Minding the Mind
By: K-promises-fall
Disclaimer: Mai HiME and any other published work that is referenced to in this story do not belong to me. I am but a humble thief, so poor in skills that I make no money off of what it is I take and alter a bit.
Note: Italics switches between thoughts, phantom speak and memories. It is a memory if it is separated from a section by a linebreak, and then closed from another section by another line break. In a memory, phantom speak is also bolded.
"There's a pain that sleeps inside
It sleeps with just one eye
And awakens the moment that you leave.
Though I try to look away,
The pain it still remains
Only leaving when you're next to me.
Do you know, that every time you're near
Everybody else seems far away?
So can you come and make them disappear?
Make them disappear and we can stay"
Hoobastank –' Disappear'
Begin
"Who are you?"
"You already know."
"Why are you here?"
"Because I died."
"How did you die?"
"My little girl ran into the street."
In the silence of her room when the lights had already turned off, Natsuki remembered the past. She dug deep into her memories. She was 21. She should have been in college earning a degree in either engineering or landscaping. She should have had a part time job and bags under her eyes from sleep deprivation. She should have been dating and "finding herself" and possibly getting in trouble with the police for drunk driving maybe once.
But she wasn't.
21. A lucky number.
15 years since the death of her mother. 12 years since she was left at the orphanage. 6 years since she had started having these hallucinations or delusions or whatever the doctors felt like calling it. 3 years since the first person found out about her little "condition". 1 year since she had been admitted to the hospital to check for brain irregularities (only a slight chemical imbalance, but nothing that would make someone start to see dead people). 9 months since she had admitted herself here, following the doctor's suggestion.
15 minutes since her eyes had been shut. 15 minutes since she had last seen one of her constant imaginary visitors. 0.01 seconds since she last heard them inhale (something she thought had to be a habit from living so long; the dead didn't need to breathe, did they?). She heard the whispery inhale. Start over.
21. A lucky number.
Lucky her. Living in the past. Suspended in the present. Wasting away into the future.
15 years since the death of her kaa-san.
"Who are you?" From wide green eyes. Used to be so young, now so much older, now having moved on only to be thrust back into the past.
12 years since she was left at the orphanage.
"You already know."From lifeless green eyes, flecked with dry blood. Used to be so pretty, so warm, now having come back after becoming part of the past.
6 years since she had started having these hallucinations.
"Why are you here?" ...kaa-san. Why are you here? Wide green eyes. Used to be so innocent, now so hard, now so scared.
3 years. 1 year. No year.
"Because I died." Oh, kaa-san... where have you been these 9 years. Your daughter misses you; wants you; needs you. So much so that sometimes she even hates you.
15 minutes. 15 minutes past lights out. 15 minutes past eyes shut.
15 minutes and 17.04 seconds since the cycle started.
"How did you die?"
Her little girl ran into the street. Stupid, stupid little girl. Kaa-san loves you don't you know that. Didn't you knowthat? Didn't you fucking know?
"My little girl...
"- ran into the street." Then it was lights out for real. The routine complete.
Goodnight Natsuki.
Good morning, Natsuki.
The first thing to greet her sleepy eyes was a new hallucination (delusion of her fragile psyche, sounds so cool, doesn't it?). He was young, maybe 13, she thought 12.
The words left her lips before the sight of him properly registered. "Who are you?"
He sniffed and rubbed at his eyes. She thought he was a wimp; a no good cry baby.
"Timmy... my dad brought me here."
From where? Not a standard question, so never asked. She pushed it away, business as usual is always best. Business as usual or no business at all.
"Why are you here?"
The tears gathering in his eyes fell, and he looked almost 6. 15 years since kaa-san died. But the time for remembering was over wasn't it?
"I don't... I don't know..."
She swung her feet over to the side of the bed and onto the cold floor, feeling and looking for her sandals. Maybe they were under the bed?
"How did you die?"
She heard him release a big, floundering (ha-ha) sob.
"He... he... he raped me. Then he put me in that box and... and..."
She found her slippers and slipped them on (another ha-ha), just in time for the door to open and her nurse/attendant/ "I'm your friend. Call me Sumiko, or Su-chan if you like," to open the door and smile at her. She could neither see nor hear the boy, who was practically wailing now.
"He kept me in there and said I was a bad boy 'cause I couldn't get him hard enough and he took the knife and cut me... He cut me! He-
"Its time for breakfast, Natsuki-chan-
"-cut me THERE! And it HURT. And he bea-
"Can I go out into the courtyard today?"
