Chapter Text
Jabberwock City woke up like it always did: with traffic lights arguing in three colors and a gull perched on the crooked Y of a cell tower, staring down like it owned the spectrum. The sky over the East District smudged from cobalt to a soft bruise-purple, then surrendered to daylight as if apologizing for the drama. Neon signage, having pulled an all-nighter, blinked its last and went to sleep. Morning crowds queued at corners where buses came when they felt like it, which was to say unpredictably—but people still believed in them. Hope, apparently, could be put on a timetable.
Hajime Hinata believed in coffee. He believed in hot showers that never got quite hot enough. He believed in wearing the same slate blazer because it looked like competence from three meters away. He believed in lists. On the screen of his old phone, two notes glowed: one labeled “PT—Monday,” the other “Ideas.” The first had bullets—patients, exercises, reminders to check inventory on kinesiology tape. The second had fragments.
Old woman feeding pigeons in sunset—hands shaking but bread steady.
Man with two umbrellas. Forecast: clear. Ask why.
Trend: microniches. Algorithm keeps small ponds small.
He read them like prayers he wasn’t sure he was allowed to say out loud.
The shower hissed. Steam fogged the mirror with a milky bloom and wrote temporary blur over the face staring back. The face was in that awkward half-decade where cheeks stop pretending to be teens and settle into adulthood’s geography. His hair—still a reddish-brown mess no product fully tamed—stood in angles that defied physics and public decency. He pressed it down. It sprang back up in polite rebellion. That felt right. People assumed a physical therapist would be built like a brochure. Hajime was… serviceable. Strong where it counted, awkward elsewhere. He could carry a person’s weight through three sets of stairs. He could not, however, carry small talk up the same incline.
He dressed the way people dress when they’re trying to be taken seriously by strangers: crisp shirt, neutral tie, blazer that refused to wrinkle no matter how hard the bus tried. He checked the cheap analog watch on his wrist—still ticking, still slightly wrong. He grabbed his worn messenger bag, which was half clinic kit (goniometer, resistance bands, adhesive spray) and half journalism kit (field recorder, micro-notebook, a pen that never wrote on the first try).
Journalism. The word hovered. It didn’t belong to him yet, not really. He thought the syllables were too expensive for a salary that nowhere included it. But in the hours before the city remembered to be loud, he could imagine. He could picture his name under an article people sent to each other with, “Did you see this?” He could picture his voice in someone’s headphones as they rode the same unreliable buses, saying things like, “What we talk about when we talk about luck is fear dressed as math.”
He locked the apartment and took the stairwell two floors at a time, passing a neighbor’s door adorned with a ribbon that read PLEASE KNOCK GENTLY, BIRD INSIDE. On the ground floor, the lobby plant had died and been replaced so many times it felt like the building’s way of telling time. The current fern was lively, many-armed, unbothered. Hajime envied the fern.
Outside, the city met him with its early symphony: delivery drones whining like mosquitoes that had finally unionized, a street vendor burning sugar into coffee with a machine that looked illegal, skateboard wheels skating over cracked paint. Digital billboards caught the new light and threw it back in full color. A campaign for a new energy drink promised “Critical Hit in Every Sip.” The ad grinned with teeth too white to be trusted. Hajime looked away.
The bus stop was a thin metal confession booth. People huddled inside it as if absolution could be scheduled for 8:10 a.m. The man with the two umbrellas was there—one black, one patterned with cartoon bones. No clouds. The question wrote itself, but Hajime swallowed it. Interviews are for reporters. Bus stops are for silence.
He took out his notebook instead and wrote: Umbrellas man—fear of sun? Partner? Superstition?He knew better than to finish the story without asking, but his hand liked the shape of answers.
His phone buzzed. A message from Chiaki—another PT at the clinic, impossible to read on a morning brain, because Chiaki typed like a quiet person who lived in the center of a spreadsheet.
CHIAKI: Heads up: OT is short-staffed. Cross-coverage might happen after lunch. Brace for “teamwork” email.
Hajime typed back:
HAJIME: Copy. Will bring the emotional support tape.
The bus took its time like buses do. When it finally arrived, it sighed like a tired animal. People poured in. Seats filled. Hajime ended up standing with one hand on the overhead bar and the other protecting his bag like it was a small, important mammal. The driver wore a pin that said LET LUCK DRIVE. Hajime tried not to interpret that.
The bus rolled through districts as if paging through a catalog. Tech Quarter flashed past with its glass teeth and clean sidewalks whose trash was invisible and expensive. Artist Row was still sleepy, murals blinking awake on brick as the sun pressed color into pigment. Market Ninth was already loud; someone hawked knock-off headphones that promised “Full-Spectrum Hope.”
Hope. That old word, that headline font. In Jabberwock, it had become a brand, stamped on coffee, on footwear, on motivational posters that peeled at the corners. Hajime disliked how it made his chest ache when he saw it. He wished it didn’t, because he was a reasonable person allergic to sentiment. He told himself it was an aesthetic objection. He knew it wasn’t.
