Without Words 3/4
Title: Without Words
Part: 3/4
Beta: snowqueenofhoth (Thank you!♥)
Characters: Nikaido Takashi, Senga Kento
Genre: friendship, angst
Rating: G
Lyrics in the middle of the text: News - Best Friend.
- - -
“Hey, wake up sleepyhead!”
Senga mumbled something completely incoherent in his sleep and pulled his blanket over his face. It was something so familiar that Nikaido couldn’t help giving a small laugh. He had promised himself not to show a gloomy face to his friend, and so far the promise seemed to be quite easy to keep.
“Kenpi, everyone told me to send greetings to you, so get up this second to hear the greetings or I’ll go back home!”
Senga's eyes fluttered open and he looked at Nikaido, and suddenly there was a wide smile on his face.
“Don’t try to sit. The nurse told me you worked hard in your speech therapy this morning. I bet you’re tired after that,” Nikaido said and sat on the chair next to his friend’s bed.
They were quiet for a moment before Nikaido glanced at Senga a bit hesitantly.
“Do you… Do you still know who I am?” he asked, feeling hopeful and frightened at the same time.
Senga kept smiling and nodded, looking at Nikaido’s eyes. There was nothing left of the unsure and scared creature Nikaido had seen yesterday.
“Really?” he gasped, and suddenly he couldn’t help smiling back at Senga as well. The younger man nodded again and raised his hand slowly, pointing at Nikaido.
“Huh, what is it?” Nikaido asked, but he didn’t continue since Senga waved his hand a bit, as if he was telling him to stay quiet.
Senga stared at Nikaido concentrating, hardly blinking, and Nikaido waited patiently. For a long time they sat there, Nikaido waiting and Senga looking like he had something in his mind.
Then.
“Ni… ka.”
A sudden rush of joy flared through Nikaido as he realized what he had heard, and Senga’s self-satisfied expression made him burst into laughter.
Nikaido didn’t know it, but Senga actually had a good reason to look like that. The whole hour of that day’s speech therapy the young man had tried nothing else but to say Nikaido’s name. The therapist had told him not to push himself but Senga really, really had wanted to surprise his friend and he had managed perfectly.
“Good afternoon,” the nurse from the day before greeted the young men, “did you sleep well?”
Senga nodded at the nurse and smiled a bit, raising his right hand in the air.
“You want something? Just point at it,” the nurse encouraged him, and Nikaido couldn’t help a painful sting in his heart as Senga tried his best to be able to use his fingers, and failed miserably. The fingers seemed like they were frozen. The younger man was clearly frustrated as he frowned and dropped his hand down on the bed.
“It’s okay, just try again,” the woman said and then turned to explain it to Nikaido, “These kinds of things are rather normal in in his situation. The stroke damaged not only the speech-parts of his brain but also some of the parts that control the movements of his body. The stroke was located in the left hemisphere so it mostly affects his right hand and leg. That’s also the reason he might not see or hear you if you try to approach him on his right side.”
“Will it get better soon?” Nikaido asked, frowning. For Senga, being able to move - being able to dance - was a vital part of life.
“We don’t know yet. He should be able to relearn most of his speech and motoric skills in about two months. After that the reforming of rest of those skills will be possible, yet much slower.”
Nikaido nodded speechlessly.
Finally, Senga managed to get his fingers in some kind of order. At least his index finger was a bit higher than the others when he pointed out of the door.
“O… o…” he tried weakly, but couldn’t find the word.
“You want to go out? Are you sure?” Senga gave them a determined nod and the nurse smiled approvingly.
“That’s good to hear. You sure have been inside too long already. It’s about time for you to get some fresh air!”
The nurse brought them a wheelchair and helped the young man sit on it. Senga’s right leg was almost fully paralyzed and Nikaido eyed him worriedly. His best friend looked so fragile when sitting there like that, trying to control the limbs that didn’t obey him at all.
“Okay, let’s go!” he said, his voice way more cheerful than he really felt, and Senga nodded again.