Sumiko's smile widened. "Of course you-
"I didn't want to die. I didn't want to... I never did nothin' never di-
Natsuki finally frowned. "Can we go? It's noisy in here."
The nurse blinked for a second, then the smile returned, though softer and less cheery than before. "Of course."
She stood up and walked towards the door
"I want to go home! I want to go HO-
Then the door shut and Natsuki followed the nurse (attendant) to the dining hall. One of the regular delusions followed her there, but he remained blessedly silent. It seemed she had something to talk about today.
Breakfast is a quiet affair. There are others around, and some are conversing with each other while others, much like her, are keeping to themselves. The food she is eating tastes alright, not like how hospital food was said to taste, though, technically this wasn't a hospital. It tastes alright, it probably even tastes good, but she isn't in the mood to flavour it so her tongue shuts down... or the sensory part of her brain reserved for interpreting signals from her tongue decides to just put a screen over whatever sensations her tongue might be feeling. So breakfast might even taste great and she wouldn't know.
Breakfast was a quiet and quick affair. Soon she had stacked her dishes amongst the other dirty dishes, her fork and spoon amongst their fellows, and her tray on its many twins (multiplets). Ha-ha, isn't she funny?
Sumiko, from her spot beside fellow attendants smiled and waved at her as she made her way to the courtyard. Natsuki made it a point to never wave back.
Then she was leaning against the wall waiting. The sun rose in the east, and the east was behind her, so she would be in shade a while longer, wouldn't she? So there she was leaning against the wall like the total stereo-typical bad-ass in those corny movies she used to go watch. And she closes her eyes and imagines herself smoking a cig (cigarette that is, nicotine is the cure for the soul) as these bad-asses always are, though she herself has not once smoked in her life.
So there she is, totally bad-ass, leaning against the wall in the shadows, refusing to play with all the other little kiddies, too cool for that my man, and smoking a non-existent cigarette. Crossing her arms she can almost hear the leather squeak. And maybe she has been here too long.
Then her partner in crime (her homie, you dig?) leans next to her and she senses the presence beside her. An actual presence that isn't John Doe #3 staring at her from his spot in the sun. She opens her eyes and looks to the side when she realises that previously spoken of John Doe isn't there anymore. He isn't there because Shizuru has come.
Shizuru is the prettiest person in the world. No, Shizuru is the prettiest person in the universe, and if anyone tried to deny it she'd lug 'em a good one; she'd break their effin' nose, you dig?
Shizuru was a goddess with a voice that hushed the world around her and opened the very gates of heaven to this bad-ass, tormented stereo-type. The angel in the movie; the sweet innocence that brought out the good in our deviant.
Already Natsuki's thoughts felt clearer, fuller and more real. Now that she had seen Shizuru she had gotten her real breakfast, with a large cup of wonderfully caffeinated coffee to boot.
She grunts. "Morning."
Shizuru's eyes flicker open and look back at her. "Good morning." Then they flicker away; away and up to the few clouds passing overhead.
There is a period of silence where Natsuki's mind fully creeps out of the cave it had been hibernating in. She takes a breath and breathes out with the world, the world that has stopped.
She had something to talk about today didn't she?
"There's another one. He showed up this morning."
Cardinal eyes shift back to her in their spot in the shade.
"He's 12. Got raped by his dad."
Cardinal eyes widen. "That's horrible." And Natsuki smiles because it is horrible. But Shizuru doesn't really care. She is only responding as she is supposed to. As the psychiatrists – another breed of friend in this place – have told her she is supposed to. And Natsuki thinks Shizuru is a brilliant actor.
"He's a wuss."
Shizuru's eyes narrowed slightly, another brilliant act... or did she really care?
"He's a little boy who has been through a traumatic experience."
"He's a dead boy who came to bother me this morning with his whining."
Shizuru stays silent for a while. Mulling over the various responses someone is supposed to give to so selfish a statement, but doesn't say anything. Instead, the words that come out of her mouth are soft and devoid of most feeling.
"Do you think he'll stay long?"
Natsuki thinks on it a while, then responds, "It doesn't matter. As long as you're around I'll never see any of them." She leans her head against the wall, imagines the cigarette pressed between two of her fingers and inhales the sweet smoke that drifts upwards.
She smells nothing. Of course she doesn't. Shizuru is here. Her brain is functioning properly.
Beside her, Shizuru smiles. A smile that isn't much of an act and only barely touches her eyes. But it is a smile that outshines everything Natsuki can think of, coming from a woman whose smiles never mean anything at all.