Two stops later, a woman boarded with a paper bag of oranges that smelled like whatever the opposite of hospitals was. The scent split the air cleanly. Hajime breathed it in with a craving for it. A kid near the back wore a punk jacket patched with safety pins and thread the color of dried blood. His hair was pale in a way that looked deliberate, like the city had desaturated him out of spite. The pale-haired kid stared at the window and smiled at nothing. The smile wasn’t happy. It was the kind of smile people sew over a tear so strangers don’t put their fingers through.
The bus crept. Hajime leaned with it, adjusted, leaned again. His thoughts tried to escape into sentences. He let them.
There were stories everywhere if someone just… took them. Thought made itself into hunger. He didn’t want to be a hero. Heroes had capes and convenient arcs and a website. He wanted to be useful in the plainest way, to make something true and hand it to someone who needed it. Physical therapy did that, in a way. He’d learned to see the body as music that forgot its own arrangement. He helped people find the notes again. It mattered. He knew it mattered. And yet—
The yet was a space with no furniture.
The bus deposited him near the hospital campus, which looked like an argument between architects that money decided. The rehab center lived in a newer wing—glass, light, clean lines, the whole brochure. A linear park trimmed the block with neat bench-islands where people pretended the traffic was ocean. A delivery drone zipped overhead and clipped a sycamore leaf so precisely that the leaf spun like a coin and fell at Hajime’s feet. He considered that some kind of omen and rejected the thought, then wrote it down anyway.
He didn’t go in. Not yet. The second-best coffee in the neighborhood lived in a kiosk across the street (the best belonged to a shop that hated everyone and closed at 2 p.m. out of spite). The kiosk barista knew him by the way he counted his change twice and chose the same pastry every time but looked at the others as if cheating on it would be a moral question.
“Hinata, right?” the barista said, already grinding. Hajime nodded. The name sounded weird in other people’s mouths, like a label on a file he hadn’t read yet.
“Medium, no room,” he said. He tried to smile like he did this every day because he did. The barista handed him the coffee like a referee declaring a draw. Hajime took it to the curb and leaned on a post, watching the hospital glass reflect a city that looked better when it was a reflection.
His phone buzzed again. This time it was a clinic notification, the kind that arrived in polite bullet points with no apologies.
NEW INTAKE: Komaeda, N.
Dx: Primary—amputation (L hand), secondary—oncology, active psych hx noted.
PT Eval: tentative 10:30 pending OT availability.
Notes: patient prefers “Komaeda” or “Nagito.” Variable affect. High insight/low self-esteem. May impact patient moral and/or physical recovery. Safety considerations attached.
He read it twice. Then a third time, because the words didn’t change but they did get heavier.
Cancer. Psych history. Amputation. The triad curled in his gut like a bad wire. The clinical part of his brain began to sort: phantom limb sensations likely; desensitization training; graded motor imagery; mirror therapy if tolerated; coordination with OT for ADLs; fatigue management; oncology precautions; med schedule for psych stability—coordinate with nurse; watch for dissociation/triggers. The human part of his brain pictured a left sleeve that ended before it began. It pictured a face that had been told too many surprising truths. He closed his eyes and saw nothing, which was a kind of mercy.
He sipped the coffee. It was too hot, and he deserved that.
“Komaeda,” he said under his breath—not as a vow, just as a mouth test. Names were the first exercise, no equipment needed. The city answered by letting a siren skip a block, cutting out right before the part where it would have been annoying. He looked up and for a second caught his own reflection in the hospital glass. It looked like someone about to be useful and pretending not to be afraid of failing at it.
The clinic’s sliding doors sighed as they let him in, and the lobby’s climate control greeted him like a well-meaning aunt: Eat. Sit. Be less sweaty. The rehab reception had a new plant—cousin to the apartment fern—thriving under artificial sun. Posters on the walls coached hope in fonts that wanted too much. RECOVERY ISN’T LINEAR. SLOW IS STILL FORWARD. Hajime agreed with every sentence in principle and resented them in practice. He signed into the staff console, set his bag under the desk, and gave himself the minute he always allowed before someone would need him.
He used that minute to open the “Ideas” note. Neon spill from the lobby screen tinted the edges of the words. He added: What if luck is just the story we tell ourselves about the coin toss we can’t stop watching?
“Good morning, Hinata,” Chiaki said, drifting up with a clipboard, a warm cardigan, and the serenity of somebody who could survive any group email thread. “OT says they’ll cover if we do the eval block first. Also, the smart pulley is down.”
“It’s always down,” Hajime said. “It just takes breaks to recalibrate its self-worth.”
Chiaki’s smile lived in the corner of her mouth where a joke could sleep. “Your 9:15 texted they’ll be late. Your 10:30 is… the Komaeda intake. You saw the notes?”
“Yeah.” He felt the weight again. In his head, he rehearsed the posture he used when someone was already exhausted by the idea of being helped. He imagined hand-over-hand guidance with a hand that wasn’t there. He imagined the script he’d refuse to use and the pauses he would not fill. He imagined a person under a file.
“Anything you need?” Chiaki asked.
