Cold Water (Shizune)

Cold Water


It's my fault. It's my fault. It's my fault.
I keep repeating it to myself over and over, and somehow I still can't let myself believe it. I could have done something, I could have changed something, if I had known what was going to happen. But I didn't. I didn't. Nobody did.
And really, it wasn't my fault. As much as some part of me wanted it to be, it wasn't. There were a dozen things that could have gone differently, and if they had, none of this would be happening.
We could have eaten from the vending machines like we do sometimes, instead of going to the shanghai.
We could have only had one course and left, or we could have talked about something that wouldn't have taken so long. We would have been gone before it ever even happened.
The driver of that truck could have gotten more sleep the night before. Or stopped somewhere along the way.
The shanghai could have bought its windows from a different company. One that used a glass that doesn't shatter, and fly.
And hurt the girl you love.


So it wasn't my fault. I didn't know. But I'm still overwhelmed with the desire to go back somehow, and change something, anything, to make things play out differently. But I can't. I'm trapped in this place, with this chain of events, with this reality.
Just like the girl in front of me.
This was the first time they'd let me into her room since we arrived at the hospital, hours ago. The nurses looked me over and said I only had a few scrapes here and there, so I asked if I could find my friends and they agreed after the cursory checking of my heartbeat. Surprisingly it hadn't been an issue. With everything else that was happening, my own health was the last thing on my mind.
Misha was still unconscious when I went to her room, but the staff assured me she was fine and just resting. It was Shizune. She had been sitting closer to the window than any of us. They had drove her to the hospital in a separate ambulance, and her room was larger than ours, with equipment and lights and screens on the walls. I stood outside for maybe hours, maybe days as nurses, doctors and technicians whisked back and forth behind the curtain and the closed door.
Finally, they had filed out. The grim look on their faces made my veins run with ice. I couldn't see past them. The already cold hospital air assaulted me on all fronts, and as the last nurse left the room I approached her.
“Is she okay? Can I go in?”
“She needs to rest. We've given her some powerful anesthetics and she's in stable condition right now.”  But she wasn't telling me everything. I had spent enough time in hospitals to know when there's more. When the worst is still to come.
“The doctor will be by soon. You can go in but she might not be able to respond.” The nurse looks trapped and tired, and quickly makes her escape.


The heart monitor beeps dully, a sound I'm so familiar with that it would fade into nothing if it weren't the only noise in the room. Shizune lies in the bed in front of me, her body wrapped in a hospital gown and her face a mask of bandages, a mess of blue black hair on one end and those soft, beautiful lips that  are still little more than strangers to me on the other.
Not knowing what else to do, I reach down and take her hand in mine. I had thought she was asleep, but her head turns in my direction and her fingers run along mine for a moment, unsteadily.
“It's Hisao”. I know she can't hear me. Inspiration hits me, and slowly, with her hand still on mine, I start to finger spell my name in sign language. Before I even get halfway through, her fingers wrap tightly around mine as she brings her other hand to encase them, holding on as if with all her strength.
Shizune has never been one for holding hands or other typical, sappy gestures. I always figured there was a part of her that enjoyed them, but thought I just hadn't had time to see it yet.
There hadn't been time for a lot of things.
I rest my other hand atop hers and we stay there for a little while, me unable to sign anything else like this and her content just to know I'm there, her head still titled in my direction even though the bandages mask those eyes which always seem to pierce into my soul. The curtain is drawn behind us as someone enters the room, and I turn to see a doctor standing there, white labcoat, clipboard, salt-and-pepper beard, the whole getup. It's obvious he isn't used to being here this late at night by the tired lines on his face, and he stifles a yawn as he walks in, managing to look both apologetic and incredibly serious at the same time.
“You're Nakai, right son? You came in with the others?”
“Yes sir. They said I was okay to walk around.”
He glances at the papers on his clipboard, then to some charts on the counter in the room.
“We have a translator for Miss Hakamichi on the way, but being as late as it is it will take some time.”
“I can translate for you sir, I'm fluent in sign language.” He brightens up a bit at the news, but then his expression diminishes again.
“Really? That will help things then. We've gotten in touch with the family and they're on the way. But in the meantime...” he stops, and coughs.
“Please tell Miss Hakamichi that we need to take her to surgery now. We have the best staff in the region and we're going to do everything we can to save her eyesight.”
I had known it was coming. There had been a pit in my stomach since moments after the accident, when she hadn't even had time to scream, with the blood everywhere and the glass... something had been gnawing at me the whole time, a tiny little voice that had grown over time to a scream that now pounded behind my skull. Just the thought. Just the concept, the idea. No. It can't.
Slowly, carefully, with her hands in mine, I translate the doctor's message to Shizune. She nods and gives my hands a forceful squeeze, and I see a determined smile cross her lips.
The sight hurts me more than any heart attack ever possibly could.