So they lean against the wall a good while longer. Then move to an empty bench where Shizuru sits as a proper lady and Natsuki lounges with her head in the proper lady's lap. And there Natsuki falls asleep. No reminiscing, no phantoms watching her close her eyes. Just the smell of Shizuru that wraps around her in a shell, barring entrance to everything Natsuki wants to get rid of. Even her mother.
"Another one showed up this morning."
"Good afternoon to you as well."
Natsuki dropped herself on the couch and kicked her feet up. Shizuru was gone, and though John Doe #3 was nowhere in sight, cry-boy, wuss, the Timmy stood in the corner, behind the potted plant, trying to hide from her glares.
"Have you spoken to this one?"
"Yes. His name is Timmy."
"Alright. What happened to Timmy?"
"He died."
The doctor (psychiatrist and friend) waited patiently, until finally Natsuki gave up the other half of the sentence.
"His father raped, tortured and murdered him."
If she deigned to look she would see the psychiatrist leaning forward in her chair waiting to make eye contact, unfazed by the blunt response, but oh so tired.
"That's horrible."
Natsuki smirked. Shizuru had said the exact same thing.
"He's a wuss." Behind the plotted plant Timmy flinched and Natsuki's smirk grew.
"Why do you say that? He's been through a horrible experience."
Finally, Natsuki looked at her psychiatrist. Her eyes were hard. "But he's not real. He's just something my mind cooked up."
"If that's true, why do you think you made him up? Why did you make up the others?"
But that wasn't fair. They had already drilled the answer to that question into her head hadn't they?
"Because I want to know that bad things happen to everyone. I want to prove to myself that there are others out there who have had it worse than me. Because I want to believe that I really had seen my mother's ghost when I was 15, and that I really did talk to her. I want to believe that she's not really gone."
The doc wrote something down in her book quickly before opening her mouth to speak.
But before she could, Natsuki asked, "But isn't this a bit extreme?"
Natsuki didn't know how she had done it, but Shizuru had somehow gotten the warden to let her stay in Natsuki's room for the night. Their own private sleepover... that just had to be against the rules. When she asked, all she got in response was,
"The warden thinks it is good that you and I are friends. Don't you?"
She left it at that. Who was she to complain, after all? Shizuru made the delusions go away. Shizuru made the clarity return, the memories fade, the time move on. Shizuru made her move, made her try, made her want to live and grow old and die. Well, maybe that was a bit much... she had no real want to watch herself grow old. But the point was that in this place, without Shizuru, whatever was wrong with her would have worsened and consumed her, and then she wouldn't just be in a mental institution, she'd be in the asylum (hush, we're not supposed to say that word in here). What's the difference? Right now, she was in a place for simple mental abnormalities... it was like mental rehab. The asylum (I said to HUSH, dammit) was where the crazy people went. Where they got fed pills that weren't just your daily vitamins and minerals and they got strapped up and placed in padded rooms.
She owed Shizuru for keeping her out of that place.
She owed her big time (prepare the noose).
She frowned at that. There would be no hanging as long as she could help it.
"Will Natsuki ignore me in favour of her brooding the entire night?"
She started; jumped a bit. For all her thinking on the woman she had forgotten that the woman herself was in the same room with her, would be staying the night.
"Mm. Just... enjoying the quiet."
"I did not go through the trouble of being able to be in here with you for you to ignore me, you know?" She sounded annoyed. Was she really? Another act. She was so good these days it was hard to tell. Would she be leaving soon then?
...
Would...
"Lights out is any second now. All we'll be able to do then is sleep."
She hated the way she spoke to her... Never happy. Wasn't Shizuru the emotionless one?
Could Natsuki change then? Express her awe and wonder and readiness to serve and follow this person. Show her gratitude openly instead of in small gestures?
Her lips opened, then the lights turned off, and the words passed, unsounded.
Lights out was bed time. Lights out was no time for talking.
Still, she felt Shizuru's arms wrap around her and pull her head to that warm bosom. A sweet voice, already laced with sleep. "Goodnight Natsuki." Was this it then? Was this all their sleepover would come to?
... Still, it wasn't so bad.
21 is a lucky number. Lucky enough to give her Shizuru.
Lips pressed softly to her forehead and Natsuki realised she had yet to return the goodnight.
Goodnight my love? Goodnight my lady? Goodnight my dream? Saviour? Friend? Don't leave me?
"Goodnight."
