Thursday, June? 9?, 2011

SUMMARY BY YAZAWA KOKORO

For the purpose of this, I am Yazawa Kokoro, ten years old student at Chiyoda elementary school, and the oldest imouto of Yazawa Niko. Onee-chan is watching me write this in her nikki. So I wouldn't read anything, she skipped a page. When Onee-chan first came home she was crying and I begged her to tell me what she was feeling. Onee-chan was on pain medicine and doesn't well recall what she said. So I am summarizing it here. I think Niko wants to remember more. I will include what the doctor told Mama about when she saw her.

15-year-old Yazawa Niko woke up in a hospital bed. her head was bandaged on one side and the skin under the bandage hurt. So did her arms and legs and her shoulders and her back. It seemed to match the dream she'd had. Was she still dreaming? It seemed not. Dreams didn't usually last this long without changing. And you had to concentrate on pain in dreams, the pain she had was there whether she tried to notice it or not.

"Nnn!" she groaned.

She looked around but the lights were out and only some light came through the blinds. Where was she? Niko started to cry. After a long time crying alone, she noticed there was a device with a button on it. She pushed it. When there was no response for quite a while, she tried to go back to sleep.

"Hello, I see you're awake." The light in the room was turned on.

At the foot of the bed stood a pretty woman with red hair like some of the students nowadays sported. "Do they let nurses do that?" Niko wondered. But actually, just as she thought that, she made out that behind the woman was a more obvious nurse, so this might be a doctor.

"I am Doctor Nishikino. Do you know where you are?"

"Ho-hospital," Niko got out in a weak voice. The nurse came around the doctor to the bed-side and offered Niko some water, which she drank gratefully.

"And what's your name?"

Niko was pretty sure a good hospital would already have that written on a slate hanging on the foot of the bed or something, but played along.

"Yazawa Niko."

"And how old are you?"

"I may not look like it, but I'm fifteen years old."

The doctor seemed appropriately surprised. And, for some reason, she suddenly looked more worried to Niko.

"My daughter is about that age. She is nearly sixteen. She goes to Otonokizaka Academy. Do you know her? Maki-chan?"

Maki 'chan?' huh. Clearly the doctor was talking to her like a 12-year-old. It was Niko's curse to bear.

"Madame Doctor, I don't," Niko said. She didn't have any fight in her. She was scared, in pain, confused. She wanted even patronizing comfort.

After that point my sister didn't remember what else they talked about. The doctor had the nurse give her more pain medicine and she gradually got drowsy as they talked. She remembered the doctor told her she had been very, very badly hurt and it was going to take a long time, more than a year, for her to get better. But the good news was, if Niko tried hard and worked with the therapy people, she could get all better eventually.

Niko was too polite to ask, but Doctor Nishikino told Mama she is half British and her hair is naturally a dark red. Onee-chan said she was a baka not to realize the "rude strange girl" was the Maki-chan the doctor mentioned. She told me that girl is now her tutor and she has social anxiety disorder. Niko-née named her diary on the front Nikki-chan, like the one that we can't find. She says when we find it it will be promoted to Nikki-san.

COMMENT BY YAZAWA NIKO

Isn't Kokoro the cutest, even when she writes? "For the purposes of this, I am?" And she writes just like a novelist. When Niko woke up she remembers going "Nnnn!" because the room was so quiet it sounded loud. To remember even that - Kokoro is just amazing. Niko couldn't be more proud of her. And for ten years old, she is so mature. She's already almost as tall as Niko and her body is almost as developed. So maybe she won't be as cursed as her onee-chan.