seeing is believing (akb48, yamamoto/kawaei)
seeing is believing
group: akb48
pairing: yamamoto/kawaei
length: ~3800w
Two-thousand-one-hundred-five, two-thousand-one-hundred-six, two-thousand-one-hundred-seven…
Boredom doesn’t kill. It’s not nearly traumatizing enough to cause a mental breakdown and it obviously doesn’t have any physical effects.
But it sure does make people do the weirdest things ever.
After two-thousand-two-hundred, Sayaka gives up. She’s always been wondering just how many strands of hair she has but she never bothered actually counting it, up until today. And now that she’s been at it for hours, still not getting anywhere (and probably, she’s counted some strands more than once… lot more than once), she isn’t interested anymore.
But there’s only so much she can do in such an almost-empty room like hers.
Besides the bed, the small nightstand, a shelf full of books she’s already read a hundreds of times and a full-body mirror, she doesn’t have anything else in here. At least not every piece of furniture is white, she guesses that’s something. The bed has purple blankets (she hates purple) and yellow pillows (much better), the bookshelf wood brown, the nightstand black, and the mirror… well, mirror-colored. (She giggles a little to herself at that.)
Only the walls are white. But oh boy, they are so perfectly white that sometimes it drives Sayaka crazy. Sometimes Sayaka stops and stares, just stares at the walls and wonder if it’s even possible for something to be such pure white.
She always comes to the same conclusion. It exists, she sees the perfectly white walls with her very own eyes, so it must be real.
Suddenly, the door opens and someone wearing a white blouse and casual jeans walks in. (The woman’s blouse’s white can’t be compared to the walls’ color. Not for a second. Sayaka wonders how many times she had put the blouse in the washing machine along with other clothes of different colors that the white became so… unclean.) The woman flashes Sayaka a smile, something she always sees whenever this woman appears. Because this isn’t the first time she’s here; Sayaka remembers that, even she can’t quite recall her name.
“Good evening, Sayaka,” the woman says and Sayaka furrows her brows. Ah, so it’s already evening. It’s always bothered her that she didn’t have a clock in her room. She should do something about that in the near future.
“Good evening,” Sayaka says, without saying any names because she can’t remember. The woman smiles again, now wider, and it’s getting creepy. Sayaka wants to cover either her mouth or her own eyes so she wouldn’t have to see it.
But instead of doing either, she just looks away and focuses on her blanket.
“How are you doing today?”
“Bored,” Sayaka immediately answers and that makes the woman laugh. She doesn’t know why. Why is that funny? Sayaka doesn’t find that funny at all. Irritating, yes, but not funny.
What’s funny is how the woman’s eyebrows move. Up and down, furrowing and returning to their standard positions. Sayaka has no idea how someone’s eyebrows can move so… intensely. It’s as if they were living on their own.
That makes Sayaka laugh. But unlike her, the woman isn’t startled by that.
“Ah, I’m sad to hear that… have you tried reading a book?” The woman’s voice is so kind, way too kind. Sayaka doesn’t like it, it feels extremely fake and she doesn’t like fake things. Like her walls. Their colors, she means.
But of course, she’s already stated that the color isn’t fake. She can see it with her own eyes, after all.
Ah, she will never get over how white those damn walls are.
“I’ve read all the books in here already,” Sayaka replies, her tone casual and emotionless. She doesn’t want to complain; she hopes the woman doesn’t take it as a complaint, even though it could be. But she doesn’t want her to get mad at her. She hates when people are mad at her which seems to happen a lot lately. She has no idea why.
“Do you want me to bring you a new book next time?” she asks and Sayaka’s face lights up with a smile. A genuine one and she nods.
“Please. I would love that.”
“Any wishes on the genre?”
Sayaka pouts a little, thinking. “Do you have any sci-fi? Or dystopian? I’ve read this one dystopian novel in here a while ago and it was great. I love the creativity people have when creating new imaginary future worlds.”
“Sure thing. Dystopian novels are a trend nowadays, so you’re lucky,” the woman says with a smile. Has she stopped smiling ever since she stepped in here? Sayaka doesn’t think so.
“What was the title of that book you’re read?” the woman asks again and Sayaka frowns.
Right. What was it again?