“A mirror box,” he said. “And some extra patience.”
“Check the supply room for the first one,” she said. “The second one’s at the bottom of the coffee pot after 10 a.m.”
He huffed air that wanted to be a laugh. “Copy.”
He spent the next hour in the small rituals that turned into care when assembled: elastic bands in labeled drawers; gait belts looped and hung; balance boards stacked like sleepy turtles. He checked the mirror box—the last one had a crack that made reality bend in an unhelpful way. This one was clean; two panes met at a precise angle, ready to lie on command for therapeutic purposes. He set it on the treatment table and stepped back the way people step back from art they hope will like them.
Between tasks, he looked at the clock more than he should have. Time behaved, which made him suspicious. He saw himself in third person, a man in a blazer trying to be gravity for other people’s falling. He saw the city outside, patient and impatient, waiting for its bus, waiting for its headline. He saw the name Komaeda bold on the schedule, like a word that knew it would change the sentence.
At 10:18, he went to the lobby because sometimes discomfort was better than suspense. The seating area made everyone into variations of the same posture: hands folded, legs crossed, eyes on a phone to be anywhere else. A TV over the reception desk cycled through agreeable landscapes and subtitles about lung capacity. The automatic doors parted, sighed, and admitted a draft of outside—street air, warm concrete, the complicated smell of the city’s morning exhale.
The person who stepped in wore layered black like a funeral that had learned to accessorize. Band tee peeking from under a jacket stolen from a future thrift store, jeans with sincere damage, boots that had been told “no” before and kept walking. Hair pale and tousled—almost white, almost silver, the color of a rumor. Left sleeve pinned and folded with a competence that said practice. His mouth held that stitched smile Hajime had seen through a bus window on a different kid or the same one; the eyes above it were too bright, like a fever had learned to be polite.
He stopped just inside, as if the doors had drawn a line and crossing it required permission from forces he answered to. He scanned the room in quick, methodical slices, as if mapping the escape routes and the exits inside his own head.
Reception looked up. “Name?”
The smile twitched into its own truth. “Komaeda,” he said, soft and shredded at the edges. Then, almost cheerfully, like an apology packaged as charm, “Nagito. Sorry in advance.”
Hajime stood still for a breath longer than he had to. He took one step forward. Then another.
The busless city in his chest kept its strange time. The fern in the corner rustled in air no one felt. Somewhere in the building a smart pulley considered its life choices. The mirror box waited to perform its necessary lie. On his phone, the “Ideas” note sat open to a line he hadn’t written yet.
He closed the distance until introductions became the kindest thing in the room.
“Hinata,” he said, voice steadying into its useful register. “Hajime. I’ll be your physical therapist today.”
Nagito tilted his head the way people do when they’re listening to a voice from another room. He looked at the offered hand, then at his own sleeve, then back at Hajime with an expression that said he had already told himself five different stories about what this moment meant.
“Lucky me,” Nagito said, like he didn’t believe in the concept but liked the taste of the word. The stitched smile held. The eyes flickered with something needle-thin and heavy as oceans. “Let’s see if you can fix what’s left.”
Hajime did not try to fix the sentence. He didn’t correct the math of it or throw platitudes across the missing bridge. He just gestured toward the hallway that would, eventually, lead to a room with a mirror and a box and a very small beginning.
“Let’s start,” he said.
Outside, a bus groaned past on its way to somewhere reasonable and late. Inside, the slow burn had found its pilot light
———————-
The rehab room looked the way Hajime liked things to look: symmetrical, practical, clean in a way that suggested function, not fear. Two wide windows filtered in daylight that pretended to be gentle. Machines stood in quiet lines like obedient students—stationary bikes, parallel bars, a smart pulley that still blinked “rebooting,” and the mirror box resting on a small table as if awaiting confession. The scent was antiseptic softened by citrus wipes; even sterility tried to smell kind.
Nagito entered without ceremony, his gait unhurried but careful, like someone walking across memory instead of floor. He had a way of being present and absent at once—shoulders slouched but eyes surveying every detail, mouth curved in something that couldn’t decide between humor and surrender. The left sleeve of his jacket was pinned neatly, and on the right hand he wore a loose black mitten, the knit frayed at the edges.
Hajime gestured toward the therapy table. “You can sit here. I’ll just—uh—grab the mirror setup.”
Nagito perched on the edge, his good hand fidgeting with the hem of his sleeve. His reflection doubled faintly in the box’s surface. Hajime caught it in the corner of his eye—the mitten, the pale skin, the bones standing out like arguments under his skin.
He cleared his throat. “How long’s it been since your procedure?”
Nagito tilted his head, feigning thought. “Oh, not long. They abducted my hand a couple of weeks ago.” He smiled faintly, as if daring the joke to land. “I’d report it missing, but I’m afraid the police would think I’m pulling their leg.”
Hajime’s laugh came out small and polite, the kind people use when they aren’t sure which part was supposed to be funny. “Right. Guess they… didn’t leave a ransom note?”
“No, just a very dramatic hospital bill,” Nagito said, resting his right arm on the table. “I suppose that counts.”