It felt so empty; so lacking. But it was all she could give for now.
Lucky numbers. Natsuki dreamed of them, and all the entailed. They were pleasant dreams. Happy ones.
She awoke alone. Completely and utterly alone. No ghosts, no delusions, no Shizuru, no life, not even a bug, and worst of all no Shizuru.
Again there was that question, the only thing to greet her this fine – so fine – morning. "Would Shizuru leave?" Would she really? Such a horrible question. Shizuru would be cruel to leave her here, alone with her ghosts. Shizuru knew what this place was doing to her. She really did. It was a place she had come to, to get voices and images from her mind to stay silent and gone. But look at her now. What was she? Alone in this place where people were too nice and life moved much too slow. She was standing still. She was going crazy. The real crazy. Her mind was off in her own little imaginary world for so many hours of the day. And Shizuru knew that. She knew that she was the only thing keeping that magical world, that enticing trap, away. So would she really and truly just leave her? Just like that.
"... She would."
Because in the end Shizuru doesn't care. "She doesn't feel at all."
The door opens, and behind Sumiko is Timmy, holding the hand of John Doe #3 and smiling up at him.
"I found daddy," he says, and though his face is happy, his voice quivers.
"Good morning Natsuki."
But it is not a good morning at all.
"How are you today?"
Natsuki lies down on the couch, takes one of the two pillows there, and presses her face into it. Her psychiatrist's voice only barely registers through the haze of thoughts, voices and the massive pounding taking up space inside her skull. Her reply is low and trembling. "Mmnn."
"Having a bad day?"
A day? She'd been like this for a week. And it was only getting worse. No place to go but down. Down the rabbit hole, Alice. No bad-asses in need of an angel there, but time moves much too quickly to dilly, so off you go. And of course they push her further down. Further and further and down, down, down.
And the psychiatrist keeps talking to her, keeps trying to help her, keeps trying to get her to respond. But Natsuki is in the pool, that wonderful pool in a magical place, where (hush, I'm trying to think) talking is an unspoken no-no, and dreams sail by and float hypnotising in the wind, and someone's monster in the closet sleeps in the woods.
So when Natsuki thinks she hears the voice of her psychiatrist reaching out to her she thinks, 'What psychiatrist?' and the pool traps her.
She stood in the sun. Around her phantoms appeared and disappeared and sat and stood and watched and spoke to each other. But Natsuki was in the sun, so it was all right. Sometime during the past month she had gained a wonderful gift. Some god had seen her struggles and finally decided her worthy enough to gain and wield this precious, oh so very precious, gift. Natsuki had earned the gift of being able to ignore
.
At first it had been hard. So very hard. They talked and it was like they were screaming. They had moaned, and it was like they were growling at her. They had stared, and she found herself running deeper into wonderland just to get away from their lifeless gazes. (Maybe she would find kaa-san there. Maybe she would fall and die.)
There was nothing to make them go away. No medicine, no willpower, no Shizuru. Sumiko tried harder and harder to speak to her. Her psychiatrist tried harder and harder to connect with her, to reach her. And all the time Natsuki drifted further away. She was packing her bags. Filling up her suitcase. Going on a trip via a doomed plane, scheduled to land her in the place of which we used to not speak; the place called the asylum. And it was all thanks to that unfeeling witch, wonderfully graceful and beautiful, gentle Shizuru.
Oh Shizuru... don't you know that your stereotype misses you, misses you just as much as she misses her kaa-san? Don't you care?
No.
No.
To ignore. Yes, ignore the voice leading her towards thoughts of the vanished brunette. Just like how she ignores the stares and the moans, the breathing and the screaming (particularly from much brighter Timmy, whom she suspects has to be bright and cheery lest he be given worse reason not to be).
She had woken up one day, tired of it all. Tired of thinking, of taking notice, of asking. A new one had appeared, and Natsuki had merely walked past it. Said nothing. Asked nothing. And sometime during the course of the day, it had just left.
To ignore. Such a wonderful gift. She would treasure it always and forever. Treasure it as she treasured those long ago bad-ass moments with her gentle, innocent angel (not so gentle and innocent at all). She would keep it close to her lest she lose it, and use it often lest she forget it.
She stood in the sun. The grass was soft and slightly damp, the courtyard was beautiful, and Natsuki thought that just maybe her life was looking up. Maybe she had started moving forward.
Maybe she had a future again.
Three months went by slowly. She smiled more, did more, responded more and all those other wonderful things, yay, big whoop. But time apparently did not care and so bored her with three normal moving months of nothing but questions and answers.