“I don’t remember,” she says honestly after a minute of thinking. Why doesn’t she remember? She also doesn’t remember this woman’s name. Ah, speaking of. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Yui. Don’t you remember me?”
Sayaka shakes her head. “No… I mean, I remember you. I just always seem to forget your name. I’m sorry. I don’t want to be rude.”
Yui just smiles. “It’s fine. You’re not rude, Sayaka.”
Sayaka just hums. They stay silent for a short while that feels like a minute. Or maybe two.
Then Yui lets out a soft sigh. “Anyway, I should go back now. I brought you some orange juice. It’s your favorite, you know.”
Yes. Her favorite. Sayaka nods. “Thank you, Yui.”
“No problem at all, Sayaka. Take care, okay? You know, scream if there’s anything you need or something wrong.” Then with that, she turns around and walks out.
Sayaka sighs. Scream. Sure, she can do that.
But there isn’t anything she needs right now.
Well, except for someone. But she’s sure that she’ll be here soon. She always visits.
*
“Still awake?”
Sayaka turns around in her bed in a heartbeat. Her heart races but then calms upon seeing her.
“I thought you wouldn’t come.”
The girl smiles a little and walks closer to Sayaka’s bed. Sayaka sits up, letting her legs fall off the bed as she turns to her.
“I wouldn’t do that to you.” The girl’s eyes snap to the side, at the glass on Sayaka’s night stand.
The orange juice she’s never touched.
“I’ve been doing well, haven’t I, Rina?” Sayaka asks after noticing the side-glance and the girl just nods.
“Indeed, you have.” Rina then sits down next to Sayaka, placing her hand in her lap and Sayaka takes it with both of hers.
“Everything is always so boring when you’re not here. Why don’t you come more often?”
Rina sighs and looks at Sayaka. “Sadly, this is the only time you allow me to come.”
Sayaka frowns. “I don’t understand. You need my permission?”
Rina slowly nods. “Sort of, yes.”
“But I don’t remember ever giving any permission to anyone… yet you still come.”
The girl just stares at her, with a sad smile on her face. “Once, you’ll understand.”
That’s enough for Sayaka for now.
Rina leans in and pecks the other’s cheek. She trails her fingers through Sayaka’s dark, slightly wavy locks and twirls a few strands around her pinky before leaning in to kiss her. Sayaka has to suppress a sigh of pleasure as she feels Rina’s impossibly light lips (they’re always light; and cold, which is something that so doesn’t suit Rina) against her own.
In the next minute, they’re both lying in bed, Rina snuggled up close to Sayaka so she wouldn’t fall off (obviously, her bed wasn’t meant for two) but the raven doesn’t mind it. She plays with Rina’s chocolate brown tendrils while they’re lying in silence. Good silence. The only time Sayaka can ever be in such silence, free from all the thoughts wandering mindlessly in her head all the time.
Rina’s a perfect distraction and has been for the past two weeks, ever since she first appeared in her room.
Sayaka doesn’t know when and why she started visiting in the first place. When she first appeared, she didn’t have a name; or well, at least she herself said so. She wanted Sayaka to give her one because she thought she would give her a nicer one. So she called her Rina (because the girl somewhat looked like a girl she used to know; and adore, very much so, who wore the same name), and the other liked that.
Back then, Sayaka never would’ve expected them to get this close. Rina never told her why she keeps visiting every single night, but they clicked from the very first second. Sayaka feels like Rina’s the only one who can truly understand her, the only one who doesn’t judge her. It feels nice.
It was three days ago that they first kissed. Rina initiated it but it was Sayaka who kept going. It didn’t feel wrong. She knew how wrong felt like; she could feel it every single time she looked at the walls.
But she didn’t feel that with her.
She still doesn’t. Not even when she wakes up all alone, without anyone by her side even though she remembers clearly that Rina was lying next to her.
Or perhaps she doesn’t remember correctly? Who knows, she keeps forgetting…
Ah, she forgot the woman’s name again.
Sayaka sighs as she sits up on the bed and notices the glass of orange juice on her night stand. She bits onto her lower lip and wonders why Rina never lets her drink it but instead orders her to flush it down the toilet and convince that woman that she had drunk it.
