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One thousand paper cranes.
That was what the stories said could grant a wish. One thousand paper cranes, ideally from the proper paper, all supposed to be folded by the person who desired a wish to be granted, the creases as neat as possible. The colour didn't matter, the placement didn't matter, but the number did. One thousand paper cranes, a desperate prayer for better health and freedom. Freedom from this cage that promised healing, that lied to her and told her it was good.
Saki found it difficult to believe her doctors now when they told her that she was making progress, that soon she'd be able to go back to school, to be a normal girl (albeit one who had a note saying she wasn't to participate in gym class unless the activity involved little intensity). She ought to be starting second year of junior high school now, in a class with her three best friends, yet she was here, filling out introduction forms for her teachers that Ichika had brought her yesterday. Honami, Shiho, and Ichika hadn't even ended up in the same class, so it would be difficult for them too but at least they were at school.
Along with the forms, she had some coursework to do, mostly just review from last years. Officially, Miya Girls had an attendance requirement even for the credit-based course, but that had been waived at the doctors' request, so Saki didn't even have an excuse there. She was well and truly stuck in the hospital until she was allowed out, and the nurses weren't exactly lenient with her when it came to those sorts of things. Saki had tried sneaking out once; she knew never to do so again.
Ichika had brought her flowers with the papers, maybe to soften the annoyance Saki felt at having to do them. This time they meant 'I love you and I wish you health', usually Ichika wasn't so direct in her messaging but it wasn't as if Saki was quiet about her crush, either, and in the bouquet, she'd carefully placed tiny chocolate bars as to not inform the notices that she'd brought food at all. Technically it was allowed but the nurses and especially the doctors frowned upon it; even if it was Tsukasa and not her parents bringing her a snack, they would remind her that it wasn't good for her to eat such things and Saki tried to ignore them but those sorts of comments left a mark so she'd asked Ichika to be discreet whenever she brought snacks; that way no one would bother her about it. Sometimes she missed being given a bag of candy and then ignoring the looks from the nurses as she shared it with Ichika, but in some ways their current arrangement was sweet, too. The chocolate bars were a mixture of flavours, including a couple rare seasonal flavours, and Ichika had, for some reason, taken the time to write things in the spaces provided on the back of each one.
I wish I could see you every day.
I like seeing you smile.
Our math teacher says you need to do all the homework but I can't get you a textbook from the library so we can share.
When Ichika used to just give Saki a bag of the chocolate bars (unopened, all one flavour), the bag had suggested making origami out of the wrappers after eating the chocolate. Of course, the nurses had never allowed that because it ought to be recycled, and the few times Saki had tried to keep the wrappers anyway, someone had thrown them out before she could fold them.
Now, though, no one knew she had them, so she could follow the package's recommendation and fold paper cranes. (Well, it didn't have to just be cranes, but it seemed appropriate given the circumstances.) She'd just have to flatten out the wrappers first so their creases didn't get in the way so much. The big astronomy book Honami had given her would work fairly well for such a thing, so Saki took it out of her backpack and set it on the table next to her coursework. She scribbled down a few of her interests in the space her geography teacher had provided, then glanced at Ichika's bouquet. Normally, she let the flowers dry out a little and then pressed them in a notebook Shiho had brought her months ago, but this time the nurses had given her a vase to put them in, so she'd snuck the chocolate bars into her pencil case to prevent the packaging from getting wet. This also made snacks easier to access, and Saki hadn't had one yet, so it was fine.
She did her best to be quiet opening the wrapper so no one would catch her with 'contraband'. The taste of artificial strawberries and the texture of the wafer burst into her mouth as she placed the whole thing in her mouth (it was tiny after all) and quickly straightened out the wrapper. Saki tucked it under the astronomy book, flat as could be, then finished answering her geography teacher's questions and started her review homework for that class. It was mostly about naming the prefectures and their capitals with a few things on the rock cycle and geographical features. Obviously it was meant to be done from memory with a little help from the textbook, but as Ichika had said she'd bring it next time (had she been unable to get any of the textbooks?), Saki was going to look up any answers she didn't know.
After dinner, her first piece of paper was ready, though it did still smell like strawberry-flavoured chocolate. Saki remembered how to fold a crane so she didn't look up a tutorial. She allowed her memories from art class from elementary school to revisit her as she completed the steps in order. Honami's attempts at drawing various things from trees to cats to suitcases all being interpreted by the teacher as something else while Shiho tried not to say anything about it and Ichika found some way to reference Miku in all her drawings. Helping Shiho get paint out of their hair after an incident involving some of their classmates at the sink in the hallway. Teasing Ichika about drawing Miku when asked to draw "someone you look up to" despite Honami having drawn her best rendition of Ichika.
Saki wished she was back in art class learning to fold cranes and stars and snakes. She wished Shiho was sitting next to her, fussing about how her folds weren't perfectly straight and showing her how to fix them, their own creations long since finished, standing proudly on their desk a few feet away.
But their hands weren't the ones carefully lining up the chocolate bar wrapper before making a crease. Their hands were more callused than hers from years spent playing bass, and their arms weren't ghosting around her shoulders, their voice wasn't calmly explaining what to do as they guided her hands through the process. Saki could pretend they were here, or she could pretend she was at their house, pleading with them to help her improve her origami skills until they gave in and taught her how to fold a fish.
Her crane was finished. It was tiny, which was good, but it was only one of a thousand.
Saki took another chocolate bar, this one matcha flavoured, out of her pencil case.
... she'd need to ask Ichika for a lot more chocolate bars.
Two weeks, a second bouquet of flowers and chocolate, and so much math homework later, Saki found the time to string some of the cranes together and hung them from the top of her window. They looked fairly nice, she thought, nice enough that no one would question them or look too closely and see handwriting that wasn't Saki's.
