by Yoru Sumino
“What does living mean to you?”
“Whoa,” she said jokingly. “So serious.”
But she looked thoughtful as she gazed upward and whispered to herself, “What does living mean to me?”
Just the sense that she was looking toward life—and not death—relieved my unease the slightest bit. I realized some part of me hadn’t accepted she was going to die. I was a coward.
I thought back to how shaken I’d been when I saw the contents of her backpack in the hotel room, and the question she’d cornered me with at the end of that night.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, pointing a finger upward. “That’s it. I’ve got it.”
I listened close; I didn’t want to miss her answer.
She said, “Living is…”
I waited.
“Sharing connections with other people. I think that’s what we call living.”
I felt suddenly aware of life.
Oh, I understand now.
The hairs rose on the back of my neck.
“To know someone, to get to like someone, to get to dislike someone, to enjoy being with someone, to hate being with someone, to hold hands with someone, to hug someone, to pass someone by. That’s what it means to live. When you’re all on your own, you don’t know who you are. The people I like and dislike are who I am. The people I enjoy being with and the people I hate being with are who I am. Those connections are mine. They define my life as uniquely mine. I know I have feelings because of everyone around me. I know I have a body because other people can touch me. Those connections give me shape. I am alive here. I am alive now. That’s what it means for someone to live—just as you and I have chosen to be alive here and now.”
She had given her existence form through words, her gaze and her voice, her impassioned determination; vibrations of life that shook my soul.
“Well then,” she said, “I got a little carried away there. What am I, an honoree giving a speech at an awards show?”
“No,” I said flatly. “You’re a patient in a hospital.”
She puffed out her cheeks at me. This wasn’t the right timing for a joke like that, but I hoped she’d forgive me.
I stayed quiet for a moment, then she said, “[???]-kun?”
Listening to her speech, I had discovered a genuine feeling building up inside my deepest depths. Once I recognized the feeling, I could see it had been right under my nose and nearly all encompassing, and yet—due to my cowardice—I had failed to notice it before.
And there it was, the answer I had been seeking for the past several days—no, that I had been seeking the whole time.
You…
I tried to suppress the thought as hard as I could.
“You really…”
“Oh, he speaks. Go on, [???]-kun.”
“You really teach me so many different things.”
“Whoa,” she said. “Where’d that come from? You’re making me blush.”
“I mean it,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Are you sure you don’t have a fever?”
She placed her palm on my forehead. My temperature was, of course, normal, and she tilted her head in confusion. Was she joking, or did she really think I might have had a fever? The thought was so silly, I laughed. She looked at me laughing, then put her palm to my head again. I laughed again. We repeated this for a while.
I was having so much fun because I was with her.
Once she finally accepted I didn’t have a fever, I suggested that we share some sliced pineapple I’d brought for her by special request. She was delighted to see that I had.
We were eating the delicious pineapple when she sighed and said, “I’ve got no luck.”
“Because of the truth or dare thing? Okay, how about this—if you ask me a question I can answer, I’ll answer it for you. Forget the game.”
“No, that was the result.”
She left no room for arguing the matter. I still didn’t have the slightest clue what she wanted to ask me.
After we finished our snack and I got her caught up with our summer school lessons, she showed off another magic trick. Not much time had passed since her last performance, so the illusion was a simple one involving props from a magic kit. Still, I was no expert, and I was impressed all the same. Feeling keenly aware of my previously unknown feelings, my eyes never left her throughout my class or her performance.
Afterward I said, “It’s time for me to go. I need to get some lunch, anyway.”
Wiggling her shoulders like a little kid, she protested, “What? You’re leaving already?”
Maybe she hated being alone and bored in her hospital room even more than I’d thought.
I said, “Your lunch will be coming soon, won’t it? And I wouldn’t want Kyōko-san to show up and have me for hers.”
“You think she’d eat your pancreas?”
“Possibly.”
Imagining myself as a carnivore’s dinner, I stood, and she shouted after me, “Wait!”
“Wait,” she repeated. “Just do me one more favor.”
She beckoned me closer. I approached without the slightest bit of wariness, and without showing any maliciousness, hesitation, hidden motive, scheming, remorse, or responsibility, she half rose in her bed, leaned forward, and stretched her arms around me.
Her embrace came with so little warning that I didn’t have time to be surprised. Instead, I stayed calmer than I would have believed possible. I rested my chin on her shoulder. She smelled sweet.
“So…” I said.
“This isn’t like last time. I’m not playing a prank.”
Another moment passed. “Then what is it?”
“You know, lately, I’ve just got this strange thing for wanting to feel other people’s warmth.”
Something in how she said that seemed to confirm my suspicions. I said, “Listen, there’s something that’s been bothering me.”
“My bra size? ’Cause you can feel me against you, huh?”
“Dummy.”
She laughed.
I said, “You’ve been acting strange. What’s going on?”
