Katawa Shoujo (written format)

Scene 2 - Bundle of Hisao

It's been four months since my heart attack.

In that time, I can probably count the number of times I've left this hospital room on one hand.

Four months is a pretty long time when you're left alone with you're thoughts. So, I've had time to come to terms with my situation.

Arrythmia.

A strange word. A foreign, alien one. One that you don't want to be in the same room with.

A rare condition. It causes the heart to act erratically and occasionally beat way too fast.

It can be fatal.

Apparently, I've had it for a long time. They said it was a miracle I was able to go on long without anything happening.

Is it really a miracle? I guess it was supposed to make me feel better, more appreciative of my life.

It really didn't do anything to cheer me up.

My parents, I think, were hit harder by the news than I was. The practically had two hemorrhages apiece.

I had already had a full day by then to digest everything. To them, it was all fresh. They were even willing to sell our house to pay for a cure.

Of course there isn't a cure.

Because of the late discovery of this...... condition, I've had to stay at the hospital, to recuperate from the treatments.

When I was first admitted, it felt as if I was missed....

For about a week, my room in the ward was full of flowers, balloons and cards.

But, the visitors soon dwindled and all the get-well gifts began trickling down to nothing shortly after.

I realized that the only reason I had gotten so many cards and flowers was because sending me their sympathy had been turned into a class project.

Maybe some people genuinely concerned, but I doubt it. Even in the beginning, I barely had vistors. By the end of the first month, only my parents came by on a regular basis.

Iwanako was the last to stop visiting.

After six weeks, I never saw her again.

We never had that much to talk about when she visited, anyway.

We didn't dare touch the subject that was between us on that snowy day ever again.

 The hospital?

It's not really a place I'd like to live in.

The doctors and nurses feel so impersonal and faceless.

I guess it's because they are in a hurry and they have a million other patients waiting for them, but it makes me feel uncomfortable.

For the first month or so, I asked the head cardiologist every time I saw him for a rough estimate of when I'd be able to leave.

He never answered anything in a straightforward way, but told me to wait and see if the treatment and surgeries worked.

So, I idly observed the scar that those surgeries had left on my chest slowly change its appearance over time, thinking of it as some kind of an omen.

I still ask the head cardiologist about leaving, but my expectations are low enough now that I'm not disappointed any more when I don't get a reply. The way he shuffles around the answer shows that there is at least some hope.

At some point I stopped watching TV. I don't know why, I just did.

Maybe it was the wrong kind of escapism for my situation.