Ourselves

The first thing I hear is a steady, incessant noise, growing louder and louder, separating into beep, beep, beep. Then, a light follows, bright and white, until my eyes snap open.

Everything is blurry. I can only make out vague splotches of color, green and blue and white, and a few forms moving around. I'm blind without my glasses.

"He's awake!" A voice comes from my right, high and feminine.

I try to speak, to beg for my glasses, but it comes out as only a rasp. "Glasses..."

Suddenly, a weight softly lands on my forehead, lenses cover my eyes, and the small room that I'm lying in the middle of comes to life.

Around me are several different shades of pale, cool mint-green, from the curtains on either side of me to the walls to the scrubs worn by the nurse with her back to me, standing right in front of the bed I'm lying on as she thumbs through a stack of papers. Another nurse bolts out of the room to my left.

Beep, beep, beep. The noise continues. I turn my head to see a large, old monitor displaying a steady pulse highlighted in the same green color that's all around me, the kind that you would see in an old movie.

I try to sit up...and I can't. I have no energy. There's something prodding me in the crook of my arm and I can't do anything about it but lay down.

...Maybe I'm paralyzed.

Forget that. Hashigami. I don't know where she is, or if she's okay or not.

The nurse turns around, catching a glimpse of my confused face. "Niihara has gone to get the doctor," she says, gently and calmly.

I can't even voice an affirmation. All I can do is lay there, completely drained.

A few minutes later, another nurse returns, with an older man in a white coat close behind.

"Sakuta-san, is it?" The man sits down on a squat rolling stool, drawing close to the side of my bed.

The only noise I can make is a groan.

"Bad news, we had to amputate."

"Oh...okay...figures..."

One of the doctor's eyebrows raises as he contemplates my pathetic form. "Are you alright? I was making a joke. Trying to lighten the mood a little bit."

I muster up all the energy I can to nod.

"You're going to be fine." The doctor sets the clipboard he's carrying down and leans back, putting his hands behind his head. "You came in with a pretty bad case of hypothermia, but you're doing okay now. To be honest, it’s kind of a miracle you’ve still got all your toes attached. We have to keep you in for observation for a few days. It's procedure."

"I can't stay here for long...my shift starts soon..." I attempt to pull myself out of the bed, but only manage to raise myself a few inches before collapsing again.

"Easy." The doctor rushes over, putting a firm hand on my chest. "You can't go anywhere, not in your condition. Especially not in this weather. Where do you work? I'll have Niihara-kun call them."

"The Kyoudai Mart...Hotaruzawa-icchome..."

One of the two nurses scurries out of the room.

"I'll be back in a little while to check on you." The doctor stands up, grabbing his clipboard. "For now, get some more rest."

"Wait." The doctor stops in the door frame as I call out to him.

"Hm?"

"The...girl. Who was with me. Is she okay?"

"Yes. She's stable."

Pretty much as soon as he leaves, I immediately collapse into a deep sleep. Even my dreams are filled with Hashigami.

I awake to find a stern-looking man in a suit standing over me.

"Sakuta, right?" The man I don't recognize takes a seat next to my bedside.

"Uh...yes..."

"Inspector Kenji Midoriyama, Aomori Metropolitan Police."

"...Are you here to arrest me?" That's the first thing my confused brain spit out.

"No." By the look on his face, he's apparently not a jokester. "I wanted to say that you're very lucky for escaping with no lasting side effects from what you did. Hypothermia is no joke. What exactly drove you to jump into the river in sub-freezing temperatures?"

"Because Hashigami went in...and I was trying to-"

"We were tracking the young woman you were talking about with a helicopter. We would have been able to rescue her if you stayed put. From what she said to me, she didn’t have any intention of jumping. She was planning on it, but decided not to at the last minute. The fall was an accident."

"So...nothing I did ended up mattering..." My blood runs cold. No, it was worse than that. I remember how wide her eyes got when she saw me, and then she fell. I’m the one who nearly killed her.

"I wouldn't put it that way." The detective shifts in his chair. "But yes, you were very lucky. If things had gone even slightly differently, we'd be dealing with two fatalities. Next time, call the police. We're trained to handle these kinds of situations."

