I breathe, slowly.
Inhale, exhale.
In and out.
It's hard. Harder than it should be.
Something soft and springy presses against my back. I am lying flat, facing upwards, surrounded by light. I can't move.
What has happened to me?
I don't remember.
Sudden, blinding light floods my head. I blink and squint against it, my eyes stinging. Then I realize that I am staring at the sky.
The words to fit it flutter into my head like scraps of paper, a name scrawled on each.
Blue. Deep. Bright. Endless.
Then somebody speaks, a woman's voice, brisk and quick. It takes a moment or two for me to understand.
"Wait a sec, is he—?"
She leans over me, shoulders and a head with a fringe of chin-length hair, blocking out the light. "Hinata-san? Hinata-san! Can you hear me?"
I take a breath and open my mouth. My voice is a ragged, painful whisper.
"What… where…"
"You're at Shigeki General Hospital, in Kyoto," she answers. "Do you think you can sit up?"
Her words spill over each other, too fast for me to follow. I think through them once, twice, and say, "Yes."
She lifts my shoulders and eases a pillow underneath them, propping me upright. I wish I could do it myself, but I can hardly lift one hand, let alone support my own weight. Why am I so weak?
"How do you feel, Hinata-san?" she asks.
How do I feel? My mind is a deep, shadowy aquarium, all the answers stirred into the gravel at the bottom. I look down at my lap.
Funny. On the edge of the mattress is a hollow, the sheets creased in wrinkles, as though something heavy had rested there for a long time.
I reach over, fingers shaking, to feel it. The smooth fabric is warm.
"Was… somebody…sitting there?"
I look at the nurse. She is staring at me, eyes narrowed, as though she is picking my mind apart and startled by what she sees.
"No," she says. "No, Hinata-san, there wasn't."
I lean into the pillow and let my head fall back, gazing at the ceiling. Blank chalk-white tile.
For some reason, I want to cry.