a/n: this has been drafted and scrapped roughly ten times, and the outcome still isn't what i envisioned, but i hope it's tolerable.
thank you for your time.
CHAPTER 1~3848w It's two in the morning and she thinks she's the only one awake in her house. She couldn't hear a sound, even though she knows her sister is still awake and probably video chatting with her friends. Her house wasn't that big, and all the rooms occupied people, and yet the halls were silent and there was no signs of life.
Her laptop was on her desk, but the screen had turned blank because she left it untouched for too long. She was supposed to finish her winter homework, but she stopped jotting down notes and plugging in numbers long ago. There really wasn't much to do, other than actually concentrating on her math, or sleeping. She already finished her chores and all her friends were out of town, and at the end of the day, it's just her and the company of her room.
Haruna saunters over on her bed so that she was up against the window. Her window gave her a view of several houses, dimly lit street lamps, and the neighbour's cat that liked to snuggle up against the post light in front of her house. Fingers brushing against the pane of glass, she's reminded of the girl she saw a few hours ago.
The stranger in room 220—she dubbed her. She didn't know her name and just calling her "the stranger" seemed a bit cliché. For the three months her sister was admitted in the hospital, this girl had inadvertently and obliviously made her way into her life. They never talked or looked at each other, and maybe it was because Haruna was a bit too shy and was at a lost of words whenever her eyes landed on the girl. Haruna didn't think she would be attracted to someone she's never met before. They never talked. Never even exchanged greetings. Her gaze was always toward the window, and she wonders what's so interesting about the view. Every time she visits her sister, the girl wouldn't turn her head or do anything to acknowledge her existence. She would always be looking out the framed window. No where else, just the window. Maybe she doesn't know Haruna's there, maybe she was blind, maybe she was deaf, or maybe she didn't care.
Haruna's curious, though. She wants to see her face, talk to her, and do all sorts of things strangers would do(not like it was much, but it was enough). That window didn't allow that to happen. It was always that window. She feels foolish for blaming everything on an inanimate object, but she couldn't find any other reason to why the girl's attention is on everything but her. But if she spared one glance at her—just one—Haruna would be happy. That never happens in the span of three months and she realizes maybe it's time to give up. She was only a girl in the hospital that happened to room with her sister.
She was only a stranger.
The neighbour's cat shuffles away from the post light, so she moves away from the window—moves away from the thoughts of the stranger in room 220—and goes to bed.
-----
In the morning, she's woken up with a kick and list of things to get from the grocery store. She complains at first, whining at why her sister couldn't do it now that she's better, and her mom smacks the side of head and says she's older and needs to get her lazy butt out of bed. In the end, she puts on her heavy coat and trudges outside, the frosty air bringing a chill down her spine. She passes her neighbour's cat and it brings her back to her thoughts the night before. It's been a while since she's last been to hospital and she wonders how the other is doing. Maybe she's been discharged, and now she's back to living her normal life. Maybe she'll see her at the grocery store, kicked up from bed and forced to go out into the frigid cold to get a carton of milk. Haruna hopes she'll see her again, the girl with no name, the stranger in room 220, but that's probably
just wistful thinking.
Her phone buzzes in her pocket and she pulls it out, tugging her thick gloves off and tapping open a message from her sister.
I left my DS at the hospital, can you get it? Room 220 Haruna shoves her phone back in her pocket, crinkling the shopping list in the process. A trip to the hospital shouldn't take too long if she walked faster than usual, and it was only a couple turns and a few streets away from the nearest grocery. And maybe, just maybe that girl was still in room 220.
Clicking the heels of her shoes against the concrete, Haruna pulls her scarf tighter around her neck and makes her way toward the hospital.
-----
The bleak walls of the hospital are glowering at her with their untainted whiteness and the smell of antiseptics wafts up to her nose along with the cool air rushing at her from the air conditioners overhead. The nurse remembers who she is and offers her a small smile, gesturing toward the room at the end of the long hallway. She probably knew about the forgotten gadget—she thinks and returns a smile. Haruna feels awkward walking down the hall when there's no one to visit so her cheeks flush pink as she walks past familiar doctors and nurses, and her eyes dance from the number 217, 218, then 219, and finally 220.
With heavy eyes planted on the metal doorknob, her fingertips graze the cool surface and she steels herself for the inevitable—the girl was discharged. She doesn't know why she constantly thinks about the girl and it's probably a form of obsession she refuses to admit, but she does anyway and it builds butterflies in her stomach and makes it churn uncomfortably. Even if she wasn't discharged(she can only hope), Haruna would shrink visibly and rush out the room in embarrassment once the DS was in her hands. After all, she only came to pick up the DS. Just the DS. Sucking in a deep breath, she opens the door with a click.
