It's 3:35pm on January 2nd. On my hatsumoude I pulled a daikyou and shortly thereafter collapsed. At first, the doctors just thought I collapsed from a lack of sleep, perhaps combined with dissappointment from receiving yet another daikyou, but one MRI and CAT scan led to another, and another, and blood tests, and X-rays, and even a spinal tap. I just left the head of the diagnostic department's office with my mother. It was most likely sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. For unknown reasons, a protein in my brain was misfolded, which upon contact with other proteins can cause them to misfold too. These "bad" proteins, prions, can cause neurons to die, causing sponge-like holes all throughout the brain. The doctor said my life expectancy could be anywhere from a month to around two years, depending on how it progresses. He said that its hard to say how it will progress, because there's never been a case of this type of CJD in someone as young as me. They'll put me on an experimental medicine right away that has shown a little bit of promise, the doctor urged us not to hold out hope, and to prepare for the worst. As it progresses, extreme pain, involuntary movements, psychosis, and dementia like symptoms will develop and worsen.

Four days earlier, I came out as trans to my parents, to less-than-subpar reception. When I came out as gay last year it wasn't good either, but not this bad. I've willingly already managed to forget the words they told me, although perhaps those memories got holes punched in them by the prions. The only one thing I can think of now is that, before I die, I need to transition as much as possible. I can't die a man. I've already formed somewhat of a plan in my head; my friend, who's supposed to be getting ready to enter college, dropped out to join a gang. He lives in Mie. So I'll go find him, take out some loans, and have him get the hormones through some back-channels.

Two days later I packed my bags and left to Mie, with a lead on Sou-kun. I was expecting to leave in the night unbothered and wait in the station until the first train, but my dad was in the kitchen drinking, although he didn't protest my leaving much at all. I told him to tell mom I wasn't coming back and walked out. It was a 15-minute walk from our house to the train station, and the freezing January air burned my face. On top of the cold, my luggae was heavy. It consisted of my laptop (I deemed my desktop too heavy and didn't have the motivation to play games with the terminal-illness-induced-depression I was facing), the few clothes which were gender-neutral enough that I had a hope of passing even in them, the experimental medicine for the prion disease, my favorite stuffed animals (a pink pig, a little elephant, and an alpaca), along with the little mementos and other sentimental things I hoped would ease my mind throughout the decline. All the money I had (33,315 yen), was in my wallet stuffed in my pocket. The train station was open-air, so I tapped into the station and laid down on the sole bench the platform had, and fell asleep.

With a nudge on the shoulder, "Ma'am, ma'am, are you okay? A young girl like you shouldn't be sleeping on the platforms late at night, it's not safe." My vision was still blurry from waking up, so I didn't notice who this person was, but whipped back with "I'm okay." By this point I could see he was a station attendant. With an overly-embarrassed face, he looked away and said "Well either way, you can't be on the platform until the first train comes, I need you to leave the platform." And so I followed him out to the gate, where he cleared the entry from my IC Card and let me out of the station. All of the sudden, it hit me, did, did he call me a "young girl"? I guess my hair is pretty long and maybe it was covering my face, but I had never been mistaken for a girl before. Despite the daikyou just a few days before, I decided to interpret it as that I would have enough time to make a good enough transition. Regardless of if I would pass or not, I now had to find a place to lay down for the night, and there weren't any benches in view from the entrance to the station. With all the loans I could take out, I could get a good hotel room for the next few months, so I reasoned that sleeping sitting down against the wall of the station would do for tonight.

The weather is Mie is a little better than it would have been in Nagoya today. I'm choosing to take that as another good omen, but at the same time I'm headed to my meeting with Sou-kun now, and stressed out about it. I managed to find his SNS while on the train, and set something up, but to ask for the hormones he'll definitely ask why I want them, so I'll be backed into a corner and have to come out to him. The metal doorhandle to the cafe we're meeting at feels as cold as ice, and I can't tell if its the weather, my worried imagination, or the fried neurons. On top of that, this might be the heaviest door I've ever tried to open. As I struggle to get the door open against the wind pushing inwards, I feel a hand grace my shoulder. "Let me get that for you." Even after all these years, I recognize it as Sou-kun's voice. I turn my neck around a full 180 degrees to get a good look at him, and I can't help but think that he's grown up. He's tall, at least 180 centimeters, and visibly strong but thin. On top of that, his stubble perfectly fits the shape of his face. I embarrassingly utter "A-ah, thank you," and step aside for him to open the door for me. He swings it open with ease, and he quickly puts up two fingers to the cafe worker and heads over to a booth in the back. As soon as I sit down, he blurts out, "So, Ryuuhei, why'd you call me out of the blue? It's been years since we've talked..." The second line embarrasses me; everybody at school knew why he left, and when the news eventually reached my parents they commanded me to never talk to him, for risk of me getting pulled into the underworld like him. But I always liked him, when we were little he was my best friend, despite the age gap, so leaving him to leave on no-contact always felt wrong. "Um... I'm sorry I never called or texted you since you went to Mie, my parents—uhm, nevermind, anyways—I need something, and I figured you'd be my best bet." None of us makes a comment right away, and to fill the awkward void I blurt out, "Also, I kinda fell out with my parents, so it's not like it matters if I meet you behind their backs!" My hands are laid palm down on the table, and while I'm busy looking at his face for a reaction, I feel something touch my left hand. I snap my neck down to see he's placed his hand over mine. "What happened?" Fuck. I'm gonna have to tell him. His kindness and compassion, the sympathetic worry he's expressing for me, eases my mind a little bit.