Hajime shook his head with a quiet exhale, still half-smiling. “You’re the first to make that joke this morning, at least.”
“Oh, I make them on rotation,” Nagito said easily. “If I don’t laugh at myself, who will? Ah, don’t answer that. I prefer stares to laughs.”
There was no malice in his tone—just a tired playfulness, like someone offering candy from an empty bowl. Hajime found himself unsure whether to return the joke or the silence. He settled for the neutral middle ground professionals are trained to occupy.
“Alright,” he said, pushing the mirror box a little closer. “So, we’ll start with mirror therapy. It can feel strange at first, but it helps the brain recalibrate. Basically, your intact hand goes inside here, and when you move it, the reflection tricks your mind into thinking both sides are moving. We’ll talk through your intake while you do that, so it’s not just… awkward staring.”
Nagito grinned faintly. “I can multitask—trauma and tedium. Even if it gets incredibly boring, I’ll at least be practicing my social skills.”
Hajime ignored the bait. “Go ahead and slip your left forearm in. Keep the mitten off for now so it doesn’t interfere with the sensation.”
Nagito peeled the mitten away, revealing a stump of a limb that looked fragile but practiced—scars, calluses, a tremor barely there. He rolled his sleeve, empty and folded, shifting slightly with the motion, its absence almost animated. Hajime adjusted the mirror angle so Nagito would see his reflected right hand where his left should be.
“Now,” Hajime said, voice steady, “just move your fingers—slowly, like you’re stretching after a long sleep. Open and close, flex each one.”
Nagito watched the illusion carefully, eyes narrowing with something between curiosity and grief. “Feels like déjà vu,” he murmured. “A trick of the light pretending to be forgiveness.”
“That’s… one way to put it,” Hajime said softly. “You might feel some sensation on the missing side—tingling, warmth, even pain. That’s normal.”
“Ah. I always feel things that aren’t there,” Nagito said. “At least now there’s a medical term for it.”
Hajime hesitated. He knew dark humor was a kind of armor, but it still made him flinch when it brushed against honesty. “Right,” he said again, quietly.
He pulled a stool closer and opened the intake form on his tablet. “Alright, Nagito—can I ask a few things while you keep moving your hand?”
“Ask away. I’ve got nowhere to be except the present moment.” He flexed his fingers again; in the mirror, his phantom hand obeyed.
“Any pain today? Phantom sensations, residual limb pain, anything unusual?”
Nagito hummed, considering. “It’s a cocktail of sensations. Sometimes it burns like my nerves are writing bad poetry. Other times it just… itches. Like the universe wants to remind me it still remembers where I used to end.”
Hajime tapped notes without looking up. “On a scale of one to ten?”
“I suppose it depends on the day,” Nagito said cheerfully. “Today feels like a four. Maybe a five if I get sentimental.”
“Got it.” Hajime typed, then continued, “Any other symptoms—fatigue, dizziness, nausea?”
“My other list of diagnoses gives me the all-inclusive package,” Nagito said, matter-of-fact. “Chemo turns everything metallic, my bones ache, and occasionally I think the ceiling’s whispering, but that’s probably just a separate issue in itself.”
Hajime blinked, unsure which word to address first. “You—uh—still experience hallucinations?”
“Sometimes.” Nagito smiled with disarming brightness. “Voices, shapes, a few reruns from my brain’s greatest hits. But don’t worry, I’m heavily medicated. My mind’s a responsible mess. I’d prefer if you kept that to yourself though, since you’re not mandated to report something so harmless, and I’d rather not have my psychiatrist play a guessing game with my meds again.”
Hajime’s stylus hovered mid-note. “Right,” he said again, the word working overtime. “Are you getting support from these psych services? Like therapy and medication management too?”
“Three appointments a week,” Nagito said. “They tell me I’m making progress. I tell them progress is relative when you’re missing a part of yourself. We both smile. It’s very… therapeutic.”
The corner of Hajime’s mouth twitched. “That’s one way to handle it.”
“Maybe the only way,” Nagito said. His gaze followed the mirrored hand, still flexing and curling. “Besides, it keeps the room less awkward.”
Hajime cleared his throat. “You’re doing well with the motion. Try rotating your wrist a bit more—slowly.”
Nagito complied, watching the reflection as if trying to memorize a lie that comforted him. “You know,” he said softly, “it’s funny. When it first happened, I swore I could still feel my hand, like it was sulking somewhere, refusing to admit it was gone.”
“That’s pretty common,” Hajime said, gently professional again. “The brain’s sensory map doesn’t update right away.”
“Yeah, well…” Nagito’s voice thinned, almost playful again. “It didn’t exactly have a warning.”
Hajime looked up. “What do you mean?”
Nagito’s eyes flicked toward him, pale green and unreadable. “You read the file, didn’t you?”
“Only the basics,” Hajime said. “It just said—amputation following a psychotic episode.”
“Ah.” Nagito smiled faintly, a slow, deliberate curl of the lips. “So that’s the polite phrasing.”
