They're Celebrating Qingming Festival Next To My Grave Prologue

Author: Larza

Translator: Renkun27

Proofreader: KainGuru

Usagi Notes: Hi guys. This is our first attempt to translate Thai novels. This is where the series “He's Coming to Me” was based on.

It had been more than a decade since I left this world.

This was a very long period of time; but at the same time, it was very short and dreadful. If compared, the amount of time that I had spent living with a healthy body may have been lesser than the amount I had spent dead.

From the moment I opened my eyes to see this world, I had congenital heart disease.

This type of heart disease caused my body to have many limitations. For instance, engaging in physical exercise was very difficult, and sometimes, symptoms like dysrhythmias may occur when I was just sitting, so I had to be taken to the hospital.

Deep in my heart, I could not help but feel indignant because my body was weak, unlike other's. Sometimes, I had problems that would require me going back and forth to the hospital, until I could no longer partic.i.p.ate in various activities. However, since my parents had always been very supportive of me in the past, I stopped thinking a lot and decided to live my life to the fullest.

One day, while I was on my way out to go shopping, I unexpectedly had a heart attack.

It felt so painful—as if someone was squeezing my heart—until it exploded and crumbled into pieces; then my chest began to tighten—making it difficult for me to breathe. At that very moment, I almost screamed my lungs out, trying to call for help.

Unfortunately, no one pa.s.sed by this route—not even one person.

In the end, the pain was too much for me to bear and so, I pa.s.sed out. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself lying in this graveyard.

At first, I thought I had fallen asleep and that it was all but a dream, but when I looked around in this place, I saw a bunch of my friends and relatives burying my own body down into this hole.

I tried to cry, telling them that I was still here, but there was n.o.body who could hear my voice—not even one person.

Because I just woke up, I was shocked by what had happened, until I could no longer compose myself, so my remaining consciousness tried saying that it was just a dream.

I pinched my cheeks and prayed, asking for this dream to quickly come to an end.

However, after waiting day after day, this dream never felt like it had the intention to stop at all.

In fact, this story was hard to believe. I got up and walked around the graveyard. It took a few days for me to understand what had happened.

And that had made me understand that I had already departed from this world.

As soon as I was able to compose myself and understand the whole sequence of the story itself, I realized that I was already dead. I was at a loss for words for many days.

To my surprise, I did not feel sorry for myself nor did I want to cry that much. I only had this astonished and bizarre feeling, as if I had heard of someone else's death—and not my own.

By the time I had accepted this state that I was in, I also began feeling better, and I convinced myself by saying that being a soul was not bad.

At least as a soul, I could travel anywhere without any restrictions. When I was still alive, I could not go out and travel that far—not even a little bit.

Although it felt quite strange, there was only me who stayed here as a soul. And all around me were finished graves. However, after a long time had pa.s.sed by, my doubts gradually faded away, leaving one question behind—how should I live from now on?

On top of that, when you die, there was no need to eat anything. However, because of some habits that you had when you were still alive, the desire to eat something was still there, and since I also had a bunch of relatives whom I would wait for to come and visit for the Tomb Sweeping Day, I was never short of something to eat.

But such happiness could never last long.

After the third year of my death had pa.s.sed by, all of my relatives did not visit my grave and pay their respects for me anymore. I was reminded that they had forgotten all about me from the moment that they had received their inheritance.

The former happiness quickly turned into sorrow. Previously, I was so excited about doing things that I could never do when I was still alive. At this point, I began to think about talking to someone.

Or if possible, I want to have someone who could at least see me.

That morning was like any other day in the past.

Because it was not Tomb Sweeping Day yet, the morning felt so quiet and peaceful. Only the sound of the wind blowing and the birds singing took turns in resonating in my ears. I eased up my breath, looked up to the sky, and basked underneath the morning sunlight, and not long after, I quickly fell asleep.

GR GR…K K GRK

The noise that was similar to drilling or constructing something startled me.

