The story is finally starting! :D Inform me if any mistakes are found.
White Wind Anemones
Chapter 3: My Purpose
Days passed.
A week passed. Then another was about to pass.
There. Was. No. Sign. Of. His elder self.
The Go obsessed ghost from the past was getting more and more antsy, irritating Hikaru more and more and more and more until-
"Argh! Fine! I'll bring you to a Go Salon tomorrow," Hikaru finally snapped after school ended on a Friday.
At the words, Sai started cheering and crying tears of joy.
Hikaru shook his head at the childish ghost's antics, muttering about how this was stupid, him catering to a ghost. He had been tempted to tell his mother about the haunting and go see an exorcist, but Sai wasn't malicious (albeit a bit annoying), and he knew his boundaries, not possessing Hikaru even though he could. Hikaru had also harboured hope that his older self would appear again the longer he kept Sai around.
Sai was terrible when he was unhappy. It made Hikaru nauseous all the time when the ghost cried. At first, Hikaru had thought it was just something he ate. Then as days passed and the feeling kept resurfacing whenever the ghost was upset, Hikaru found out that it was the ghost who was influencing his mood. It was easy to redirect Sai's attention the first few days, but it started getting harder as time passed.
"When are we playing Go, Hikaru-kun?" Sai would ask daily after school as Hikaru headed to soccer practice.
"Never," began Hikaru, always before he would feel like vomitting and rush to the toilet.
It got so bad that his teachers thought he had something wrong with his head, ("he's talking to himself, all the time during lessons!") and informed his mother.
Hikaru's mother thought her son had an eating disorder, with the number of times she noticed he went to the toilet and heard retching sounds after.
Annoyed, Hikaru assured his mother it was nothing like that and she was overreacting. He told his teachers that him talking to himself was a new way of studying he came up with, and they couldn't dispute that. After all, with Sai around, nagging at Hikaru to at least study ("I guess Go can wait until you're done studying..") and helping him in tests (every subject but Math, but he was coping fine with that), Hikaru's grades started improving.
His mother had been quite happy about that. "Perhaps you might even be able to get into Kaio, instead of a rankless neighbourhood school if your grades keep up to the end of the year."
Hikaru didn't protest, even though he was certain he didn't want to go into an elite school like Kaio, where most of the people, teachers, students and parents alike were snobs he was sure. But then again, Kaio also had a decent soccer club, unlike Haze, the only school his rank points for his mid year exams allowed him to attend, which had no outstanding clubs at all.
Speaking of soccer, Hikaru felt like playing with his friends in their makeshift 'soccer club' today..
"But," continued Hikaru, determined to burst Sai's bubble, "that means you'll have to leave me alone for soccer practice today."
Usually, Sai would be floating around Hikaru, even running in front of the ball all of a sudden because of some stupid reason or another. It always resulted in Hikaru either fumbling or running headfirst into the ghost, disorientating himself as he was the only one that could touch the ghost and the only one whom Sai could touch. This time, Hikaru made Sai sit at the side, so that the ghost wouldn't pose a hazard to him.
It was the best practice Hikaru ever had, as Sai had been cheering from the sidelines. On the way back home, Sai had even asked about soccer rules and chatted with Hikaru about the sport. Hikaru very enthusiastically answered Sai's questions, and thought that maybe, just maybe, he could get along with the ghost yet.
The peace was broken when Hikaru got home and the home phone was ringing.
"The fellyfone is screaming again, Hikaru-kun," Sai pointed out.
"It's a telly phone. Just call it 'phone' for goodness sake, Sai. And it's not screaming, it's ringing," Hikaru sighed in exasperation as he went to pick it up. He stared at the words on the phone's display. 40 missed calls from the same [Unknown Caller].
"Hello?" Hikaru asked hesitantly as he pressed 'answer'.
"Hello, is this the Shindo residence?" A professional sounding voice came from the receiver.
"Yes." Hearing the professional sounding voice, Hikaru tried to mimic a serious tone.
"This is Tokyo National Hospital. We need a 'Shindo Hikaru' to come down to the hospital as soon as possible…"
One And A Half Weeks Ago
The first thing Hikaru saw when he woke up was white walls and a white ceiling. Then he noticed the doctor in a white coat standing near his bed, casting a shadow on the white sheets that covered his body. Something was beeping consistently nearby, way too loud for Hikaru's sensitive ears.
"What's happening?" Hikaru tried to ask, only to hear some unintelligible sound come from his throat. Horrified, he tried to life his arm to touch his throat, only to realise that he couldn't. He was on the verge of panicking when the doctor started talking in a soothing tone, calming him down significantly.