The room was bright, brighter than she last remembers, and the icy hues from the midday sky seeps through the largely bordered window, creating a soft cast over the pallidity of the room. A girl on the bed beside the window cocks her head to the side and Haruna gasps.
For the first time, her breath catches in her throat, her knees feel like jelly, and it's like she's going to topple over. For the first time, after three months, the stranger in room 220 finally looks at her.
Finally. "Your sister was discharged yesterday."
The voice was soft, it had the nicest tang of a high and low, yet it was still rough around the edges. Almost as if she hadn't talked in forever. Her body is rigid with astonishment and her palms begin to grow sweaty as they clenched and unclenched themselves at her sides. Haruna's surprised—the girl had looked at her and talked for the first time—and she can't say she's not pleased with the progress she didn't plan to make. Cloudy cordovan eyes stared back at her, flecks of golden umber here and there, and Haruna was so fixed on getting lost in the pools of delicate cinnamon that it took a while to realize she might have been caught staring.
She totally missed the other's words, though.
"H-Huh?" she answers, words tinged with the slightest bit of excitement.
"Your sister was discharged yesterday," the girl repeats, eyebrow arched.
"I know. I—" Haruna knows exactly what she's here for, but the words cling to her tongue and refuse to leave her lips. She tries not to let this whole new situation mean a thing, but a wave of elation shoots through her nerves, and her tongue feels thick as words start to jumble out on their own in a remarkably coherent mess. "I came to see you."
"You came to see me?" The girl seems genuinely surprised and Haruna can't blame her—she's totally surprised too.
She ambles toward the girl's bed, eyes drooping to the linoleum floor below her. Haruna refuses to make eye contact again even when she knows another's eyes are trained on her now, watching her next move.
"Did you really come to see me?" she questions again, this time with uncertainty, once Haruna settled herself down on a chair beside the bed.
And Haruna can only respond with a small "Yeah."
-----
The gawky silence that soon rests itself upon Haruna's shoulders becomes oppressive, and she starts to think maybe she shouldn't have let those words spill(it was far beyond her control, but she could've
tried to keep them in), and she should've just took the DS and went her way. But she doesn't and it leaves her in an uncomfortable circumstance with the girl she's been trying to befriend for three months. She finally gets the chance to exchange a couple of words with the other, but she had to go and blow it, making the situation much more complex than she intended. She doesn't even know why she lets herself ramble things she meant to keep to herself, and she thinks maybe it's time to fix that bad habit of hers. Its gotten her in trouble before and look where its gotten her now.
She wants to talk, break down the awkward atmosphere, but she can't bring herself to say anything that wouldn't lead to making the situation more perplexing than it already was. Her eyes flicker up to the other girl; she's staring down at her clasped hands, lips pressed down into a thin line, and her eyebrows knit down into an seemingly annoyed expression. Biting down on her bottom lip, she can hear her heartbeat quicken for no apparent reason, and she tries to conjure something quickly to ease the tension between them.
"How long have you been here?" she manages to splutter out and the girl perks up, staring at her incredulously.
She doesn't respond, though and her gaze drops back down to her hands, and Haruna knows she definitely hit a little too close to home.
Crap. Her mouth starts moving before her brain does and everything's in a haze as "Why do you always look out the window?" blurts out on its own.
Stupid habit. "I'm not stalking you or anything—I jus-just happen to notice, that's all." she clears up afterwards, eyes fleeting to anything but the girl in front of her.
The latter's hands unclasp and lay flat on her thighs, and her head turns toward the window, a small sigh escaping her lips. "I do, don't I?"
"You don't have to answer—"
"There's a bird's nest right outside," she continues and Haruna peeks over at the window. "They're not here right now, probably migrating south, but I've seen baby birds hatch, grow up, migrate, and then come back to hatch their own eggs. Then the cycle repeats. I've seen them fly away and never come back for months. And I think to myself, they're traveling. They're seeing the world. They're free. And I guess I'm a bit envious that I'm stuck here."
"Why?" she asks seriously.
The girl whips her head over at Haruna, ears registering her question. She opens her mouth and then closes it, as if contemplating whether to tell her or not. Her mouth opens once again and she responds with a hushed "Leukemia."
She said it so calmly, but something in her eyes made Haruna think that she wasn't as poised as much as she let on.
