“A sunny Wednesday morning- It's a nice change coming so soon after the passing of Typhoon No.11 that finally vanished over the weekend. Though we did have some leftover heavy rain on Monday, we’re going to be on course for smooth sailing and clear skies for the next few days. And what beautiful skies they’ll be. It's 11 A.M., and we’ll be going into our news segment in just a moment.”
The radio mumbled quiet and soft on top of the beige cabinet in the corner of the hospital room. Tucked up against a small set of white drawers, the cabinet overlooked the rest of the sparse room, the blue chair that loitered before the open windows watching out over the city, and the white hospital bed where I currently lay.
Nao had insisted on it, and I had obliged, thinking of no real reason to deny her this request. My burns were minor, barely on the cusp of being considered 2nd-degree burns. They were localised entirely on the palms of my hands, which were now bandaged up in white wrapping; making any fine movement difficult, to say the least.
It was done more as a precaution to prevent any irritation or unnecessary worsening of the injury from carelessness. I was assured that there'd be no permanent damage and that the bandages could come off this Friday at the latest, with the more likely answer being tomorrow. The doctor would make the final decision regarding the timeframe before he discharged me today, though I’m hopeful he’ll find the time to do it sooner rather than later.
Nevertheless, here I am. Sitting in a hospital bed, bored and listening to the sole sound in this room. A crackling radio almost as old as I was, it’s a miracle that it works as well as it does, but I suppose that is what hospitals deal in.
“The water damage to the affected neighbourhoods along the Arakawa River is steadily being repaired, with estimates that the total damage caused by Typhoon No.11, both in property damage and the loss of economic activity, has been reported at 120 billion yen…” The radio continued, bellowing out its report.
I was supposed to go out today with Emiko to begin furnishing that room we found in Jonpexi. The bright sun outside was just starting to peek out over the tall buildings surrounding the hospital, yet I was stuck here instead of being out with her, navigating the shops and choosing whatever things stood out to her.
Nao had to call her on my behalf using my phone. I unlocked it for her, which was a rather arduous task thanks to my wrapped-up hands, but I managed. Emiko was brought up-to-date on what had transpired regarding the fire, the burns, and my hospitalised state. Ha:Yami was also informed, making this another week that I was taking sick days, perhaps if I wasn’t already planning on leaving in the coming months I’d be a little troubled, but what’s the point in worrying about a tree already in mid fall from the axe.
The choice has already been made. Now it's simply another inevitability.
Emiko sounded a little distressed over the phone, she wasn’t as close to me as Nao. So I wasn’t shocked that her concern was more about the rescheduled plans and whether this would affect my acting progress. Still, there was a trace of anxiety once Nao told her where I was, but that melted quickly as she learnt it was more a case of better safe than sorry than anything serious.
I’d kept most of the things that happened that Monday close to me. The car crash, the rat, and the reasons behind the fire. Emiko was fed the same story I gave to Nao, that it was all a simple accident. She believed it, but Nao… I wasn’t so sure about.
The car crash hadn’t been on the news, but I had searched for it online and found it reported on a few smaller pieces. My identity wasn’t discovered, but there were a few websites asking for any information on the supposed ‘saviour’, including suggesting that I reveal myself so that the rescued woman and her family could thank me.
I didn’t want thanks, I hadn’t rescued that woman out of the selflessness of my heart. But because I was trying to save myself, it was another grand delusion that mixed in with that old reality I lived in. The one where Seina and the void I was co-existed, each one as rotten and broken as the other.
I didn’t regret it; saving her.
In a way, it felt like that act was enough to justify my life, as if I was put on this earth just to save a life. I know it isn’t true, life could never be so simple that its meaning would be a single action.
But it would be nice if it were. if life could just finally conclude now that I had achieved its goal. It won’t, that’s not how this works, we do one thing and then life will find something else for us to do.
We might not like it, we may try and run away, or scream at why we had to go through so much suffering, just for another wall to be put up straight after we’ve broken one down. We might even reject it, hide away in our rooms, or bury ourselves in work so we lose even the time to think about our woes.
This is how life is, how it’ll always be. I want to fight it, but I am so dreadfully tired, or perhaps… just maybe… I see a glimmer of hope over the horizon.
That doesn’t remove the twitch in my hand as I think of the poison, the self-destructive desire to remove this overly thinking brain that I possess. But it does make it easier to ignore.
So much easier.
She’s gone now. It's a peculiar feeling, to continue without her. In a way, she was a sign of my healing, her birth in that apartment room only happened because I realised the perpetual lie I had always been living within.
And like a fool, the knowledge that I wasn’t a real person broke me, and I became a void of rot and decay, while she embodied and continued the lie of perfection I was supposed to always remain as.