I stare down at my feet underneath the thin green blanket as my heart rate monitor continues to drum a steady rhythm. I wasn't even trying to be a hero. I just saw Hashigami in trouble and my instincts took over. In the end, it wouldn't have mattered what I did. If I had just stood there, the police and paramedics would have fished her out of the river.

That's the story of my life. Even when I do a good deed, even by sheer luck, it turns out to be meaningless.

"That will be all." The policeman stands up, brushing off his sport coat and taking a thick wool overcoat in his left arm. "Use some more caution if you find yourself in this kind of situation again. That's all I'll say."

He exits the room, leaving me all alone again. For the next few days, no one comes to visit. Not that I expected anyone would, but I don't even get a single phone call. Apart from the check-ins from the nurses and doctor, my only companion is the constant beep of the EKG.

All that changes the afternoon before I'm scheduled to be released.

As I lie in my bed, paying attention to no one in particular, a dark shadow covers me. I look up, expecting one of the nurses to be here for my blood draw, but instead I see a tall young guy in a thick down jacket and jeans, his bangs swept sideways over his forehead like they're in a perpetual state of being blown by the wind. I can tell just from his appearance that he's a high-tier normie, but most importantly- I don't know this guy at all.

Maybe he's lost? "Can I help you-"

"Are you that guy?" His face reddens as he quickly looks away.

"Huh?" I can finally sit up in my bed after a few days, but it's still way more difficult than it should be.

"You know," he growls, scratching the back of his head in frustration. "The guy who Hanabi-" His voice immediately cuts off as his face reddens even more. I can tell he wants to say something badly, but can't find the words.

"Excuse me? What about Hashigami?'

"Ugh!” He furiously scratches at his head. “What I’m trying to say is…take good care of her, okay?" The kid turns on his heels and immediately storms out.

I sit there dumbfounded until I fall asleep again.

The next afternoon is when my long stay at the hospital comes to an end. My legs are even weaker than they were before, I realize as I gingerly step out of my bed, change into my clothes, and hobble down the cold, sterile white hallway, flanked by the two nurses who were taking care of me.

We turn to head down a hallway framed by a giant sign labeled "EXIT", as nurses rush this way and that way with cots and equipment.

There, at the far end of the hall, sitting on a bench near the women's room, is Hashigami, sitting with her pale, shapely face resting on her wrists, looking down at the ground.

She's beautiful. I had never realized just how pretty she was when we were hanging out. I mean, I knew she was good-looking, but I didn't have much to compare her to. But here, she contrasts so much with the average-looking hospital employees that it's like she glows.

I get closer, and she doesn't raise her head.

"Hashigami?" I say hesitantly as I approach.

She doesn't move. But I stop.

"Sakuta-san?" one of the nurses asks, seeing me pause slightly. "The discharge department is that way-"

I feel a slight tug on the sleeve of my tracksuit, then again, then again. I whirl around. Hashigami is grasping my sleeve at the elbow, holding on tightly with tears starting to form in her eyes.

Don't go, she mouths silently.

I've never seen her look so frightened.

"Can you give me a second?"

The nurses disappear around the corner, leaving us two sitting in silence amidst the hustle and bustle of a busy hospital. Then, she finally speaks, breathy and quiet, still not making eye contact.

"Do you hate me, Kou-kun?"

"W-why would I hate you?"

"Because I'm such a hypocrite. I told you to keep going...to push on...and I couldn't do it myself. I was just...scared...I was so scared...I'm a coward..."

And then she grabs me tightly around the waist, burying her face in my thin jacket. The only noise for minutes is the sound of her muffled sobs as she grabs me tighter and tighter.

I don't know why I put my hand on the top of her head. I didn't actively think about doing it. It was reflex. I just sit there, holding her tightly until the heaving of her body stops.

She finally loosens up her grasp, staring me dead in the face with her eyes red and puffy. "I don't know what to do...I promised Mom I'd graduate high school and help someone in need and then I could join her...but I chickened out...because I'm a coward and a liar and a hypocrite...and now I don't know what I'll do..."

My mind flashes back to that November afternoon on the bridge. We're nothing alike. The words sting me even as I recall them. If only I knew how wrong I was. We are alike. We're more alike than anyone else on this planet.

I want to say something to reassure her. But I can't find the words. Anything that comes out of my mouth is going to be corny. So all I can do is hold her while she sniffles.

"I don't have anything else to live for now..."

"Can't you find something?"