Getting out was even more refreshing than they had expected it to be. It had been raining half an hour earlier and the air was still rather cool. The sky was covered in light grey clouds and everything at the hospital park area was covered in droplets of water.
Nikaido pushed Senga’s wheelchair before him and took a deep breathe. He felt unsure what to do or say but the other man didn’t seem to notice. Senga kept looking around eagerly like a little child, as if he had been in the hospital two years rather than two weeks.
“Do you really understand everything I say? Even though you might not remember all the people and things?” Nikaido finally asked the question that had been in his mind since the day before.
Senga tilted his head so that he could see Nikaido in the corner of his eye.
“Y-ye...”
The other man’s sudden verbal answer made Nikaido stop right there.
“Really?” he asked, wanting to make sure, but this time he was only met with Senga’s blank stare. Somehow, Senga also seemed a bit annoyed.
“Oh, sorry. I guess you do, then,” Nikaido muttered, embarrassed, and continued walking. Senga shook his head and chuckled quietly.
- - -
It was weird.
I wish I could say I loved every moment I spent with my best friend. Too bad I can’t.
It wasn’t comfortable enough - I saw how unsure Nikaido was being with me. It was clear he had no idea how to talk to me. He asked me again and again if I really understood him and then kept talking and talking as if he was trying to fill in the empty space that my speechlessness made in our usual chattering.
I kept nodding to him even though I could hardly get the point of half of his speech. He was speaking so much and so fast that it was totally tiring me out, and all the time he talked about people I kind of felt I should know but I didn’t.
According to what he said, everyone was awfully worried about me. Too bad I had no idea who he meant by ‘everyone’. Soon I didn’t even bother trying to understand anymore. It was wonderful to have him there with me but I wished he’d be quiet for even a little while.
“Nika,” I finally managed to say, and it worked! He closed his mouth and crouched next to me, wanting to make sure he’d hear everything.
The problem was there wasn’t much more I could say.
I hated it so damn much. I knew what I wanted to say. I could imagine my own voice in my head, saying those words. I knew how to move my mouth. I knew how to make noise in my throat. But I just couldn’t get the words from my brain to my mouth.
“What is it, Kenpi?” he asked and waited for an answer. And I tried. I really did. I wanted to ask him to just be quiet for a moment and spend time with me without unnecessary words.
“Nika.”
No, that wasn’t what I wanted to say. He raised his eyebrows, still waiting.
“Yes?”
“Nika.”
Great. I was stuck with one single word again. It had happened earlier this morning, too, in my speech therapy. I had kept repeating ‘yes, yes’ to everything the therapist had said to me there.
“Yeah, I’m listening. What is it?”
Nikaido was starting to get frustrated, I heard it in his voice. I didn’t want him to be annoyed with me. It was so unfair. It wasn’t my fault I stammered like that. I wanted to talk to him! I wanted him to understand me. I wanted him to nod and smile at me.
Before I even noticed it, big tears had gathered in my eyes and suddenly they were running down my cheeks. I was angry. Angry and sad, and frustrated too.
Why did this all happen to me? Why couldn’t I live a normal life like all my friends did? (At least I supposed I had some even though I didn't remember them.) Would I stay like this forever; unable to speak and hardly able to move my limbs? Even the thought could have made me freak out.
“What is it? Why don’t you try saying it?”
Why didn’t I try? I didn’t try? Then what the hell was I doing?
And then I just lost it. With my left hand I pushed Nikaido’s shoulder so that he fell to the ground on his butt. I had been carrying his bag on my lap - I grabbed it and threw it down. I cried and suddenly the voice came out! They weren’t any real words but at least I was making some noise.
It was as if the noise coming from my throat made up for the loss of all the real words. I cried and screamed like a furious child, and kicked the stupid wheelchair with my left foot as if it were the one making me so weak and unable to live normally.
I felt hot tears on my cheeks and pain in my leg, and when I waved around with my right hand it actually hurt when my fingers hit the armrest of my chair. The pain was pretty much welcome; at least it meant I could still feel with the fingers. My hand wasn’t completely paralyzed, then. Nice.