He turned his head toward the mirror again, gaze fixed on his reflected fingers. “You’re looking at someone who… got creative during a very bad night. Maybe if I pulled it at the root— where she held her power.. the weeds of despair—… might stop spreading. Turns out it doesn’t work that way.”
Hajime froze. The air in the room seemed to shift—thinner now, more honest. He felt the usual professional reflex rise: keep the tone neutral, maintain calm, don’t let the patient see your shock. But it was too late. Something flickered across his face, quick and raw—a human reaction.
Nagito caught it instantly. His smile softened, almost kind. “Don’t worry. I’m not planning any sequels.”
“I—” Hajime started, then stopped. He forced his tone even. “I’m… sorry. That must’ve been terrifying.”
“Terrifying?” Nagito echoed, as if tasting the word. “No. Terrifying is surviving it. Terrifying is waking up afterward and realizing it didn’t save you.”
Silence pressed down for a beat too long. Then, as if remembering where he was, Nagito exhaled lightly and resumed flexing his fingers. “Anyway,” he said, voice light again, “you can put that under ‘cause of amputation: temporary lapse in judgment.’”
Hajime hesitated, then nodded and scribbled something vague enough to fit protocol. “I… appreciate you being open about that,” he said quietly.
“Oh, don’t thank me yet,” Nagito replied, eyes still on the mirror. “That version of the story is a little sugar coated, if I told the raw truth it’d be above your pay grade.”
Hajime swallowed, then glanced at the clock—ten minutes left in the session. “We’ll talk more about it later,” he said. “For now, keep focusing on the motion. You’re doing fine.”
Nagito smiled faintly. “Later, then,” he said. His voice had the weight of a promise or a warning—it was hard to tell which.
The mirrored hand kept moving, smooth and steady, while the other sleeve lay still beside it. The illusion shimmered with each breath, a fragile, quiet lie holding the room together.
Hajime slid the mirror box aside, careful not to let the reflection shatter back into plain glass too abruptly. Therapy always walked a tightrope between science and illusion; end too suddenly, and you risked leaving someone staring at the absence instead of the exercise.
“Alright,” he said quietly. “Let’s switch gears a little.”
Nagito blinked, his attention drifting back from wherever his mind went when the room turned too still. “Changing the topic already? And here I was just beginning to enjoy my artificial limb.”
Hajime ignored the smirk and rolled his stool closer. “I just want to check your upper limb function and shoulder mobility. We’ll start small—bend your elbow as far as you can.”
Nagito complied, his left side moving more from ghost memory than muscle. His upper arm twitched; tendons beneath the skin jumped like startled wires. The movement faltered halfway, and he hissed under his breath, jaw tightening.
“Pain?” Hajime asked.
“Not quite pain,” Nagito murmured. “More like… a distant echo. My body still thinks it’s attached at the wrist. How ignorant!” He inhaled through his nose, slow and deliberate. “They told me the surgery went well, technically. But ‘well’ apparently doesn’t mean perfect. Nerves on this side are a little moody. Circulation too. It’s like a storm that stays even after the sun comes out.”
Hajime nodded, his expression neutral but eyes tracing the subtle pallor of Nagito’s skin—the bluish tinge near his collarbone, faint but noticeable. He adjusted Nagito’s posture gently, one hand hovering near his shoulder blade. “Try raising your shoulder now. Just a bit.”
Nagito obeyed. The motion was slight but deliberate, his face tightening again.
“Good,” Hajime said softly. “Any tingling? Numbness?”
“Both, sometimes.” Nagito’s voice came thin, then tried for lightness. “But hey, at least they didn’t botch anything on my face.”
Hajime gave a faint, automatic chuckle of relief that evaporated as Nagito added, “Though I was born with a botched face, so maybe they didn’t need to.”
Hajime exhaled quietly through his nose, setting his pen down. “Try not to say things like that. You’re doing fine.”
Nagito tilted his head toward him, half-grinning, half-daring. “Hinata, you’re not paid enough to handle my emotional rants.”
“Probably not,” Hajime said, straightening his clipboard, “but that doesn’t explain why you keep bringing them up anyway.”
That earned him a small, genuine smile—sharp-edged, but real. “Touché.”
Hajime adjusted the table height and reached for a small assessment tool. “Okay, I’m just going to palpate along your upper arm. Let me know if there’s any tenderness.”
“Of course, doctor,” Nagito teased.
“I’m not a doctor.”
“Therapist, then. I suppose you fix things they can’t medicate.”
The words lingered longer than the silence deserved. Hajime’s fingers traced gently along the left bicep and shoulder, checking tone, scar tissue, nerve response. The skin felt cooler than the right side. When he pressed near the deltoid, Nagito flinched—a short, involuntary jerk.
“There?” Hajime asked.
“Yeah,” Nagito murmured. “Like an ice pick”
“Probably some nerve misfiring. It’ll calm down over time.”
“Time’s a funny thing,” Nagito said softly, watching Hajime’s expression instead of his arm. “Does it ever really fix anything?”
