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Saki could not decide if she was more likely to scream or throw up the second she was left alone in her room (really it wasn't her room, because her room was bright and pretty and it had a balcony and it didn't smell like it was someone's job to keep it sanitized all the time), but for the sake of the nurses, she figured she might just scream. Everyone would offer her false words, lying between their teeth about how she would be all right and she'd be out of here soon enough, if they heard her express how she truly felt about the hospital and being trapped in it, but if she threw up they would think she was ill and ban all visitors for weeks until they finally realized that Saki wasn't sick in a physical sense. In reality she only wanted to be a normal girl, to live outside of the sterile white walls of the hospital and to go to school and such. But she was not allowed to complain too much because this was her lot in life and she needed to undergo all this treatment and this isolation for her future.
Her future sure seemed like it would have an annoying amount of medical treatment in it, though.
The nurse whose job it was to escort her places opened the door to her room and informed her that for safety reasons she was not to leave unless there was an emergency until dinner.
Alone, again.
Saki sat down on her bed and looked out the window. Birds traced the winds in the sky, and the tops of the trees swayed gently in the breeze. Everything was beautiful, beautiful, and she wasn't allowed to experience it because something in her made her more susceptible to illness. There was a name for it but Saki hated it, hated every time someone said it because she knew they pitied her. So she simply thought of it as being a curse of sorts.
Ten minutes ago her parents had made a decision regarding her treatment that Saki was trying her best not to hate them for. Logically it was the best one, the one that would allow her to go back to school and swim in the ocean and stay out late with her friends watching meteor showers all night, but it would be painful and she would be in recovery for a while. It would also not fully eliminate the possibility of the condition returning. Saki had heard her parents and the doctor discuss remission and risks and such and she had tuned all of it out because she would end up agreeing to it anyway. She would do anything to see her friends, to hug them all and to spend a day existing in their presences, doing nothing and yet feeling everything. As herself, not as a patient or as a concern or anything but Saki. Ichika and Honami and Shiho wouldn't make such a fuss about her being sick. They wouldn't; they would... they would all just laugh and run and talk with her like everything was normal. Maybe they would comment on how it was nice to have her back at school but that would be it.
No hour-long conversations about her health or her mental state or anything difficult. Just peace. Was that too much to ask for? A single day where no one treated her like simply breathing near her would cause her to break into a million pieces?
The only part of her room that was truly soundproof was the bathroom for privacy reasons. Saki knew it would look odd and a little socially awkward if she was found to be crying not on her bed or at her desk but in the shower, but then she wasn't sure if appearances were meant to be maintained anymore. Her parents certainly seemed to take her (usually fake these days) happiness as a sign that everything was fine and there was absolutely no need to ask if she was really okay with all this loneliness.
So she sat down on the bleak white tile of the bathroom, closed the door behind her, and screamed. No words could truly describe the sheer emotions she was feeling right now, and so she did not even try to find them. Instead she let noise dictate how she expressed her pain, let it show the world, even if no one was listening, that she was hurting.
Saki only stopped when her throat became hoarse and her chest started to hurt. Tears stung at her eyes but she brushed them away and stood up to drink the water from the sink, thankful that Tsukasa had recommended she keep a cup in the bathroom for mouthwash because it would be difficult to go and get her water bottle from her desk now. She took small sips, trying to calm her breath and drink as much as would be helpful. The screaming had been cathartic, but it had also left a gaping hole in her chest where her rage had been, and the loneliness snuck in through a crack in the walls and made itself at home in her heart again. Saki finished her cup and set it back down.
No one had heard her, or they would have been at her door already. She almost laughed before biting her lips to keep the awful sound away. She would not be heard so joyous in this place. It was simply unthinkable.
Saki ought to start on her schoolwork. The nurses had brought her another week's worth of tasks and she was to have them done for Friday as she was not supposed to do any of it on the weekend. But she did not think she would be able to throw herself into any of it with reckless abandon. She simply had no desire to sit at her desk and practice mathematical theorems. On some other day she had been excited to learn them, but now she felt nothing.
Numbers on a page like the chart the nurses used to track her blood cell count and other complicated things. That was all math was and Saki didn't want to dedicate her life to numbers unless they were in a time signature.
She pulled her chair over to the windowsill and sat down. Thankfully the weather was still decent and she could open the window without being met with a gust of cold air or a reprimand from one of the nurses when they realized it wasn't closed. The sound of birds chirping rung through her ears; Saki glanced outside to see them soaring through the air and found that she envied them. Oh, how beautiful it would be to fly anywhere, everywhere, with the wind at her back and the clouds beneath her wings. She could see the world, allowing the jet stream to guide her where it would and making friends with as many people as she could. Saki could be free, free to run where she wished and to leave this place behind forever.
