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Shiho gently opened the door.
A room that she’d say was better described as a bland expanse of white greeted her.
The beeps of a machine filled the air. A sleeping beauty lay upon the bed Shiho found her eyes drawn to.
Saki.
She’s asleep.
Shiho let out a sigh of relief, yet still felt the slightest bit disappointed.
She’d come to the hospital room with the expectation of an awake Saki, many questions, and a guilt that’d follow her for the rest of her life.
For Shiho, not having to face Saki was the mercy of luck.
She was a coward, wasn’t she?
Shiho sat down on the chair next to Saki’s bed.
She never thought that she the kind of person to come back here, to run back like nothing happened, like she did nothing, and yet here she was.
She considered herself a logical person. Someone who knew to weigh things without emotion, on a scale that could decide years of one’s life.
Just like the machines here.
Shiho held Saki’s hand. It was a bit warmer than hers, as she always remembered it to be.
“Sorry,” she caught herself saying.
When she realized that Saki still laid still, and that she wouldn’t hear her, she let herself continue.
“It’s been a long time, huh? Sorry I haven’t visited for…a while.”
“How have you been doing lately? Is Ichika still obsessed with Miku? Is Tsukasa as loud as usual?”
She waited, only to be left with silence.
“Anyways, I hope you’ve been well. And I-“
Saki’s hand twitched.
Shiho’s eyes darted to Saki’s face.
Asleep. Still asleep.
Thank god.
She relaxed her shoulders, and stared down to Saki once more.
Talking to her when she was asleep. And she didn’t bother to visit again when they could really talk, when Saki was awake.
Coward.
She gently dropped Saki’s hand back on her bed.
“Sorry,” she muttered, as she stood back up. She didn’t want to have to talk with an awake Saki. No, she was far too afraid of how she would’ve reacted if she did.
Shiho stepped out of the room, just a bit faster than she’d come in.
This was the last time she was going to see her. She knew that, because she would make sure it would.
So with one more fleeting glance, she looked through the glass pane of the door and forced herself away from the hospital room.
She was fine with this.
She had to be.