Holding our embrace—well, with her embracing me at least—I awaited her answer. This time, I didn’t feel like she was making a fool of me. I thought that if she wanted to use my body warmth, she could have it all she wanted.
Slowly, she shook her head two times.
“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all.”
Of course I didn’t believe her. But I didn’t have the courage to make her say anything she didn’t want to.
She said, “I just want to enjoy the reality and normalcy you give to me.”
“Oh,” I said. Even if I had possessed some sort of misguided courage, whatever she was thinking wasn’t mine to know in this moment.
She remained quiet, and after a time, I heard a wild beast growling behind my back.
Just when I thought our timing could never get worse.
“Sakura, how are—” the beast said. The growl became a roar. “It’s you! Again?”
I freed myself from the girl’s embrace and looked to the door, where her best friend was glaring at me with the face of a devil. I suspected I was making quite the face myself. As the friend advanced, I tried to take a step back, but the bed blocked my escape.
The friend was reaching to grab me by my collar, and I thought all hope was lost when I was rescued at the last moment. The girl quickly slid off her bed and hugged her friend tightly.
“Kyōko, calm down!” she said.
I said, “Okay, well, see you later,” and made my escape out through her hospital room door. Was I going to have to run away every time I visited? As I scurried down the hall, I heard the friend shouting my name, but I smoothly ignored it, and thus ended my third visit. I wasn’t sure, but I thought the girl’s sweet scent lingered on my body.
On Sunday, the following night, I learned something that might have been what she was hiding from me. I’d say I saw this was coming, but I hadn’t ever
settled on any one theory in particular.
She told me by text.
Her hospitalization had been extended by two weeks.
Seven
She reacted to her extended hospitalization with surprising indifference. The news had worried me, but seeing how she appeared to have expected the possibility reassured me a little. I wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but I’d been alarmed.
I went to see her after classes on Tuesday afternoon. Summer school was almost over. “By the time I get out of here, summer vacation will be more than half over,” she said, as if that was all that bothered her—or she wanted me to think that was all that bothered her.
It was a sunny day. Her hospital room, nice and cool, provided us shelter from the hot summer’s daylight. Somehow, that shelter helped settle my nerves, even if the heat wasn’t what was on my mind.
She asked, “How are things with Kyōko?”
“Okay, I guess. She’s been glaring at me with a little more of a glint in her eye since last week. But whatever you said to her calmed her down, and she hasn’t pounced on me again.”
“Could you stop talking about my best friend like she’s a wild beast?”
“Easy for you to say. I bet she’s never looked at you like she does me. She’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Or more like a lion.”
I hadn’t told her about our run-in at the bookstore the week before.
I brought her some canned peaches for this visit. I poured the can’s contents into a bowl, and we pecked away at the fruit. The sweet syrup reminded me of being a little kid.
The girl gazed out the window as she nibbled at the unnaturally yellow fruit.
“Why are you in a hospital on a beautiful day like this?” she asked. “You should go out and play dodgeball or something.”
“First, you told me to come. Second, I haven’t played dodgeball since I was in grade school. Third, I wouldn’t have anyone to play it with. There’s three reasons—you can take your pick.”
“I’ll take them all.”
“Greedy, are you? I’ll let you have the last peach then.”
She gave me a childish grin, stabbed the last peach slice with her fork, and ate it in one bite. I carried the bowl, forks, and can to a sink in the corner of her room. Apparently, a nurse would come and clean up for us. Between not having to do our own dishes and the room service meals, if it weren’t for her sickness, this might have felt like a VIP suite.
As part of her VIP package, I taught her our class materials at no charge, and although she seemed to want to be doing anything else, she took her notes diligently. When I asked her why she needed to study—she wouldn’t be taking any college entrance exams, after all—she explained that if her grades suddenly plummeted, everyone around her would think that something was up. I realized why I never particularly cared about studying.
There was no magic show today. That was understandable; I wouldn’t have expected her to have another trick ready so soon. She told me she was practicing something special and that I should look forward to it.
“I’ll be waiting with bated breath,” I said.
“How do you bait your breath? Do you eat a worm or something?”
“Oh no, have you gotten too dumb to recognize common sayings? You have it bad enough already—now you’ve got a brain virus too.”
“If you call someone else dumb, that makes you the dumb one,” she said.
“It doesn’t work like that. If I say you’re sick, that doesn’t make me the sick one.”
“Sure it does. You should drop dead. Look, I’m going to die now. See? It works.”
“I thought I told you to stop dragging me down with you.”
I was glad to have our typical nonsense. Our little jokes felt like proof that everything was normal.
If I had more experience with other people, I might not have been so reassured by something so trivial.
I happened to glance at the corner of her room. The flooring had darkened at the edges along the wall, as if fragments of the previous patients’ illnesses had accumulated there and wouldn’t let go.
I slowly shifted my gaze from the corner back to the girl. She said my name, and my eyes landed on her a little faster.
“[???]-kun, do you have any plans for summer break?”
