That's ACHE. That's the book I wrote.
There's a scene early in the book where Rei finds a coin floating in floodwater. He doesn't pick it up. He watches it drift. The scene ends.
No lesson. No metaphor explained. No one tells you what it means.
That's the whole book in miniature.
📖 ACHE: What Kind of Life Is This? is a work of contemplative fiction — 32 short scenes, set in an unnamed Japanese city, following a man named Rei through the kind of days that don't make it into stories. The kind of days that are most of life.
A misprinted business card. A vending machine that almost works. An evening spent watching rain from a window that won't quite close. These aren't obstacles. They're not symbols. They're just what happens, and Rei moves through them the way most of us move through most of our days — without resolution, without conclusion, without the dramatic arc we were promised.
I wrote this book because I wanted fiction that didn't flinch from that.
Most stories are about what changes. ACHE is about what doesn't — or what changes so slowly you almost miss it. There's no moment where Rei becomes someone else. There's no transformation. What there is: a quiet accumulation of small things that are real, that cost something, that leave a mark even when they don't leave a scar.
The book is structured in four movements — 🌱 Arrival. Wrong. World. Still. Each section holds its own atmosphere. The prose is short, fragmented, flat. Dialogue happens the way it does in real life — underloaded, off-center, rarely landing where it aimed.
I wanted it to read the way a long afternoon feels. Not fast. Not eventful. But not nothing.
ACHE exists in two editions: this English version, and its Indonesian counterpart, ACHE: Hidup Seperti Apa Ini? Both are available digitally across platforms. No print run. No bookstore placement. Just the book and whoever finds it.
If you've ever had a day that felt slightly wrong without being dramatic, if you've ever watched something small slip away and not been sure whether to mourn it — this book was written inside that feeling.
You can find ACHE on Amazon Kindle, Google Play Books, and Apple Books.
Links below.
🛒 Amazon Kindle → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GS224DVW
📱 Google Play Books → https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=9dTHEQAAQ23
🍎 Apple Books → https://books.apple.com/us/book/ache-what-kind-of-life-is-this/id6760345441
📚 Goodreads → https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/249524075-ache
Top comments (0)