Outsider Syndrome: Everlasting (Bonus Content)

Chapter 3 - "When I Can't"

Naoto Kisaragi's POV:

The driver was under the influence. They were speeding well-above the speed limit, ran a red light, and hit Sachiko in a head-on collision. Rinnosuke had gone home, and the girls were in the midst of tearing apart the pathetic excuse of dinner I'd whipped up when the landline blared and I received the news. For a good period, my senses shut off, and I stood dumbly, mutely, as the individual on the other line conveyed the news.

It's a mistake.

They have the wrong person.

I'm dreaming.

Denial poured out one after another. Unremittingly. Unrelentingly. It'd been a blur; the carefree banter in the house shifting to a deathly quiet; Shiina and Mao's sickly reactions and inquiries. Upon arriving at the hospital, we were denied entry since she was in critical condition. We prayed and prayed. Sleep was the least of our concerns. The hospital was a frantic haze of nurses and physicians travelling back and forth; white noise. A world unattached to the comfort we'd lived in.

"Mom's. . . going to be okay, right?"

I had no words to offer Mao's frail question.

"This is Mom we're talking about." Shiina, on the other hand, had no hesitation. "The same woman who stood up to a bear when we went on a family trip to let us escape, then returned with one of its pieces of fish and a peace-sign. She's been to hell and back so many times. There's no way—no way she wouldn't make it out of something like this."

Mao, burrowed between my arms in an embrace, let out a whimper. Tears overflowed from her eyelids, down her quivering lips.

"I—I didn't even say anything to her when I came home."

When I was younger, I put on a tough front towards those closest to me, including my mother. The morning of her death, she was looking out for what was best for me, wished me goodbye at the front door, and I shrugged her gestures with a scoff. If I'd lingered a few extra seconds, if I'd told her goodbye, just turned around and seen her one last time, I surely wouldn't have regretted it all these years later.

Instead, I shouted at her to leave me alone, and left as brusquely as I did.

I wonder what kind of expression she was making. . .

I wonder if she died, disappointed that I was her son. . .

"When she wakes up, you better apologize," I told Mao, gently stroking her head. "It may be hard to be honest with those you care about, but you have to let them know. With a great big smile, so you don't regret it. Can you do that from today onwards?"

She nodded between sniffles. Tears building in her own eyes, Shiina ducked under my arm and snuggled up to me too. I tried my best to pretend to be all right, be a proper anchor for my little girls. Dragging them closer, I suppressed the tremble of my limbs and steadied my breathing.

I sent numerous prayers to heaven, begging them not to take her, wishing to let us see her one last time. And by noon the next day, like a mere carrot dangling in front of a horse, like the Angel of Death itself had taken pity, that wish alone was granted.

•❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅•

"Let me out of this!"

"Ma'am, please stop moving around. You still aren't in the clear just yet."

For the first time in several hours, I took a breath. Oxygen flooded my lungs. Bandaged up from head to toe as she was, IV and blood transfusion lines connected to her arm, leg elevated in a cast, and a nurse pinning her down, Sachiko was her sprightly self.