She doesn’t want to go against Rina’s will, god forbid she would, but she really wants to know if there’s a special reason why she can’t drink the orange juice. Damn it, it’s her favorite drink after all. She wants to have some.
So she reaches for the glass and drinks the whole thing with one gulp.
She doesn’t feel anything weird.
Perhaps Rina’s just been tricking her all this time. Sayaka shakes her head. Nevermind, she’s gonna ask her about it tonight.
The woman comes later again whose name Sayaka still can’t recall. Damned memory. Why does it keep abandoning her? Thank god she never forgets Rina, at least. Or her own name.
She brings a new glass of orange juice and a book. The book’s title is The Maze Runner and she kind of likes the cover. She doesn’t read the sypnosis; she never does, ever since there was this one book that spoiled everything on its own back. What writes does that? Why would anyone want to spoil the book’s biggest twists in the damn summary?
The woman leaves without Sayaka asking for her name. The book keeps her distracted enough not to care about that right now.
She spends the entire day reading. It’s a good book. Sayaka usually doesn’t like male protagonists… and in this book, everyone’s a damn boy. But that’s fine, because the book’s story hooks her in pretty fast and she decides that dystopian is her new favorite genre. She loves the creativity, she really does. Sometimes she herself wonders about a world, something different than the current one, one that’s beyond these impossibly white walls of her room.
Her world wouldn’t be ugly, though. It would be ideal. Everyone would be happy. Especially her. With Rina. That would be nice.
Perhaps way too nice.
*
When she wakes up, she’s confused.
No, she’s very confused.
But it’s certainly morning. She can feel that. Also, she woke up which means that there must’ve been a night that has passed since yesterday.
Which means, it’s morning.
But that doesn’t make sense. She doesn’t remember meeting Rina last night. How could that happen? Is she having a bad sense of time and she only happened to take a nap and it’s not even tomorrow yet?
Rina wouldn’t not visit her. She’s visited every single night for the past two weeks.
What on earth had happened?
And what’s even more unsettling, Sayaka feels… relaxed.
No, she shouldn’t feel that way. She should be pissed. Mad, even. Why didn’t Rina come? How could she have fallen asleep like that? She never sleeps before Rina comes.
Seriously, what on earth had happened?
Then suddenly, the door’s slammed open and the woman walks in. With the usual glass of orange juice in her hand.
The orange juice.
Could it be…?
Rina has found out that she drank it and that’s why she didn’t come? Pff, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would she make such a big deal out of something so petty? Besides, she’s tired of drinking the water that comes out of the faucet. If she wants to drink her favorite drink, damn, let her do it.
No?
But there’s no other explanations. Nothing else changed in her daily routine but the fact that this time, she drank the orange juice.
“How are you feeling today?” the woman asks the question she always asks, snapping Sayaka out of her thoughts.
Sayaka doesn’t know how to answer. How does she feel like? Confused… but also calm. Relaxed. Again, a feeling she shouldn’t be experiencing.
“I’m fine,” she ends up saying in the end and it causes the girl to smile.
Yui. The name pops up in her mind quickly like a thunderbolt and it startles her.
“Are you Yui?” she asks suddenly, and it makes the woman smile widely.
“Yes. Yes, I’m Yui. You remember?”
“Do you think I would ask if I didn’t?” Sayaka replies to the question with another and Yui seems surprised. But then her smile returns.
“You’re right.”
That’s all they speak. Then Yui leaves.
Sayaka flushes the orange juice down the toilet immediately after the door closes.
*
But Rina doesn’t come that night, either. Sayaka wakes up frustrated and pissed, mad, that she left her alone for another night. Why the hell doesn’t she come? Why? Did she hurt her somehow? It’s not the orange juice, otherwise she would’ve been here last night, wouldn’t she? Where the fuck is her, then?
She gets rid of the orange juice that day, too, then the next, then again. But Rina doesn’t appear again. Sayaka becomes a lot more frustrated with each day; her body starts shaking as she thinks of her, it shakes so hard that she almost falls off her own bed. She lies there all day, her blanket tightly pulled over her body as if that would help close out the world and all the disappointment, despair and frustration that Rina’s absence causes her.
The frustration turns into a series of sobbing and Sayaka feels like she won’t ever be able to stop crying. She sobs vehemently, her fingers tearing into her hair, thinking that the physical pain might help her get over the fact how damn much she misses Rina.