During those months certain things of some note had happened. John Doe #3 had moved on (and by moved on we mean moved away), and Timmy-Tim-Tim spent most of his time running around somewhere else rather than hanging around her. She guessed that she was too boring. And, thank the god that taught her to ignore, she had had no new arrivals. No visitors of the ethereal, or of the ethergone (There's that lovely humour, back again). The phantoms were slowly weeding their way out of her head.
Now there is something to go "Yay!" for.
So, right, three months. Three months of coming back to herself. Of leaving the phantoms, Shizuru and her mother behind. Moving on, finally. And now here she was. Stiff and uncomfortable, as Sumiko – for some reason she simply could not fathom – hugged her goodbye and wished her well. Then Natsuki got into the taxi and left. Just like that.
She was free.
Free of everything.
She leaned back in the taxi and smiled. Actually smiled as she watched her home for the past year and a half move further and further away. When she could no longer see even the tallest tree on the property she turned and looked forward, past the cab driver into the mild traffic ahead, into her future. A future that could finally move forward.
Her apartment was still hers. Though it had been empty all this time, she had gotten to keep it thanks to money she had recently been given when her father died. Pancreatic cancer is a bitch old man. She didn't even know he had cared enough to leave her in his will. She had missed the funeral, but she guessed she could go see where they buried him. The last thing she wanted was for him to start haunting her because she was a bad daughter (no matter how horrible of a father he himself had been... See? She really had gotten her humour back). The money would also keep her fed until she got a new job. If there was anything left, she supposed she could take back up at least one of her college courses online.
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Then she let it all out.
She was back.
Kuga Natsuki was back.
As soon as Natsuki was within the safe confines of her apartment, bigger than the one she had returned to three years ago, she loosened her tie. Then she took the thing off and threw it in the general direction of her couch. She dropped her briefcase on the counter and proceeded to unbutton her shirt with one quickly working hand while the other opened the refrigerator door and took out a bottle of orange juice. She drank some before settling it back in the fridge and, with her other hand having completed its earlier task and setting out to free her hair from its ponytail, took out a plate of leftover sushi from her dinner the other night and some cold spaghetti. She closed the fridge door using the hand that had previously been untying her hair and set it on the counter. Taking a fork from the dishwasher she dug in. It was, obviously, cold, but Natsuki had long gotten used to eating cold food – she had grown too lazy to bother using the microwave. And it wasn't like it was going to kill her, right? It was sushi, who had that warm?
Dinner was finished with a final slurp and Natsuki dumped her plate and fork in the sink to deal with later. Meanwhile, she proceed to take off her unbuttoned shirt and throw it in roughly the same direction her tie had gone, exposing the white undershirt she had worn underneath and patches of grey from where her sports bra was visible (Come to think of it she hardly ever got to wear any of her good lingerie these days). She was ready to unbuckle her pants when she saw it.
That... that thing...
Staring at her.
From across the room.
Next to her couch.
Dear god... not again. Please...
So, there was that thing – and what the hell was it doing here – standing next to her couch, watching her. A thing – apparition, no we got over that, its a hallucination, not real – that looked exactly like an unfeeling angel she had met at a certain point in her life she was all too ready forget (but never her, of course never her). Yes, her. She who had abandoned her to that far off place, that gate to wonderland, wherein lies the pool we all go down to cast our nets.
Perfect Shizuru. Unfeeling Shizuru. Gentle, meek and mild (okay that one was a lie and, was she really already slipping away, so easily?) Shizuru. Shizuru whom she had loved. Shizuru whom she should hate. Shizuru that she could never forget but had tried, tried so very hard – so desperately – to. She wanted to scream at her. Tell her to get the hell out. To not come back (remember how we learned to ignore). She wanted to tell her to go haunt someone else if she was dead. To go fu(language Natsuki)ck her mo- (kaa-san's daughter ran into the street) -ther while she was at it and leave her the hell alone.
Instead, routine, business as usual or no business at all (remember when we said that?), the words that flew out of her mouth, deceptively calm and torturously quiet were, "Who are you?"
"Who are you?"
"You already know."
"My name is Fujino Shizuru."
Sweet, sweet, Shizuru (don't you know your stereotype missed you? Missed you enough to shut down almost completely? And enough to come back?)
"Why are you here?" This time the unnatural calm in her voice wavered and trembled.
It was 'cause she died. Died just like kaa-san, saving a stupid girl who ran into the street chasing after a dog that was already safely on the opposite end. Why'd you have to run into the road Natsuki? Why'd you have to fucking run? WHY?