She never truly existed, just as the rat on the train tracks didn’t. All the times I’d spoken to her in the mirror, I was really speaking to myself. A case of disassociation that threatened to clutch my mind and never let go, but it did let go.
I made it let go.
Now all my lies will be my own. All my truths too, and my tears. My anger too will bear my name, the name of Seina that I have recovered at last. Besides, I will take hold of my loves as well, even if I do not know what that yet is. My smiles too, fake or not, will be my own. Though I hope more will be real than fake, and I say the same for my friends, perhaps I have none at this moment, but I pray the future holds some.
Yes, it is a terrible thing to be broken, but since when does one thing in the current present prevent us from being fixed and experiencing another thing in the future?
There is only one Seina left inside here, and she is not her.
I am not her.
“Miss Kanemoto, is it? Yes, one moment please.” A man opened the door, a clipboard in his hand as he read from it, saying my name aloud as his brain cycled through the information jotted down.
He was a younger man, at least for a doctor. Early, maybe late 30s at best? He had a full set of black hair that was slicked up and parted messily in the middle. One of his hands sat in the pocket of his white lab coat, while the other held his clipboard in front of him, his dry face gazing down at it, empty and exhausted. His height didn’t quite tower over me, but he was taller than me by a slight amount, not that it accounted for much as he had a constant slouch, likely brought on by his worn and aged hands that looked 10 years older than the rest of him.
His name was Dr. Shirai, this wasn’t my first time meeting him, he’d come in three times before over my stay, but he’d clearly forgotten about me the moment he left the room. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have called me Miss Kanemoto again.
“Just Seina, Doctor.” I repeated myself for the fourth time since arriving here, he nodded, but I knew he wouldn’t remember it on his next visit.
Hopefully, there won’t be a next, and this is my final check-up before being discharged.
“Hmm, sure. Seina-” He corrected, briefly looking up at me before returning to his clipboard.
He ventured further into the room and stood by the bed, his eyes running over my bandaged hands, a short inspection before snapping back to the clipboard.
“Ah, here we are.” He muttered to himself, “Preliminary testing shows no damage to your respiratory system from inhalation of smoke, a good sign. Other than the burns on your palms, you appear to be in good health. Now, I would like to remove those bandages to check the healing rate, if you would be so kind?” He prompted, his hand open and signalling me to place my arm in it.
I did as asked, and as he got to work a nurse wandered in from behind the door hidden by the doctor’s back with a cart and a fresh set of bandages to replace the ones he was currently unravelling
My laptop was on the desk to my left, the doctor on my right. It was one of the few things I brought with me, mainly to ensure that my acting process didn’t stall from being bedridden. However, with my hands as they are, it's tedious to use the keyboard. I managed with movie watching, as that’s just a few button presses, but any research I tried to do ended up as a battle with the touchpad, one I lost more than won.
“Looking good… healing is coming along nicely…” He commented, carefully avoiding my palms while he observed, “These should be good to come off tomorrow afternoon, we’ll put on some smaller plasters so your hand movement won’t be restricted too much. But you’re forbidden to carry any heavy loads or do any demanding tasks, the bare minimum, alright?”
He waved the nurse closer, and she began to tape some white cotton plasters onto the palms of my hands, extending a tiny amount up over my fingers; limiting, but not completely negating the movement of them.
“With that done, I’m clearing you for discharge. The nurse will deal with the rest, goodbye Miss-” He looked down at his clipboard for an answer, “Kanemoto.” He finished, taking his leave from the door and heading back out into the white hallway.
The nurse smiled at me, empty and spent, a side effect of her position. She went over some paperwork, then informed me that the clothes I came in with were in a bag behind her, but a friend had already brought an outfit for me.
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She was referring to Nao, who had already searched my wardrobe and chosen a fresh set of clothes for today at my request.
“You will need my help getting dressed, is that ok with you?” The nurse offered her assistance as she went around the bed to close the curtains.
I nodded, and she stood by me as I pulled the thin cover off and stood up. It was a private room, so other than the nurse’s eyes, I had no one else to worry about. And the nurse wasn’t really that threatening, truth be told.
“Which clothes would you like to wear? The ones you came in with, or the ones your friend brought?” She asked, her head tilted with both bags in her hands.
I pointed to the bag in her left hand, the one with the clothes that Nao brought, and she flashed another smile as she placed the other one down on the ground and began to unpack the clothes I’d chosen.
Nao had chosen an outfit I recognised as the one I wore on my first visit to Hanako Hall, the clothes Hatsuko gifted me.
It was an outfit made up of a thin grey oversized sweater that I knew hung over my body in all the right ways and black loose suit pants that stopped before a pair of white sneakers. Except this time the modest yet complimentary gathering of accessories wasn’t included, Nao having deemed them a little excessive for a casual outfit meant to take me home from the hospital- well, not my home, but her’s.