When the woman visits that day, she finds Sayaka crying and screaming into her pillow and she immediately rushes over to her. Sayaka hears a sound that she identifies as glass breaking but she couldn’t care less about something like that now; Yui grabs her shoulder and turns her over so she would face her.
“What’s wrong, Sayaka? Does something hurt?”
“Where… where is she… why doesn’t she visit me anymore…” Sayaka sobs, her rugged breath coming out in small gasps.
“Who? Who visits you other than me, Sayaka?”
“My… my girlfriend…” she sobs, her tears blurring her vision and she hides her face with both of her hands, shaking her head. She feels like her head is going to explode; she can’t think properly, it hurts, it hurts so, so much.
She pushes the woman away.
“Sayaka,” the woman says, approaching her again. “Sayaka, you don’t have a girlfriend.”
Sayaka doesn’t seem to hear it.
“What’s with the orange juice, huh? What’s about it? Why do you bring me a glass of it every single day?”
“Do you drink it every day?” she asks instead of answering and Sayaka groans.
“No! I drank it once, and it made her disappear forever! What the fuck did you put in it?!” she screams, now both her tears and her hair soaked in sweat covering her vision so she has to brush the few strands out of her eyes and blink the tears out of them.
“Sayaka, you did well that you drank it. You need to keep drinking it.”
“What? Why?! No! It pissed her off!” Sayaka screams again, shaking her head rapidly. “She told me not to drink it, she told me! I didn’t listen, and look… look what happened…”
“Sayaka, listen to me,” the woman says, her voice so calm Sayaka doesn’t think it’s physically possible; but there are a lot of things she didn’t think possible lately, “the orange juice has your meds. The meds help you feel better. Had you drunk your juice today and yesterday, you wouldn’t feel like this today. This is why you need to drink.”
“Meds?” Sayaka blinks, looking confused. “What meds? What are you talking about?”
“Do you know why you’re here?”
“Here? In this room? No. Why am I here?”
“Your ill. You were diagnosed with schizophrenia two months ago and you have been residing in this ward since then. You don’t remember?”
Sayaka just stares, feeling completely mortified. Attacked. She’s ill? Since when? Two months, Yui had said. But why? Why didn’t she know?
“What about my girlfriend?”
“She doesn’t exist, Sayaka. You’ve been hallucinating her.”
“No…” Sayaka shakes her head, the pain overwhelming her again, clutching at her heart and twisting and twisting. “No, no. You’re lying! You’re a liar!”
And she screams again, she screams until it drives her deaf and the next thing she sees is that she’s suddenly swarmed by figures in white, murmuring senseless words she does not understand at all and she kicks and wails, protesting, protecting hers-
When she suddenly relaxes and everything fades into black.
*
The walls are a lovely shade of peach.
They make her happy. It’s been a long time she’s seen such pretty colors.
Her blanket also looks nice. A very light hue of blue, like the color of the sky on a bright, cloudless summer day. When was the last time she saw the sky? She doesn’t remember.
She doesn’t have enough time to appreciate her environment because the door opens and a woman steps in.
“Good morning, Yui,” Sayaka chirps as soon as the woman gets closer and she looks surprised.
“Good morning to you, too, Sayaka,” she replies with a smile nevertheless and Sayaka returns it. She likes Yui. She always has this wide smile on her face. She seems to be someone who’s always happy.
“How are you today?” she asks as she puts a glass of orange juice (wow, her favorite!) on the night stand next to her bed.
Sayaka reaches for the glass and sighs happily. “I’m feeling great today. And you brought my favorite drink, too, thank you.” She lifts the glass to her lips. “Heh, Rina has always told me not to drink this…”
“Who is Rina?” Yui asks, suddenly seeming a bit concerned.
Weird. Who is that? Sayaka doesn’t know anyone named Rina except for one girl. But she hasn’t seen that girl for long, long years now. Why did she say that?
So she just chuckles, shrugging her shoulders. “Ah, I don’t know. I think my memory is tricking me now. Who would even forbid me from drinking my favorite drink, anyway? Must be a stupid person.”
Yui just smiles. She nods once.
“Yes. Must be.”