How she wished she could have but an ounce of the freedom the birds had.
Saki took her phone out of her pocket and stared at Shiho's name in her contacts. They didn't always reply to her messages, and even when they did, they usually didn't say much. But Ichika was at some volleyball game and Honami was at school and she never brought her phone to school, so they were the only one who Saki could talk to right now.
She tried to find words that could hopefully explain what was going on, why she just wanted to have someone, anyone, who wasn't going to treat her in the way that everyone did these days (except Ichika, Ichika never treated her like that, Ichika was her friend), and why she couldn't just call them.
After a few attempts, Shiho sent her a message.
I can hear you freaking out. Just spit it out, Saki.
She almost smiled at the words. Shiho was listening to her. But the fact that she was alone in this room made that almost worse. Better to be completely alone than to yearn for the company of another who was so close and yet so far. I miss you, she sent. It was close to the truth.
That's it? Shiho must have been awfully confused by that.
I think so. I just really, really miss everyone.
What's your room number?
It was a funny thing how despite Shiho not having come to visit in months, they could still tell that Saki wasn't just a bit lonely unlike how her parents would have interpreted that message. They somehow understood that she wanted someone with her without her having to ask if they could come over; her parents would have offered to call her to tell her about their days and nothing else. In some way that made more sense for them and their schedules but Saki didn't care. No one did when they were hurting.
Saki sent them her room number and let the promise of a friend soothe her fears enough to make her way through her math worksheets. By the time she was done, Shiho had managed to slip into her room and they were now sitting on her bed, fiddling with their phone. They smiled at her when she turned around and set down her pencil. "Sorry. I took the wrong train."
A few ideas came to mind. She could walk at a normal pace and sit down next to them awkwardly, she could keep standing here, or she could run as fast as was advisable and tackle them in a hug. The last option won and Saki sprinted towards Shiho, who had just enough time to make sure they weren't going to fall off the bed before Saki tackled them.
"Missed us that badly?" Shiho asked when their back met the blankets. They wrapped their arms around Saki when she didn't say anything in response. "I... missed you too."
Saki sat up and helped Shiho do the same. "Yeah."
They were quiet for a second. "How are you? Besides... everything."
She took a deep breath. "Not great?" Shiho raised an eyebrow. "I guess... it just hurts. Being here. I wish I was normal." The words left a bitter taste in her mouth but she meant them, she meant them all, she could not be herself while she was here and that was the point, wasn't it?
Shiho seemed to struggle to find the words, so they just hugged her and did not let go. Saki felt tears prick at her eyes, the salt water so irritating, and she let them fall. Shiho had told her once that they would rather have her cry and get their clothing wet than see her try to fight her own emotions, and so she had no qualms about it. They did not say much.
Warmth. That was what Saki had been missing, she realized as she allowed herself to feel everything for once in forever. Not the facade of it that everyone had been putting up, promising her that she would get better but never telling her when, but genuine warmth. Someone who recognized that she was upset and dealt with the symptoms because the root cause could not be eliminated just yet.
Shiho had that warmth. It could be awkward but Saki didn't really care about that because they were here and they were so, so warm.
"I'm here," they said, and that was all the reassurance she needed.
Saki let herself cry until she felt better and Shiho stayed there with her the whole time. They did not speak much, instead defaulting to humming something comforting. Words were difficult to use anyway. Not only did one have to select the correct ones and put them in the correct order, but one also had to use the right tone and consider context and, well... sometimes a melody was all that was needed.
"Is someone going to be mad at me for this?" Shiho asked after Saki had moved slightly out of the hug. They still had an arm around her shoulders, and she was still holding their other hand, but they were not as close to her as they previously had been. "I sort of snuck in. And I didn't go through the screening."
"I don't think so." Saki rested her head on their shoulder. Warm. Comfortable. She didn't have to pretend to be something she was not. The thought of it made her smile.
The words I don't want you to leave hung in the silence.
"How's school?" Saki asked. It had occurred to her that Shiho ought to be in class right now, and their arrival had almost been too prompt. "Did you go today?"
They blushed. Ah. "There's some rumours going around," they said. "It was stupid of me, but I lied to my parents so I could stay home. They think I have a cold."
"And you don't?"