Hajime didn’t answer immediately. “Sometimes it just gives you room to breathe.”
Nagito chuckled under his breath. “You talk like someone who’s rehearsed that answer before.”
“Maybe.” Hajime’s tone flattened again, the professional shield sliding back into place. “Relax your shoulder for me.”
Nagito obeyed, still watching him. After a moment, he asked, “Do you actually like this job?”
The question broke the rhythm of the session. Hajime looked up, mildly surprised. “I don’t hate it.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He smirked a little. “It’s an honest one. I like helping people get back on their feet. But if I could be a millionaire instead, I wouldn’t complain.”
Nagito laughed quietly—one of those laughs that didn’t make it to his eyes. “Trust me, being rich isn’t all that fun.”
Hajime blinked, caught off guard. “Oh? I’ll take your word for it.”
Nagito smiled in that sideways way again, the corners of his mouth twitching like the thought amused him more than it should. “It’s a joke, don’t worry. I just figured I’d sound mysterious for a second.”
“Right,” Hajime said, though he wasn’t sure he believed it was entirely a joke.
Nagito winced when Hajime lifted his arm slightly higher. “Okay, that’s enough for today,” Hajime decided. “Don’t push the nerves too much. You’ll get more movement gradually, but we’ll pace it.”
Nagito sighed, half in relief. “Fine by me. I’ve never been good at rushing anyway.”
Hajime noted something on the tablet, stylus gliding in steady strokes. “So,” he said after a pause, “what do you usually do in your free time? Hobbies, routines, anything that keeps you busy?”
“Besides listening to nurses gossip and signing consent forms?” Nagito asked. “Hmm. I read. Old detective novels, mostly—the kind where everyone’s miserable but the ending insists it’s justice. I like to care for plants, but they usually die no matter how much or how little I tend to them. I used to paint a little, too, but now my technique’s half off.” He lifted his sleeve slightly, letting the gesture speak for itself. “Other than that, I walk. Or I think about walking. Whichever sounds less painful that day.”
Hajime nodded, jotting down mental health notes under “functional engagement.” “You’ll get some of that dexterity back. Enough to paint again, probably.”
Nagito raised an eyebrow. “That’s quite optimistic, Hinata.”
“I try,” Hajime said, closing the form.
Nagito leaned back slightly, watching him gather the materials. “Do you always sound like you’re trying not to say what you really think?”
“Probably safer that way,” Hajime said.
Nagito smiled faintly. “Maybe. But I think you’d be interesting if you stopped trying to be so… composed.”
Hajime paused mid-motion, then gave a small, dry smile. “I’ll keep that in mind for your next appointment.”
“I look forward to it,” Nagito said, his tone light but his gaze unreadable.
Hajime helped him to his feet and guided him toward the door, the silence between them more curious than awkward now. The air still smelled faintly of antiseptic and citrus wipes. Citrus. Hajime felt hungry.
As Nagito paused at the doorway, he looked back, that stitched-together smile softening just slightly. “Thanks for not pretending this is easy.”
Hajime blinked. “Wasn’t planning to.”
“Good,” Nagito said. “Then we’ll get along just fine.”
He slipped out into the corridor, the pinned sleeve swaying gently at his side, leaving Hajime alone with the mirror box and the faint hum of the city pressing against the glass. Hajime wrote one last line in his notes before closing the file.
Patient: Komaeda, Nagito. Progress—measurable. Prognosis—unclear. Mood—disarming.
He stared at the words, then added quietly beneath them:
Feels like there’s more he’s not saying.
The rehab ward fell into its usual post-session quiet, the kind that filled the halls after morning rounds and before the lunch rush. Paperwork hummed on Hajime’s tablet screen like static—forms, notes, names, the same polite data that never quite matched the living people they described.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, scrolling back to the chart labeled Komaeda, Nagito. The details were clean and sterile on paper—age, diagnosis, procedure date—but the handwriting beneath the electronic print felt heavier than numbers should. His stylus hovered over the “next steps” field. He’d written continue upper limb desensitization, progress mirror box therapy and stopped halfway through the word monitor.
Because that wasn’t the real problem.
He leaned back in his chair, exhaling. “What am I supposed to do with you,” he muttered, “besides stretch the parts that aren’t broken.”
Nagito wasn’t his first complex case, but something about him didn’t fit the clinical template. There was calculation behind that flippant humor—something purposeful, like he wanted to heal just fast enough to outrun something else. Hajime tapped the tablet twice, as if the sound might fill in the missing context.
His next patient wasn’t until one. That gave him time to overthink, which was dangerous. He picked up the clipboard again, more out of habit than focus, when a familiar yawn rolled through the doorway.
“Still alive, huh?” Chiaki said, leaning against the frame with the loose gravity of someone who hadn’t slept enough to stand straight. She wore her cardigan half-buttoned and a lanyard looped around her neck with a small, pixelated creature blinking lazily on a pink plastic screen.
“Barely,” Hajime said. “What’s the Tamagotchi’s prognosis?”
“She’s hanging on,” Chiaki murmured, pressing a button. “Better than me, probably.”
