"It has been two days since a meteorite exploded over Tokyo..." The voice of a reporter was the first thing she heard as her eyes fluttered open, studying her surroundings until her sight cleared and she realized she had been hospitalized, "Structural damage is centered around a 10km radius from Shibuya Park Street..."
Yasuko brought a hand up to her face, itching to rub the daze off her, but no other than a bandage's cotton fabric and an strangely shorter, distorted and awaking painfulness part of her arm came into contact with her eyelids. What the fuck, she thought, moving her limb far enough to understand what was wrong with it, What the actual fu—
"...has extended its condolences to the following families: some names are Kairi Nakamura, Daikichi Karube, Kihiro Sato, Chota Segawa, Kodai Tatta, Saori Shibuki, Ikehara Akio..."
The heart rate monitor next to her bed spiked up. She looked over her amputated member and caught the view of the hospital TV hanging from a corner of the room showing all types of photographs and videos taken of the remains of the incident that had gotten her in that state, inside of a tidy, little critical care unit, chained to a respiratory ventilator and some pumps she was making the hardest effort known in earth to not look at in order to avoid the sudden feeling of nausea finally get all the way up to her mouth.
A knock on the door got her attention for a moment. Yasuko waited patiently in silence, but the shadow on the other side of it hesitated for too long for her tired mind to care completely about the doorknob barely twisting and the silent creek that carried it open as she used her other hand to free herself from the respiratory mask covering half her face. Once she let it fall onto the space next to her pillow, she gazed back at the figure that had stepped into the room.
"Mom?" She mumbled, though the raspy and hoarse sound that was voiced out of her lips almost couldn't be comprehended as it mixed up with all the noise traveling inside along the woman that gaped at her as if she was the total opposite of what she remembered of her.
Regaining her consciousness slowly by the sedatives drifting away, she coughed a few times before trying again, hoping that time she would have an answer, hoping that time she wouldn't leave her alone.
"Hi, mommy," Yasuko lifted up her arm, tightly wrapped in bandages, weirded out by the ghost feeling of fingers waving at her just as her grin grew wider, "I'm missing a hand now." Her humorous tone, still recovering from the shock of the situation itself sinking in, wavered slightly as her mother's eyes filled with tears and her knuckles turned white from how hard she was gripping her purse.
Since she didn't move an inch away from the opened door at her back, Yasuko took the initiative, sitting up with shaky arms until she caught a pair of snooping eyes peeking at her from the door frame for what could've been ten seconds before slowly rolling down the hallway in a wheelchair after gifting her a shy smile Yasuko hadn't been quick enough to return back. Her mother's sudden outburst almost made her jump.
"How dare you wake up and start cracking jokes?" She got a wild look, the one she had feared facing when she was a kid and asked too much about her dad and why the sea had been the one he had chosen first instead of them, "Do you know how worried I've been, how worried your grandma has been?"
She talked as if she was angry, Yasuko could see it all over the way she gesticulated and breathed out every syllable like she was getting out of oxygen. But she wasn't, she was only full of unsaid apologies and guilt. She was only scared of losing someone she loved, again.
"A whole minute, your heart had completely stopped," from her seat on the bed, Yasuko couldn't help but bite her tongue as hard as she was able to not start crying, "For a whole minute, the borderlands had taken you and I couldn't think of anything else than what was I going to do if you didn't came back to me, why had I been so selfish, why couldn't I just accept your choices as you had accepted mines."
Yasuko felt her chest heavy, her breathing changing its pace, drowning the pain of a mother on the verge of falling apart for a second time after so long. It felt terrible, just as bad as she would have imagined it did for her, standing in front of her, eyes fixed on the image of a daughter cut in pieces trying its best to not let her see through the cracks that covered her entirely, even if she already knew every one of them as if she had been the one that glued each up. Kuba Nori gave her birth, a name; she taught her how to speak and walk, to not take shit of anyone and raise her voice, to choose her own path; she let her child get mad at her, scream and sob until she got nothing else stuck on the throat, and she kept all single one of those tears in a pocket on her heart without saying anything back. Perhaps the sea had flooded her home too late to notice the wreck it left behind as the tides retired, yet as she rested a hand on her daughter's cheek, grazing with her trembling thumb a tear she would take with her far away from her little girl, she realized life was just a game they played together.