She didn't question anymore.
-----
"Have you ever thought about it? I mean, traveling to where you want," Haruna asks after a short while, implications of different, numerous questions lingering underneath.
"No," the girl replies immediately, a resigned look in her eyes. "I prefer not to cloud my mind with impractical fantasies."
"Don't you have a bucket list?"
"No," she tells her, expression lackluster, and Haruna wonders if this girl even did anything in her time at the hospital—apart from staring out the window.
"Really?" She notes how relaxed she seems, how her words don't come out in a stuttering mess, and how she might actually be the stranger's friend now. "Come on, that's no fun."
"Really," the latter says, shoulders shrugging as if it wasn't a big deal. "It's childish."
"Are you saying I'm childish then?"
"You are." The girl's lips twitch slightly and soon, a small smile colours her features. Even though it wasn't much, the smile on her face is brilliant and gorgeous and it lights up the atmosphere more than the cerulean that painted itself across the sky behind. The erratic thrums of furor rattle in her ribcage, the butterflies eat away at her stomach, and only one thought runs through her mind:
it's beautiful. Haruna's a clutter of chaos and can't find anything else to do but respond with a wide, shaky grin of her own.
"I guess I am." She leans back in to the chair, eyes still on the other. "But really, you need to have a bucket list. It's the most essential thing in life."
"I thought oxygen was the most essential thing in life."
"Second most essential thing in life then." She digs through her pocket and pulls out the crinkled shopping list, eyes dancing over the words eggs, curry mix, and milk. She smoothes the paper out with her hands and sets it on the overbed table in front of the girl. "So we're going to make you one right now."
"But I don't want one," she says, staring down at the flimsy piece of paper.
"Aw, don't be like that." Haruna opens the cabinet of the nightstand and rummages around for a pen, mentally cheering for herself as her fingers brush against a thin stick of plastic and ink. She sets the pen next to paper and clasps her hands together. "There, now you can get started."
She turns her head and opens her mouth for a complaint, but Haruna gazes at her so intently and she has no other choice but to pick up the pen and start scribbling away at her so-called bucket list.
-----
"Done," the girl says after a long while, and Haruna jolts up from her daze, having been lulled into the clouds from the sounds of the occasional crinkle of paper and the tapping of the pen.
"Okay, let's see here." She rubs at her eyes and takes holds of the list, scanning over it with a series of raised eyebrows, pursed lips, and terse nods.
"Ride a boat?" she asks, giving a questioning look to the other. "You've never been on a boat before?"
She shakes her head. "No."
"Okay," Haruna lets out cautiously, throwing the girl several glances before continuing the down the list. "Get married and have kids."
"It seems a little impossible, doesn't it?" The girl mutters. "I told you, I don't want to think about things that can't happen."
"It's not impossible—I never said it was." She offers a soft smile although the heavy atmosphere starting to grow. "I'm sure there's a guy out there that'll be super lucky to marry someone like you, and you've got your whole life ahead of you. Wait a bit longer and before you know it, you're married."
"I don't have my whole life ahead of me," she whispers.
Haruna, despite hearing the other's words, brushes them off and continues to read off the girl's bucket list. "Meet a married couple and ask them how."
The girl shrugs, leaning back into her pillow. "I want to know
how: how did they meet, how did they know they were really in love, how did they know that they were ready, and just..
how."
The list ends there and she sets the paper back on the overbed table. "That's it? Three things?"
"I can't come up with a whole list just like that." She lets out an exasperated sigh and runs her fingers through ochre bangs. "If it worries you that much, I'll write more when something comes up."
After a lengthy pause, Haruna fidgets with her fingers and lets out faintly, "What if we go fulfill your bucket list?"
"What are you talking about?"
A sheepish grin plays out on her lips. "Yeah, let's go fulfill your bucket list. We—you and me—we can go and do these things. We'll find you a great guy, ride a boat, and meet—"
"You're kidding." The other doesn't look amused.
"No, no I'm not. You said you've been stuck here, and you're jealous of those birds that get to travel, be free, and all sorts of things. What holding you back? You can go be free. You can be that bird." Haruna presses on, scooting to the edge of her chair.
"No," her response is brief and she cocks her head to the side, toward the window—again. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Come on," she tries, hands on the edge of the bed. "You said it yourself, you don't have your whole life ahead of you. What's the point of just sitting around in the hospital then? Do you want to die here, knowing all you did was look out the window and wish you were some bird?"
