Miyabi Kagurazaki gave a long sigh, and pushed her chair back from her desk, closing her eyes. How nice it would be to just turn off the little lamp next to her computer, and spend a few lovely minutes dozing in the dark.
But she knew it wouldn't do. At best, Taeko would wake her with her well-meaning clumsiness, despite everyone having been told that, short of the house collapsing or a Russian invasion, Miyabi-san was not to be disturbed. At worst, she would sleep too long, and wake to see the morning sunlight peeping through the trees outside her office window, as the board meeting proceeded without her.
It was like some sort of conspiracy, she thought. It seemed as if some gang of mischievous little imps had taken control of her life, and were determined to prevent her from finishing this report by the eight-o'clock deadline tomorrow.
First, she had foolishly allowed Taeko to use her computer. Well, actually she had allowed the more sensible Chika to use it for a little Solitaire whilst Miyabi took a break, and Chika had in turn allowed Taeko to do a little surfing on the Internet. Miyabi had returned to find her entire document erased. That two-left-footed, three-right-thumbed excuse for a maid had accidentally closed the word processing program, automatic backups and all, despite the numerous safeguards intended to prevent such a disaster.
With a sigh of resignation, Miyabi had refrained from murdering the clumsy, bespectacled redhead, and started the report over. This time, she had instituted a temporarily password-protected screen saver that still would still not stop well-meaning but technologically challenged Taeko from accidentally rebooting the machine.
She had been about a quarter of the way into her second attempt at the report when the phone rang. Had it been some telephone salesman (the confounded devils were as common in Japan as they were in America), she could simply have hung up the phone and returned to her task.
But it was not to be. The caller had been a beau whom the others knew nothing about, and Miyabi could not put him off, however gently, without losing some points with him. So she had talked, losing over an hour of precious time before he had finally hung up.
Presently, she looked at her watch: eleven-thirty. She was now about three-quarters of the way though the document, and looking forward to going to bed, as soon as she saved this blasted thing to the hard drive, a floppy disk, and all three of her Flash Drives, and burned it on to a CD or three.
The phone rang. Miyabi waited for the second ring, hoping that Chika or Taeko would take the call in the kitchen, and that the latter would actually pay attention and write down any important messages if she happened to get there first without falling on her face.
Alas, the second ring came, and Miyabi did not wait for the third.
"Sakuraba residence," she rapped out, her tone making it very clear to whoever was on the other end that this had better be important.
"Tina-san?" Miyabi said, surprised. "Where are you? Is everything all right…oh my. Is she…oh, thank goodness! I feared the worst…and Sir Kaoru? Yes…I see…yes, Tina-san, we'll be there as soon as we can…yes…you too. Sayonara." With that she hung up the phone, leapt out of the chair, and grabbed her coat. "Taeko-chan! Chika-chan!"
Both girls quickly appeared in the doorway, the former stumbling a little over the latter.
"There has been an accident. We have to go to the hospital in Tokyo right away."
-
Tina snapped her cell phone shut and sat down next to Kaoru. "They're on the way," she reported.
They were in the waiting room of the hospital, surrounded by comfortable brown leather chairs, pristine, well-decorated walls and floors, and cable TV, currently tuned to CNN. The news, Tina saw, was the usual rant about politics, economics, and the weather.
The other people in the lobby—some obviously family members of the patients, some probably prospective patients themselves—talked to one another in hushed tones, creating a background noise level that was relatively quiet, but still somehow added to the tension in the room.
Kaoru still had not responded to her statement. Tina understood. He wasn't ignoring her; he just had other things on his mind. She watched him carefully. The medics had stitched up an ugly cut above his left eye which, miraculously, was his only injury.
So far, he seemed to be holding up, but just barely. Poor guy, she thought. He hasn't said a word since we got here. He's just been sitting there, staring into space.
Tina and Kaoru had actually beaten the ambulance to the hospital. When the big vehicle pulled up, she had watched as the paramedics maneuvered Miss Aoi on to a gurney and hustled her off to the E.R.
