Lavender | Wakatoshi Ushijima

38 | Supposed To

She pants. She's pale, horrified. Her face has lost its colors and her mouth is open, she's shaking.

"It's Hana. She collapsed." 

My jaw tightens and I think unwinding it will take ages.

I say nothing.

"She-She fell and she forgot to take her pills or something like that. I don't know!" Her eyebrows furrow, eyes welling as she runs a hand through her hair.

Pills. Pills? What pills?

"What pills?" 

"What pills, Nakamura?" I ask again.

"There's no time to explain. She's in the hospital and she's going to be taken into surgery."

She tells me that the hospital called her. She's Hana's emergency contact. My heart falls. It starts screaming at the torture it's enduring. I think it's going to stop.

All I can say is 'no' and 'what,' losing my composure right there with only my mouth open and my hands to stare at. I took all that time going around in circles, reassuring myself that she'd be fine, thinking of only that tournament that pushed me away from her. 

This revelation trips me, it feels like it made me fall exactly where I had erased the marks on the ground. It catches me where I least expected it. And while I've been doing those exercises for instant reactions in volleyball, the real world is so much faster. All I can do is mutter as all the dots connected.

The talk about her struggles was ever so shallow. The shift of attention off of her. I don't know what happened. But she's in the hospital. I wished she let it out. I wish she let it go and relieved herself.

Nakamura shouts for the bus to stop. I sprint out of it in seconds, almost crashing into the barely-open doors. I look left and right, trying to figure out where I am. I hear a cold voice as I turn my back to leave.

"Where are you going, Ushijima? Are you insane?" Coach Washijo calls.

"I have to go see Hana, Coach. She's been hospitalized."

"If you leave, you'll be benched." Cause and effect. Simple as that.

"I won't leave her behind," I say.

"My decision is final. If you leave, you're not playing. You are leaving your career for a girl?" 

He doesn't get it. "Fine," I shrug.

"You're serious?" he scoffs.

"I don't care."

The bus' windows are wide open and my teammates are staring. Their heads are practically popping out. They're shocked to see someone stand up to the coach, let alone disobey him.

"A girl for a career. Consider yourself benched, then," he says loudly, arms now behind his back.

"Do as you see fit, sir." I refuse to back down.

Nakamura barely gets to tell me which hospital she's in before I take off. I'm familiar with it. I had been there before, a long time ago. I know where to go. So, I run, with all my might and my strength. 

The bus is at a high point on the ground, so I have to run down the dull slope as the crisp wind plays at the hem of my white t-shirt and my ruffled hair. 

She calls out for me, but I don't bother. I don't know where she's going, or how she'll to get to the hospital, but I have no care for anyone. I hear the bus leave. I barely catch the sound of it moving. There's no going back now.

I feel my heart claw its way out of my chest and leave me stranded. It hurts to feel this way, to have an operating brain keep running over as I run from it. Soon, I cross countless streets and turn too many curbs to remember. Chasing the impossible, the unlikely. The unlikely chance she will forgive me, or that I will forgive myself. Praying that she hasn't gone into surgery yet.