"Hello, I am Tenso Kakashi, your doctor. You're in Tokyo National Hospital. You've just woken from a year long coma. Do you understand what I've said so far?"
Hikaru tried to nod, but he only managed to shift his head a bit to the left. It was like his brain wasn't connecting well with this new body.
The doctor nodded, murmured something to his nurses, which Hikaru just realised were standing behind the doctor also clad in white, then turned back to Hikaru.
"Please cooperate with us, alright?" The doctor asked, but before Hikaru could give an indication of an answer, the doctor carried on with his examination. The doctor- Dr Tenso, Hikaru reckoned he should start addressing him as such- put Hikaru through a series of tests and physical examinations.
Hikaru started regaining his strength after fifteen minutes of being awake, forcing himself to overcome the urge to sleep, resulting in feeling more energetic than lethargic after awhile. He started being able to move his arms and legs as well, though there was still an IV drip in his arm, cautioned Dr Tenso. Hikaru also managed to speak again, albeit with a raspy voice that sounded very different.
Dr Tenso had nodded with a satisfied smile after Hikaru had whispered "Thank you," when a nurse gave him a glass of water. It hurt when he swallowed, but he felt very much better.
"Can you speak now?" Dr Tenso asked Hikaru gently.
"Yes," Hikaru rasped. His mind was swirling with unanswered questions.
"Very good," Dr Tenso praised. He hesitated, before asking, "do you remember what happened?"
Hikaru was silent for a moment. He was debating what to say. On one hand, this may be his original timeline, and he had no idea why he was in the hospital. On the other hand, he felt like had not left the timeline from the past, and he also had no idea why he was in the hospital. The last he remembered was following the 'pull' he felt as a ghost, then ending up in that dark-pond-place, and at last struggling to move in this hospital bed with a physical body. If he said no… Would the doctor think there was something wrong with his mind? He needed to get out of here and find out where he was!
"No." Hikaru said finally, opting to tell the truth instead of telling lies and getting the lies wrong.
"I would have expected it to be so," Dr Tenso said, looking up from his clipboard which he was writing on.
"What happened?" Hikaru interrupted, not caring if he was rude.
Dr Tenso sighed, looking worried. "It can't be helped, I have to tell you. You and your parents were involved in a car accident. Your parents perished immediately, you were on the verge of dying, but we managed to save you. You were in a coma until yesterday, where you showed signs of waking up.."
"How long?"
Dr Tenso took the question to mean Hikaru was confused about the date. "It is now 25 August 2000*. You were in a coma for a year."
Something was nagging at Hikaru though. Something was wrong with his body. Maybe it was the balance of his limbs. Maybe it was his hair, which felt so long, since the nurses must have not cut it since he fell into a coma. But he had to ask. "Who am I?"
Dr Tenso scrutinized him warily, and Hikaru saw one of the nurses behind the doctor wince. Hikaru feared that he said something wrong, but the doctor just answered him without inflection.
"You are Fujiwara Saichi, female, fourteen years old this year with your birthday on 20 September. Height 162cm, weight 39kg since your hospitalization. Your parents are Fujiwara Mitsu and- oh my goodness!" Dr Tenso gasped at the end, interrupting himself as his patient jerked in bed at his first sentence, knocking her head against the metal rails keeping her from rolling off the bed. The nurse Yuui, the more experienced of the trio of nurses with Dr Tenso, immediately started forward to steady Saichi.
The patient's eyes were wide with disbelief. "Wha-what?" She asked with an undertone of fear.
Dr Tenso gave her time to process the information, watching Fujiwara Saichi as she clenched her fists on the bedsheets and released them in intervals.
"What's going to happen to me now?" Fujiwara Saichi's voice trembled as she asked the question.
Dr Tenso took it to mean she was scared, now that she lost her parents, she would be all alone in the world. "Fujiwara-chan," he started with just the right amount of care in his voice, to not seem too close yet too distant from his patient, "are you sure you want to talk about this now?" There was no one left in her family- nobody to take her in. She was still underage. She might be able to live on her own due to the trust fund and inheritance she had, but if her mind was unstable or physically too weak, the Welfare Community workers will likely press for her to either be fostered or given to an orphanage until she became of age. Of course, her opinion in this matter would be taken into consideration as well.
"Call me Hikaru-iii," Fujiwara Saichi said, voice wavering. "Hikari, I mean."
At Dr Tenso's inquiring gaze, Fujiwara Saichi smiled weakly and offered: "My parents used to call me that. It's my nickname of sorts. I'm more used to it."