"Do you expect me to just leave, and with someone I barely know?" The girl spits back at her and it's harsh to her ears, but she doesn't let it faze her. Well, not a lot.
"We're friends now, aren't we?" Haruna doesn't know why she's so worked up for this—this whole idea of running off and accomplishing the girl's bucket list. Maybe it was because she knows there's so much
more to her than just "the girl in room 220 that always looks out the window", or maybe it's because she just wants to help the girl a bit. Whatever it is, she wants to do this.
Yes, she wants to do this. The other sucks in a breath and turns her head back, eyeing Haruna wearily.
"We can go tonight, before it gets too cold. I'll drive you there, anywhere, anywhere you want. Pack your clothes too, I don't know how long we'll be gone," she rambles off, not even waiting for a response from the other, and she gets up from her chair and starts heading toward the door. "I'll be b—"
"You'll have to carry me."
Haruna whips her head back, eyes locking onto the girl, but she finds her staring out the window—still. The corner of her lips curl into a bright smile and she nods. "I'll carry you."
They say no more and Haruna takes her leave, closing the door with a quiet click.
-----
She comes home empty-handed. The DS was still at the hospital, she never went to the grocery store, and even the shopping list was missing.
Her mom smacks her in the head, and yells in her ear about how dumb and what a good-for-nothing, freeloading daughter she was and how she was nineteen and couldn't even do a simple task. Her sister sends her countless death glares across the dining table, where the platters of pork and lettuce lay, and not the plates of chicken curry that was
supposed to be for dinner that night. And her clothes went missing after she took a shower.
She didn't care about the pain, the possibility of a shattered ear drum, her name written in the death note more than once, and the embarrassment of having to run out of the bathroom and down the hall, buck naked.
After three months, the stranger in room 220 finally looked at her, talked to her, and became her friend.
The exhilaration in her system is evident as she waits for everyone to go to bed and she bounces out of the house, barely used car keys, a duffel bag of clothes, and other necessities in tow.
-----
"I really thought you were kidding about this all." The girl says, the slightest bit of amusement grazing her features as Haruna hightailed in, bundled up with one too many scarves.
"Nope," she grins and slips off her gloves. "Ready?"
"Wait," the girl adjusts the sheets and pillows of the hospital bed. "Won't we be seen?"
"I'm sure you've been here long enough to know the receptionist always falls asleep and the security guard ditches for the bar."
"I wouldn't know," she muses, arms wrapped around a large backpack. "It's not like I run away from the hospital every night."
The girl points to a bag in the far corner of the room and Haruna takes hold of it, only to drop it back down to the floor immediately. "Please don't tell me those are all your clothes because it's insanely heavy."
"Don't be ridiculous. It's a wheelchair."
She shoots the other a questioning look and lifts the bag again, slinging it on her shoulders with difficulty. "W-Wheelchair?"
"It hurts to walk sometimes."
Haruna shuffles over to the bed and quickly scoops the girl up into her arms, much to the other's dismay. She yelps and wriggles around in the taller's arms, trying to get back down on her bed. "What are you—"
"I guess I'll have to carry and push you," Haruna chimes, her smile radiant as she scampered down the halls of the hospital with the other tight in her arms.
The girl can only clutch her bag and stare down at her white knuckles as her fingers tighten around the straps of her backpack, and her cheeks burn with so much intensity that she doesn't know if it's a lambent crimson blush or the proximity between her face and the latter's chest(not that she minds, but still).
-----
"What's your name?" Haruna asks after a while, eyes fixed on the road. It's funny how she
just asks that question, but she figures it's time to stop calling her "the stranger in room 220" because they've talked to the point where Haruna
should know her name but she doesn't and she
knows they're long past the strangers phase. "I'm Haruna."
The other's looking out the window—again. Streaks of light flurried by on her side window, the luminous buildings glittering as the sable night surrounded them. It wasn't that late at night, yet the streets were anomalously devoid of any other car, except the occasional trucks that passed by in fluctuating intervals. Thick stratus clouds lined the sky above, and obscure dots of light scattered across the beryl sky in the form of stars. Her fingers press against the glass and her eyes are wide, twinkling with admiration, and she takes in all she can with steady breaths and a hammering heart.
The girl deliberates upon hearing the question, but soon decides to screw it all and just give her name. She agreed to this and was already in the car with her, and if she were out to do her any harm, she was already a goner.
"Yuko."
Topic: [KOJIYUU + VARIOUS] Sophrosyne - [14/01/03] Chapter 1 (Read 4096 times)