Even someone whose past was worthless can smile at a future full of light.

This is what the bookstore owner says to the “human-trafficker uncle” in their exchange in the second volume. I am not sure what relationship that little girl has with him; because it is so unclear, I will call him the “human-trafficker uncle” for now.

The girl says that, if she had to choose between three billion yen and staying with him, she would choose the latter. When he says that he can buy her anything she wants besides ice cream, she mentions her mother. There is something rather deep in that.

So here is my hypothesis: the uncle will change because of the girl and go on to live a “bright” life.

Through this side story and the uncle’s words, the author dissolves one of my original questions. If I had the chance to learn what my future would be like—setting aside whether it was good or bad—would I choose to sell my lifespan?

The uncle makes one point: although he needs money now, if his future is destitute, he cannot expect to sell it to support his present self. And if his future is truly valuable, then his present hardship becomes less unbearable. In other words, selling it is inadvisable either way, at least in his eyes.

This was probably the illustrator’s idea in the manga adaptation.

Even if we try not to develop feelings for other people, we cannot avoid everyone.

Thirty years without feeling may not be worth living through—not compared with one final month together, nor with three final days free of all care.

Encounters and connections with someone always become an opportunity for us to change.

This is what I saw from Miyagi’s point of view in the third volume.

Perhaps human beings simply cannot bear loneliness. Even when facing someone they know will die soon, they cannot stop themselves from pouring out their feelings, even though they will later face an even sharper loneliness. Each time they make up their minds; each time they cannot help themselves.

Perhaps Miyagi, had she never met Kusunoki, would have spent thirty years without feeling anything—not for any special reason, but because her other surveillance targets might not all have been as easy to get along with as Kusunoki and that girl, while she herself was only an invisible person. If loneliness counts as a kind of feeling, then perhaps it would have been her only feeling. Then, when her time ended, she would begin life again at nearly fifty. It would not be a good beginning, however one looks at it.

And meeting someone special may always become an opportunity for her to change, even at nearly fifty.

From the ending, after Kusunoki has almost paid off her debt and after she works for another three years, she too lives a full and bright life; the rest of her life becomes valuable. In that timeline, she chooses to sell her remaining years, while choosing to spend her final three days with Kusunoki. But perhaps, in another timeline—the life she sold—she met someone else, and Kusunoki became only a memory.

Seen this way, however far the distance between people stretches, their relationship will always grow faint. Sustaining intense emotion comes at a price. That price may be never feeling anything for anyone again, but as we discussed above, that is impossible.

And what truly stretches distance is not necessarily space, but time: Naoko and Kizuki, separated across two times.

Perhaps I should not avoid encounters. Self-study and self-transformation exist, but I want to be saved by a beautiful girl too. I think I said much the same at the end of We Who Have No Tomorrow Fell in Love Yesterday.

My own thoughts.

I am reminded of a Japanese light novel I read before, Love Comes After Simulation. The first half of it was very good. It describes a protagonist who can use a simulator to run through possible futures in advance, and even extract the experience he learned from each simulation. He can foresee certain things ahead of time, and the first two romances have considerable depth.

It does not quite reach ultimate concern in existentialism, but it is not far away.

That ultimate concern is death.

Three Days of Happiness suggests that the final three days may be more valuable than the thirty years sold away, or than the original thirty days remaining.

I do not disagree with this view, but perhaps deep down I still place too much trust in personal agency: as long as one is alive, perhaps a turning point may still exist.

I think this question should be placed after an earlier one: death, the ultimate concern.

If I could remain with Miyagi until death, then compared with not knowing when I would die—drifting through life, anxious and afraid of death, and finally dying alone either without noticing or full of fear—I would choose the three days.

I do not really know how ultimate concern should be resolved, but I think it is related to both the simulator and this work, so I have put them together.

If I can, I would also like to write something myself.