Sayaka smiles back at her as she lifts up the glass once again and drinks the orange juice with one long gulp.
group: akb48
pairing: yamamoto/kawaei
length: ~3800w
Two-thousand-one-hundred-five, two-thousand-one-hundred-six, two-thousand-one-hundred-seven…
Boredom doesn’t kill. It’s not nearly traumatizing enough to cause a mental breakdown and it obviously doesn’t have any physical effects.
But it sure does make people do the weirdest things ever.
After two-thousand-two-hundred, Sayaka gives up. She’s always been wondering just how many strands of hair she has but she never bothered actually counting it, up until today. And now that she’s been at it for hours, still not getting anywhere (and probably, she’s counted some strands more than once… lot more than once), she isn’t interested anymore.
But there’s only so much she can do in such an almost-empty room like hers.
Besides the bed, the small nightstand, a shelf full of books she’s already read a hundreds of times and a full-body mirror, she doesn’t have anything else in here. At least not every piece of furniture is white, she guesses that’s something. The bed has purple blankets (she hates purple) and yellow pillows (much better), the bookshelf wood brown, the nightstand black, and the mirror… well, mirror-colored. (She giggles a little to herself at that.)
Only the walls are white. But oh boy, they are so perfectly white that sometimes it drives Sayaka crazy. Sometimes Sayaka stops and stares, just stares at the walls and wonder if it’s even possible for something to be such pure white.
She always comes to the same conclusion. It exists, she sees the perfectly white walls with her very own eyes, so it must be real.
Suddenly, the door opens and someone wearing a white blouse and casual jeans walks in. (The woman’s blouse’s white can’t be compared to the walls’ color. Not for a second. Sayaka wonders how many times she had put the blouse in the washing machine along with other clothes of different colors that the white became so… unclean.) The woman flashes Sayaka a smile, something she always sees whenever this woman appears. Because this isn’t the first time she’s here; Sayaka remembers that, even she can’t quite recall her name.
“Good evening, Sayaka,” the woman says and Sayaka furrows her brows. Ah, so it’s already evening. It’s always bothered her that she didn’t have a clock in her room. She should do something about that in the near future.
“Good evening,” Sayaka says, without saying any names because she can’t remember. The woman smiles again, now wider, and it’s getting creepy. Sayaka wants to cover either her mouth or her own eyes so she wouldn’t have to see it.
But instead of doing either, she just looks away and focuses on her blanket.
“How are you doing today?”
“Bored,” Sayaka immediately answers and that makes the woman laugh. She doesn’t know why. Why is that funny? Sayaka doesn’t find that funny at all. Irritating, yes, but not funny.
What’s funny is how the woman’s eyebrows move. Up and down, furrowing and returning to their standard positions. Sayaka has no idea how someone’s eyebrows can move so… intensely. It’s as if they were living on their own.
That makes Sayaka laugh. But unlike her, the woman isn’t startled by that.
“Ah, I’m sad to hear that… have you tried reading a book?” The woman’s voice is so kind, way too kind. Sayaka doesn’t like it, it feels extremely fake and she doesn’t like fake things. Like her walls. Their colors, she means.
But of course, she’s already stated that the color isn’t fake. She can see it with her own eyes, after all.
Ah, she will never get over how white those damn walls are.
“I’ve read all the books in here already,” Sayaka replies, her tone casual and emotionless. She doesn’t want to complain; she hopes the woman doesn’t take it as a complaint, even though it could be. But she doesn’t want her to get mad at her. She hates when people are mad at her which seems to happen a lot lately. She has no idea why.
“Do you want me to bring you a new book next time?” she asks and Sayaka’s face lights up with a smile. A genuine one and she nods.
“Please. I would love that.”
“Any wishes on the genre?”
Sayaka pouts a little, thinking. “Do you have any sci-fi? Or dystopian? I’ve read this one dystopian novel in here a while ago and it was great. I love the creativity people have when creating new imaginary future worlds.”
“Sure thing. Dystopian novels are a trend nowadays, so you’re lucky,” the woman says with a smile. Has she stopped smiling ever since she stepped in here? Sayaka doesn’t think so.
“What was the title of that book you’re read?” the woman asks again and Sayaka frowns.
Right. What was it again?
