the trash can beside him.
“Why the hell do they put garbage bins here? What a waste of taxpayer money! Can’t people carry their damn trash home? Damn trash cans, damn garbage, damn prime minister!”
The drunks and NEETs loitering nearby barely glanced his way before losing interest.
Just another worn-down loser, not worth noticing.
And then it all came back—every detail.
Splitting strawberries into tiny bites wasn’t because he had a sweet girlfriend to share them with.
It was because strawberries were expensive, and he couldn’t bear to eat them too quickly.
In his second year of high school, he spent two weeks of allowance on a deluxe crepe, planning to confess to “XXXX.”
But when he reached the spot she told him to meet, he saw her with another boy.
She offered him a crepe, smiling softly as she watched him eat, even dabbing his lips with a dainty handkerchief whenever cream stuck to them.
Crepes? What a joke.
Who in their right mind would like something that sickeningly sweet?
Why hadn’t every damn crepe shop gone bankrupt yet?
Doraemon—where’s the “What-If Phone Booth” when you need it? Somebody erase crepes from existence!
The once-blurry memory now slammed back into him crystal clear, sharp and merciless, cutting into his exhausted heart like a sashimi knife.
“Damn it!”
His eyes burned bloodshot.
With a snarl, he shoved through the crowd, charging toward the couple still wrapped in their sweet little world.
The station lights flickered, and Shouko turned, startled by the sudden shadow.
The twisted face glaring back at her made her flinch.
Kyousuke swallowed the last bite of cream.
He loved cream—at home he’d often scoop up leftover whipping cream with a spoon and eat it straight.
But the man in front of them clearly wasn’t normal.
For a moment, Kyousuke even wondered if this was the start of a zombie outbreak—though no, this was supposed to be a slice-of-life world.
Then again, this was Shinjuku. In this demonic city, you could find anything.
Kyousuke instinctively moved to shield Shouko—
—but Shouko raised her hand first.
A delicate white handkerchief brushed against his lips. Gentle, cautious.
She wiped the cream clean, then quietly folded the handkerchief back and stepped behind him.
Meeting Kyousuke’s eyes, she gave him the sweetest smile.
One hand, however, had already slipped into her bag—clutching a can of pepper spray.
That smile nearly made Kyousuke sigh aloud.
If it weren’t for this wannabe zombie in front of them, Shouko probably would’ve just used her finger to wipe the cream, maybe even lick it clean with her little tongue…
‘No, no, no—get a grip! This isn’t the apocalypse! Don’t let lust cloud your brain, Kyousuke!’
But their quiet intimacy—the unspoken trust, the natural tenderness—stabbed into Matsuya’s chest like a hot blade.
Once, the girl he liked had been like that too—
‘Damn it! Damn crepes! Damn purity! Damn love!’
“Excuse me. Do you need something?” Kyousuke asked evenly, frowning slightly.
The man scowled back, his brows twisted so tightly it was as if his entire soul had tangled into a knot.
Irritation flickered through Kyousuke. He’d been enjoying a perfectly sweet moment with Shouko, only for some lunatic to barge in.
Without another word, he took Shouko’s hand and tried to walk past.
Shouko was patient, but if it were Sakura instead?
She would’ve kicked the guy straight into the station entrance, then bolted.
In this devil’s maze called Shinjuku Station, even Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t be able to follow her trail.
But Matsuya shifted sideways, blocking their path.