Poor Nikaido sat there on the ground, staring at me with his eyes wide and mouth open. He was scared. I saw it and it made me feel even worse. I was frustrated with everything in the world. I had never had to lie bedridden for such a long time before and I was afraid of going back into the hospital room. All the anger and sadness felt like they were erupting from somewhere inside me with my tears.
I didn’t stop until I felt a hard thud and then stabbing pain in my head. In my fury I had fallen out of my wheelchair and hit my head on the asphalt. It hurt so much I was afraid I’d faint. There I lay, crying silently, unable to get up on my own.
“Kenpi! Kenpi please answer me! Are you okay?” Nikaido’s desperate voice was echoing somewhere above me before I had to give in to the faint feeling and everything went black.
- - -
Nikaido lay in his bed, the blanket pulled over him and hands pressed to his face. He was shaking but not yet crying.
It was ridiculous for an adult man to act like he did but he couldn’t help it. He felt horrible. The people in the hospital had trusted him and let him take Senga out, and now Senga was lying unconscious in the hospital bed again. What if it was his fault?
He had no idea what had caused Senga’s sudden fit of rage, but Nikaido supposed that he himself had something to do with it. Why hadn’t he stopped the other before it was too late? He could easily have grabbed Senga’s hands and kept him still until he would have calmed down again.
Why had Senga gotten mad in the first place?
What did I do wrong? Nikaido thought anxiously, pressing his face into his pillow as tears started to flow.
Later the same evening, he sat on his bed, his eyes swollen and red, and his head aching. He felt horrible, but at the same time he knew what he had to do. Since no one told him enough about Senga’s sickness and the man himself couldn’t tell Nikaido, he would look for the information by himself. He took his laptop and switched it on, and typed the index words into Google.
“Stroke… aphasia…” And search.
Hours passed as Nikaido browsed through the web pages, reading articles about the symptoms and treatments of different kinds of aphasia, and stories about people who suffered of the same kind of problems that Senga did. He found and watched videos, saved pages in the bookmarks of his web browser, and made notes in a small notebook.
- Speak clearly and simply! Be sure you have his whole attention.(No TV/radio on etc…)
- Only help him if he looks really frustrated.
- You don’t understand - ask yes/no questions!
- Give him time to find the words by himself!!!
Finally during the small hours he switched off his laptop and went to sleep, feeling slightly better. He couldn’t cure his friend but at least he knew how to make his life easier from now on.
- - -
Nikaido-san’s words echoed in her son’s ears as he walked along the familiar corridor to the ward where the patients with neurological disorders stayed.
“Wake up, Takashi! It’s almost midday already. I’ll put your breakfast away if you don’t get up this very minute! Senga-san called me a moment ago. Kento has been awake since yesterday evening and this whole morning he’s been repeating your name. She said she’s sure he wants to see you. So eat quickly and go.”
It had been three days since Nikaido had seen Senga the last time, and he didn’t quite know what to do.
Fujigaya had visited Senga yesterday morning, and come to work with a pain on his face that Nikaido understood very well. The youngest member had neither recognized Fujigaya, nor answered his questions in any way.
Nikaido felt a bit scared. He hadn’t dared to tell the others what had happened the other day in the hospital garden. What if Senga was still angry at him for something he had done? Nikaido felt ashamed as he remembered that afternoon - he sure had tried to force the younger man to speak - and he promised himself he’d never do that again.
-
I was watching out of the window when suddenly Nikaido was in front of me, and I flinched in surprise. Even though it was nice to have my bed next to the window it meant that I never noticed my guests before they practically appeared in my vision from nowhere. Nikaido misunderstood my action and his expression turned apologetic.
“Hi, Kenpi,” he said quietly and smiled a bit. He was quiet for a while, biting his lower lip before he continued, “Listen, I’m… really sorry. About what happened the other day. I shouldn’t have pressed you to talk.”