Nao had picked out the same style that Hatsuko had before, one that perfectly embodied smart casual, a style well suited at both standing out anywhere, yet also fitting in.
A part of me wondered why she chose this outfit out of all of my clothes, was it the quality? The comfort? Maybe something else? Perhaps it was as simple as her believing I’d prefer to be dressed up rather than down after a hospital visit.
The most obvious answer is probably the correct one, even if it is a little boring. And in this case, the obvious answer was that the two outfits Hatsuko had given me were already wrapped up in the same place, neatly tucked within a bag each, and so Nao had probably just checked a bag, agreed it was good enough, and grabbed it.
I undid my patient's wear, which differed in style from what you’d see in other countries. It was a stripped light blue coloured jacket and pants, the jacket was similar to the top half of a Yukata but without the obi sash and with a large pocket on the lower left side of the front, while the bottoms were a simple soft pair of loose pyjama pants, with fluffy white slippers to complete the uniform.
I removed the jacket, slipping it off my shoulders and then followed it up by awkwardly attempting to unclip my bra. The nurse noticed my struggle and rushed over to assist me, taking the black bra off and helping me replace it with the baby blue one in my bag.
As I switched to take off my pants, the nurse gestured to raise my hands, I did and she slid the thin oversized grey sweater onto me, “Miss Seina, you have a very nice figure.” She smiled, remembering to use my first name, unlike the now departed doctor.
“Thank you.” I replied faintly, except my thanks weren’t towards the compliment, but because she used the correct name.
She wasn’t even in the room when I reminded that doctor, which meant she must have been one of the nurses who overheard me telling him yesterday. And she still recalled, in between all the patients she must have dealt with since then, she hadn’t forgotten the naming preference for a minor patient like me who hadn’t even been here for 48 hours.
I looked at her for the first time, taking her appearance into memory. Matching brown hair and eyes, a dim glow in her iris, homely and caring. Her hair was neatly tucked into a bun at the back, tenderly taken care of in its tired state, a rush to put it up with all the speed and haste required at a hospital, but done so regardless with a maternal fondness.
“What’s your name?” I asked as she pulled and tightened my black loose suit pants over my freshly worn underwear.
“Mei Hayata.” She answered, tapping a spot on the bed to prompt me to sit down now that I was fully dressed.
I did as asked and sat down, “I have a friend called Mei.” I sombrely spoke as she veered off behind me and took out a thin wooden brush she had tucked away in her pocket.
“I’m sure she’s waiting for you once you finally leave this place.” She replied, a nurturing smile on her lips as she gently ran the brush through my hair, “You have such beautiful hair, this is natural, yes?” She continued, leisurely holding a strand in the palm of her hand before letting it slip and smoothing it out with the rest of my blonde hair.
“Yes-” I said before my voice caught itself in my throat, the pain constricting my voice box. I took a breath to alleviate the pressure, and then released it, “My mother is Finnish.”
My mother.
It couldn’t have been anyone else, could it?
In the end, I suppose it's what I deserved.
“Half-Japanese? I would never have guessed, you must take after your father?” She commented, switching from tending to the back of my hair to the front, now facing me she delicately exclaimed, “You have blue eyes, how did I not notice earlier? They’re quite lovely.”
“Thank you.” I mumbled, thankful for the topic change.
She finished with my hair, and picked up a pair of white socks, “Hold still, please.” She requested, placing my feet into each of the socks, before following it up with the complimentary white sneakers that she slipped on with a bit of a push.
Standing up, she held out an arm to help me up. I took it, taking care to not put too much pressure on my wounded palms.
“There.” She announced standing before me with a kind smile, “You’re so very pretty.” Her hand reached out and touched my cheek affectionately, her tone filled with warm praise.
The nurse stepped away from me and began collecting my things, “Take some time to gather yourself. I’ll take care of the rest. Ah, I should mention your friend is waiting for you in the reception area.”
That wasn’t a shock, I’d already informed Nao that I would be getting discharged around this time as long as nothing unexpected happened. Still, it was nice that she agreed to pick me up as it’d save me having to take a taxi or train to her apartment. I think deep down she felt a little responsible, she wasn’t, not in the slightest, but guilt isn’t always logical.
“Miss Seina, are you ready?” The nurse asked me with a white see-through bag in her hand filled with my laptop, phone, chargers and the clothes I came in with.
“Yes, please lead the way.”
The reception was a short walk away, located, rather obviously, on the first floor while my private room was on the second floor. The hallways were white, sterile and devoid of activity thanks to the relative quiet of the day, though occasionally another nurse or doctor would sneak out of a room and carefully move past us. The nurse, Mei Hayata, led me down the stairs that sat against the far end of the hallway from my room as she took us towards our destination.
