Hallucinations, Mishearings - It Happens to Everyone

Hikaru froze when he heard a male voice speaking English with a strange accent. He was only used to Hortensja's and was familiar with how Japanese sounded in that language, so he almost didn't understand what this person was trying to tell him.

“Where is Horteni?” he managed to ask, trying to control his fear at the same time.

“Is this the girl who owns this phone?”

“Yes.” Hikaru didn't understand what was happening, and his mind started to suggest the worst-case scenarios. “Where is she? What happened?”

“We don't know. She bumped into us, and the phone fell out of her hand. She was crying, and she looked like she was afraid of something. We tried to catch up with her, but she was running away too fast, so we called this number because it was on speed dial,” someone on the other end explained.

Hikaru quickly analyzed the situation and decided to ask this random person to give him the location where he was. He believed that not much time had passed and that he would find Hortensja sooner because she could be somewhere nearby. He was afraid that the more time she spent in the rain, the more she would get sick later. Hikaru arranged a place with the stranger where they would meet and ran in that direction as fast as he could.

It turned out that it wasn't that far away, and he arrived there quite quickly. He looked around; his attention was drawn to a group of three young guys, as he suspected tourists. One of them answered the phone when he called Hortensja's number and waved at him.

“Was that her?” he asked, showing them his wallpaper, which had a picture of the girl on it. They confirmed without hesitation.

“We were too shocked and didn't have time to stop her.” Hikaru recognized from her voice that it was the one he was talking to on the phone. “Is that your girlfriend?”

“Yes,” the Japanese confirmed, taking her phone in his hand. “We had a fight, and she ran out of the house. Which way…?”

The three of them pointed to the street next to one where they were standing. Hikaru immediately wanted to run in that direction, but he took a second to thank the young people. They could have taken her phone, pawned it at the police, or simply ignored the situation, but they decided to take action, and maybe they would make it easier for him to find Hortensja.

“You're welcome. Good luck with the search. We would help, but this is our first time here, and we don't know the area at all. We would get lost ourselves. I hope you will find her.” The other two agreed with him, nodding. Each of them extended a hand to, Hikaru shook it gratefully and ran in the indicated direction.

However, he didn't know what to do next, so he asked passersby if they had seen Hortensja, showing a photo of her on his phone. For the next few dozen minutes, he received only negative answers and began to stress and worry even more. He just wanted to find her, hold her in his arms, and then take her home.

Meanwhile, Hortensja was sitting on the stairs at the back of some building to get some shelter from the rain. She was terribly wet and shivering with cold, but she was afraid to move in case he found her. She was terrified because she had not expected this situation at all. After leaving the house, she needed some time to calm down. At the same time, anger was smoldering inside her and she simply felt sorry. She did not know what to think about Hikaru's accusation, which had hurt her so much.

Hortensja tried to understand him. She suspected that it was not easy for him either and if they switched places, he would experience similar dilemmas in Poland. She observed how much was required here and how badly it was received when these requirements were not met. The Pole had absolutely no intention of getting angry about it but just talking it out calmly later would be nice. She realized that this would not be the last quarrel of this type, and if they did not learn to deal with resolving these issues at the beginning, it would become an insurmountable obstacle later.

She was already thinking about going home since it started raining. Just pulled her phone out of her pocket so she could check the time when someone she thought was heading her way caught her eye. She and her heart froze at the same time. She wanted to run, but her legs were rooted to the ground. Hortensja tried to convince herself that it wasn't him and that he wouldn't be able to sacrifice himself so much to find her. And yet, she was almost certain that Kamil was only a few steps away from her.

Something told her to run. She knew that if she let herself be caught, this time she wouldn't break free and would be dragged back by force to a place she never wanted to be again. It seemed to her that every step was a superhuman effort. She turned around every moment, certain that he was chasing her. Tears filled her eyes, making it difficult to decide which direction to go. She ran blindly, just to run faster, to run farther away from him, to not let herself be stopped when she bumped into people, to get up after stumbling. Run away, run away again…

Finally, she ran out of breath and had to stop. With relief, she realized that she couldn't see him anywhere nearby. Only then did she hide on those stairs. She tried to convince herself that in the rain she could have been mistaken, and it was just a tourist who looked like him. But she still had in front of her eyes that determined expression on his face that was heading her way. The Pole started to shake; she wanted to call Hikaru, but she noticed with horror that there was no phone. She curled up even tighter; now everything seemed even more overwhelming. She thought she had used up all her tears, and yet she still found quite a few.

Hortensja raised her head. It seemed to her that she heard someone calling her, and she had the impression that, that someone was using the full form of her name, and it couldn't be anyone other than Kamil. The voice was getting closer, and she had to run away, even though she no longer had the strength. Running again, that was all she could do.

She didn't notice that she was on a pedestrian crossing when the light was red. She stopped, blinded by the approaching car. Her first instinct was to laugh that since she had survived one accident, life had decided to even the score. But then came the regret that she would die after an argument with Hikaru, and she couldn't forgive herself for that.