Heart pounding, my eyes fly open as I shake, hand already covering my mouth to stifle a scream.
"Hah…hah…"
I'm acutely aware that I'm drenched in sweat, and that my whole body is trembling.
"Wha…What…"
I have a whole new understanding of the phrase "paralyzed with fear", now. I…I didn't - all of the nightmares I've had before, those, those weren't really - not like I thought -
"W-What the…"
Hyperventilation. I force my lungs to inhale and hold onto the breath as long as I can - not long, it seems, but I try again and again and again.
Eventually - it might be minutes, or hours - this sensation of death fades away, and I regain control over my mind.
"W-What the hell…?"
My heart continues to pound, even after it's all over.
Never…I've never had anything like that. It's never been that bad before. Never been so utterly terrifying.
So what the hell was that? What the hell was that?
I don't understand, and it scares me.
I…I won't be able to sleep tonight. I can't. Not with this…not with this image in my head.
Shakily, I roll out of bed.
I can't be here.
My footsteps take me to the garden courtyard, and somewhat belatedly I realize that there are also a lot of bugs, and that is a sensation I am absolutely not interested in exploring, so I turn and run away.
…
…
…
Pain.
I shakily pick myself up from the sidewalk, blood running freely down my knee, and keep running.
…
…
Pain.
Pain.
Pain.
Runrunrunrunrunrunrunrun
Stop stop stop stop stop stop
GET OUT OF MY HEAD
DIE
…
I stumble sideways, to the edge of the sidewalk, and expel the little contents of my stomach into the grass.
It is through the last of my willpower that I avoid landing face first in it, instead falling over back onto the sidewalk.
My whole body is trembling again, but from exertion, not nightmare.
But that certainly hasn't gone anywhere.
"Hah…hah…" My breath is ragged again. I try to take deep breaths as I wait for my body to recover enough to move again.
Tears streak down my face as blood runs freely from a dozen scrapes and cuts. I don't care.
I…I thought…I thought I was over this…
What…what a fool I was.
Hah…
Hahaha…
Haha…
Shakily, I push myself up. Somehow, curfew hasn't caught me - though it helps that I'm barefoot, and my footsteps aren't that loud, even while running.
"Excuse me...Are you alright?"
I glance up to see a concerned teacher, male, unrecognizable.
It looks like I was a bit too confident.
Of course, I don't get in trouble. This isn't a normal school, and there are usually always special circumstances involved.
Instead, I am taken to the Nurse, and without cracking a single joke, he helps me disinfect and bandage my various injuries and take a painful shower before sitting me down in his office.
"Nakai, it's 3 AM in the morning, so I'm going to be blunt. What the hell were you doing?" He starts. He doesn't sound mad, but stern, and I shiver a little.
"I…" I don't know, I want to say, but I don't think that's going to be an accepted answer, not at 3AM.
"I…" My heart hurts.
"You don't need to tell me." He says in the ensuing silence, with a look that tells me because I've already figured it out, "But you do need to talk to someone."
"Nakai, I think you should strongly consider seeing a professional."
My answer is immediate.
"No." I meet his eyes sharply. "No."
"Why are you so against this?" He asks me, eyes sharp and analytical. I miss the old Nurse that cracked jokes at everyone else's expense, but I suppose that would be strictly appropriate right now, would it?
"It doesn't matter." I try to deflect.
I'm obviously not on my best game right now.
"I'd agree with you if you weren't so obviously in pain." The Nurse replies, before sighing. "Look, I'm not here to try and drag the truth out of you, and frankly you really don't need to tell me. But you're only going to keep hurting yourself."
"I'll be fine." I say blankly. I know no such thing.
He gives me a disbelieving look.
"Alright, fine, I'm sorry about that. You don't waste my time with pointless platitudes, so I shouldn't waste yours." He nods. "I don't know if I'll be fine, but I'm not going to disappear off the face of the Earth. I'm p-pretty sure this was just an isolated incident."
"This is the second time this week. I don't think this is just an isolated incident. What's changed, Nakai? Your record doesn't state anything like this having happened previously. What is it? The school?"
"No. The school is fine. Good. There really is no problem here. This is something else, something different."
"Why couldn't you have been different?"
"I-I'll be able to take care of myself." I say.
Hanako's crumpled body, blood everywhere, on my hands.
Emi.
Rin.
Lilly.
Shizune.
Misha.
"I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for now, but you aren't going to go to school today. You're taking the day off in your room - I'll clear things up with the administration." His voice is unexpectedly gentle; I suppose he's backed off for now, but I have no doubt he'll still be wanting an explanation I'm not ready to give.
"Thank you." I say. He nods.
"Now go. Sleep. You look like you need it. Come back in tonight or tomorrow for a quick checkup, but stay in your room until then." Of course one isn't necessary, but I suspect I'll need to prepare some answers for his questions before I go in.
"Alright. Thank you." I reply weakly. He nods.
I've avoided the worst of it, but there's still going to be more to deal with.
But for now, rest. I'm still not sure if I'll be able to sleep, but I can at least try to calm my nerves and work on patching myself up again.
There's a knock on my door at around lunch.
I check myself to make sure I look presentable before opening the door, and then clamp down hard on my emotions.
"H-Hi, Hisao." If Hanako notices, she doesn't comment, standing there with two bento boxes.
"Hey, Hanako." My smile is a bit forced - not the impression I want to be giving her right now, so I follow it up with "Good to see you. You…want to eat lunch with me?"