That was about fifteen minutes ago. No doubt her friend was in surgery by now, and neither Tina nor Kaoru would see her again for at least two or three hours.
"Listen, Kaoru," she said gently. "I know it must be the last thing on your mind right now, but you need something to eat, and you need to get some rest. The docs won't have anything to tell us for at least a couple hours yet, and you won't do that girl of yours one bit of good sitting here worrying."
The revolving doors of the waiting room jangled, and Tina stood and turned to see Miss Miyabi, Taeko, and Chika entering. She walked over and pulled Miss Miyabi aside for a brief conference. When Tina seemed finished, Miss Miyabi walked over to Kaoru and sat next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder.
Kaoru turned and looked at her, and then Tina's eyes widened as she saw Miss Miyabi do something Miss Miyabi never did. She put out her arms and embraced Kaoru, who shamelessly buried his face in her shoulder as she held him.
"Boy," Tina whispered to Taeko, "he's a bigger soul than I am, that's for damn sure!"
-
The cafeteria was nearly empty; few people had any desire to eat this late at night. Kaoru sat at a table with his friends, staring at the polished surface. Miss Miyabi had placed a plate full of food in front of him, which he had barely touched. Tina called it, he thought. Eating is definitely the last thing I feel like doing right now.
"It happened so fast," he whispered, "like being struck by lightning. If I had hit the brakes just half a second sooner—
"Now don't you start that!" Tina scolded him. "This is not your—
Miyabi held up a hand, gently silencing her. Tina, Taeko, and Chika had a sort of unspoken agreement to let their resident rock of wisdom and common sense do all the talking.
"Sir Kaoru, look at me," she commanded. Kaoru turned and looked into a pair of deep brown eyes. Miyabi-san wore a sympathetic look that seemed so out of place on her normally merciless, professional face. "Tina-san is right," she told him. "You were not responsible for the accident, or for Lady Aoi being hurt. What happened out there tonight could just as easily have happened to anyone else, including myself."
"But that's the problem," he lamented. "I wish it was my fault, Miss Miyabi! If only it had been because of some stupid thing that I did, then I could at least do better next time, and make sure this never happens again."
"And live with the guilt for the rest of your life?" she countered. "That is very noble of you, Sir Kaoru, but it isn't very healthy, for you or Lady Aoi." She gestured to his relatively unscathed plate. "You should eat now."
-
It took about three hours. Kaoru looked up when the doctor entered the cafeteria. The man was tall, thin, and dour-looking, with dark skin and a pencil mustache. He drew a pen from the pocket of his white coat, and jotted some notes on the clipboard in his other hand.
"Hanabishi Kaoru?" he asked in clipped, professional tone.
"Hai." Kaoru replied. He stood and bowed awkwardly. "That's me."
"Very well, Hanabishi-san. Come with me, please. These are your family?" He gestured at the others.
"They are my friends, and I live with them, but I think of them as family," Kaoru stated proudly. These women were the only real family he had ever known.
The doctor appeared to consider that for a moment. "I see," he said with a nod. "However, I think it should be next-of-kin only for right now." With that, he stepped aside, and gestured to the door.
"Stay here, guys," Kaoru told them. "I'll be back in a minute."
-
He followed the doctor through what seemed like miles of spotless, white corridors, occasionally broken by beige wood-finished doors bearing legends like "Private", "Conference Room", or "Equipment." Some of the doors were open, and inside, Kaoru could see computers and life support machines of various kinds, their lights winking dutifully as they mindlessly performed their tasks, or awaited orders. He wondered if Aoi-chan had briefly been attached to any of those machines.
The doctor turned right and entered a room Kaoru realized was an office. It was cramped and Spartan, as sterile as the hallways outside. A large chair stood behind the desk, a smaller one in the near corner. The nameplate on the desk read "Kawamoto Ishimo."
The morose-looking man took a seat behind the desk as Kaoru pulled the other chair over. "I have good news and bad news," he stated plainly when his guest was seated.
