The Day She Was Saved

Eight years ago.

"Hitoshi, come on! Let's go bug hunting!" a little girl with her purple hair tied into adorable pigtails exclaimed.

She was missing one of her two front teeth and resting on her shoulder was a butterfly net that she was holding in one hand; in the other hand was a plastic container that she was going to put the bugs inside.

There was this fierce, childish energy in her, and anyone who only met her when she was a teenager would've been surprised to see that there was no sense of any of the timidness that she was known for.

If not for the eyes and her hair color, it might've even been impossible to tell that it was the same person.

If it wasn't obvious by now, this energetic child was Nakatani Shinju.

Compared to the height that she would eventually grow to, which was just slightly above average for women in her country, she was actually extremely tall for her age, even taller than the boy who was lying flat on the wooden floor.

She was currently standing inside Hitoshi's grandparents' home; the two of them were by the backyard doors that were opened up as the boy was awaiting the occasional breeze to blow into the house to cool him down.

It was a scorching hot summer day and Shinju's idea sounded like a death sentence.

With his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth as he stared at the broken AC with pure hatred burning in his pupils, he groaned, "It's too hot Shinju. Let's just stay inside."

Even though her hair was glistening from the sweat, the girl shook her head and her pigtails fluttered as if she was about to take flight like a bird.

"It's not that hot. Come on. Stop being a coward, and let's go!" she said enthusiastically bouncing off the floor a few times in between her sentences.

Usually, there wasn't a need to convince him to follow her around as it was almost second nature for him to be no more than ten feet away from her but the heat was too much for Hitoshi to handle this day.

Seeing a lack of change in Hitoshi's facial expressions or energy, she pondered for a second and tried to convince him further by saying, "There's a lot of shade in the forest anyway. It's not like we'll be out in the sun."

"That is true..." he mumbled.

At the sound of these words, Shinju's face lit up like an explosive that was a second away from blowing.

"...but..."

'Of course there's a but!'

"...the walk to the forest is pretty long."

As he imagined the long walk they would have to make to reach this forest where she wanted to catch bugs, the sensation of the heat melting him with every step he took, that lack of shade on that long road that was surrounded by nothing but farmland — Hitoshi was already about to faint from just his imagination.

"No. I'm not going all the way to that forest to catch bugs."

"Hitoshi!" she called his name in frustration.

"I won't survive the trip," he explained to her. Trying to reason with Shinju and her desires, he suggested, "Why can't we just hunt for bugs in my backyard? We have plenty of trees here."

This compromise was proposed because he wanted to kill two birds with one stone: not only would it allow Shinju to catch her bugs but he also accompanies her like she was asking and once he starts to heat up too much, he rushes back indoors and now and again, he could eat a popsicle from the freezer to cool down.

His grandmother only allowed him four popsicles a day. She would count how many were left every night to ensure that he didn't exceed the limit.

If he rationed it perfectly, he'd be able to survive the heat until the sun started to disappear into the horizon, and by then, it'd be cool enough for him not to worry.

"What?!" Shinju exclaimed as if Hitoshi had just proposed something blasphemous. "That's a stupid idea."

She looked at him and wondered if the heat had fried his brain.

The idea was the equivalent of filling up an inflatable pool with water and claiming that it was the beach.

"Then I guess you're going bug hunting by yourself," he told her.

His words were a little harsher than he intended, partially due to his idea being called stupid, and Shinju took offense to it.

"Hmph," she scoffed as she stepped off the wooden floor and landed on the grass of the backyard. "I'm going to leave then since you don't want to come."

"Okay."

"Don't regret it."

"I won't. Bye-bye Shinju."

"You'll really regret it if you don't come."

"I don't think I will."

"...Fine. I'm really leaving now."

"Uh-huh. See you later. Have fun. Catch some big bugs for me."

'You can just catch them yourself if you come with me!' she wanted to scream at him.

She took a few steps towards the gate, walking with a little more force than normal to emphasize the sound of her footsteps.

"I'm really really really leaving now."

"Bye, Shinju," said Hitoshi, who she could no longer see as he was around the corner of the house.

"Hmph," she quietly scoffed under her breath.

Walking out through the gate, rather than leaving the premises of the house immediately, she stood there in place, expecting Hitoshi to eventually follow after her even if he was reluctant about it.

A minute passed.

Shinju, realizing that he meant what he said, furrowed her eyebrows.

Clicking her tongue, she swayed her feet in sadness for a little before kicking it in disappointment. "You're no fun," she muttered as she began heading out towards the forest by herself.

Knowing each other since they were in diapers as their parents were friends since during their time in university, the two were practically glued to each other's hips.

Even though it was perfectly normal for kids their age to do activities and have fun on their own, for the girl with pigtails, it felt strange to her.

* * *

"I bet he's going to regret it when I show him these awesome bugs. Hehehe," Shinju giggled as she looked at the bugs inside the container.

Even though she was still a little salty that he didn't come, once she got absorbed into hunting the bugs, her mood cheered up vastly and she was her usual giddy self.

A few hours had passed since she started and although she was starting to get hungry, she wanted to catch a rhinoceros beetle; if he wasn't jealous before then Hitoshi would definitely be jealous if she managed to catch one.

He's been trying to catch one since last year.

"I will catch you, you freaking stupid beetle," she said in determination as she looked around.