"I needed to see Natsuki."
"Ho-" I ran into the road without looking. "How-" I ran without looking and kaa-san got hurt. "How..." Why are you making me relive this? Why are you making me relive this? I was cured. I was cured! I was fine! "How did yo-"
I was fine.
"Get out."
She had never meant for kaa-san to get hurt. She just wanted to keep playing.
"Natsuki I-"
"Get out."
Kaa-san I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to. I didn't meant to get you... get you... you...
"Please!"
"NO! Get the fuck out of my damn apartment right now!"
Natsuki had been backing steadily away, she only realised this when she bumped into the side table she had placed at the edge of the living room, next to her bedroom door. There was a vase on it, and there were flowers in the vase. Without really thinking she took hold of the flowers and threw them. They weren't heavy enough, and instead of striking their intended target they separated and scattered harmlessly (and a bit pathetically) on the floor halfway between them. Looking at them only made Natsuki angrier. Shizuru had left her. She had no right, no right, to just appear like this, in this way.
She didn't deserve it.
Next, the vase was in her hand. Natsuki fingers curled around the lip and she twisted, using her entire body to fling it forward, watching with amazement, incredulity, gladness and loathing as it sailed from her fingers across the room, through Shizuru who looked stunned that Natsuki would throw anything at her, and crashed into the wall behind, cracking it – actually chipping out a part of it – while it itself shattered with a horrendous crash. Beside the vase had been a novel she had borrowed from the public library – it had been boring all throughout and was now overdue by a month at least – Natsuki's fingers slid along polished wood until they hit it and curled around it. And that too was sent flying. It wasn't as satisfyingly destructive as the vase, and it too flew harmlessly through the apparition in her room. But Natsuki didn't care. This had been long coming she realised. This had been the reason she had gone to the facility in the first place. Because she knew this was waiting inside, and now she was finally letting it out.
The book bounced on the floor, flipping over to rest with the pages curled in and spine facing up. Shizuru's lips (they weren't there, probably had never been there in the first place. How frightening would that be?) moved and Natsuki could feel herself screaming still. Releasing her rage as the next thing she took up was the table itself, small but still decidedly heavy. Shizuru's eyes were wide when Natsuki swung it towards her. Natsuki felt the weight as it was practically torn from her hands, and she let it fly. The aim was horribly off and the side table was horribly wide in its trajectory. It hit the edge of the television Natsuki now ever so rarely used making a horrible empty bang, causing the TV to nearly fall off the stand as it turned and slid away from the still moving object, which proceeded to hit into the wall behind it.
Natsuki felt the floor vibrate slightly as it hit and then looked to Shizuru, who was still staring at the still falling table. Natsuki heard it slap against the floor as she started to move forward, started to run forward. Then she was slipping on the shirt she had carelessly thrown down before. She stumbled, the shirt got caught momentarily on the low heel of her shoe, but then her other foot was in front, and her hand was against the ground to steady her, already pushing her forward. She saw as Shizuru's eyes turned to meet hers; bright crimson, wide, sparkling like glass. A strand of chestnut hair swung in front of them and then swung back. Natsuki felt her fist rising and with grim glee guided it straight to those wide eyes. Then she was falling through, her fisted hand opening to aide the other in stopping her fall, her heart falling into her stomach with thick disappointment at the miss. It hurt when she hit. The bones in her arms jarred painfully, and her teeth clashed when her chin followed her arms. It hurt. But she was up again, turning again, ready to try again, when the door to her apartment pushed open and her neighbour stepped in, eyes wide in alarm and concern, her mouth moving.
Natsuki didn't think. Her breathing was non-existent at this point, and she could feel herself choking. Her foot stepped forward. Her fist flew and connected with bone. Natsuki registered the crunch of that bone on her knuckles, felt the tremor from the hit go up her arm and carried through with the punch. The grin she wore made her face as she fell forward.
Time moved out.
Natsuki fell right through Shizuru and hit the floor. Shizuru turned to see her standing back up and braced herself, tensing her shoulders though she knew Natsuki could not hit her. And that was when the door opened, and Natsuki, far gone into whatever fundamental breakdown she was having lunged after the young woman who appeared through the door.
"Is everything..."
Then Natsuki's fist met her nose and Shizuru winced at the harsh crunch that filled the room. Watching with wide, disbelieving eyes as the woman fell back out the door unconscious, blood trailing from her nose. Natsuki's now limp body following after.