"No." Shiho glanced at the window. "Just... I didn't think I should make everything worse for everyone."
Saki wasn't sure what to say to that.
They spent the rest of the afternoon talking. Mostly about school and everything that Shiho had been doing recently. Saki felt as if this was too easy. She'd fallen into the old way of things, of teasing Shiho about little things and asking them for another story, another song, another night out at the playground looking up at the stars. And they indulged her because they were her friend and they loved her. It was all so normal that when Saki looked around at her room, away from Shiho as they laughed and smiled and teased her in return, she felt a disconnect. This place was the only thing that was wrong.
So she did her best not to look away. Kept her gaze on Shiho, who was now talking about the girl band she'd discovered a few weeks ago, and watched as they raved about their favourite songs so far with that spark in their eyes that always appeared when they were particularly passionate about something.
(sometimes she had sworn she saw that spark in their eyes when they had looked at her and she didn't know what that meant but she hoped it was good)
As she was distracted (what the nurses would say, not how she thought of it), she did not notice her doctor coming in to inform her of a change to her surgery time, so she was very surprised when she heard a man's voice saying, "Who are you?"
Shiho startled, but they didn't get up. "Saki's friend."
(did they have the right to call each other that anymore after everything)
"Surely a friend of hers would know that you're not supposed to be that close to her," he replied. And while that was true to an extent, Saki trusted Shiho. It would be stupid to ban the two of them from hugging or spending time with each other. "Your name?"
"Hinomori Shiho." And with that, Saki suspected that the die had been cast. For the hospital kept a record of visitors for safety purposes and Shiho's name had not appeared on it for a while. Though she could do her best to convince the medical staff that Shiho was here for a reason and she wanted them to stay (she always wanted them to stay), it would be difficult. "What are you even here for?"
He looked taken aback at that. At least Shiho was still... Shiho, no matter what was happening at school. Saki almost wanted to smile. "Tenma-san, we've had a schedule change. Your parents have authorized your surgery date to be moved up a few days. Do remember that visiting hours end at nine." And then he left and all the energy Saki had put into cheering herself up became wasted. She hugged Shiho again, and this time, she did not let go.
Not even when one of the nurses, having been told about the presence of a visitor who definitely hadn't checked in and who wasn't following protocol, tried to get Shiho out of the room. Saki didn't want to be alone, not after she'd gotten to remember what youth was supposed to be, not when she felt as if she had been adrift in an ocean and she had just been given an anchor point, a dock to come home to, a first mate on a sailing vessel.
They tried to get Shiho to leave but Saki did not let go and Shiho was not mad at her for it. They understood her, they loved her, they would stay.
Someone else entered the room and attempted to pry Saki's arm away from Shiho, and that was the final straw that made Shiho go from passive aggression, snarky comments, and reassurances, to reciprocating the hug with a good amount of force. They clung to her as she clung to them.
(and Saki cried, and she screamed and yelled for them to stay but that was unimportant because it was what was needed to tell everyone else what was going on, everyone who couldn't just leave her alone, everyone who did not genuinely comfort her)
In the end, the nurses gave up and left, and though there were less people in the room, Saki felt somehow less alone.
Shiho stayed for dinner.
Saki was having trouble getting her thoughts in order and Shiho knew it. She wanted to block everything out, to forget and to stay in the warmth, to banish all thoughts of medical procedures and hospitals and to pretend that she was at home but she couldn't. The sterile white tile and the plain blankets and the boring colour of the walls made it impossible.
She closed her eyes and let them hold her close.
Shiho ran one hand through her hair and hummed another song.
(everything had gone to hell and Shiho was doing their best to walk through it with her but why now why not earlier why why why)
Saki woke up. Shiho was still there, now in hospital pajamas, but still there. And maybe they would leave later today and Saki would have to hold back tears for her family and the nurses. She knew she would hate it when the time came; she knew she would have to face her illness and her fears in time and she would survive but she would question it all.
(maybe there was more than one born coward in this room)
But the sun shone down on Shiho's face and painted them in a beautiful light and Saki couldn't help herself from staring, and for a minute, everything seemed... fine. Like there was nothing she had to fear, there was nothing she could not overcome, as long as she cherished this memory and held it close to her heart when she was in distress.
Then Shiho woke up and accidentally kissed her on the forehead and Saki decided that there was a better moment to keep close when she needed it.
"Good morning," they said, their face all red.
"Good morning," Saki echoed, grinning like she'd just won the greatest prize. And in some ways she had.
(she was not alone, she was not alone, and she was happy)