He said he would run it up the chain and do his best to get me the hormones. The way he called me Suzuka as I walked out echoes in my mind. I didn't feel like telling him about the prion disease, but he did give me a contact for someone else who would be able to give me a loan. A guy named Fukumoto. I didn't tell him how much money I would be needing, so I have to hope Fukumoto has deep pockets. All I have is an address, so I figure I'll head straight there. The address is pretty close by, only about a five minute walk through the blistering windy cold. Sou-kun offered to come with me, but I'd rather he didn't know I was going to take out a loan pushing 1--yen. The address lead me to a house right in between a Denny's and a . The jinja has some signs on the outside advertising itself as hosting a related . I figured that I would have little use for a shrine like this from here on out, but thought it funny that this Fukumoto decided to put his house? maybe headquarters? right next to a gakumon-jinja. As I walk up to the door, I can't help but notice what seems like dozens of cameras posted up on every corner of the structure of the facade of the Classical-style house. Intensely self-concsious, I slowly walk up to the door. But before I can even knock, the door swings open. A man in a tracksuit steps out and quips, "You must have the wrong address. You're on private property now. You should leave." I stutter, "I-I'm here to see Fukumoto. About a, um, loan." He laughs, "What could a little shit like you need a loan for?" I raise my voice slightly, "Just tell Fukumoto somebody is here to ask about a loan. It'll be worth his time." Without saying a word, he scoffs at me and heads back inside. The wait is brutal. This could be my one chance to get the money I'll need to live large until my time runs out. After what turned out to only be five minutes, I'm lead back inside by a now-silent version of the same man from before. He leads me upstairs to an office, opens the door, and gestures for me to go in. I step in, analyzing the man at the other end of the desk closely. It has to be Fukumoto. He's dressed in a purple suit, like some villain from , and has an awful crooked smile pasted across his face.

"How much do you need?" The curtness of his question catches me off guard, and I struggle to reply with my two word answer, "50 million." He makes a big show out of being so surprised that he spits out his tea, all over the desk and my face. "Why the hell does a little kid like you need that much money?" I realized if I tell him why I need the money, there's no chance he'll loan it to me, since he'll understand I won't be paying it back. "Why do you care? Isn't all that matters whether or not I pay you back?" He seems to like the sound of that, but he isn't convinced yet, "How's a little kid like you supposed to get the money to pay it back? What about the interest? Do you even know what interest is?" I hate getting treated like a kid. I know I'm technically a kid, but if the doctors are to be trusted, I've already lived more than 95% of my life. "Of course I know what interest is. Why do you care how I pay it back? Won't you come force me to pay it back by threatening to break my legs or something if I don't?" The awkward grid on his face shifted away into a look of contemplation. "How old are you exactly?" Is there gonna be more bullshit about me being a kid? "I'm 15." Just like that, the grin sprung back onto his face. "That's workable. If I get caught collecting payments from a kid like you I'll be in big trouble, so I'm gonna make you a special one time deal." He pulls a calculator out of his desk and punches some numbers is as his grin grows even wider. "I'll lend you the 50 million at 13.6%. The catch is, I'll give you three years to get it back to me. If you can't prove at that point how you'll manage to make payment, we'll work something out." At the few words of that sentence, his grin expanded further, to the point where he looked like Jeff the Killer. But whatever sick idea he has in mind, it fucking worked. I'll be long gone in three years, so I won't have to worry at all about keeping Fukumoto off my tail at all. "Alright then, hand it over." My response wipes the grin off his face, "You dumb shit! It's gonna take a few days to get the money together! Give me your phone number and we'll call you in a few days." I think the fact that he didn't have the money on hand embarrassed him enough to elicit an outburst like that. But regardless, in a few days I'll be set.

As I walked out of the house, I immediately whipped out my phone and called Sou-kun.