He watched me carefully, not knowing what to do and clearly afraid that I’d get mad again. I wished so badly I could have told him it was okay, that I wasn’t angry anymore. I looked around trying to find anything that I could possibly express myself with.
Suddenly the idea entered my head. I couldn’t help smiling as I reached my left hand towards the small locker-table next to my bed. Nikaido raised his eyebrows and helped me to open the drawer, showing me the objects in it one by one until I nodded when he was holding the mp3-player that my mother had brought me this morning.
I couldn’t tell him I was sorry but I could make him listen to a song that would tell him everything.
Of course it wasn’t as easy as I had imagined it to be. My frustration was probably very clear on my face as I realized I couldn’t read the names of the songs. The signs were foreign to me. I could as well have been trying to read hieroglyphs.
So that was how it felt to not know how to read. It was embarrassing. I felt like a pre-school kid, but I couldn’t give up now. I put the left earpiece in my own ear and gave the other one to Nikaido. I just had to look for that one song by listening.
I browsed the songs through, clicking the “forward” button again and again, until I found the one I was looking for. Then I just looked into Nikaido’s eyes, trying to force him to understand.
(Listen to this song, Nika. This is what I’d like to say to you.)
You are my best friend
Sometimes we fight over little things
But the more we engage each other
The more we understand each other
I'm sure I'll never say it out loud
But the truth is, when I'm with you
It’s when my heart is the warmest
You are my best friend
It's embarrassing, so I can never say thank you…
I closed my eyes and listened to the familiar melody. On the chorus part I started humming quietly along, and before I noticed, I was already singing the next part, the words coming out of my mouth. The voice was shaky and sounded weird, but it was no doubt my own!
“Kenpi, you’re-” Nikaido gasped, a mixture of disbelief and happiness on his face, “you’re singing!”
I looked at him and I sure was as surprised as he was.
He was right. I was singing along to the song as if there were nothing wrong with me! The other people in the room, the patients and their visitors, had been chattering about their own things but slowly their speech faded as they started listening to me.
My voice wasn’t quite angelic, especially now that I had hardly gotten out any words in three weeks, but at that moment I just couldn’t make myself stop. It had been too long since I had heard myself forming so many real words and I wanted to enjoy of the feeling as long as I could.
Everyone was looking at me, some of them were moving back and forth in time with my singing. All the other patients in the same room had problems similar to mine, so their visitors around me surely had to know how special it was for a person here to suddenly start singing like I did. And I was sure I saw something wet glimmering in the corners of Nikaido’s eyes.
When the song ended I closed my mouth reluctantly, still enjoying the feeling that singing had left behind. What I hadn’t expected was the clapping. People around the room smiled at me, clapping their hands, and I felt a bit confused. Had they liked it as much as I had?
There was something familiar in the clapping voice. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had started screaming for me, too. I had a weird feeling that people usually tended to do that whenever I opened my mouth.
What was I thinking about?
One of the people was the nurse who was in charge of me. She stood in the doorway and her smile was brighter than any one of her earlier smiles these weeks.
Soon the clapping quieted down and the other people fell back into their own conversations but the nurse came to us, still smiling.
“That’s really amazing Senga!” she praised me, “Just earlier today your therapist suggested we should start using music with your speech therapy soon but it seems you found that out by yourself!”
My expression was probably every bit as confused as Nikaido’s, since she started explaining her words to us.
“The parts of brain that control musical functions are located in different places than the parts that are responsible for speech. So even when the patient is unable to speak, they usually can sing. You should keep doing that, Senga. Sing as much as you want to, alone or together with someone else. When you do, the right hemisphere of your brain is working closely together with the left one. That way it’s able to construct new connections which will be a great help in your speech learning!”
That was the first time after the stroke that I really felt like I could recover and really learn to speak someday. I looked at Nikaido, smiling, and he smiled back at me.
“I’ll help you,” he promised and suddenly I felt so happy and thankful it almost hurt.
“Nika.” I took a deep breath and concentrated as hard as I could in the room full of background noise. There was something I definitely needed to say, without any song lyrics.
“Nika. T-th... thank you.”
