The first thing Rika smelled was lilies—cloying, sweet, and out of place. The second thing she felt was a heavy, throbbing weight anchored to her right leg.
She opened her eyes slowly. The ceiling was a sterile, flat white, crisscrossed by thin fluorescent lights that hummed a low, electric tune. For a moment, the panic of the asphalt and the screeching tires returned, but the rhythmic beep... beep... beep of a heart monitor grounded her.
"Oh, look who’s finally back from the dead."
The voice was light, almost musical, and it didn't belong to a nurse.
Rika turned her head stiffly. To her right, a thin white curtain had been pulled back halfway. In the neighboring bed sat a girl who looked like she was made of sunlight and paper. She was pale—far paler than any high schooler should be—but her eyes were wide and sparked with a terrifying amount of energy.
"I’m Marin," the girl said, leaning over the edge of her mattress as if she were about to fall off. "And you are the girl who tried to fight a mountain on a bicycle. The nurses said you were lucky to only walk away with a broken leg and a concussion."
Rika blinked, her throat feeling like it was full of dry sand. "Rika," she managed to whisper. "Rika Shinkawa."
"Rika," Marin repeated, tasting the name. "Sounds like a poet’s name. Or a tragic heroine. Which one are you?"
Rika pulled the thin hospital blanket up to her chin, her old instincts—the ones honed by years of bullying—screaming at her to hide. "Neither. I’m just... a student."
"Boring answer," Marin teased, though her smile remained kind. She held up a familiar navy-blue object. "A student who carries this everywhere? The paramedics found it in the gutter. It was practically hugging the curb."
Rika’s heart skipped. Her notebook.
She reached out a trembling hand, but Marin didn't give it back immediately. She turned it over in her hands, her expression softening. "I didn't read it," Marin said softly. "But I felt the weight of it. You write a lot, don't you? Like you're trying to build a wall out of words."
Rika felt exposed. It was the same feeling she had in the back of the classroom, but without the sting of malice. Marin wasn't mocking her; she was observing her.
"It's just a journal," Rika muttered, finally taking the book and clutching it to her chest.
"Well, Rika-chan," Marin said, falling back against her pillows with a sigh that sounded just a bit too heavy. "Since we’re roommates for the next week, I’ve decided we’re going to be friends. I don't take 'no' for an answer, and since you have a cast on your leg, you can't exactly run away."
Rika looked at the cast on her leg, then back at Marin. For the first time in years, she didn't feel the urge to disappear. There was something about the way Marin looked at her—not as a ghost, but as a person with a story worth telling.
"Why are you here?" Rika asked, her voice gaining a tiny bit of courage. "You don't look like you fell off a bike."
Marin’s smile didn't falter, but for a split second, the light in her eyes flickered. She patted a thick, leather-bound diary sitting on her bedside table.
"Me? I'm just here for a tune-up," Marin laughed, though the sound was hollow. "My heart likes to play drums at the wrong tempo sometimes. It’s a bit of a drama queen."
Rika watched as Marin reached for a glass of water, noticing the hospital ID bracelet on her thin wrist. It looked much older and more worn than Rika’s brand-new one.
In that moment, Rika realized that while she was writing stories to escape life, Marin might be writing her diary just to prove she was still in it.
ns216.73.216.141da2
and then Add to home screen.