"Very well, Hikari-san. Would you like to know anything else?" Dr Tenso asked.
Fujiwara Saichi was an anomaly. She was in a coma for a year, but she didn't behave like most patients. She woke up very quickly, just an afternoon of symptoms before she stirred awake, and even then, she was alert and articulate. It wasn't to say that Dr Tenso hadn't met such a coma patient before, but it was significant that a fourteen year old would have possessed so much will to live that she was already coping so well.
"Tell me everything. I want to get out of here." As Fujiwara Saichi- no, Hikari- looked up at Dr Tenso with firey intensity in her teal colored eyes, Dr Tenso found himself admiring this girl he didn't know, not really. But he admired her all the same.
For the entirity of the next week, Fujiwara Saichi was a hot topic among the staff in Tokyo National Hospital.
The psychiatrist and physiotherapist assigned to the patient , Dr Isobe and Dr Kobe respectively, were telling anyone who would listen how their newest charge was improving in leaps and bounds, and would soon be discharged.
Everyone who heard about the poor girl's plight had their heartstrings tugged.
"So the welfare community is allowing the girl to live on her own?" Yuui, a well-known senior nurse, clarified with Dr Kobe.
Dr Kobe nodded solemnly. "While Hikari still gets tired easily, she can move all her limbs now, and do normal daily chores."
"But still? They're leaving a barely teenage girl who just recovered from a coma by her lonesome with no adult supervision? What were they thinking!"
Dr Isobe made a placating gesture. "Hikari is mature well beyond her years, the Welfare Community workers took that into consideration, and it was also Hikari's own choice."
"Hikari also told me that she had a family in Tokyo that she was close to- the Shindos. She is best friends with their child apparently. The elder Fujiwaras possess property in many cities in Japan, two of which are located in Tokyo, and one of the houses in Tokyo is located not far from the Shindos' residence. If anything, you can be sure that the Welfare Community will see to it." Dr Kobe added.
"So you're just going to trust the words of a coma patient with no questions asked?!" Yuui almost yelled.
Dr Kobe looked frightened at the nurse's outburst. "Of course not! We're planning on asking the Shindos to come pick Hikari up from the hospital tomorrow, so you can be sure they exist. Welfare Comm also did a background check, everything checks out."
"'Everything checks out, hmm?'" Nurse Yuui quoted, "what if they had under the table dealings? What if they are drug traffickers?"
"Yuui, I know you see the girl as almost your own, but this is ridiculous. Would you just trust the Welfare Comm that they've done their job?" Dr Isobe sighed, noticibly irritated.
"Fine," Yuui snarked, "I'll keep my comments for tomorrow. Then you'll see how bad an idea it is!"
The two doctors could only shrug helplessly at each other as Yuui stomped off. They could almost see the steam coming from the senior nurse's ears.
Present
"Who the heck is Fujiwara Saichi?" Hikaru griped as he travelled toward Tokyo National Hospital. Turning toward Sai, Hikaru apologised, "sorry about this, Sai. I'll bring you to a Go Salon after this."
"It's alright, Hikaru-kun," Sai accepted his apology gracefully. "There will be time in the afternoon."
Hikaru had received a phone call from Tokyo National Hospital on Friday, the evening before. It had called for a member of the Shindo household to pick up a person named Fujiwara Saichi from the hospital.
Now, Hikaru would have dismissed it as a prank call, because he didn't know a Fujiwara Saichi, not really. But he did know a Fujiwara no Sai, and said Fujiwara no Sai had been floating and gazing at the phone in awe. Hikaru had felt a curious determination to get to the bottom of this, so he told the nurse at the other end of the phone that he'd go to Tokyo National Hospital the next day.
As Hikaru walked into the reception hall of the Hospital, Sai marvelled at the architecture of the place. Tokyo National Hospital was a very modern looking building indeed.
"Good morning," Hikaru greeted the nurse at the reception politely. It was the atmosphere of the place that made him feel like he had to act on his best behavior. "I'm here to see a Fujiwara Saichi?" Gosh, that name was weird. The nurse had addressed Saichi as a female, but Hikaru was certain Saichi was a boy's name.
And if his and Sai's hunch was correct, should Fujiwara Saichi not be Hikaru's future self? So how could 'Saichi' be a girl?
"Ah, Shindo, was it?" The nurse peered down at him, waving over another nurse. "Senior nurse Takashino Yuui will bring you to Fujiwara-san's ward."
The new nurse, Takashino Yuui, had given Hikaru a strange look. "Follow me," she had said, walking toward the lift. "Where are your parents..?" Takashino-san asked, and Hikaru had the feeling that she was judging him where he stood.