"Huh?" She looks up, her big eyes wide and still full of tears. "What are you talking about-"

"Talking about 'purposes' and 'goals' and stuff is stupid. When I met you, the only reason I had for living was surviving. So what if you don't know where to go from here? Find a reason. Even if it's dumb. That's what I did."

"But...I can't think of anything..."

"If you can't live for yourself, live for me. Because I'm in love with you."

Her eyes grow wider as she recoils a bit, and then she looks down and mutters, "I thought so...you fell in love with Kurokami. Not me."

"No. I could care less about your alter ego. I love you...Hanabi. I have for a long time."

The name sinks like a rock in my throat.

"But...you deserve so much better than me." She looks at the ground again, downcast. "I'm an empty shell. I have nothing."

"When I met you, I was, too. You gave me the reason I needed to get out of bed every morning."

"Eh?" Surprised, she draws back as I move forward. "Me?"

"I still don't know what my purpose in life is. And you don't, either. So why don't we find them together?"

As soon as the words leave my mouth, I wince. That was sappy as hell. If she decides to go after my nuts for saying something so embarrassing, I don't blame her.

But she doesn't. Instead, she blushes bashfully, looking off to the side. "Together? Are you confessing?"

"Wasn’t that obvious when I said I loved you?"

"I...love you too...Kou." Her eyes lock onto mine as we sit next to each other, not saying a word. It feels like there's nobody else in the world but us. "Please...take good care of me."

And then the silence is broken by an obnoxious buzzing.

I quickly fumble around in my pocket, grabbing my old, cracked cell phone and swiping right.

"Hello?"

"SAKUTA, WHERE'S THE GODDAMN RENT?!"

The sound of my landlord's voice is so loud that it nearly blows out one of my eardrums.

"Sorry, Kawaguchi-san...I've been in the hospital the past few days..."

"YOU THINK THAT'S AN EXCUSE?! PAY UP, YOU GOOD-FOR-NOTHING KID! IF I DON'T GET THE MONEY BY TOMORROW, I'M COMING DOWN THERE AND PERSONALLY EVICTING-"

Normally, I would just sit there and nod at a tongue-lashing like this. But I don't really feel like it today. Something about being next to Hashigami is making me feel like I can take on the world. So long as we're together, even if everyone hates us, we'll make it.

"Piss off, Kawaguchi."

I don't wait to hear my landlord's shocked reaction before hanging up. Immediately, Hashigami's eyes widen, and then she starts giggling.

"That was unexpected..." She's not crying now, but I feel even more self-conscious.

"I...uhh..." My face is starting to burn. "We ought to get going..."

“Yeah. We should.”

“By the way, I didn’t get the chance to tell you…I didn’t make the finals in the N*rou contest, but I won the honorable mention. And I got ¥50000 from it. Sure, it’s not a lot, but-”

I want to say that I'm floating a meter above the ground as I take my hand in hers and we fly off into the sunset, with cherry blossoms falling and birds chirping. But life doesn't work like that. Instead, as we reach the front door to the hospital, my voice instantly stops as the automatic doors slide open to reveal an apocalyptic wall of snow, meters high on every side of us, lumps that may have once been cars buried deep within- it was unusually light (for us) in December, but the snow's come back with a vengeance.

"Wow..." Hashigami mutters, taking a look at the layers of white on every exposed surface of the hospital. "There's no way the buses are gonna be running..." She turns to me with a look of concern below her knitted hat. "You live near Aodai, right? There's no chance you can make it back in this weather..."

"It's fine. I can spend the night at a manga cafe or something-"

"My apartment's pretty close." Hashigami turns away from me, reddening again. "If you'd like to spend the night, you can...since, you know, you let me..."

"Thanks, but I'm afraid it'll be too awkward..."

"What's so awkward about a girl inviting her boyfriend over?" Hashigami puffs out one of her cheeks, giving me a long, disapproving look.

"A lot of things..."

"If you're gonna be like this, I ought to dump you..."

"No! I didn't mean it like that...I'll spend the night if you want me to!" I quickly wave my hands in front of my face, flustered. "I'm fine with whatever!"

"Just kidding." Hashigami giggles, sticking her tongue out. "Shall we go?"

"Together?"

"Yeah. Together."

She slips her small, mitten-covered hand into mine, and we set off, trudging through the snow until the hospital fades into the distance.