- - -
Part 4
Part: 3/4
Beta: snowqueenofhoth (Thank you!♥)
Characters: Nikaido Takashi, Senga Kento
Genre: friendship, angst
Rating: G
Lyrics in the middle of the text: News - Best Friend.
- - -
“Hey, wake up sleepyhead!”
Senga mumbled something completely incoherent in his sleep and pulled his blanket over his face. It was something so familiar that Nikaido couldn’t help giving a small laugh. He had promised himself not to show a gloomy face to his friend, and so far the promise seemed to be quite easy to keep.
“Kenpi, everyone told me to send greetings to you, so get up this second to hear the greetings or I’ll go back home!”
Senga's eyes fluttered open and he looked at Nikaido, and suddenly there was a wide smile on his face.
“Don’t try to sit. The nurse told me you worked hard in your speech therapy this morning. I bet you’re tired after that,” Nikaido said and sat on the chair next to his friend’s bed.
They were quiet for a moment before Nikaido glanced at Senga a bit hesitantly.
“Do you… Do you still know who I am?” he asked, feeling hopeful and frightened at the same time.
Senga kept smiling and nodded, looking at Nikaido’s eyes. There was nothing left of the unsure and scared creature Nikaido had seen yesterday.
“Really?” he gasped, and suddenly he couldn’t help smiling back at Senga as well. The younger man nodded again and raised his hand slowly, pointing at Nikaido.
“Huh, what is it?” Nikaido asked, but he didn’t continue since Senga waved his hand a bit, as if he was telling him to stay quiet.
Senga stared at Nikaido concentrating, hardly blinking, and Nikaido waited patiently. For a long time they sat there, Nikaido waiting and Senga looking like he had something in his mind.
Then.
“Ni… ka.”
A sudden rush of joy flared through Nikaido as he realized what he had heard, and Senga’s self-satisfied expression made him burst into laughter.
Nikaido didn’t know it, but Senga actually had a good reason to look like that. The whole hour of that day’s speech therapy the young man had tried nothing else but to say Nikaido’s name. The therapist had told him not to push himself but Senga really, really had wanted to surprise his friend and he had managed perfectly.
“Good afternoon,” the nurse from the day before greeted the young men, “did you sleep well?”
Senga nodded at the nurse and smiled a bit, raising his right hand in the air.
“You want something? Just point at it,” the nurse encouraged him, and Nikaido couldn’t help a painful sting in his heart as Senga tried his best to be able to use his fingers, and failed miserably. The fingers seemed like they were frozen. The younger man was clearly frustrated as he frowned and dropped his hand down on the bed.
“It’s okay, just try again,” the woman said and then turned to explain it to Nikaido, “These kinds of things are rather normal in in his situation. The stroke damaged not only the speech-parts of his brain but also some of the parts that control the movements of his body. The stroke was located in the left hemisphere so it mostly affects his right hand and leg. That’s also the reason he might not see or hear you if you try to approach him on his right side.”
“Will it get better soon?” Nikaido asked, frowning. For Senga, being able to move - being able to dance - was a vital part of life.
“We don’t know yet. He should be able to relearn most of his speech and motoric skills in about two months. After that the reforming of rest of those skills will be possible, yet much slower.”
Nikaido nodded speechlessly.
Finally, Senga managed to get his fingers in some kind of order. At least his index finger was a bit higher than the others when he pointed out of the door.
“O… o…” he tried weakly, but couldn’t find the word.
“You want to go out? Are you sure?” Senga gave them a determined nod and the nurse smiled approvingly.
“That’s good to hear. You sure have been inside too long already. It’s about time for you to get some fresh air!”
The nurse brought them a wheelchair and helped the young man sit on it. Senga’s right leg was almost fully paralyzed and Nikaido eyed him worriedly. His best friend looked so fragile when sitting there like that, trying to control the limbs that didn’t obey him at all.
“Okay, let’s go!” he said, his voice way more cheerful than he really felt, and Senga nodded again.
