See with Your Heart
part fiveI remember his hand. Cold, stiff, my fingers entwined with his unmoving ones. I don't remember his face. I see his eyes closed and hear the dripping of blood when I think back but I don't see his face. Just his closed eyes, black lashes falling over his tanned cheeks, coal smeared, reminded me of the black eye. The black eye I gave him. If I hadn't hit him we'd have never been locked in that room, I'd have never asked him to ride with us to the dance. If we hadn't been coming back from his house, there would have been no accident.
Then again, the person who first hit us is probably listing the ways it could have been avoided as well.
I don't regret us fighting anymore than I regret holding his hand to the last.
Is it the last?
I remember us sitting in that room so vividly. Him across from me with that smile on his face, offering me candy, talking, laughing, crying. I miss it. It was so casual, so ill fated. And yet, it was the first time I'd actually thought about him as a person. I was told to even. Three hours of uninterrupted Daisuke. I understand how I feel about him more now that I have in the past. What I wouldn't do to be back in that room. I'd have pinned him to his chair and kissed him like in my dream.
Where is Daisuke now?
Past the blinking lights of the ambulance and the sounds of rescuers, I remember so little. They pulled him out right after me, they laid him down and started beating him. They kept slamming their hands down onto his chest.
Why did they want to hurt Daisuke? Hadn't he been through enough already?
They kept beating him till another man leaned down and kissed him.
I was red with rage, I remember. I wanted their hands and lips off of him. He didn't love them. He loved me. At least, in my dreams he does.
The man stopped kissing him and the other started beating him again and again, till another advised them to lay him out on the stretcher and they carried him away from me, where I couldn't see them or him anymore.
In my less panicked mind I know they were trying to save his life, but I also register the fact that there actions came by one reason.
Daisuke was dead when they pulled him out.
That's the only reason they do that, right? CPR is for people who aren't breathing, whose hearts stopped beating. That's dead, right?
His hand was so cold and still.
People do CPR so they can bring the person back. Did they bring Daisuke back? Is he in the next room? Down the hall? In the bed next to mine behind the curtain? Where is he? I need to know!
I grabbed the buzzer beside my bed and pressed the button for assistance. A short stout nurse was quick to answer, rushing into my room with a slight smile and a worried brow.
"Mr. Takiashi? Is everything alright?"
Where is Daisuke? I need to know how he is!
She's just standing there, looking at me.
Are you deft? I need to know how my friend Daisuke is! Motomiya Daisuke!
Her head falls to one shoulder, a saddened look on her face. Does this mean he.... They couldn't....
"I'll get the doctor right away." She says, leaving me alone on my hospital bed with the only sound other than my thoughts being the drip of the IV.
Why is she getting the doctor? Is he the one who's supposed to tell me my friend's dead? What's going on?
Can't somebody just answer me!
Even as I raise my voice, all I hear is the drip of the IV. I can hear the drug carts being rolled down the halls, I can hear footsteps and conversations if I strain my ears, but I can't hear my own voice. I scream again.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Now I know why Yamato didn't hear me answering him.
The doctor enters my room, a clipboard held to his chest and a dark grey beard ruffling his face. He looks like Gennai, only less anchient and more wiry around the eyes. He sits beside me in a rolling chair that squeaks lightly on the slick floor.
"You're looking much better this evening. Do you know what happened?"
I say, or rather mouth, a yes. His brow furrows and he opens the chart, my chart I presume.
"You were not mute before the accident." He states rather than asks. I shake my head anyways. I'm too depressed to care if the questions are rhetorical or not. First Daisuke and now this. God, please, don't play with me anymore. Too much has gone wrong in so little time. Just let me be.
"I see. We'll have to check that out as soon as your other injuries become less threatening. The nurse tells me you were quite anxious when you buzzed her in here." He flipped the clipboard over, handing it to me along with a pen, "Why don't you write down what's troubling you. I'll do my best to help."
I took the pen in hand and wrote out in clean and crisp hirigana; Motomiya Daisuke.
The doctor took the board and nodded at my implied request.
"This is the name of the burgundy haired boy they brought in with you, yes?" he scratched his hairy chin, "I remember him. He had a strong will to live."
My eyes filled with tears. I don't want to hear that he's dead. I was wrong to ask. I should have waited. I don't want my doubt to be washed away!
The doctor put his hand on my shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze as he stood.
"He had a strong will to live." He repeated.
"And still does."