“Just coming here and reading books at home. And doing homework.”
“That’s all? C’mon, it’s vacation. Do something. Since I won’t be going on a trip with Kyōko, why don’t you go with her instead?”
“I don’t have a license to handle dangerous animals. How come you’re not going on a trip with her?”
“Now that I’m in here longer, the timing doesn’t work. The second half of break she’ll be busy with volleyball.” She smiled sadly. “I really wanted to go on another trip.”
My breath caught. The whole room seemed to darken, air and all, and some unwanted presence stirred in my chest. I nearly coughed. I was only able to hold it down by taking a quick drink of my bottled tea.
What did she say?
I replayed what she said in my mind, like I was some detective in a novel and she was the prime suspect.
I must have looked troubled. Her smile vanished, and she tilted her head at me quizzically.
But I was the one with the question, which tumbled out: “Why did you phrase that like you’re never going to be able to go on a trip again?”
She looked caught off guard, wide-eyed, like a pigeon shot by a peashooter.
Finally, she said, “Did I?”
“You did.”
“Oh. Well, I guess sometimes even I worry, that’s all.”
“Hey…” I said. I wondered what kind of face I was making. The waves of dread I’d hidden since my last visit now threatened to leap from my lips. I tried to cover my mouth with my hand to keep from talking, but my hand didn’t get there in time.
I said, “You’re not going to die, right?”
“Huh? Sure I am. I’m going to die, and so will you.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“If you’re talking about my pancreas, then yes, I am going to die from my disease.”
“That’s not what I mean!”
I pounded my fists on the edge of her bed and stood. I didn’t mean to—it just happened. My folding chair slid back, metal legs scraping on the floor with an awful screech. My eyes were locked on hers. She looked truly shocked. So was I. What was happening to me?
My throat had gone dry and scratchy, but I managed to squeeze out one more sentence, like the last drop from a bottle.
“You’re not going to die yet, right?”
Still in shock, she didn’t respond. The room filled with silence, a scary presence that compelled me to keep talking.
“You’ve been acting strange.”
Still no response.
“You’re hiding something from me,” I said. The words began tumbling out faster than I had ever spoken before. “But I see through it. The truth or dare game, you suddenly hugging me. When I asked you if something was going on, your response was weird, too. Did you think I wouldn’t notice how long you took to answer? You’re sick. You’re in a hospital. I worry about you, you know?”
When I finally finished, I was short of breath, and not just because I hadn’t paused to take any breaths. I was flustered; I didn’t know what to do anymore—about her, or about me intruding on her.
She was still dumbstruck, staring at me. Seeing that I wasn’t the most confused person in the room, I managed to get a small hold of myself, and I sat back in my chair and slackened my grip on her bedsheets.
I watched her face. Her eyes were wide open, and her lips were tight. I wondered if she would try to change the subject again. If she did, what would I do? Did I possess the courage to press her any further? If I did, would it even matter?
What did I even want to do?
I was lost in my thoughts when she gave me the answer.
Her expression always changed so rapidly. I didn’t know
what look would replace her current one of blank surprise, but I expected that, when it happened, the change would come suddenly.
I was wrong. This time, her expression changed its color slowly. The corners of her closed lips lifted at a snail’s pace. Her wide eyes narrowed with the speed of a curtain lowering at the end of a play. Her stiffened cheeks rose as fast as ice melted.
She gave me a smile that would have taken me more than a lifetime to replicate.
“Shall I tell you?” she asked. “What’s going on?”
“Yes,” I said with the trepidation of a kid who was about to incur an adult’s wrath.
Her lips parted, and she sounded content as she answered, “Nothing at all. I’ve just been thinking about you.”
“About me?”
“Yes. I wasn’t even going to ask you anything special in that truth or dare game. If I was forced to say what’s been on my mind, it’s that I want us to get even closer.”
“Really?” I asked with a skeptical tone.
“Really. I don’t lie to you.”
She may have just been telling me what I wanted to hear, but I couldn’t entirely hide my relief. The tension melted from my shoulders. I knew I was being naïve, but I believed her.
She laughed, low and slow.
“What?” I asked.
“I was just thinking about how happy I am. I could just die now.”
“You better not.”
“Do you want me to keep living?”
I said, “Yes.”
Keeping her eyes on me, she giggled. She sounded exceedingly happy, even for her. “I never imagined you would need me that much. I don’t think anything could ever make me happier. Why, with a shut-in like you, I’m probably the first person you’ve ever needed.”
“Who are you calling a shut-in?” I said, going along with her joke, but I felt so mortified I thought my face might explode. I was embarrassed for worrying about her, for not wanting to lose her, for needing her. All of that was true, but putting those emotions into words embarrassed me vastly more than when they were just feelings. I felt like all the blood in my body was racing to the top of my head. Maybe I would die first after all. Somehow, I managed to take deep breaths to expel the heat of my embarrassment.
