Metaphoric

I didn’t see it mentioned in the comments so I wanted to share that I believe this story is actually about Tarou coping with his childhood friend dying from cancer. “Becoming a god” is just the metaphor used.

The jewel in Tomoya’s body represents a chest port. Tarou’s mom gets upset with him as a child because he’s trying to mess with Tomoya’s medical equipment and drawing attention to it. The people in the neighborhood pray for Tomoya because of the cancer and admonish Tarou for playing roughly with him because he is medically fragile. But Tarou does it on purpose because he knows that it makes Tomoya sad to be treated like “the poor dying kid.” This is also why Tarou brings schoolwork home for Tomoya after he becomes too sick to go to school. At the end of the story they know that Tomoya will die soon so they go out to share some special time together and say goodbye.

In the end the jewel that Tarou keeps represents the way that he treasures Tomoya’s memory.