If she closed her eyes, the cranes detached themselves from their strings and carried her far, far away someplace where all her friends were waiting.
(Was such a place even real anymore?)
"Saki, wouldn't you rather have washi if you're going to fold so many cranes?" her mother asked a few days later, looking at the birds entangled in their strings dangling from high up. "These are... chocolate bar wrappers."
Admittedly that would be nice, but then it wouldn't be from Ichika and in some ways that was almost as important as the cranes themselves. Still, chocolate was expensive, and Ichika had already spent a lot of her parents' money on it, so... "Okay," she said. "Thank you."
"You're welcome, sweetie," her mother said, and then the doctor came into the room to discuss treatment and that was the end of that.
The paper cranes felt like the only living things in the room. Fighting with the breeze as their ally to break free from their strings so they could fly into the courtyard and be happy. Saki's mother and the doctor were cogs in a machine, thinking of solutions to the problem that was Saki's body, only caring to fix and not to love, to hide away all the issues that stared into their eyes and demanded to be treated with dignity until those issues were no more than a blip on the radar, an "off day" in a normal year. Saki herself wasn't much better, having succumbed to the machine's cruel atmosphere long before and now having realized such a thing, she saw no other route towards happiness except escaping from it, all its monotony and its numbers and its sterility. The walls lied with their soft colours, trying to show her "love" except there was little love here, only machines, and Saki much preferred the warmth of another's hand to the chill of latex gloves.
Most days she could do some things yet they still insisted she was too sick to go home and didn't even let her leave her room. Once in the last three months had she left the hospital grounds but that had been for Valentine's Day and it had been raining. At least Shiho, Honami, and Ichika had been involved. Only twice a week was she allowed outside because of "airborne germs" or whatever. The feeling of the sun shining on her skin was a precious rarely now and Saki hated that, hated it as intensely as she could, she wanted to spend all her time bathing in the sunshine with her closest friends, oh how she wanted-
(Shiho had once, while blushing, given her a poem that they'd written in class after they'd gotten it back from the teacher. It had been about the sunshine, its warmth and its gifts.
Saki still wondered if it had been about her.)
All the yearning in the world brought nothing and Saki had learned that wanting something didn't make it appear. No, first one had to suffer tremendously, both physically and emotionally, and then maybe fate would be kind enough to give one a taste of freedom.
Her mother brought washi – a lot of it – with her a few days later and suggested making more than just cranes as she left.
The door shut. Saki stared at the stack of paper in her hands. Better quality than chocolate bar wrappers, sure, but they felt cold in her hands nonetheless. One might say she ought to appreciate it, that her mother didn't have to buy her such things, but it meant nothing compared to the flowers Ichika had brought her, the secret chocolates and the shy, shy girl that delivered them. Sometimes Saki wondered how Ichika had gone from fiery and quick-to-argue, so vocally passionate about so many things, to so anxious, soft-spoken, and nervous in such a short time. The spark in her eyes was still there but it was beginning to fade, and Saki hated to see that but she could do very little to help.
Ichika was the night sky, blue-black hair stealing away the cares of the day with a sweet song on her lips and a promise to return in her heart.
The sterile white of the hospital was the day, cold colours and harsh rhythms that were supposed to be followed lest one be reprimanded. It was not a place Saki wanted to be. Alas, the night did not last forever and the days were long much like in summer. How she adored the winter with its longer nights and shorter days; how she cherished each second spent in Ichika's presence. Perhaps Saki ought to alternate living in the Arctic and Antarctic, so she would spend the most time with her night.
Chocolate bar wrappers were snowflakes, a gift from the sky; washi was a wave teasing the shore, too strong for swimming.
Ichika's eyes were the stars, her skin the galaxies, her hair the darkness of the night, her hands a gentle breeze that gently sang Saki to sleep. Her lips were a black hole, so tantalizing, irresistible even, and when she'd kissed Saki's hand it was as if time had stopped.
Saki took the astronomy book off two chocolate bar wrappers from Ichika's last visit and set one in front of her to fold before setting the book back down. She followed the steps to fold the crane as she had now memorized, and a new crane showed its wings a few minutes later, a message proudly written on its body: wanna see my new cacti?
... yeah, Ichika probably hadn't written it expecting it to be hung on a string.
The night came, as it always did, and with Ichika's words in her heart and the memory of a gentle voice in her ears, Saki prayed for the morning to never come, hands trembling slightly as she pulled the blankets over herself, but in her heart she knew it was futile. She could not keep Ichika around all the time. The sun would always rise, chasing the night away, beaming its cruel, cruel heat down onto the earth. Stealing what little happiness Saki could find for herself until the sunset came and Ichika held her again.
(What would happen if the sun refused to set? If it blocked out the night for eternity? Saki would refer to such a thing as torture, most certainly, but how could she fight against it? She had tried to escape it; she had failed several times.)
Her dreams were sweet; they always were when she thought of Ichika but they were bitter, too, reminding her of that which she could not have. When she dreamed during the day, the aftertaste was oh so sour; at least at night she could find some semblance of comfort. Ichika's presence would banish the bitterness for a time but they no longer had sleepovers as the hospital did not allow it.
She awoke in the morning and folded another crane. Thirty birds on strings, now, all fighting for a chance to break free.
Their odds of success were not high and perhaps they would find freedom in a recycling bin sooner than fly into the courtyard. One day, Saki would set them free, and by that time she might very well have folded a thousand, but they would only be free when she was free and it did not seem that she would be able to fly for an eternity. Alongside them she would leave, alongside them she would be happy, but for now they were all trapped.
Thirty-one paper cranes on strings.