“I don’t remember,” she says honestly after a minute of thinking. Why doesn’t she remember? She also doesn’t remember this woman’s name. Ah, speaking of. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Yui. Don’t you remember me?”
Sayaka shakes her head. “No… I mean, I remember you. I just always seem to forget your name. I’m sorry. I don’t want to be rude.”
Yui just smiles. “It’s fine. You’re not rude, Sayaka.”
Sayaka just hums. They stay silent for a short while that feels like a minute. Or maybe two.
Then Yui lets out a soft sigh. “Anyway, I should go back now. I brought you some orange juice. It’s your favorite, you know.”
Yes. Her favorite. Sayaka nods. “Thank you, Yui.”
“No problem at all, Sayaka. Take care, okay? You know, scream if there’s anything you need or something wrong.” Then with that, she turns around and walks out.
Sayaka sighs. Scream. Sure, she can do that.
But there isn’t anything she needs right now.
Well, except for someone. But she’s sure that she’ll be here soon. She always visits.
*
“Still awake?”
Sayaka turns around in her bed in a heartbeat. Her heart races but then calms upon seeing her.
“I thought you wouldn’t come.”
The girl smiles a little and walks closer to Sayaka’s bed. Sayaka sits up, letting her legs fall off the bed as she turns to her.
“I wouldn’t do that to you.” The girl’s eyes snap to the side, at the glass on Sayaka’s night stand.
The orange juice she’s never touched.
“I’ve been doing well, haven’t I, Rina?” Sayaka asks after noticing the side-glance and the girl just nods.
“Indeed, you have.” Rina then sits down next to Sayaka, placing her hand in her lap and Sayaka takes it with both of hers.
“Everything is always so boring when you’re not here. Why don’t you come more often?”
Rina sighs and looks at Sayaka. “Sadly, this is the only time you allow me to come.”
Sayaka frowns. “I don’t understand. You need my permission?”
Rina slowly nods. “Sort of, yes.”
“But I don’t remember ever giving any permission to anyone… yet you still come.”
The girl just stares at her, with a sad smile on her face. “Once, you’ll understand.”
That’s enough for Sayaka for now.
Rina leans in and pecks the other’s cheek. She trails her fingers through Sayaka’s dark, slightly wavy locks and twirls a few strands around her pinky before leaning in to kiss her. Sayaka has to suppress a sigh of pleasure as she feels Rina’s impossibly light lips (they’re always light; and cold, which is something that so doesn’t suit Rina) against her own.
In the next minute, they’re both lying in bed, Rina snuggled up close to Sayaka so she wouldn’t fall off (obviously, her bed wasn’t meant for two) but the raven doesn’t mind it. She plays with Rina’s chocolate brown tendrils while they’re lying in silence. Good silence. The only time Sayaka can ever be in such silence, free from all the thoughts wandering mindlessly in her head all the time.
Rina’s a perfect distraction and has been for the past two weeks, ever since she first appeared in her room.
Sayaka doesn’t know when and why she started visiting in the first place. When she first appeared, she didn’t have a name; or well, at least she herself said so. She wanted Sayaka to give her one because she thought she would give her a nicer one. So she called her Rina (because the girl somewhat looked like a girl she used to know; and adore, very much so, who wore the same name), and the other liked that.
Back then, Sayaka never would’ve expected them to get this close. Rina never told her why she keeps visiting every single night, but they clicked from the very first second. Sayaka feels like Rina’s the only one who can truly understand her, the only one who doesn’t judge her. It feels nice.
It was three days ago that they first kissed. Rina initiated it but it was Sayaka who kept going. It didn’t feel wrong. She knew how wrong felt like; she could feel it every single time she looked at the walls.
But she didn’t feel that with her.
She still doesn’t. Not even when she wakes up all alone, without anyone by her side even though she remembers clearly that Rina was lying next to her.
Or perhaps she doesn’t remember correctly? Who knows, she keeps forgetting…
Ah, she forgot the woman’s name again.
Sayaka sighs as she sits up on the bed and notices the glass of orange juice on her night stand. She bits onto her lower lip and wonders why Rina never lets her drink it but instead orders her to flush it down the toilet and convince that woman that she had drunk it.
She doesn’t want to go against Rina’s will, god forbid she would, but she really wants to know if there’s a special reason why she can’t drink the orange juice. Damn it, it’s her favorite drink after all. She wants to have some.