Standing there, looking carefully at my face, and blood, blood everywhere -
I'm not sure that's the right order to do things in, but whatever.
"Um, can we eat in here? The Nurse said that I need to stay in my room until tonight, so…" Hanako looks a little bit concerned, but she nods.
"Alright, thanks. Um, come inside…?" I ask, opening the door a little wider.
"Thank you." Hanako answers, stepping in and shutting the door behind her. I try to find a place for both of us to sit, wishing I had known about this visit earlier so that I could have cleaned it earlier.
"Sorry for the mess." I apologize. Usually I'm a lot neater than this, but what with this morning and all…this is probably not leaving a good impression.
Unexpectedly, she smiles - no, not correct, her smile simply becomes more visible, she's been smiling gently for most of this - and replies "I-It's perfectly fine."
And with those tentative words out of the way I quickly straighten my bed in order to make a presentable eating area.
"Er…is this fine?" I ask. It's not really an ideal spot but it's the best place I could come up with that wasn't "the floor", which is such a dumb idea that it doesn't even merit consideration as a last resort, let alone an actual location.
I've been kind of expecting her to say "no" to my ridiculousness at some point but rather she just says "o-okay", and then we sit on my bed at a fairly comfortable distance, though I guess that changes depending who you ask. Personally I'd rather her sit a little bit closer, so I can feel that delightful warm presence next to me, but that would be awkward to ask and wow has the ability to feel turned me into a raging pervert or what - and I wasn't even thinking that, but it's easy to see how someone could misconstrue what I've been thinking.
I accept Hanako's offering without another word and then we pull off the covers and begin eating.
"Delicious as always." I tell her, and mean it. As a general rule of thumb she doesn't pick up her food until I give my opinion of it. It's just another one of her quirks.
We eat in silence - another one of our unspoken rules, unless one of us have something reasonably important to say. And usually it's to say something like "Check".
Speaking of which…
"Sorry I couldn't play chess with you today." I say.
Hanako swallows her food before speaking. "D-Don't worry about it. I don't m-mind."
But I do, I want to protest.
That's selfish, I think, and terribly self-centered, if I can't accept someone's generosity for what it is.
What have I done to deserve Hanako's kindness?
"Are you okay?" the girl in question asks, meeting my eyes, and looking at her certain mix of concern and understanding breaks something inside me a little bit.
"…No." I say, the truth. "I'm not okay at all."
I'm surprised by how much saying that hurts. Why am I so afraid of reality? I know I'm broken. Objectively, I'm not a complete person; I have to take medication to have the same privileges that a normal, full person does.
So why is that so hard to admit?
I stiffen when I feel something warm against my clothed back - Hanako's hand, retracting when I react to her touch.
"S-Sorry!" We both say at the same time.
"I'm sorry, I s-shouldn't have-"
"I'm sorry, I didn't realize-"
Our apologies die off when we realize that there's a bit of a misunderstanding happening, and rather than trade platitudes, she tentatively rests her hand on my back again and I arch slightly into her touch.
This…this feels really nice.
Her comforting heat next to me, her hand gently running across my back - I don't stop to question the oddity of her actions, passively accepting it.
I don't want to break this, whatever this is, so I just sit there quietly.
"If…" Hanako swallows. "If you w-want to…t-talk…I'll listen…"
My vision blurs with sudden tears, tears that I can't stop, and I - I don't know why I'm crying.
Why am I crying?
"Thank you, Hanako. T-Thank you…" She just flashes me a gentle smile in response.
We sit like this through the lunch period, in companionable silence.
The end-of-lunch bell rings and Hanako doesn't make any motion to leave.
"D-Don't you need to go?" I ask, brushing away the tears with my hand so that I can look at her.
"T-There are more…i-important things than c-classes." Hanako whispers quietly.
"…Ah." I reply, and pause, because I'm not sure how to respond to such a genuine and heartfelt sentiment. Even though I disagree with the concept of skipping classes for something like this, I can't find it within me to turn her away.
"I…well…" I swallow and try again. "I had a nightmare…"
A/N: The next chapter will be tomorrow (hopefully), and it won't really be a chapter - a notification, rather, that the edit of the first 25 or so chapters will be completely reuploaded. Most chapters have received minor updates and a few chapters were nearly completely rewritten from scratch. I strongly suggest rereading, at the minimum, C1 - C4, C11, C17-C18. Most of those chapters have either very important things or are practically brand new.
You don't need to, but the revelations of the next chapters are going to hit you with very little warning, and that's much of what the edits I've done. The rest of it involved removing the hugely OOC parts of my Hisao that made him seem like a stereotypical angsty teenager. Primarily, he's a bit nicer to Misha. His shift in attitude (less dramatic now, thanks to the edits) towards being nicer is also hinted at.
C40 will be one of the most important chapters in my story because of the content it covers. As you might expect, much of Hisao's background will be described.
That's far from the end of the story, however. You might notice that, despite Hanako telling Hisao about her accident in canon, they still had quite a few problems to deal with. Someone else knowing a bit about Hisao's background isn't going to magically fix his various issues, which he's done well at pretending doesn't exist.
Because of the 25 updates and this chapter I'm uploading, as well as the stuff coming in C40, it may take some time for me to upload it, but - I promise nothing like the months-long hiatus I took from this story. I hope that readers will be more satisfied (and hopefully, I'll cut down a little on the, like, 10:1 viewer count between Chapters 1 and 2, lol).
See you soon!