Kaoru's head came up at that. If there was any good news at all, then that meant…
"She's alive?" he asked, voice full of anticipation. Of what exactly, he wasn't entirely sure.
"Very much so," Doctor Kawamoto affirmed. "And in quite a hurry to see you, I might add." He always enjoyed seeing the intense relief on family members' faces when he was able to tell them that a loved one was still with them; he considered it part of his professional pride.
Kaoru nearly wept with relief; he had honestly feared that Aoi-chan might not make it. Even now, he couldn't bring himself to say that his wife might have died. "How is she?" he asked, his spirits finally starting to lift.
"Well," Kawamoto began, "The emergency room staff stabilized her very quickly, and the surgeons stopped the internal bleeding. Overall, the surgery went quite well, but…not as well as we hoped for."
Now for the bad news, Kaoru thought. "How bad?" he asked, holding his breath.
The doctor handed him some X-ray films that had been lying on the desk, but Kaoru couldn't interpret them; he was no doctor.
"We did everything we could, but…the damage to her spine was severe. There were multiple fractured vertebrae, with consequent damage to the spinal cord." Kawamoto paused a moment, then translated: "Her back is broken."
Oh God, Kaoru thought. It was a wonder she hadn't died. "How long will it take her to heal?" he asked. "Do you think she might…get back on her feet? Maybe in a month or two?"
Doctor Kawamoto sighed. "Hanabishi-san, I'm afraid you don't understand the implications. Your wife is very badly hurt. You see, the spinal cord is the body's connection to the brain," he explained. "With the…wires frayed, so to speak, she has lost all mobility and sensation in her legs. Not to mention bowel control, reproduction…"
"She's paralyzed?" Kaoru whispered, fingers over his lips.
The doctor nodded. "From the waist down. I am very sorry, Hanabishi-san. I understand you are newlyweds?"
Kaoru didn't respond. He just sat there, staring into space like he had in the lobby. Aoi-chan…in a wheel chair, he thought. Of all the things…
"Now then," Doctor Kawamoto continued. "There's more. There are…things we can do. Procedures." He paused, then shook his head. "But we can talk about that later. Right now, she's very much looking forward to seeing you, and I am sure the feeling is mutual."
It was.
-
When Kaoru entered Aoi-chan's cubicle in the intensive care unit, his eyes nearly popped out of his head, and he gulped to keep from choking up. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"Hello, Kaoru-sama," she greeted him with a rather sad smile.
"Aoi-chan!" he yelped. "You—your hair!"
She lay in the little bed, the neck of her hospital gown just visible beneath the coverlet. The I.V. machine stood stolidly next to the bed, like the faithful robotic sentry it was, it's needle inserted fully into her right arm. She turned her head slowly, and looked at him.
Her pretty face was bruised and scratched, and she had an evil-looking shiner around her right eye.
And she was bald as a goose.
"For the stitches," she explained when she saw the look on his face, running a hand over her bare scalp. "The cuts were pretty deep, almost a quarter of an inch, but at least they didn't reach my skull."
"Aoi-chan…" Kaoru choked, "…God, I'm so sorry…"
"Don't be," she said comfortingly, placing her hand on his. "You did nothing wrong, Kaoru-sama."
His brown eyes started to tear up. "Aoi-chan, the doctors…"
"I know, Kaoru-sama," she interrupted. She turned her head to look at the ceiling. "But it really changes very little. I know I won't be washing dishes anymore, but I can still do the laundry, and cook meals, and maybe even mop the floors. It would all be very difficult, but I can still do it," she insisted. "I may be sitting for a very long time, but I am still the same woman you married."
"I know that," he whispered, reaching out to hold her hand. "I married all of you, Aoi-chan. For better or worse, no matter what. And I'm not in love with your legs." He gave a strange sort of half-chuckle, and added "Or your hair," stroking her naked head.
She giggled at his half-hearted attempt at a joke, and at that moment Kaoru thought he and Aoi-chan must be the two strongest people on Planet Earth to actually laugh at a time like this.