So she reaches for the glass and drinks the whole thing with one gulp.
She doesn’t feel anything weird.
Perhaps Rina’s just been tricking her all this time. Sayaka shakes her head. Nevermind, she’s gonna ask her about it tonight.
The woman comes later again whose name Sayaka still can’t recall. Damned memory. Why does it keep abandoning her? Thank god she never forgets Rina, at least. Or her own name.
She brings a new glass of orange juice and a book. The book’s title is The Maze Runner and she kind of likes the cover. She doesn’t read the sypnosis; she never does, ever since there was this one book that spoiled everything on its own back. What writes does that? Why would anyone want to spoil the book’s biggest twists in the damn summary?
The woman leaves without Sayaka asking for her name. The book keeps her distracted enough not to care about that right now.
She spends the entire day reading. It’s a good book. Sayaka usually doesn’t like male protagonists… and in this book, everyone’s a damn boy. But that’s fine, because the book’s story hooks her in pretty fast and she decides that dystopian is her new favorite genre. She loves the creativity, she really does. Sometimes she herself wonders about a world, something different than the current one, one that’s beyond these impossibly white walls of her room.
Her world wouldn’t be ugly, though. It would be ideal. Everyone would be happy. Especially her. With Rina. That would be nice.
Perhaps way too nice.
*
When she wakes up, she’s confused.
No, she’s very confused.
But it’s certainly morning. She can feel that. Also, she woke up which means that there must’ve been a night that has passed since yesterday.
Which means, it’s morning.
But that doesn’t make sense. She doesn’t remember meeting Rina last night. How could that happen? Is she having a bad sense of time and she only happened to take a nap and it’s not even tomorrow yet?
Rina wouldn’t not visit her. She’s visited every single night for the past two weeks.
What on earth had happened?
And what’s even more unsettling, Sayaka feels… relaxed.
No, she shouldn’t feel that way. She should be pissed. Mad, even. Why didn’t Rina come? How could she have fallen asleep like that? She never sleeps before Rina comes.
Seriously, what on earth had happened?
Then suddenly, the door’s slammed open and the woman walks in. With the usual glass of orange juice in her hand.
The orange juice.
Could it be…?
Rina has found out that she drank it and that’s why she didn’t come? Pff, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would she make such a big deal out of something so petty? Besides, she’s tired of drinking the water that comes out of the faucet. If she wants to drink her favorite drink, damn, let her do it.
No?
But there’s no other explanations. Nothing else changed in her daily routine but the fact that this time, she drank the orange juice.
“How are you feeling today?” the woman asks the question she always asks, snapping Sayaka out of her thoughts.
Sayaka doesn’t know how to answer. How does she feel like? Confused… but also calm. Relaxed. Again, a feeling she shouldn’t be experiencing.
“I’m fine,” she ends up saying in the end and it causes the girl to smile.
Yui. The name pops up in her mind quickly like a thunderbolt and it startles her.
“Are you Yui?” she asks suddenly, and it makes the woman smile widely.
“Yes. Yes, I’m Yui. You remember?”
“Do you think I would ask if I didn’t?” Sayaka replies to the question with another and Yui seems surprised. But then her smile returns.
“You’re right.”
That’s all they speak. Then Yui leaves.
Sayaka flushes the orange juice down the toilet immediately after the door closes.
*
But Rina doesn’t come that night, either. Sayaka wakes up frustrated and pissed, mad, that she left her alone for another night. Why the hell doesn’t she come? Why? Did she hurt her somehow? It’s not the orange juice, otherwise she would’ve been here last night, wouldn’t she? Where the fuck is her, then?
She gets rid of the orange juice that day, too, then the next, then again. But Rina doesn’t appear again. Sayaka becomes a lot more frustrated with each day; her body starts shaking as she thinks of her, it shakes so hard that she almost falls off her own bed. She lies there all day, her blanket tightly pulled over her body as if that would help close out the world and all the disappointment, despair and frustration that Rina’s absence causes her.
The frustration turns into a series of sobbing and Sayaka feels like she won’t ever be able to stop crying. She sobs vehemently, her fingers tearing into her hair, thinking that the physical pain might help her get over the fact how damn much she misses Rina.