Having only been hunting in the outskirts of the forest, she was wondering if she'd have a better chance of catching what she was searching for if she went deeper.

Looking into the deeper parts of the forest, it was darker as the trees were more tightly grouped together.

"I shouldn't," she muttered as she began to get scared. But despite what she said, she stepped forward. She really wanted to make Hitoshi regret his decision.

A few minutes later, she had found her target.

After failing to catch it once, the beetle flew over to another tree. With her net held high above her head, she rushed as fast as she could towards it and failed to notice the strange nature of the ground below the tree she was heading towards.

Fluu! Crack!

"Ahhhhhh!" Shinju screamed as she plummeted.

As if she was being punished for heading out for physical activity on a day when everyone was recommended to stay inside, she had stepped onto a trap which was a hole dug deep into the dirt.

It was hidden only by a tarp that was covered in dirt and leaves as a disguise.

Thud!

Landing awkwardly, she hit her head, which caused her to faint; reopening her eyes a few minutes later, she found herself at the bottom of a hole surrounded by nothing but dirt.

Intended to capture a wild boar that had been messing with nearby farmland, instead, the trap ended up catching a little girl who was beginning to freak out.

In pain, dirty, and with only her net and plastic container accompanying her, Shinju, who understood the concept of death, felt like she was already dying.

"Mom! Mom!" she instinctually cried out for the first person that came to mind. "Dad! Help! Someone help me! I'm stuck in a hole! Help!"

After screaming and screaming and screaming until her throat died, she started to feel like the walls around her were closing it.

Everything was dark. Her body was sticky from all the sweat. 

Unable to even utter a single sound through her mouth, she began trying to frantically climb out to no avail.

Falling on her back over and over, after the tenth time, Shinju laid there on her back, covering her eyes with her arms as she cried.

Already low on energy, the more tears that poured down her face, the more tired she was getting.

Whether or not it was her imagination, she began to hear the sounds of creatures in the forest running around. Then, she began hearing the sounds of monsters. 

Crawling over to a "corner" of the hole, she hugged her legs as she hid as best as she could, holding her breath.

* * *

How many hours passed?

Three? Four? Five?

Shinju didn't know. To her, it felt like days.

Her stomach was hurting, her throat was dry, and she was shaking as it was starting to get cold now that the sun had already begun setting.

Just when everything felt hopeless, she heard a faint voice.

Her ears perked up.

Was she mistaking the wind for someone's voice?

No. She heard the voice again, this time a little louder.

"Shinju!" the faint voice sounded like it was screaming.

'Hitoshi?!'

She wanted to call his name, but as she opened her mouth, nothing but air left; her throat was still dead from all the yelling she had done.

What to do? What if he missed her? What if he left her here in this hole all night and by the time people found her the next morning or days after, she was already dead, her corpse being eaten by insects?

She needed to do something. And she needed to do it fast.

Mustering up what little energy she had left in her tiny body, she picked up her butterfly net and began banging it onto the plastic container as if she were playing drums.

Although the sound she was producing wasn't that loud, she hoped that by banging it enough times, he'd hear it at least once and head in this direction.

Desperate to be saved, she lost herself in hitting the container and even when her name was directly called, she missed it.

"Shinju! Shinju I'm right here! Shinju!"

Only when her name was called the third time did she finally stop and look up; although it was dark, she knew — it was Hitoshi looking down at her from above.

Tears were flowing down her face and she was crying with her mouth and yet, Hitoshi could only watch as not a single sound escaped from her.

Even though he had been panicking and was so desperate to find her that he ended up with a gash on his right calf, he had ignored the pain in search of his friend.

"I found you. I found you. It's okay. It's okay. Everything will be okay," he reassured her. "Wait her for a second. I'll find a way to get you out."

Thinking as quickly as he could, he decided the best course of action was to pull off some vines from the trees.

Once he had enough, he began coiling them around each other, creating a makeshift rope.

After tying one end around a tree, he tossed the rest down the hole.

"Shinju, grab the rope. I'll pull you out," he told her.

Listening to his instructions, she grabbed and held onto the rope as tight as she could.

Her precious bugs and her net were still down there but she didn't care. She just wanted to get out.

Hitoshi shouldn't have been able to pull out the girl but adrenaline rushed in his body and he used up all of his strength to pull the rope backward until finally, Shinju was out of the hole.

Falling flat on his back, tired and breathing hard, he exhaled a large gust of air as a body slammed into his.

"Hitoshi," a crying Shinju silently screamed as she hugged him, her body shaking profusely.

"You're okay Shinju. You're okay now. I got you. I got you. Let's take you home," he said as he rubbed his hand on her back.

The little boy proceeded to carry the girl on his back, carrying her back to his grandparents' house, where the panicking couple who was wondering where their grandson went understood that something had happened to the girl and after calling her parents, they did their best they could to take care of her whilst her parents were on the way.

After that day, the girl had changed. She became more timid and no longer had the interests she once did as a child, becoming more girl-like and having discovered this emotion called love.

She fell in love with her hero. The savior that rescued her when all hope was lost — Hitoshi.

Seven years later, after realizing that both of them shared the same feelings for one another, the boy confessed and the two officially began dating.

A year after that, that same girl reached euphoria and climaxed as soon as her boyfriend's bully inserted his rod into her body.