Colorful
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Synopsis
A beloved and bestselling classic in Japan, this groundbreaking tale of a dead soul who gets a second chance is perfect for readers of The Midnight Library.
“Congratulations, you’ve won the lottery!” shouts the angel Prapura to a formless soul. The soul hasn’t been kicked out of the cycle of rebirth just yet—he’s been given a second chance. He must recall the biggest mistake of his past life while on ’homestay’ in the body of fourteen-year-old Makoto Kobayashi, who has just committed suicide. It looks like Makoto doesn’t have a single friend, and his family don’t seem to care about him at all. But as the soul begins to live Makoto’s life on his own terms, he grows closer to the family and the people around him, and sees their true colors more clearly, shedding light on Makoto’s misunderstandings.
Since its initial release over twenty years ago, Colorful has become a part of the literary canon, not only in Japan—where it has sold over a million copies—but around the world, having been translated into several different languages. Now, Eto Mori’s beloved classic is finally available in English.
Release date: July 20, 2021
Publisher: Counterpoint
Print pages: 224
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Colorful
Eto Mori
PROLOGUE
As my dead soul leisurely drifted off to some dark place, this angel I’d never seen before suddenly appeared right in my way.
“Congratulations! You’ve won the lottery!” The angel smiled. He gave me this speech:
“You committed a grave error before you died. Hence, your soul is now culpable. Generally, you would be disqualified at this time and removed from the cycle of rebirth. Which is to say, you would never be reborn again. However, more than a few consider this to be a barbaric taking of life, and so our boss occasionally gives lottery winners a second chance, as it were. You are one such lucky soul! Against all odds, you’ve won that lottery!”
I wasn’t quite happy with this sudden news. If I’d had eyes, I would’ve opened them wide in surprise, and if I’d had a mouth, I would’ve dropped my jaw and gaped. But I was nothing more than a formless soul. It was strange enough that I could hear the angel’s voice and see him there before me. He looked just like a regular human being, a tall man with beautiful, delicate features, his slim body draped in white fabric. He had the wings on his back, at any rate, but I couldn’t see a halo on his head.
“Thanks for the offer,” I said. “But I’ll pass.”
“And why is that?”
“Just because.” I’d already forgotten everything about my previous existence. When I spoke to the angel, my voice sounded masculine, so I figured I was a guy, but I had absolutely no memory of what kind of guy or what sort of life I’d led. All that stayed with me was this vague weariness, this total disinterest in ever going back to the world below. “Because I don’t want to. You know that thing where someone wanders into a department store and then this big ball pops open over their head and confetti falls all over the place, and it’s all, Congratulations! You’re the one millionth customer! And everyone’s making this whole big fuss and forcing this trip to Hawaii on them right then and there? That’s what this feels like. I just want to stay home and sleep.”
“I do understand what you’re saying.” The angel calmly accepted my complaint. “Between the two of us, those of us who work upstairs also have our fair share of doubts about this lottery method. Unfortunately, however, the boss’s decisions are final. Neither you nor I—nor anyone else, for that matter—can disobey his word. He is, after all, the father of all creation.”
I couldn’t really say anything when he came at me like that. I had a mean one on my hands here. I was forced into silence.
“Besides.” The angel’s bright blue eyes glittered ominously. “What awaits you is absolutely, most certainly not a Hawaiian paradise.”
The angel’s name was Prapura. He was a guide, currently in charge of me. His job now was to take me to the place where I would have my second chance.
But a second chance at what exactly?
In that place between heaven and earth, I tried to get my head around what was going on, while the angel went ahead to give me the rough overview of things pre-departure.
The gist of it all was:
1. My soul had made a pretty serious mistake in my previous life. Normally, I wouldn’t get to be reborn again, but fortunately, I’d won the lottery and a chance for a do-over.
2. A do-over meant that I would go back for training in the world below, the place where I failed in my previous life.
3. Training meant that my soul would borrow someone else’s body down there for a fixed period of time. Prapura’s boss would decide on the body and the family I would stay with.
4. In angel industry slang, this training was referred to as a “homestay.”
5. Of course, the family you ended up with could be hit or miss. For every good family, there was an awful one. For every tragedy, a comedy. I could even end up in a violent home. But the size of my crime in my previous life determined my new home, so I could complain all I wanted, but I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. (Damn . . .)
6. Prapura would help me with any problems I had during the homestay. But how much help he was would depend on his mood.
7. If I made good progress with the training, at a certain point I would get back my memories of my previous life. The instant I realized how big my mistake had been, the homestay would be over. My soul would leave the borrowed body and move on to whatever came next, safely restored to the cycle of rebirth. Hoorah, huzzah, basically. (Seriously?)
“That’s essentially how this will proceed, Makoto.” Prapura had no sooner wrapped up his little lecture than he was twitching his wings, impatiently. “Now, let us make our way to the world below.”
“Makoto?”