When Natsuki woke up she was in a hospital bed. She knew it was a hospital because she had been in a similar room before. Somewhere beyond the curtain that separated her from the other patients in the room was the low mumblings of some soap opera on a television. And that concluded the first set of things Natsuki happened to notice.
The next thing she noticed was that while she was in a bed there were no needles in her arm. No plastic bags with blood, thankfully no urine bag, god that would have been embarrassing. So whatever she was in here for wasn't serious at all, in fact, she should be free to go. They'd probably chase her out once they realised she was fine and still force her to pay some unreasonable bill for whatever unnecessary tests they had performed.
Which brought up the question, why was she here?
Then came the third round of things she noticed, and these were the big ones. She tried to sit up, and managed to do so quite well, ignoring the fact that one hand was handcuffed to the bed railing. Natsuki looked at the shiny metal, her memory of previous events slowly returning, and with dread of what she might see turned her head slowly to look around the room. Against the wall, to the right of her bed was Shizuru. A little older than five (six) years ago, and a bit more transparent. She tensed automatically and the handcuffs rattled slightly on the railing and dug into her wrists briefly. Her heart beat evenly in her chest, normally, each beat amplified in her ears. She was calm and in a panic at the same time, odd.
She thought, I should be screaming right now.
I should be screaming and alerting whoever's supposed to be watching me that I'm awake.
But she wasn't screaming. Part of it was the shock of what she was seeing; a phantom, after all these years of no hallucinations, a phantom in her new life, one from the past she had left behind. But most of it was the fact that it was Shizuru, and Shizuru always made things right, always made her better. Her confidant, her refuge, her safe place (never really left that behind at all). And she was smiling. Shizuru was smiling. And when Shizuru smiled, nothing in the world could upset Natsuki. When Shizuru smiled everything was okay, the world was at peace, and Natsuki was no one to break it.
That was when the attendant (no this one is a nurse, remember?) came in, and Natsuki was briefly interrogated by the police about "the incident at her apartment". They uncuffed her, and explained that her neighbour was ready to sue her for aggravated assault as she rubbed her wrist. They also explained that she might have some issues to work out with the landlord about the damages to her apartment, told her that she would have to undergo a psyche evaluation by a professional due to her "strange"... blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda...
The important thing is that Shizuru's smile had vanished the moment the nurse opened the curtains. The important thing is that Shizuru, phantom or not, refused to look at her even once, instead staring past the curtain into whatever hallway her no longer physical eyes allowed her to look at. What was she staring at?
Then the cops were gone and the nurse went to get her clothes.
That was when Shizuru moved.
Shizuru was through the half parted curtain and out the door of the room to the hallway. And without really thinking Natsuki was after her.
If anything, she wanted to know. Wanted to know why Shizuru had appeared, so much like her mother had all those years ago. If anything, she wanted her throat to unlock so she could ask. She wanted to know how Shizuru had... how she had...
She ignored whatever strange looks she was getting and walked like she had a destination. Shizuru turned a corner and she followed. She could feel her temper rising in her, straight from where her heart was beating so calmly it was slower than she thought it should be. She could feel it rising, but she wasn't angry, not yet.
Shizuru walked through a door and Natsuki pushed it open without paying much attention to the sign reading "Staircase" screwed into it. Shizuru went up, and Natsuki followed. Shizuru practically glided, and each step Natsuki took had a bit more force in it. She started to move a little faster. Then they were through a door and walking down a corridor that was mostly empty. Shizuru moved faster, Natsuki walked quicker, she was getting closer.
Then just as Natsuki was within reach (reach was nothing really when your hand would pass right through, but that was a small detail), Shizuru turned into a room to her left. Natsuki faulted in her steps, taking two to steady herself, before going back and pushing open the door.
The room looked familiar. It was mostly empty. An occupied bed. A cardiac (beep... beep...beep...) monitor. A heavily bandaged head with bits of brunette (no black, its black – but she wasn't that far gone) hair peaking out. White sheets. An I.V. drip containing something clear, another containing something that was a strange, pale brown colour. One hand was in a cast and raised on a small platform, fashioned to keep it from moving (her leg is hurt too), but it wasn't. It was fine; at least she assumed it was fine since she couldn't see it from under the sheet. But the hand that was exposed, the one with the drips attached to it had marks that looked like they were either mild burns or the skin had been scraped off in some cruel way. She thought it was the latter. The room had one window. A small table by it with a single card, it was old and said "happy birthday!" instead of "Get well soon!" Two chairs; one beside the bed, another across from it on the far wall. Then there was Shizuru, a faint almost sad smile on her face, standing next to the bed and looking almost apologetically at Natsuki.
