The Promise in Your Words

Chapter 5: Comfort in Your Sight

Him

I hated the short stay at the hospital, even though most people would agree that a two-night stay would only classify as a visit instead of a stay.
The sounds of people crying and the smell of the dying and decaying just seemed to irk me. Hospitals only existed to make you feel worse than you actually were. Medicine only existed to kill your body faster. And, therapy was only a trick on your mind.
I don't know what type of a person I was in the past but I certainly wasn't the type of person who could sit around and wait to be 'cured' by a doctor. I hated sitting idly and waiting for things to happen to me. If I don't have control over what's happening then I had to change it. I didn't really understand what it meant to let another take your wheel and steer. It was a bad habit, and incomprehensible habit. But, it is just the way I am, I suppose.
Hence, why I managed to somehow convince the doctor to let me go home a few days earlier than they would have liked. However, he didn't give up to me that easily. I've been put off from work and all other things 'strenuous' for the next three days.
My bed, that my mother had me confined to, has gotten stale and tired of holding my body in the same space for so long. My room was steadily getting sick of seeing me hover over the study table, game station and the bed. It's not like I was being imprisoned in my room but not being able to leave the house for any excuse left me with not much else to do but camp out in my room.
My mother wouldn't even let me help with cooking or washing of the dishes. Everything that she deemed as 'strenuous' was temporarily off-bounds until I was better.
But, I wouldn't exactly opt to say that I was still completely unwell. When writing seemed like it had gotten boring and the television had nothing good on, or the gaming console didn't hold any interest, I would occasionally resort to doing some exercise on the room floor.
The first day I felt a little dizzy, I guess hitting my head on the stairs was going to leave me with a few repercussions to deal with. However, earlier this morning, I didn't feel that dizziness nor any weakness in my arms or body. So, I snuck out of my room and headed down the stairs towards the kitchen, hoping to get passed my mother and head into the basement where I had my punching bag and other workout machines. After all, a quick workout would allow me to get my body ready for work the next day.
"Eiji", I stopped in my tracks as the stern voice of my mother came from just behind me in the direction of the lounge.
"Ohaiyo, Okasan." I greeted my mother a 'Good morning' in Japanese, trying to act innocent as if I wasn't doing anything suspicious.
"What are you trying to do", she gave me a wary look as I tried to smile back but failing in my attempt.
"Nothing, Okasan."
She still looked at me with suspicion before asking, "How are you feeling, my son?"
"I'm feeling much better. Kind off restless, though." I shrugged. I wasn't going to lie to my mother, she would have caught me out within seconds anyway.
"It's good that you are feeling better but why are you out of your room and heading towards your workout den?"
See, what I mean? Caught within seconds. If there was one thing I managed to remember, it's that my mother probably had one of the best intuitive guesses of anybody I know.
"Come on, Okasan. I am cooped up inside my room the whole day. I was there yesterday and the day before, and I almost died of boredom. I'm not even joking. My body is fine now."
She woke up and started to make her way towards me. An expression on her face that didn't quite seem angry, like what I would have expected, but rather more concerned. "Yes, but the doctor said you needed three full days of rest-"
"And, I will get that rest, but I cannot sit around doing nothing much longer. I am going to exercise for a while and you are not going to stop me."
I walked away from her before she could come closer. I felt bad saying it that way but she had become a bit too persistent lately, almost like she was being anxious of something. And to be honest, it was getting to the point that it had become bothersome to me. She was my mother after all but she didn't need to smother me. I knew my limits.
I wasn't going to push myself. I knew that as I strapped the gloves to my bare fists.
It was just going to be for an hour at most, just to relax. My body already positioned itself in front of the bag, poised to strike and attack with the deadly precision I'd become accustomed to.
Before long, I'd started to feel hot and wet the t-shirt almost completely with sweat, which quickly came off to litter the weight bench.
I followed the throw with a couple of right and left punches to the bag. A sharp, quick kick stunned the silence I felt down here. The only sounds that could be heard was the crying of the bag as its contents shook from the impact of my fists and kicks.
A small, dim globe lit the area around me, the others turned off. It wasn't too dark and neither was it too bright. It gave the type of atmosphere you could really get into while working the bag.
Even as I felt my arms start to sting with each punch, and my legs burn with every strike, I felt good. I felt calm and collected.
I felt elated and relaxed.
It was a good feeling and one I didn't get much of. I whispered to myself as I threw sweat off the back of my glove, "Kimochii." And, a damn good feeling this was.
I took a step back, hands still held up as they prepared for the next instructions from my vaguely hazy mind. My chest expanding and contracted rapidly as the air rushed through my lungs. My body went from tensing to relaxing in fiery waves as the muscles burned under my skin.
Two small hands grabbed me from behind in a manner so gently that I immediately stopped my thoughts of advancing at the bag.
"Eiji, isn't that enough now", Hana asked me as her lithe body pressed to my back. Her voice soft, even more so than the barely-there pillow on my bed. Her palms closed on either side of my chest, their soft skin better than the caressing of silk upon my senses.
My arms fell to my sides. The fire that urged them on extinguished at the feel of her presence. And suddenly, I felt tired.
My body had begun to relax, the feeling of fatigue took over and I wanted to . . . actually, I didn't know what I wanted to do.
The smell of Hana right behind me numbed my mind and chased the musky smell of the area around us. Her slow, easy breaths tickled the bare skin of my back, driving a shivering wave up my spine. Against her breaths, I realised just how ragged and rapid the breaths that left my body were. My eyes closed and the ceiling looked to me as I took a deep breath to it.
"Thank you, Hana", she let go off me, allowing me space to turn and look at her. She looked at me with a tearful gaze, eyes almost as red as her nose and cheeks. It didn't quite look like she cried or anything but rather like she was somewhere between hurt and angry. She wore a heavy looking jersey with a pair of jeans and warm boots. As happy and glad as I was to see her, I wondered, "Hana, why are you here?"
"Your mother called me. Why are you busy killing your body when you are supposed to be in bed", she asked me as if shouting a little kid.
"I", I thought of fibbing but one look at her sniffling on her nose with a stern look my way, I sighed and replied, "I was tired of sitting and doing nothing."
"That is not a reason to come and do something like this, Eiji. Why didn't you call me or something?" She stomped her left foot on the ground that made her look more like a spoilt kid causing a fuss over not getting her way rather than somebody that was giving a scolding. Which, to be honest, made me want to grin at her.
I was about to argue when Hana held a hand to her head with the other on her waist. She shook her head, looking to the ground before saying, "Why are you being so reckless, Eiji?"
"Gomen nasai", I apologised to her and she looked at me with a lighter look. I realised that she probably didn't understand me and was about to say it in English.
"It's okay, Eiji."
I smiled at her. I didn't want to mention anything but it made me really happy to see her understand Japanese. "Can I just-" I was about to turn around and grab my t-shirt.
"No, you cannot get back to your workout, or exercise, or whatever you were doing. Come on, let's go back to your room." She was about to grab me but suddenly stopped, her face turning a bright red colour.
"I wasn't going to get back to my training, Hana. I just wanted to grab my tee," I quickly turned away for a second and grabbed the t-shirt to show her proof but when I motioned to it, Hana was trying her best to look anywhere but at me. "What's wrong, Hana?"
"N-n-nothing!"
I shrugged. Perhaps she might have been bothered by me sweating so much or something, maybe it smelled. "I'll be back just now, okay? Can you wait for me in the lounge?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah. No problem."
We both walked up the stairs into the kitchen where she greeted my mother and I headed upstairs to grab a towel from my room and hit the shower.