“Here you are, please sign out at the desk. I believe your friend can take you the rest of the way, have a good day, Miss Seina.” The nurse finished, waving one hand towards the rounded beige reception desk, and then the other at Nao who was already standing up from one of the blue seats layered in rows around the room.
“Thank you.” I replied, to which she responded with a smile and a bow, before turning around and leaving me.
I quickly relayed my information to the desk and handed over the paperwork the nurse had given me before signing whatever other pieces of paper they required me to sign.
Most of it was minor matters regarding insurance, confirmation of my stay, identity and treatment type and quality. All Japanese citizens, and even foreigners once they’ve stayed here for 3 months, have to have some form of health insurance. It's compulsory regardless of citizenship after you cross that 3-month mark, and the vast majority of people, including myself, are subscribed to some level of National Health Insurance, or NHI which is its abbreviation. The monthly rate you pay depends on your income, employment, and retirement status. All in all, it's not something I’ve focused on much, but as it's right before me, I’m being forced to.
The receptionist offered her thanks as I finished up with Nao looking over my shoulder, a little on edge about my discharge.
“Seina! How are you feeling? Did your tests go well?” Nao asked as I turned to face her, her step bouncy yet tense like a coil about to snap.
“No issues, the doctor cleared me on all fronts.” I replied coolly, my eyes locked on Nao’s, “Hmm, he also advised me not to over-exert myself.”
Nao wasted no time picking up the bag with all my items that the nurse had carried off up the floor. “In that case, I’ll take this.” She announced, already with the item in her hand and not giving me any room to reject her forceful offer, not that I would have. “Is there anything else we need to do? Or are you free to leave?”
“No, and thank you for helping.”
“You’re welcome.” She replied with a smile that felt tenser than usual, “Are you ready to go home? I’ve prepared a room for you, it's my ex-boyfriend's, but he moved out a while ago, and it's been sitting empty since. Oh, and I already moved the stuff you asked me to into your room, it's in little boxes, I had a few left over, but we can unpack it together.”
Nao was nervous, walking on eggshells around me. She was still her cheerful self, even if it was a little forced, but it's more the fact that she’s treating me as if I’m a terminal patient, rather than an idiot who managed to burn herself on a car door.
I gave her a smile, more real than fake, but it had an ulterior motive, to put her at ease and relax those nerves. I had no plans to die anytime soon, and her overly cautious attitude kept hinting that she thought I was on the edge of doing it.
“I’d like that.”
We left the reception, stepping out onto the small street that ran alongside it. Nao guided me down the road on our left towards the direction of her car.
“You would? Cool, I’ll have to do most of the lifting, for… obvious reasons” She flashed a smile back, her previous tension quickly fading as she fell back into her usual attitude. “You can be my moral support, cheer me on from the sidelines.”
“Sure, I can do that.”
We continued around a corner until Nao stopped me before a Japanese sports car that looked like it was released during the turn of this century.
“This is your car?” I asked, looking at the vehicle that was vastly different from what she drove to the Ha:Yami.
It was a white retro 2-door sports car painted white with a pink stripe running along the bottom of its doors. It had a blocky bumper and a high spoiler on the rear, and it looked like the type of car to comfortably house a 6-cylinder engine, not that I was much of an expert on cars.
“Oh right, I borrow my Dad’s car for work. This is what I usually drive, do you like her? She’s pretty, yeah?” Nao boasted, manually unlocking the car with a twist of her wrist, before running around to the other side and opening the door for me.
I climbed in, and she followed after before shutting the door, starting the powerful engine and pulling out into the left-hand traffic.
“Yeah, she’s pretty.” I confirmed, concluding that my knowledge of the vehicle was too non-existent to say anything other than agreement. “I wasn’t aware you were into cars?”
“Oh, so one of my old boyfriends had a thing for them, had a hundred different models of all these gorgeous classic sports cars in his room. I might have fallen in love with them, he couldn’t afford any of them, and we didn’t last very long anyway for me to check. But once I started working at the Ha:Yami I managed to save up enough to finally buy this beauty. Okay, buying her wasn’t the expensive part, it was upgrading her that really emptied my bank account. It was worth it in the end though, as you can see.” She finished with a laidback smile as she pulled off onto another road and continued driving along, the car's engine purring as she went.
We drove the rest of the way with only idle chatter between us and the low hum of the radio that filled the rare silence that settled in the lapses of our conversation with music.
Nao pulled into the underground parking lot beneath her apartment and guided me up to the 8th floor of 12. She unlocked the door and we both rapidly got to unpacking my things as a duo, but with her taking on most of the heavy lifting as she’d said she would.
The rest of the day continued with us settling into a routine, chores were set, deadlines established, and lines of access drawn. It was a mundane affair, but considering everything that had happened less than 30 hours ago, I was fine with the mundane.
Just for today, though.
After all, there was a stage to return to.
And return, I would.