The waiting room is mercifully empty this later at night. Jigoro has hardly spoken a word to anyone but the staff, and sits, emitting a menacing aura. His mood is always bad, but there's something about the way he stares straight ahead with glaring eyes. He almost looks like he's familiar with the feeling of helplessness that pervades the room. But I would sooner walk barefoot back to Yamaku in the cold and the dark than risk talking to him now.
Hideaki sits with me and Misha, who hasn't let go of my hand since she woke up, except when we parted to change back into our normal clothes. She sits there, white as a ghost, breathing shallowly, her normally bright golden eyes now a thousand miles away. As I look at her she seems to come back to reality a little, and turns to return my gaze.
“Shicchan will be fine, right Hicchan?” Her voice lacks the usual lilt. It's almost a good thing she had decided to cut off her signature drills, as even her short hair is a total mess now.
“Of course she will,” I say, half to her and half to myself. “There's a reason this hospital is so close to Yamaku.”
She nods slowly, her mouth drawn in a line.
Before we can say anything else, a doctor, dressed in the operation scrubs, enters the waiting room. He looks around even though there's hardly anyone else in the room.
“Mister Hakamichi?”
Jigoro stands angrily and the doctor walks a little closer, but only a little. I can't blame him.
“I'm very sorry sir. My team did everything they could, but...”
I can't tell if it's fatigue or unease, maybe both, but in my heart I already know what he's about to say.
Say it. Do it. Tell me it's over.
Tell me it's all over.
“..I'm afraid there was nothing we could do to save your daughter's eyesight. The damage from the accident was just too extensive.”
The rest of the conversation, from across the room, blurs into a gray of sound. Misha's hand grips mine so hard that I'm sure her knuckles are white, but I can't even feel it.


We're back in Shizune's room now. It's a different room, on a different floor, not in the emergency department anymore. This is the recovery ward, my experience in hospitals coming in handy even though I still have barely told anyone else about it.
I stand on one side of the bed, with Misha on the other side, both of us holding one of Shizune's hands. It's the day after the operation, but we still haven't left the hospital. I can't leave her like this, and I'm sure Misha feels the same way.
The hospital interpreter had arrived, but between me and Misha he wasn't needed. It was harder to sign while holding her hands the entire time, but the alternative was unthinkable. And yet, even as I stand here, I can't help but think it.
Before, Shizune had always been an unstoppable force, even with the massive communication barrier that stood between her and the world. As long as I or Misha was there she could make her opinion heard, and if she really needed to, she could pull out the hated notepad to get her message across.
But now...
I had thought about what it must be like to be deaf. Spending as much time as I do around Shizune, it 's hard not to. It must be easy to feel isolated, when you lack a way to interact with the world around you. All you have to do is close your eyes and you're in complete and total solitude.
But now that isn't an option.
I think back to my time spent in the hospital, feeling like I was withering away while my old friends moved on with their lives and forgot about me. My heart had been the warden of the prison that was my body then. But Shizune's in an entirely different kind of prison now.
My hand begins to shake as tears roll down my cheeks, and Shizune does that fearless grin of hers again, slowly pulling her hands from ours to sign to us.
“[You two worry too much.]” She signs it to the both of us, a thick wrap of bandages still surrounding her eyes.
Misha lets out a short gasp of laughter that sounds forced, and I somehow manage a smile even though I know she can't see it.
“Someone has to do the worrying if you won't, Shicchan!” Misha says aloud as she carefully signs it in Shizune's hands. Even though the forced optimism can't be conveyed through the gestures, I'm sure Shizune picks it up anyway. She grins and cocks her head, slowly taking her hands back so she can reply.
“[Life is too short... to be worrying all the time.]”
Even as she signs it, her grin falters. Even though she still hasn't let down all her walls around me, I've known her long enough. We've been through enough together. The festival and tanabata, summer vacation at her house, surviving exams and the onslaught of student council work. Slowly growing closer to eachother, slowly growing more in love with the person that unfolded before me.
Shizune is a strong girl. One of the strongest people I've ever met. But she's not strong enough for this.
I'm not strong enough for this.
I look up at Misha, who looks back at me. Then, we both lean over the edges of the bed, and slowly wrap our arms around Shizune, cradling her between us, our heads on either side of hers. She melts into our embrace, one arm tightly holding to me and the other to Misha, as if holding on for dear life.
It's not exactly the most comfortable position. But as Shizune's body starts to tremble and the bandages around her eyes begin to stain with tears, none of us make any attempt to move.
I'm never going to move.














“Cold Water” is a song by Damien Rice.