"At work," Hikaru answered easily. It was mostly true, his father was overseas at work, again, and his mother was busy working overtime on a client's case, and was tired out, as evident in her still sleeping in this morning. Sometimes, Hikaru wished his parents paid more attention to him, but they had to work to bring food to the table and to live comfortably, so Hikaru really had no right to demand more of them.
"I see." The nurse pressed the lift button to the fifth floor, and then the lift door closed, leaving Hikaru and the nurse as the only occupants of the lift.
"Ooh! Hikaru! What's this? What does it do? The door closed by itself, and the buttons light up!" Sai blabbered enthusiastically as he pushed his face out of the lift, probably gazing at the insides of the lift's system. "I can't see anything!"
Hikaru had almost snickered at Sai's reaction, but caught himself just in time as the door of the lift opened. It wouldn't be good if the nurse caught him laughing. 'It's a lift, Sai, I'll explain to you how it works later.' he told Sai as the nurse asked him a question, interrupting his train of thoughts as he thought of how to explain what a lift was to Sai.
"So how close are you to Fujiwara-chan?" Takashino-san asked as they swept through the corridor, past doors leading to wards, the same time as Sai chirped "okay!" and went on a monologuing rampage ("Oh! This is a hospital?" "There's a person in here!" "Why is everything white?") as he stuck his head through said doors.
"Erm," Hikaru hoped that his bullshit skills were up to par. This 'Fujiwara Saichi' better be who he thought it was. "Very close, I bet I know Saichi better than anyone else." It should be true, since they were essentially the same person. But gosh, the name 'Saichi' felt weird on his tongue.
The nurse had not seemed convinced, so Hikaru started rattling off his own likes and dislikes, like ramen, the color yellow, the number five. Takashino-san had seemed more and more convinced, and much more accepting of Hikaru once they stopped at a door and walked in.
"Hikari, Shindo-san's here." Takashino-san called as they walked in. Hikaru's brain, however, had stopped when the nurse called out 'Hikari'. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry as his suspicions were confirmed.
The girl sitting on the edge of the bed looked a bit older than Hikaru, around 13–14 years of age, much like older Hikaru's actual age. She had long black hair, very much like Sai's hair, and only time would tell if it had a purple sheen under sunlight, and weirdly colored eyes, a mix between Hikaru's own green eyes and Sai's purple. The closest color would be teal, Hikaru supposed. The resemblance to both Sai and Hikaru himself was startling, with her androgynous face, and her current baggy clothing hiding her other feminine features.
The girl was looking a bit pale and a little on the thin side, but it was understandable if she had been in a car accident and in a coma for the last year, as Hikaru had been informed by the nurse on the phone yesterday. "Hi brat," she said, her voice a tad hoarse, also understandable since she was still getting used to talking after a year of none.
"So it is you!" Hikaru gaped. Sai had gone silent and his eyes had also widened in disbelief.
"Yeah it's me," the girl assured him, looking quite sour at her current predicament.
Hysterical giggles were rising in younger Hikaru's throat, and soon he was laughing. "What.. What happened?" He squeaked, not the least bit sympathetic. 'Karma does have a funny way of working. Payback for the treatment he gave me on the first day!'
"What's karma?" Sai asked.
The girl that was future Hikaru's gaze flicked toward Sai, confirmation that she could still see and hear the ghost, but she didn't reply. Not verbally.
'It's luck based on one's actions.' Female older Hikaru's voice was clearer, and less hoarse and so delightfully female when she projected it to both Sai and her younger self that younger, and still male Hikaru had laughed even harder.
The nurse Takashino-san had eyed Hikaru warily, but chalked it up to an inside joke between the teens. Well, the teen and tween.
"Can you stand?" Hikaru asked Hikari between giggles, and thinking of his older self as Hikari prompted another episode. Hikaru then gasped as his older self projected his annoyance at him through their three way link. Since Hikaru was alive and Sai was not, Hikaru felt the annoyance ten times magnified, making him feel queasy. He would have vomited then and there had he not been conditioned with Sai's magnified emotions for almost the last two weeks.
"I was supposed to be discharged yesterday, but you could only come today, and Nurse Takashino-san wanted to see that the Shindo family really existed, so I decided to stay another day. Of course I can stand. I can walk too," Hikari (oh gosh, how he laughed!) had retorted indignantly. "Let's go," she ushered her younger self and Sai out of the ward. "I'll explain stuff later. Goodbye Takashino-san!"
"Take care," the nurse Takashino-san called, "If you feel unwell, don't hesitate to come back and get a check up."