Getting out was even more refreshing than they had expected it to be. It had been raining half an hour earlier and the air was still rather cool. The sky was covered in light grey clouds and everything at the hospital park area was covered in droplets of water.
Nikaido pushed Senga’s wheelchair before him and took a deep breathe. He felt unsure what to do or say but the other man didn’t seem to notice. Senga kept looking around eagerly like a little child, as if he had been in the hospital two years rather than two weeks.
“Do you really understand everything I say? Even though you might not remember all the people and things?” Nikaido finally asked the question that had been in his mind since the day before.
Senga tilted his head so that he could see Nikaido in the corner of his eye.
“Y-ye...”
The other man’s sudden verbal answer made Nikaido stop right there.
“Really?” he asked, wanting to make sure, but this time he was only met with Senga’s blank stare. Somehow, Senga also seemed a bit annoyed.
“Oh, sorry. I guess you do, then,” Nikaido muttered, embarrassed, and continued walking. Senga shook his head and chuckled quietly.
- - -
It was weird.
I wish I could say I loved every moment I spent with my best friend. Too bad I can’t.
It wasn’t comfortable enough - I saw how unsure Nikaido was being with me. It was clear he had no idea how to talk to me. He asked me again and again if I really understood him and then kept talking and talking as if he was trying to fill in the empty space that my speechlessness made in our usual chattering.
I kept nodding to him even though I could hardly get the point of half of his speech. He was speaking so much and so fast that it was totally tiring me out, and all the time he talked about people I kind of felt I should know but I didn’t.
According to what he said, everyone was awfully worried about me. Too bad I had no idea who he meant by ‘everyone’. Soon I didn’t even bother trying to understand anymore. It was wonderful to have him there with me but I wished he’d be quiet for even a little while.
“Nika,” I finally managed to say, and it worked! He closed his mouth and crouched next to me, wanting to make sure he’d hear everything.
The problem was there wasn’t much more I could say.
I hated it so damn much. I knew what I wanted to say. I could imagine my own voice in my head, saying those words. I knew how to move my mouth. I knew how to make noise in my throat. But I just couldn’t get the words from my brain to my mouth.
“What is it, Kenpi?” he asked and waited for an answer. And I tried. I really did. I wanted to ask him to just be quiet for a moment and spend time with me without unnecessary words.
“Nika.”
No, that wasn’t what I wanted to say. He raised his eyebrows, still waiting.
“Yes?”
“Nika.”
Great. I was stuck with one single word again. It had happened earlier this morning, too, in my speech therapy. I had kept repeating ‘yes, yes’ to everything the therapist had said to me there.
“Yeah, I’m listening. What is it?”
Nikaido was starting to get frustrated, I heard it in his voice. I didn’t want him to be annoyed with me. It was so unfair. It wasn’t my fault I stammered like that. I wanted to talk to him! I wanted him to understand me. I wanted him to nod and smile at me.
Before I even noticed it, big tears had gathered in my eyes and suddenly they were running down my cheeks. I was angry. Angry and sad, and frustrated too.
Why did this all happen to me? Why couldn’t I live a normal life like all my friends did? (At least I supposed I had some even though I didn't remember them.) Would I stay like this forever; unable to speak and hardly able to move my limbs? Even the thought could have made me freak out.
“What is it? Why don’t you try saying it?”
Why didn’t I try? I didn’t try? Then what the hell was I doing?
And then I just lost it. With my left hand I pushed Nikaido’s shoulder so that he fell to the ground on his butt. I had been carrying his bag on my lap - I grabbed it and threw it down. I cried and suddenly the voice came out! They weren’t any real words but at least I was making some noise.
It was as if the noise coming from my throat made up for the loss of all the real words. I cried and screamed like a furious child, and kicked the stupid wheelchair with my left foot as if it were the one making me so weak and unable to live normally.
I felt hot tears on my cheeks and pain in my leg, and when I waved around with my right hand it actually hurt when my fingers hit the armrest of my chair. The pain was pretty much welcome; at least it meant I could still feel with the fingers. My hand wasn’t completely paralyzed, then. Nice.