Hajime chuckled quietly and rubbed his neck. “You’re still here? Thought you’d have escaped this place for a gaming cafe by now.”
Chiaki blinked slowly, her version of a smirk. “Funny. I was about to ask you the same thing.”
They both sighed, the sound overlapping in the stillness.
“Guess we’re both bad at quitting,” Hajime muttered.
Chiaki pushed off the wall and crossed her arms. “So, what’s that face for? You look like you’re on your last life but can’t decide whether to overwrite a save.”
Hajime tapped the corner of his tablet. “Patient this morning. Komaeda.”
“Ah, the new intake?” Chiaki tilted her head. “The one with the hand amputation?”
“Yeah.” He stared at the screen for a moment, thumb hesitating over the notes. “He’s… intriguing.”
“‘Intriguing’?” Chiaki repeated, raising an eyebrow. “That’s new. You usually describe patients like you describe the weather—predictable and…mildly inconvenient. I think.”
Hajime snorted. “I’m not that bad.”
“Pretty close.”
“Fine,” he said, suppressing a grin. “He’s different, then. There’s something about him. It’s like he’s trying to speedrun recovery—like if he heals fast enough physically, it’ll make the rest of him… go quiet.”
Chiaki frowned slightly, looking past Hajime as if the thought had its own shadow. “Psych history?”
“Yeah. Pretty heavy one.” Hajime glanced back down at the notes. “He’s on medication for psychosis. Said something about voices, intrusive thoughts, the works. He’s clearly self-aware, but it feels like he’s skipping steps.”
Chiaki stepped closer, curiosity replacing the usual drowsy calm. “And you think he’s hiding something?”
“I don’t think—” Hajime started, then paused, the corner of his mouth tightening. “No, I know he is. He told me his injury was self-inflicted. But not… deliberately, not while he was lucid. Said it happened during a psychotic break.”
Chiaki’s gaze softened. “That’s rough. Probably.”
“Yeah.” Hajime leaned back, arms crossing. “You ever meet someone who seems so honest that you start to wonder what they’re not saying?”
“That’s everyone,” Chiaki said plainly.
He chuckled quietly, rubbing his temple. “Fair. Still, something about him feels off. He’s either trying to convince me he’s fine, or he’s testing how much I’ll notice before he admits he’s not.”
“So are you going to tell his psych team?”
The question hung in the air like a dropped file. Hajime’s eyes stayed on the tablet, but his hand stopped moving.
“…Not yet,” he said finally.
Chiaki studied him. “You know that’s risky.”
“I just want to understand it first,” Hajime replied. “There’s something underneath the medical notes—something that doesn’t fit. I want to figure out why before I go reporting things and have him shut down completely.”
Chiaki sighed, though not with disapproval—more like resignation. “You’re getting too invested again.”
“Maybe,” Hajime admitted. “But he’s… not like the others. I think he’s already decided he doesn’t deserve help. That makes it hard to reach him through procedure.”
She tilted her head, watching him with a faint smile. “Then don’t just reach him through procedure.”
Hajime looked up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Try to aid him too,” Chiaki said simply. “Not as a therapist, but as a person. He doesn’t need another clinician hovering with a clipboard. He needs someone who talks to him without treating him like glass.”
He exhaled slowly, running a hand through his hair. “You think I’m good at that?”
“I think you pretend not to be,” she said.
The corner of Hajime’s mouth lifted. “That’s not a real compliment.”
“My intention was to inform you, not necessarily to compliment you,” Chiaki said lightheartedly, returning to her spot against the wall.
Silence stretched comfortably between them for a moment—the kind that only existed between two people too tired to perform small talk.
Finally, Hajime sighed again. “Alright, philosopher. Since you’re apparently my conscience now… what do you want for lunch?”
Chiaki blinked, considering. “Anything that doesn’t come in a vending machine.”
“So… the cafeteria again?”
She groaned softly. “…I’m too sleepy to go out, so that’s fine. But you’re paying.”
“I paid last time.”
“You always pay,” Chiaki said. “You have that ‘responsible adult’ aura. It’s impossible to argue with.”
Hajime rolled his eyes, standing to stretch. “Pretty sure that’s just exhaustion.”
As they walked toward the corridor, Chiaki’s Tamagotchi beeped a tiny digital chirp. She pressed a button absentmindedly. “She’s hungry again,” she murmured.
“Sounds familiar,” Hajime said.
“Don’t project,” she replied, deadpan.
He chuckled quietly as they disappeared down the hall toward the cafeteria. Behind them, the rehab room sat empty, faintly humming with the scent of antiseptic and citrus—the ghost of morning’s work still lingering.
On Hajime’s tablet, the last note under Komaeda, N. blinked unsaved for a moment before automatically syncing:
Observation: Avoids addressing psych trauma. Possible dissociation from event. Proceed with care.
The cursor blinked once, then steadied, like a quiet pulse waiting for its next beat.
———————
“Alright,” he said, forcing a polite smile as his final patient—a middle-aged man with a repaired ACL—rose from the treatment chair. “That’s all for today. Try not to overdo the exercises at home this time.”