Then there was Natsuki herself, standing dumbly in the doorway, which she now had the keen sense to lock behind her, looking from the Shizuru in the bed, to the phantom she had hallucinated (but was it really a hallucination then, or had it always been real?).
"I'm not sure why... but I needed you here to do this, Natsuki."
Then she sat on the bed and melted into Shizuru, into herself. The cardiac monitor gave a sudden, out of place beep, and then returned to normal.
Behind closed eyelids eyes fluttered, then eyelids fluttered open.
And Natsuki felt ready to cry.
"What do you think she's dreaming about?"
The nurse barely moved her head to acknowledge she had heard him. She continued her routine of changing the sheets, smoothening it out quickly in a way that showed she had done this very thing many, many times before. "Hm?"
He shook his head. No one ever listened to him. Sure he was a temp, sure he was still a student, and sure he was a guy training to be a nurse, but could they at least listen when he said something? He brushed the thought away roughly, "I said, 'What do you think she's dreaming about?'"
The nurse paused for a second to look at the patient, before smoothing out the last wrinkle in the new sheets. "I don't know." He frowned at the answer, obviously delivered to be a conversation killer. But he was tired of being brushed aside, he'd say what he wanted, whether she wanted to hear it or not.
"I hope its something nice."
The nurse grunted in his direction, which only deepened his frown. "Help me lift her back onto the bed."
Still frowning he moved to do as he was told, grabbing her under her arms as she lifted the patient's feet, and gently moving her from one bed to the other. Her head rested on the pillow at an awkward angle and he adjusted it. If she had woken up after staying like that for long her neck would have felt horribly stiff.
When he finished setting her head carefully he looked back at the nurse to find her already out of the room, the basket with the dirty sheets in her arms. He shook his head slightly and followed after. It was what he was expected to do after all.
Still, he paused by the table between the bed and the door, looking at the beautiful woman on the bed, lost in a coma, before picking up the lone card in front of the vase of flowers. The front read "Happy Birthday!" The background was an organised chaos of different coloured balloons. He flipped open the card and read it quickly.
"From: Your friend at the institute
Happy Birthday Shizuru.
I miss you."
The rest of the card was blank. Looking back at the woman on the bed he placed the card back, making sure the "Happy Birthday!" was facing her. Then rushed out the door.
"Your friend at the institute".
He thought, Whoever that is misses you.
And then coma patient #304 was banished from his mind.
Your friend at the institute misses you.
Misses you more even that she misses her kaa-san.
Don't you know that?
Don't you know?
End
Ending Note:
Well there it is. Finally, a oneshot that has more than 2000 words.
There's so much to say for this one...
My favourite part of this fic is the simple concept of what actually happened and what didn't. Everything was a dream. But then there was the card. So at least some of it was real. Where do the memories stop? Where does Shizuru's comatose mind begin a whole new life with Natsuki? Is Natsuki still seeing dead people? Has she moved on to be at the asylum, or moved on with her life? Or did Shizuru's mind make up the whole meeting Natsuki at the institute from scratch using what she knew of Natsuki's mother's death?
Questions, questions, questions. Imagine what you will. My writing style seems to be constantly switching between stories these days... hmmm. Should that be worrying?
Anyways.
Certain references during the story are neither from my own imagination nor Mai HiME. "The pool" (where we all cast our nets), is from Steven King's Lisey's Story. I just finished reading the book and it kind of leaked into my writing. Oops. The wonderland references are from Alice in Wonderland. That movie still creeps me out to this day. Hush though, don't tell anyone. The lyrics at the start are from the song Disappear by Hoobastank, if my memory serves me faithfully (which it doesn't too many times, but I'm pretty sure its right). Anything else that might be similar to some other story was entirely coincidental and I had no idea of it.
For all of you readers not familiar with American slang:
"she'd lug 'em a good one; she'd break their effin' nose, you dig?" basically translates into – 'She would give them a good punch to their face; she would break their fucking nose, do you understand?'
For you readers who are not anime/manga fanatics:
"kaa-san" is basically a polite way of saying 'mother'.
I hope you all enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed typing that scene where Natsuki finally snaps (I liked writing it waaaayy too much).
Review please.
Edit: Noticed that my divisions mysteriously disappeared. Hope it stays this time.
K-promises-fall.