Poor Nikaido sat there on the ground, staring at me with his eyes wide and mouth open. He was scared. I saw it and it made me feel even worse. I was frustrated with everything in the world. I had never had to lie bedridden for such a long time before and I was afraid of going back into the hospital room. All the anger and sadness felt like they were erupting from somewhere inside me with my tears.
I didn’t stop until I felt a hard thud and then stabbing pain in my head. In my fury I had fallen out of my wheelchair and hit my head on the asphalt. It hurt so much I was afraid I’d faint. There I lay, crying silently, unable to get up on my own.
“Kenpi! Kenpi please answer me! Are you okay?” Nikaido’s desperate voice was echoing somewhere above me before I had to give in to the faint feeling and everything went black.
- - -
Nikaido lay in his bed, the blanket pulled over him and hands pressed to his face. He was shaking but not yet crying.
It was ridiculous for an adult man to act like he did but he couldn’t help it. He felt horrible. The people in the hospital had trusted him and let him take Senga out, and now Senga was lying unconscious in the hospital bed again. What if it was his fault?
He had no idea what had caused Senga’s sudden fit of rage, but Nikaido supposed that he himself had something to do with it. Why hadn’t he stopped the other before it was too late? He could easily have grabbed Senga’s hands and kept him still until he would have calmed down again.
Why had Senga gotten mad in the first place?
What did I do wrong? Nikaido thought anxiously, pressing his face into his pillow as tears started to flow.
Later the same evening, he sat on his bed, his eyes swollen and red, and his head aching. He felt horrible, but at the same time he knew what he had to do. Since no one told him enough about Senga’s sickness and the man himself couldn’t tell Nikaido, he would look for the information by himself. He took his laptop and switched it on, and typed the index words into Google.
“Stroke… aphasia…” And search.
Hours passed as Nikaido browsed through the web pages, reading articles about the symptoms and treatments of different kinds of aphasia, and stories about people who suffered of the same kind of problems that Senga did. He found and watched videos, saved pages in the bookmarks of his web browser, and made notes in a small notebook.
- Speak clearly and simply! Be sure you have his whole attention.(No TV/radio on etc…)
- Only help him if he looks really frustrated.
- You don’t understand - ask yes/no questions!
- Give him time to find the words by himself!!!
Finally during the small hours he switched off his laptop and went to sleep, feeling slightly better. He couldn’t cure his friend but at least he knew how to make his life easier from now on.
- - -
Nikaido-san’s words echoed in her son’s ears as he walked along the familiar corridor to the ward where the patients with neurological disorders stayed.
“Wake up, Takashi! It’s almost midday already. I’ll put your breakfast away if you don’t get up this very minute! Senga-san called me a moment ago. Kento has been awake since yesterday evening and this whole morning he’s been repeating your name. She said she’s sure he wants to see you. So eat quickly and go.”
It had been three days since Nikaido had seen Senga the last time, and he didn’t quite know what to do.
Fujigaya had visited Senga yesterday morning, and come to work with a pain on his face that Nikaido understood very well. The youngest member had neither recognized Fujigaya, nor answered his questions in any way.
Nikaido felt a bit scared. He hadn’t dared to tell the others what had happened the other day in the hospital garden. What if Senga was still angry at him for something he had done? Nikaido felt ashamed as he remembered that afternoon - he sure had tried to force the younger man to speak - and he promised himself he’d never do that again.
-
I was watching out of the window when suddenly Nikaido was in front of me, and I flinched in surprise. Even though it was nice to have my bed next to the window it meant that I never noticed my guests before they practically appeared in my vision from nowhere. Nikaido misunderstood my action and his expression turned apologetic.
“Hi, Kenpi,” he said quietly and smiled a bit. He was quiet for a while, biting his lower lip before he continued, “Listen, I’m… really sorry. About what happened the other day. I shouldn’t have pressed you to talk.”
He watched me carefully, not knowing what to do and clearly afraid that I’d get mad again. I wished so badly I could have told him it was okay, that I wasn’t angry anymore. I looked around trying to find anything that I could possibly express myself with.