When the woman visits that day, she finds Sayaka crying and screaming into her pillow and she immediately rushes over to her. Sayaka hears a sound that she identifies as glass breaking but she couldn’t care less about something like that now; Yui grabs her shoulder and turns her over so she would face her.
“What’s wrong, Sayaka? Does something hurt?”
“Where… where is she… why doesn’t she visit me anymore…” Sayaka sobs, her rugged breath coming out in small gasps.
“Who? Who visits you other than me, Sayaka?”
“My… my girlfriend…” she sobs, her tears blurring her vision and she hides her face with both of her hands, shaking her head. She feels like her head is going to explode; she can’t think properly, it hurts, it hurts so, so much.
She pushes the woman away.
“Sayaka,” the woman says, approaching her again. “Sayaka, you don’t have a girlfriend.”
Sayaka doesn’t seem to hear it.
“What’s with the orange juice, huh? What’s about it? Why do you bring me a glass of it every single day?”
“Do you drink it every day?” she asks instead of answering and Sayaka groans.
“No! I drank it once, and it made her disappear forever! What the fuck did you put in it?!” she screams, now both her tears and her hair soaked in sweat covering her vision so she has to brush the few strands out of her eyes and blink the tears out of them.
“Sayaka, you did well that you drank it. You need to keep drinking it.”
“What? Why?! No! It pissed her off!” Sayaka screams again, shaking her head rapidly. “She told me not to drink it, she told me! I didn’t listen, and look… look what happened…”
“Sayaka, listen to me,” the woman says, her voice so calm Sayaka doesn’t think it’s physically possible; but there are a lot of things she didn’t think possible lately, “the orange juice has your meds. The meds help you feel better. Had you drunk your juice today and yesterday, you wouldn’t feel like this today. This is why you need to drink.”
“Meds?” Sayaka blinks, looking confused. “What meds? What are you talking about?”
“Do you know why you’re here?”
“Here? In this room? No. Why am I here?”
“Your ill. You were diagnosed with schizophrenia two months ago and you have been residing in this ward since then. You don’t remember?”
Sayaka just stares, feeling completely mortified. Attacked. She’s ill? Since when? Two months, Yui had said. But why? Why didn’t she know?
“What about my girlfriend?”
“She doesn’t exist, Sayaka. You’ve been hallucinating her.”
“No…” Sayaka shakes her head, the pain overwhelming her again, clutching at her heart and twisting and twisting. “No, no. You’re lying! You’re a liar!”
And she screams again, she screams until it drives her deaf and the next thing she sees is that she’s suddenly swarmed by figures in white, murmuring senseless words she does not understand at all and she kicks and wails, protesting, protecting hers-
When she suddenly relaxes and everything fades into black.
*
The walls are a lovely shade of peach.
They make her happy. It’s been a long time she’s seen such pretty colors.
Her blanket also looks nice. A very light hue of blue, like the color of the sky on a bright, cloudless summer day. When was the last time she saw the sky? She doesn’t remember.
She doesn’t have enough time to appreciate her environment because the door opens and a woman steps in.
“Good morning, Yui,” Sayaka chirps as soon as the woman gets closer and she looks surprised.
“Good morning to you, too, Sayaka,” she replies with a smile nevertheless and Sayaka returns it. She likes Yui. She always has this wide smile on her face. She seems to be someone who’s always happy.
“How are you today?” she asks as she puts a glass of orange juice (wow, her favorite!) on the night stand next to her bed.
Sayaka reaches for the glass and sighs happily. “I’m feeling great today. And you brought my favorite drink, too, thank you.” She lifts the glass to her lips. “Heh, Rina has always told me not to drink this…”
“Who is Rina?” Yui asks, suddenly seeming a bit concerned.
Weird. Who is that? Sayaka doesn’t know anyone named Rina except for one girl. But she hasn’t seen that girl for long, long years now. Why did she say that?
So she just chuckles, shrugging her shoulders. “Ah, I don’t know. I think my memory is tricking me now. Who would even forbid me from drinking my favorite drink, anyway? Must be a stupid person.”
Yui just smiles. She nods once.
“Yes. Must be.”
Sayaka smiles back at her as she lifts up the glass once again and drinks the orange juice with one long gulp.