“From this moment on, you will be Makoto Kobayashi. He attempted suicide by overdose three days ago, and he remains in critical condition. Just between us, he’s going to die soon without ever regaining consciousness. The moment his soul slips out, you will step inside.”
“So you’re saying,” I started, “I’m stealing his body?”
“Don’t be so morbid!” Prapura snapped. “Please think of it more as you’ll be taking care of his body for a short while. Let’s have a positive attitude here, shall we?”
“So what’s this Makoto Kobayashi like?”
“You’ll find out once you become him.”
I would’ve liked a little more advance prep, but Prapura already had his wings fully deployed. He looked extremely fed up with all this talk. He yanked on my arm and flew upward, dragging me along with him.
The floor abruptly dropped out from under me, and then we were plummeting downward at the speed of light. Prapura’s wings didn’t seem to be doing much of anything. Was he really an angel? Or was he a demon? I suddenly got very nervous, but then I lost consciousness and was swallowed up by a swirling vortex of brilliant color.
1
When I came to, I was Makoto Kobayashi. I had this total physical sensation of “you got a body for real, right here.” My soul, which had been naked an instant before, was now wrapped in flesh like a heavy coat. The flesh seemed to be lying on a futon. No, wait, a bed. The place stank of disinfectant, too, so maybe a hospital bed? And then I remembered that Makoto had tried to commit suicide. He was supposed to be in critical condition or something . . . Hm? I could hear someone crying. Who?
Before I’d taken even half a second to brace myself for what I’d find, I opened my eyes and found a middle-aged lady sobbing helplessly.
“Makoto,” the lady murmured, dazed. Then she shrieked, “Makoto?!”
I could feel the other human shadows in the room all turn toward me at the same time. I indeed appeared to be in a hospital room—an array of grim medical devices stood on either side of the bed, and the white uniforms of nurses flitted in and out of sight on the other sides of the machines.
“It can’t be,” someone groaned, and then the white shadows were bustling around the room.
“Makoto!” a middle-aged man shouted, as he propped the lady up. “He came back! He’s alive!!”
Later, I found out that Makoto Kobayashi had been pronounced dead just ten minutes earlier. His spirit had risen up to wherever it was off to, so I’d slipped into his vacated body and popped his eyes open. No wonderthey were shocked. Who wouldn’t be?
“Heartbeat . . . Blood pressure . . . I can’t believe this!” Even the doctor got caught up in the excitement.
The woman and the man were over the moon at Makoto’s resurrection. It was obvious that they were his parents. Of course they were wild with joy—their dead son had just come back to life. They cried out silently as they stroked my cheeks, rubbed my arms, hugged my whole body. It was strange but I wasn’t bothered by these complete strangers getting all grabby with me. Makoto’s body was taking it all in ahead of my mind.
There was one more person in Makoto’s family. A boy in a school uniform at the foot of the bed, shoulders squared, glaring at me with bloodshot eyes. While everyone else in the room—the parents, the doctor, the nurses—was celebrating, he was the only one acting too cool for school. This was Makoto’s older brother, Mitsuru, a fact I would only learn much later. Right now, though, I didn’t know how old Makoto was, let alone Mitsuru, so I wondered hazily if the glaring kid was a brother or something.
“Makoto, you made it back. Makoto! Makoto!” The half-crazed father repeating his son’s name over and over.
The mother clinging to my body, refusing to let go.
The brother, intensely aloof.
Although I wasn’t exactly in a position for careful observation, I had at least come face to face with the family I’d be staying with. They didn’t look particularly rich or like one of them was a celebrity. But given the spiteful look that angel gave me, I hadn’t expected much to begin with. Still, at first glance, they seemed like normal people, and I decided to chalk that up as a win. I mean, it was plenty possible that when I opened my eyes, I could have been surrounded by eight macho men in red-and-yellow-striped leotards, weeping profusely over my prone body. Nothing better than average when it comes to life in general.
The instant I relaxed a bit, I was overcome with a sudden sleepiness. Makoto hadn’t left his body in the best shape when he died back there. I was bogged down by this sluggish feeling; I couldn’t make the body move too well. Eventually, I dropped off without saying so much as a word.
And so went my debut as Makoto Kobayashi.
The sluggish, drowsy feeling continued for a while. Makoto’s body recovered so well and so quickly that his doctor nearly vibrated with delight. But maybe because of the medication they gave me three times a day, I was still constantly sleepy and the body felt so heavy around me. This didn’t strike me as such a bad thing. I mean, I was in the hospital with absolutely nothing to do anyway, so I took advantage of the situation to rest up.
I’d spend three-quarters of the day asleep, and when I did pop my eyes open from time to time like I’d just remembered that I could, I’d see the face of Makoto’s mother. Or his father. Or Mitsuru’s back.
If it was light outside the window when I woke up, the mother was always right there beside me. A small woman with distinct features, she’d be plopped down in the chair next to the bed, staring at me like she was counting the number of times I blinked. When our eyes met, she’d speak to me briefly, stuff like “How do you feel?” or “Should I turn on the TV?
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