Suddenly the idea entered my head. I couldn’t help smiling as I reached my left hand towards the small locker-table next to my bed. Nikaido raised his eyebrows and helped me to open the drawer, showing me the objects in it one by one until I nodded when he was holding the mp3-player that my mother had brought me this morning.
I couldn’t tell him I was sorry but I could make him listen to a song that would tell him everything.
Of course it wasn’t as easy as I had imagined it to be. My frustration was probably very clear on my face as I realized I couldn’t read the names of the songs. The signs were foreign to me. I could as well have been trying to read hieroglyphs.
So that was how it felt to not know how to read. It was embarrassing. I felt like a pre-school kid, but I couldn’t give up now. I put the left earpiece in my own ear and gave the other one to Nikaido. I just had to look for that one song by listening.
I browsed the songs through, clicking the “forward” button again and again, until I found the one I was looking for. Then I just looked into Nikaido’s eyes, trying to force him to understand.
(Listen to this song, Nika. This is what I’d like to say to you.)
You are my best friend
Sometimes we fight over little things
But the more we engage each other
The more we understand each other
I'm sure I'll never say it out loud
But the truth is, when I'm with you
It’s when my heart is the warmest
You are my best friend
It's embarrassing, so I can never say thank you…
I closed my eyes and listened to the familiar melody. On the chorus part I started humming quietly along, and before I noticed, I was already singing the next part, the words coming out of my mouth. The voice was shaky and sounded weird, but it was no doubt my own!
“Kenpi, you’re-” Nikaido gasped, a mixture of disbelief and happiness on his face, “you’re singing!”
I looked at him and I sure was as surprised as he was.
He was right. I was singing along to the song as if there were nothing wrong with me! The other people in the room, the patients and their visitors, had been chattering about their own things but slowly their speech faded as they started listening to me.
My voice wasn’t quite angelic, especially now that I had hardly gotten out any words in three weeks, but at that moment I just couldn’t make myself stop. It had been too long since I had heard myself forming so many real words and I wanted to enjoy of the feeling as long as I could.
Everyone was looking at me, some of them were moving back and forth in time with my singing. All the other patients in the same room had problems similar to mine, so their visitors around me surely had to know how special it was for a person here to suddenly start singing like I did. And I was sure I saw something wet glimmering in the corners of Nikaido’s eyes.
When the song ended I closed my mouth reluctantly, still enjoying the feeling that singing had left behind. What I hadn’t expected was the clapping. People around the room smiled at me, clapping their hands, and I felt a bit confused. Had they liked it as much as I had?
There was something familiar in the clapping voice. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had started screaming for me, too. I had a weird feeling that people usually tended to do that whenever I opened my mouth.
What was I thinking about?
One of the people was the nurse who was in charge of me. She stood in the doorway and her smile was brighter than any one of her earlier smiles these weeks.
Soon the clapping quieted down and the other people fell back into their own conversations but the nurse came to us, still smiling.
“That’s really amazing Senga!” she praised me, “Just earlier today your therapist suggested we should start using music with your speech therapy soon but it seems you found that out by yourself!”
My expression was probably every bit as confused as Nikaido’s, since she started explaining her words to us.
“The parts of brain that control musical functions are located in different places than the parts that are responsible for speech. So even when the patient is unable to speak, they usually can sing. You should keep doing that, Senga. Sing as much as you want to, alone or together with someone else. When you do, the right hemisphere of your brain is working closely together with the left one. That way it’s able to construct new connections which will be a great help in your speech learning!”
That was the first time after the stroke that I really felt like I could recover and really learn to speak someday. I looked at Nikaido, smiling, and he smiled back at me.
“I’ll help you,” he promised and suddenly I felt so happy and thankful it almost hurt.
“Nika.” I took a deep breath and concentrated as hard as I could in the room full of background noise. There was something I definitely needed to say, without any song lyrics.
“Nika. T-th... thank you.”
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Part 4