"I'm sorry for everything I made you go through," she whispered, allowing Yasuko to wrap her arms around her waist where they always should've been, "Do you forgive me?" She patted her head at the same time Yasuko nodded effusively, "Let's start over from now on, yes? I'll go talk with the nurse to see when you can come back home."
"Can I? Really?" The fiercy hold on her mother's body loosened up, "What if you change your mind?"
"I won't, baby, I won't."
Words so soft like those made it feel as if she was just six years old, as if she was just learning how to be herself again. It installed a warming sensation all over her system that tickled every part of her, from the point of her toes to her head, resting on her mother's chest, hearing the heartbeats that linked them as a whole. Her mom was there and that was all she needed to know she was going to be fine, safe, loved. More than anything else, she just wanted to be loved one last time and had her looking back at her thinking for once that that was who she had ever wished to have by her side.
Watching her leave the room, Yasuko counted the seconds that came after with anxiousness, not sure of what to do anymore. It took her about five minutes to get herself out of there, leaving a note stuck to the heart rate monitor, without anyone in sight to stop her from abandoning her bed.
Yasuko had walked around the hallways aimlessly until she found a vending machine next to a big window and some empty tables. Outside, the halcyon weather made for a perfect day at the beach.
"Hi, sorry," a soft-like voice called her from behind her back. Looking over her shoulder, Yasuko met her eyes, and wondered for a moment if the familiar way in which they stared at her meant something her mind couldn't quite remember yet, "Do you have some change that I could borrow?" She asked.
"Oh, uh..." Both her hands went to dig at her hospital's gown pockets, only one of them successfully grabbing some coins her mom had handed her to ask a nurse to get her something to drink. Extending her palm towards her, she smirked, "Here, I'm not going to get anything for now."
The girl nodded, thankful, but despite the favor being accomplished, she didn't make any movement to turn around, so Yasuko let her gaze study her a little more, going from her short hair to the bandage on her arm and the crutch that helped her stand on her feet.
"Would it be okay if I asked for your name?" Yasuko noticed the hesitation that covered her expression, though as a smile tugged up her lips, she found herself getting easily more confident than the second that went by.
"Usagi." she held her hand out.
"Yasuko," She's pretty, she thought, hoping the warmth she felt creeping up her neck wasn't manifesting like a blush for her to be able to visually see it. Suddenly aware she was blocking the way to use the vending machine, Yasuko moved to the side, "Sorry, all yours." She gestured to the space with her missing limb.
"You got injured too by the explosion?" Usagi asked, searching for something indecisively.
"I guess so, I mean, I was in the area when it happened," she shrugged it off, "I woke up, like, an hour or two ago."
"Oh, you might be still shaken up," their eyes linked again, "I know I'm still shaken up." She smiled at her.
Yasuko let the beginning of a breathy laugh escape out of her lips. For some reason, she felt giddy by just looking at her. It was odd, yet she didn't mind it, she liked how it made her heart flutter.
"We should take a walk to destress," she peeked at her curiously, "If you want to, of course."
Usagi welcomed the offer almost immediately with a nod.
"Yeah, we could do that," taking a step back from the untouched vending machine, she made the coins clink inside her fist, "Will you give me a second before we go out? I'll see if I can find the drink I want in another one of these, then I can meet you at your room."
"Sure."
Yasuko bit her bottom lip to repress another smile to be shown and signaled the way to her room as they began to walk back in the same direction. They made a stop at her door.
"Now you know where I'm at."
"Now I know where you are." Usagi repeated, eyes looking right at her fondly, as if their souls knew each other and had waited for a long time to meet again.