I opened my eyes and blinked a few times in order to get my eyes to adjust to the light, then I slowly moved to sit up on my grave. I fixed my gaze at a crowd who were standing and debating with each other.

After trying to listen, I heard that they were disputing on what material or gravestone model should be used.

Oh, it was a burial.

When I found out what was going on, I no longer paid any attention to them. Before I went back to lie down again, I hesitated and pondered if I should continue to sleep or look for something to do today.

However, while I was immersed in my own thoughts, I heard someone's voice come over.

"Daddy, why is this grave brown and not green like the others?"

Hmm…

The moment I heard that voice, it suddenly came to a stop. Meanwhile, I thought to myself, is there a grave around this side that was as brown as mine? There was none.

I immediately sat up and looked at the people who were chattering. There was no way that another grave here was as brown as mine. In this area, only my grave had no one pouring l.u.s.tral water and tending it.

I sat there looking at the little boy, who was around ten years old, talking brightly to his father. When I saw that, my heart began to melt. Whenever I get to see children who looked cheerful and bright, I could not help but remember the ten-year-old me who had to sit and look outside the hospital window every day.

"It's brown because the relatives of the grave owner didn't pay for the management fee, so no one came to pour l.u.s.tral water and tend to it." The man, who was most likely his father, responded and held the child up in his embrace with compa.s.sion.

As soon as the little boy heard his father's response, he suddenly looked anxious.

"So that means n.o.body has been paying respects to him for a long time, right?"

“That might be the case.” The father responded before stroking the child's head lovingly, and then let the boy down to the ground. All of a sudden, the little boy ran straight to my grave, then faced his father.

“Daddy, do you have some joss sticks?” The little boy asked with a clear tone. He looked like he was thinking of something. "This P' might be hungry, and hasn't eaten anything for a long time."

While I was listening to this conversation, I could not help but laugh out loud.

It was not because his words sounded funny or strange, but I just thought that they were lovely and nice. His words, if heard by others, would surely bring smiles to their faces as well.

The little boy's father also laughed out loud.

"Daddy, I'm serious!" The little boy frowned and at the same time, complained with a grumpy tone when he saw that his father was laughing, as if he was joking.

“Oh, don't be angry with Daddy," the father said to console the boy, though his voice was still laced with humor, before he rummaged through his bag to find three joss sticks, along with a plastic cup. He scooped some soil into the cup then pinned down the joss sticks in it. "But calling him P' might not be a good idea. He might be older than Daddy."

"No." The little boy said as took the plastic cup and placed it in front of my gravestone, “It's written here on the gravestone that P' died when he was 25 years old."

I suddenly became reticent and a variety of feelings projected in my eyes.

It was really a short life.

I only got to live in this world for 25 years. It could be said that I missed out my chance to live my life to the fullest. Even if I could continue aging for ten more years, living my life with the dead was not the same.

"He must've had an accident," the little boy's father said softly then took out a lighter to ignite the three joss sticks that were pinned in the plastic cup. "Oh, do you have food or snacks that you can offer to him?"

After he asked his son, the little boy had a hurried look on his face as he tried to find something in his pockets. Before anything else, he held the items up for his father to see, "Is this okay?"

I tried leaning forward to see what it was, but I could not see even a little bit. It was terribly crazy.

“That's okay." The father looked like he was trying to hold back his laughter, probably because he was afraid that his child would be upset again, “We'll be leaving soon. Hurry up, pay your respects and say goodbye to P'."

The little boy listened to his father. Before he put down the items in his hand, he paid his respects and placed the items in front of my grave's altar. After that, he suddenly ran after his father and got in the car.

I watched the car's receding back as it drove off, until it disappeared right before my eyes, then I gradually turned to look at the items that were left by the little boy on my grave.

But as soon as I caught sight of what those items that the little boy held in his hand earlier were, I carelessly let a smile appear on my face.

…Three candies…