Some Things Cannot Be Fixed, They Can Only Be Carried

Chapter 2) Tears; They Make You Suffer Less

"But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more."

- Hans Christian Andersen

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August 28th 2013

One week.

Or seven days.

Or one-hundred sixty-eight hours.

That's how much time has passed. And my terrible dream still hasn't passed.

Honestly, I can only say that it has gotten worse; I now have to admit that, yes, the person who was lying in that bed on the Neuro Intensive Care Unit was indeed Haruka Nanase. My childhood friend.

I couldn't deny it anymore, after having to talk Nagisa and Rei, Rin and Gou, and even multiple grown-ups at school through everything that has happened in the past week. Every bit of information, every little thing that's wrong with Haruka at the moment, I know it by heart.

The worst is that having to tell everyone about what happened isn't even the worst thing. The most painful, most worrying, is the fact that in the dozens of hours that I've spend inside the ICU by Haruka's bedside, nothing has changed at all.

Okay, they might've decided to move him from the ICU to the regular Neurology ward yesterday, since he's now able to breathe without the support of a ventilator; those nose tubes are enough.

Even though he's still weak and completely oblivious to everything and everyone, he's not actively dying anymore. He doesn't need care every single minute of the day; nurses do check on him regularly, at least three or four times each hour, but it means he's doing a little better than earlier this week. I guess that's at least one thing that makes this pain more bearable.

Besides that, everything stayed exactly the same; Haruka hasn't healed one bit, other than the fracture in his rib getting less with each day, and doctors haven't been able to contact his parents.

Apparently mom called them too three days ago and again yesterday evening. She left a voicemail this time, telling them she had bad news about their son and that they should call back as soon as they listened to the voicemail. But we haven't heard anything of them since, not that I think they will care about their son being in this state. They were the ones that left him unsupervised for years after all, if there are any underlying health problems that caused this to happen to Haruka, I blame them.

"And what do you think, Haruka?" I ask Haruka after telling him all about how I heard mom leaving the voicemail for his parents. "Do you think they'll come and visit you once they find out?"

There's no response, as I expected, but I talk to him anyway.

I do it because the nurses told me that talking to him and giving him lots of attention could stimulate some sort of healing process; though that's not certain. Besides that, it's just somehow strangely comforting to talk to him, just like I used to do when he wasn't like this yet.

Haruka groans meaninglessly, his gaze drifting off and away from me.

"That's what I thought," I mutter, my voice strained and raspy from having cried myself to sleep six nights in a row. "Do you know who will visit you?" A wrap my hand around Haruka's, feeling how he immediately grasps at my hand. I jump at the sudden movement, but quickly remind myself of what Annya told me about it; it's just a mere reflex, just like an infant who grabs their parents' hand.

I stroke the back of his hand with my thumb and slowly explain that Rin and Gou want to come by in a short while, and Nagisa and Rei should be dropping in somewhere around that time too.