Unforgettable | Yuzuru Hanyu

1. Identity

The blaring sound of the alarm sounded in the room as sunlight was barely seen outside. 

Kana groaned right away, turned in the bed, and turned off the damned thing.

Why had she even chosen to wake up so early?

Well, it was the life of a researcher...

Being a PhD student in applied Physics had never really been her plan when she applied to the university but it seemed like her grades paired with her natural ability to connect dots in difficult situations made it inevitable.

Assured pay wasn't that bad either...

6 years had passed since the day that effectively changed her life. The day that she lost who she was and everything she knew.

It was still hard to comprehend that she once had a life before all of it, that she might have been someone completely different, and that there had been people in her previous life who might have missed her.

The truth was that the topic was something that Kana had long pushed aside and tried to move on as each day went by.

She still thought about it every day. There was no denying that she still cared, no matter how much she wanted to place it aside and call it done.

Life had to move on and so did she.

On that morning, after a quick coffee, she was out of the door, determined to have a good day in the university labs. When trying to explain her field, Kana had a lot of difficulties. It was very hard to try and explain how atoms and electrons worked in such a way that most people understood. 

Nanosciences.

It was a field of extreme importance for most fields from Chemistry, to medicine and even electronics but at the same time, explaining her research to anyone illiterate in the matter was almost completely impossible.

Her PhD thesis was multidisciplinary with a  lot of other departments and it meant a lot of team work. A mere manipulation of nanoparticles could make fabric repel water or paint. It was as fascinating as it was complicated.

Her natural ability towards sciences wasn't ignored when choosing a field of study but that didn't mean that she was fully fulfilled.

For years she had been experiencing this feeling of never being fully happy with what she was doing. There was always this feeling that she should have been doing something else, taking another career path, or going through other things.

Like most of her life, Kana was never certain of anything. She still doubted her music tastes and even the food she ate every day. As much as she tried to ignore and forget who she used to be, there was always this feeling of being at a loss.

It was undeniable to ignore the fact that she always felt like there was something missing in her life but right at the same time, she had no plans to explore what was completely gone now.

6 years.

6 whole years and she didn't remember a single thing of who she used to be, she didn't remember the people she knew or the things she enjoyed. It was all a complete mess of scrambled emotions and lost years. 

In a way, Kana always felt like she was living her second life, completely separate from who she used to be.

The thoughts that always consumed her were completely gone as she saw her best friend Stella waiting for her at the entrance of the labs. 

Stella was not only her best friend but also her housemate, even if lately she hadn't been spending many nights at home.

"Where the hell have you been?" Kana teased right away, knowing fully well that her best friend had found a boy to play with for the month and had been enjoying it thoroughly.

"Shut up! You're already late!"

"We, you mean... you're also outside."

Stella pushed her teasingly, enjoying the sight of her best friend for the first time that morning.

They had met after the accident and Stella knew well about all the struggles that plagued her friend ever since. She had been the one person that stayed by her side no matter what happened and for that reason, Kana valued her deeply.

"It was so hard to leave the bed... I swear that man is changing me."

"Hum hum... can't relate."

That was an ongoing joke between them. The reality was that Kana never seemed to drift towards men and that was one of the reasons why her best friend liked to tease her so much about all of it. 

"How will you ever find out if you're a virgin if you don't even go out?"

Kana wasn't as fascinated with the whole thing as Stella was, even if curiosity sometimes plagued her. The reality was that the missing part of her life would probably help fill some blanks but it wasn't as if there was any hope in remembering anything.

"My question is how you even have time when you're as busy as I am..."

"Lack of sleep, my dear friend... it works wonders."

One last push and Kana was making sure they got to work. Stella was a Chemistry grad and as a result, had been quickly recruited for the project as well. The whole idea was to create an innovative method of detecting and treating cancer cells using Nanotechnology and even if it was proving very difficult to strive forward, they were learning new things every day.

When you're working on life-changing research, it's normal to feel overwhelmed but giving up was never an option for anyone in that team. They worked with forms of radiation and tried to manipulate it in such a way that, in theory, be used to label cancer cells for magnetic detection.

Still, and despite being very happy with how everything seemed to turn out, there was always this lingering doubt.

Was she in the right place? Was this what she had been made for?