Once the trio was out of earshot of the nurse, who stayed in the ward to clear the equipment and prepare it for the next patient, Hikaru spun around and confronted his older self. "Okay, spill, what happened to you? Not that I'm complaining of course."
The girl- Saichi- looked like she ate a dead rat. "I felt a pull that night I left you. I followed the pull. I ended up in my subconcious, I think. Then I woke up in this body. The end."
"Wh-Why is it a girl's body?" Hikaru could barely suppress his laughter just thinking about it.
"I don't know," the girl grounded out, "I miss the feeling of little Hikaru too okay? So stop it!"
Younger Hikaru turned red at the insinuation. Sai couldn't get the reference, so he was just silent.
"I have a hypothesis though. I cannot exist in the past, as there already is you in this dimension. When Kami-sama sent me back, it wasn't possible for two Shindo Hikarus to exist. That's why I started out as a ghost as well. But I wasn't anchored to anything, unlike Sai who is anchored to Shusaku's Goban. My anchor in this world turns out to be this body. I think the real Fujiwara Saichi's soul has departed, leaving the empty shell of the body for Kami-sama to anchor me to," elder Hikaru, now Hikari, explained as they went down the lift.
"Interesting and very probable hypothesis, Hikaru-san." Sai had tapped his fan thoughtfully against his chin as elder Hikaru had explained his hypothesis. "Would you like me to call you Hikari-san or Saichi-san now?"
"No!" Elder-Hikaru-in-a-girl's-body yelped. "I'd like to be Hikaru to you, if only you, Sai." Sai had nodded his assent.
"What should I call you then?" Younger Hikaru asked. "Saichi or Hikari? Honestly, both are pretty weird to me," he shuddered.
"…You decide, and honestly, I agree with you," elder Hikaru said after a brief pause.
"I'll just call you 'hey', then," volunteered Hikaru.
"Whatever," said 'hey', as they walked out of the hospital. "Oh fresh air!" She exclaimed happily, then turned to Hikaru. "What's the plan for today?"
"What plan? Don't you have to go home? Where are your parents in this world?" Hikaru asked the same time Sai chirped, "Hikaru-kun is bringing me to a Go salon!"
"Dead, if you mean Fujiwara Saichi's, " Hikari said flippantly, and tilted her head to show Sai that she heard what he said. "And my parents are your parents, remember?"
"Then where are you living? Who are your guardians? " Hikaru asked impatiently.
"Nobody. That's why nurse Takashino-san was so worried for me. I have a house near yours/mine that the Welfare Community members have told me they decked out and is fit for living in."
"Your parents must have been loaded," Hikaru said, impressed. "Are you sure you can live on your own?" Because even if Hikari was older, Hikaru himself could not think of living on his own.
"I'll be fine, brat. I.. Might get a little lonely though, so can I borrow Sai once in awhile?"
"You can borrow him anytime," Hikaru assured his older self, before furrowing his eyebrows. "But.. Can he leave my side? Sai told me before that he couldn't leave a radius around me.." Sai had nodded at that, but had looked thoughtful as he considered Hikari.
"No way but to find out," declared Hikari, walking in the general direction of the train. "Sai, come with me! Brat, I'll see you at the Touya Meijin's Go Salon. I hope you know where that is?"
"No?"
Hikari rattled off a bunch of directions, then shook her head when Hikaru looked even more lost that before. "Forget it, we'll experiment tomorrow. Leave Sai with me for the night. Now, I'll bring you to the Go salon, you better remember where it's at. It's going to be significant in the future."
"Why?"
Hikari didn't deem her younger self's question with a reply, instead, started the journey with him rushing after her as she started walking. "I've been thinking since the last week," Hikari started after awhile of silence," I have a new plan that involved letting Sai play all the Go he wants, and teaching you how to play Go, yet letting you play your soccer whenever you want."
Hikaru perked up there. He hadn't forgotten his older self's declaration that he was no longer allowed to play soccer and he was meant to devote his time to letting Sai play Go. "What's the new plan?"
"I will play for Sai, all the time." Turning to address the ghost, Hikari looked serious. "Sai, live through me. I devote my entire life to you."
"Hikaru-san.." Sai had teared up, looking very touched. Before he could protest, like Hikari knew he would do, she continued.
"Even Kami-sama willed it to be. Look at my body, at my name! Look at my circumstances. Everything is falling so perfectly into place. Tell me that God had not willed it so. I will play for you, Sai. I will be your incarnation upon this earth. But don't worry about me…" She turned to Hikaru, her younger self, "I will also be living," she finished with a soft smile.