"Returning the Favor of Fate" Episode 5: Cutting and Spinning, Spinning and Cutting (1)

I lost consciousness and was taken to the hospital.

When I woke up, the ceiling was unfamiliar, but the scent I smelled was familiar because it was the hospital I visit every month in my sister's place.

"Tsumugi!"

Seeing my parents in the corner of my eye, I vaguely wondered why they were here and couldn't help but smile.

Even if we have a strained parent-child relationship, if their son gets into an accident and ends up in an ambulance, they would normally come, wouldn't they?

My mother, with tears in her eyes, took my hand and said, "If something happened to you too..."

"To you too," huh.

I caught onto the end of her sentence. Since she used "too," something must have happened to someone other than me.

There was only one person I could think of.

My parents didn't realize their slip of the tongue and were just worried about me. I'll talk about it in detail after I get home. Right now, my head is still confused.

A doctor came and examined me. I hadn't hit my head hard, but I was told to stay overnight for observation as a precaution.

That's right. What about Daisuke and Nagisa?

When I asked my mother, she told me they were very worried, so I should go see them once I'm feeling better. After smiling at me with satisfaction as I nodded, my mother left the hospital room with my father.

As their footsteps faded away, well then.

I took a breath. If I press the nurse call button, a nurse will come right away and listen to my request.

After all, that doctor's name should be written as the person in charge in my electronic medical record data.

Dr. Saeki, who came led by a nurse, looked at my face as I sat up in bed and slightly twisted his cheek. I couldn't read his true intentions.

Had he made up his mind to answer what I wanted to know?

"Doctor. There is something I want to ask you."

I put on a gentle smile. It was an expression with excellent defensive capabilities, typical of a psychiatrist who prescribes medicine but focuses on dialogue with patients. If a doctor gets pulled in by the patient, there's no treatment to be had. A rescuer shouldn't become the one needing rescue.

There was no emotion in his smile. I realized for the first time that it was completely devoid of feelings like happiness or joy, just like Itsuko's smile.

"I heard you collapsed, are you alright?"
"Please don't try to dodge the question."

When I said that sharply, he fell silent.

"Please tell me the truth. My sister... my sister, actually..."

My words caught in my throat. I was terrified that if I said it out loud, it would be set in stone as the truth. It was pathetic how I was shaking so hard my teeth were chattering.
The doctor waited patiently for me as I desperately tried to take a step out of my delusions. He never offered the answer himself. He was cruel. And he was a sincere doctor.

"Is... is my sister... already... dead...?"

The moment I said it, a gust of wind raged through my chest, stinging painfully.

"That's right. Your sister, Yui Kirihara, passed away this March."

It was the first time I had been told directly, and I was struck by intense agony. My lungs, my heart, my whole body were crying out in pain. Dr. Saeki's large palm rubbed my back as I clutched my chest in suffering.

"N-no, that's a lie... because, the phone calls..."

Even after March, when she supposedly died, calls kept coming to my smartphone from my sister's number. We talked many times. Even just the other day. She told me to come to her room.

Her room?

My sister, who had been a shut-in NEET ever since graduating high school, had her room right next to mine.

It exists, right? Wait, what?

The room exists there. I recognize it because I have to pass by it every day when I go down the stairs.

But had the fact that it was my sister's room slipped out of my consciousness? It was just a door attached to a wall. Had I ever felt anyone's presence there?

If she were a shut-in, it would be natural for there to be sounds of daily life at all times. The sound of the TV, the sound of typing on a computer keyboard, even sneezing or coughing. To put it extremely, just breathing makes a sound.

"Is this the phone you're talking about?"

My smartphone had been left out on the small shelf by the bedside. Saeki picked it up without asking and showed me the call history.

It was completely blank. The only friend I ever really contacted frequently was Atsuhisa. Since he went crazy, not a single person had called me. Not even my parents.

That is why only my sister's name should have been lined up there. And yet, it was completely blank.

I snatched the smartphone from Dr. Saeki and opened the phonebook. Of course, the number of registered contacts could be counted on one hand. Even among them, my sister's number was not there.

"That's impossible..."

There was definitely my sister's name on the incoming call screen. I remember it clearly. I remember her drawn-out, carefree voice, too.

Siblings should get along, you know.

My sister said that and laughed.

Are you saying it was all just an auditory hallucination?

Saeki stared at me as I clawed at my head with eyes full of pity (though perhaps that is just how I perceive it).

"This is where the real treatment begins."

Using my sister as a substitute was a desperate measure to get me to come to the hospital. The vitamins I had been prescribed—I hadn't heard a detailed explanation, but those were actually a type of medication prescribed in psychiatry. No wonder I thought there were so many different kinds.

"Kirihara-kun. Try directing all your pain and sadness at me."

If I do that, will I be able to forget everything about my sister, the cause of this pain?

"Shut up!"

I threw my pillow at him. Even though it was sudden, Saeki caught it quickly.

Watching me pant, Saeki roughly pulled a syringe from his pocket. I assume it was a tranquilizer or something similar. He must have anticipated that I would fall into a panic and had it ready from the start.

Nurses called in for backup held me down as I struggled.

"It's okay. It'll just be a little prick... there."

I didn't feel any pain at all. I winced at the slight, strange sensation of the liquid entering my body.

"Okay, take a deep breath. Breathe in... and breathe out."

As I followed his instructions and repeated the breathing, my head began to feel hazy. Seeing me close my eyes and my breathing stabilize, Saeki and the others left the hospital room. I hadn't fallen asleep yet. I was drifting in the sea between wakefulness and sleep.

My sister is dead? That's ridiculous, that's impossible. The fact that there was no history or number left on my smartphone must mean someone messed with it without me knowing. It has to be.

Maybe my parents did it because they hate us, or maybe Dr. Saeki erased it right here and now.

Because look, I can still hear it, can't I?

The smartphone's ringtone. It's not an auditory hallucination or a delusion or anything like that. Along with the vibration, it's ringing shrilly and continuously.

I gasped and opened my eyes.

The smartphone, which had been taken away when I was given the injection and then returned to its original place, was waiting for me to answer. I picked it up tentatively, checked the screen, and let out a sigh.

It was my sister.

See, it's a lie that she's dead. Saeki, Daisuke, and Nagisa are all lying to me. Even now, my sister is holed up in her room, using her phone calls with me as her only means of contact with the outside world.

"Hello?"

I had forgotten that this was a hospital and that smartphone use was restricted. I just wanted to confirm that my sister existed. That was my only thought.

"Sister?"

However, what I heard in my ear was not my sister's voice saying, "You're late."

It was a sound like a ship's foghorn, only louder. Mixed in with it was intense noise. It sounded like the static on a television I'd seen in old movies.

"Sister, sister?"

I had been calling out in a low voice, but since I couldn't hear any reply, my volume gradually increased.

If a nurse on patrol caught me, Saeki would come again, and this time he would recommend I be admitted to the psychiatric ward.

While paying the utmost attention, I called my sister's name over and over, and finally, I realized something.

Boo, boo, zaa, zaa.

If someone told me that the sound coming from deep within that was the voice of a vengeful spirit from hell, I could believe it.

But that voice wasn't just groaning.

Spin-ning. Spin-ning. Spin-ning...

My name.

The moment I understood, I hung up the call. I then turned off the power.

The ugly, raspy voice shouldn't have sounded anything like her, yet for some reason, I knew.

That was my sister. It was my sister's voice.

Even when I pulled the futon over my head, or asked the nurse to keep it at the nurse station, the shrill electronic sound would not leave my ears.