Take 1 - Overexposed

“Make sure to take one a day,” she said, handing me the pill bottle. “Any questions?”

“No, I don’t think so. Guess I’ll see you next month for the follow-up,” I replied, grabbing my backpack and leaving the doctor’s office.

Routine.
Month after month, it was always the same. If I’m being honest, though, the routine doesn’t erase the fear.
Isn't that something normal?
Can’t I just admit it? Am I allowed to admit it?
I’m scared.

Thirty pills, one a day, come back when they’re gone and get a refill. It felt like I was trapped in a loop that never changed… no, maybe nothing changed except me.
How much did I look like one of those zombies from the movies?

I walked down the hospital hallway, tossing the pill bottle up and catching it mid-air, over and over. By now, I saw them as candy. I knew they didn’t do much—well, they dulled the pain a bit.

“Haruka!”

Impossible not to recognize that voice. Even more impossible not to recognize her—the 'living poster,' the kind of girl you’d see in a magazine, with everything a socially 'standard' person is supposed to have.

“Oh… uh… you were…?” I asked, pocketing the bottle. A deliberately dumb question.

“We’re in the same class.”

“Right…”

“You steal my notes when you run out.”

“Huh? No, I definitely don’t do that…” I replied with a laugh that had no reason to surface.

“As if I don’t notice, idiot.”

“Sorry, sorry. Tomorrow I’ll pretend not to see so you can steal from me. We’ll call it even.”

“…So, what are you doing here?” she asked, eyeing me up and down, trying to dissect something visible.

“Just visiting my uncle.”

“Isn’t your mom an only child?”

“My friend’s uncle. Got mixed up,” I said, waving it off. I forgot she was a walking database. I should be more careful when I lie.

“Hope he gets better…” she said, though it didn’t sound like she bought the lie.“I’m here for routine stuff,” she continued, showing me a cat-shaped Band-Aid on her arm.

“What’s that?”

“I come regularly to donate blood. Kind of a good deed,” she said with a small laugh.

“More like free food…” I added. “Anyway, I’m late for… some stuff. See you later.”

“I’ll walk with you.”

“Thanks, but I’m really in a rush,” I said, sprinting off after pretending my phone rang.

In a rush? That’s one way to put it.
I was definitely running, but time was moving even faster.

The day was just starting, and I should’ve gone to class, but I decided to head to a small park near my house instead.
No real reason to go there, but I had a reason not to go to class, and it’s so simple I feel like an idiot saying it: I just didn’t want to.

The creak of the swing’s chains was the only sound nearby.
What should I do now?
What’s there to do tomorrow?
What is tomorrow?
Is there a tomorrow?

My head was heavy with questions.

I stayed there for a while, until noon. The kids had gotten out of kindergarten, and their parents brought them to the park to, let’s say, 'take a break from them.'

“Guess my philosophical moment’s over…” I muttered, getting off the swing and grabbing my backpack.

I had an idea, something spontaneous. I didn’t think too hard about it.
Before the park filled up with people, I placed the pill bottle on the swing and took a photo with my instant camera.
Slowly, the image appeared on the glossy paper—a mess. Overexposed, my hand had moved when I pressed the shutter, making it blurry.

“Ha… awful… at least I’ll get a laugh out of Agami when I show him…” I said aloud to myself, but my voice slowly faded.

Why show her that photo?
We always joked about my love for instant cameras, and every photo got a smug 'constructive critique' from him. But this might be the first one I wouldn’t show him.
It wasn’t a big deal, I guess. I could keep some things to myself, and showing him the photo would spark a dramatic chain reaction I honestly didn’t need.

The thought gave me chills. He’d bombard me with questions, get all melodramatic, hug me, and tell me everything would be okay.
The perks of blind positivity, probably...
Though I always liked that about him; in short, he was the embodiment of 'the glass half full.'

A dad pushing his daughter on the swing.
Two kids playing on the seesaw.
A couple proclaiming eternal, unconditional love in front of everyone.
A pile of mundane mediocrity… it was a normal sight, probably an everyday one. But in that moment, I realized that even if I convinced my brain it was all absurd and mediocre, I was really convincing myself I didn’t need any of it.
The truth was, all those people kept showing me what I couldn’t have.

My house was empty at this hour. It’d been a while since I had the place to myself. My mom wouldn’t be back until night, and my dad… well, I forgot what his face looked like years ago.
We avoided talking about it, but I’m sure my mom was suffering more than I was.
I was mad at her at first, when she started working double shifts, but I think in her head, the idea of having a bit of extra money was helpful.

Everyone deals with things in their own way, probably.

I left the pill bottle on my desk, dropped my backpack on the floor, and sat on the edge of my bed, staring at it.

“So you’re the one keeping me going a bit longer, huh… just so you know, I’m gonna steal all the praise: ‘he was a good guy,’ ‘always had a smile,’ ‘told great jokes.’ I’ll be the life of the party,” I said to the bottle with an empty laugh.

“…Why don’t you just make this go away already…?” I continued, my voice breaking from the knot in my throat.

My hands ruffled my hair like I was trying to shake something off. My feet tapped the floor like a dance scene. Slowly, I hunched over my knees, my hands pressing hard against my face, trying to hold back everything that was there, threatening to burst.

Why can’t you just make it disappear?
Why can’t you make everything go back to how it was?
Why can’t I go back to who I was before?

“Please… make this go away…” I said as my palms pressed against my half-closed eyes.

In movies, they show people in situations like this making to-do lists, living to the fullest, seizing every moment.
That’s what they show—a convenient lie. The reality is, in moments like this, you don’t want to check off a list or make every second count. You want that internal clock to stop ticking like a bomb.

And I’m sorry to shatter preconceived notions, but when they say 'died surrounded by loved ones,' what they’re really saying is 'all those people watched him die.'