The man grinned sheepishly. “No promises, doc.”
“Not a doctor,” Hajime muttered, but the patient was already waving goodbye on his way out.
The automatic door slid shut, sealing the quiet behind him. Hajime leaned back in his chair, rolling his neck until it popped. The clock read 6:47 p.m.—technically off the clock, though he still had charting to finish. Instead, he stared at the blank wall for a solid minute before groaning and pushing himself to his feet.
“Smoke break,” he mumbled to no one.
The staff hallway stretched long and sterile, a pale corridor lined with motivational posters that had outlived their sincerity. He swiped his ID card at the rehab exit door; it beeped halfheartedly before unlocking. Outside the main unit, the hospital’s evening rhythm was louder—nurses hustling between stations, the intercom droning overhead, a gurney squeaking somewhere far down the hall. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic, coffee, and exhaustion.
Hajime followed the narrow passage to the balcony door near the end of the ward. It was supposed to be staff-only, but the latch had always been temperamental. He swiped again, felt the lock click, and stepped into the cooler night air.
The balcony wasn’t much—just a small square of concrete overlooking the city’s western sprawl. The sun had already ducked behind the towers, leaving streaks of amber fading into gray. The street noise below rose faintly, echoing like the city’s heartbeat.
Hajime fished a half-empty pack of cigarettes from his blazer pocket and flicked the cardboard lid open. One left. Fitting. He slipped it between his lips and patted his pockets for a lighter. Nothing. His sigh came out heavier than the situation deserved.
“Of course,” he muttered.
A quiet throat-clearing behind him made him jolt.
“Need one of these?”
Hajime spun around, startled, to find Nagito leaning casually against the railing, holding out a lighter in his right hand. The soft click of the metal lid snapped open, flame flickering between them like a secret.
“…Komaeda?” Hajime blinked. “What are you—how did you even—”
Nagito smiled, almost sheepish. “The door wasn’t closed all the way. I took it as an invitation.”
Hajime ran a hand down his face, exhaling through his nose. Great. Perfect. Nothing screamed medical negligence quite like a psych patient with a history of self-harm standing alone on a hospital balcony.
He took the lighter anyway. “Thanks,” he said, lighting the cigarette with a quiet snap. “Didn’t expect to see you out here.”
Nagito shrugged. “Didn’t expect to be seen.”
“That’s… not comforting. You really shouldn’t be out here, alone at that.”
Nagito chuckled softly. “Relax, I’m not here for anything dramatic. I just wanted to exist for a few minutes without anyone interrupting my thoughts.”
Hajime nodded slowly. “Fair enough. Sorry for interrupting, then.”
“Don’t be,” Nagito said. “You’re less interruptive than most.”
They stood in companionable silence for a few beats, the smoke curling lazily upward, disappearing into the cold air.
Hajime glanced sideways. “You’re not out here because you’re feeling… bad, are you?”
Nagito laughed under his breath. “You mean suicidal? Of course not, Hinata, I’d give you a warning if I planned something that cliché.”
“That’s—” Hajime caught himself, rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s, insensitive.. not funny.”
“Neither is the hospital food, but we laugh about that too.” Nagito’s voice softened. “Relax. I’m fine. Just tired of fluorescent lighting and white walls pretending to care about people.”
Hajime took a slow drag and exhaled toward the railing. “Yeah. Hospitals are depressing by design. Like they purposely avoid color.”
“Maybe it’s intentional,” Nagito said. “If the walls were bright, we might remember we’re supposed to be alive.”
That earned a quiet hum from Hajime. “How long have you been stuck here anyway?”
“All together?” Nagito asked, leaning forward on the railing. “About seven months. Back and forth between psych and oncology. They should really offer a loyalty card at this point.”
Hajime let out a soft snort. “That’s… a long time.”
“It feels longer when you’re not sure which part of you they’re trying to fix.”
The city lights blinked below like halfhearted constellations. Hajime flicked ash over the railing, his expression thoughtful.
Nagito’s tone lightened suddenly. “So… do you have feelings for that girl?”
Hajime blinked. “What girl?”
“The one with the cardigan and the perpetually dying Tamagotchi.”
“Chiaki?” Hajime laughed, genuinely surprised. “What—no. We’re just friends. College friends. We took the same degree program and realized too late we hated our career paths, so we got miserable together professionally.”
Nagito’s lips twitched into a grin. “So I’ll take that as a hell no, then.”
“It’s not like that,” Hajime said, shaking his head. “She’s fine. I just don’t… see her that way.”
“Shame,” Nagito hummed. “You’d be cute together.”
“You must be pretty bored if you’re pairing up your physical therapists now.”
Nagito grinned. “It’s a hobby. Helps me cope with the crushing monotony of my existence.”
Hajime flicked the spent cigarette into a nearby bin and pocketed the lighter absentmindedly, “Talking like that, Shakespeare would probably just say you’re a pessimist.”
The air between them had softened—a truce of mutual exhaustion and reluctant amusement.
“Ah, what a shame. I was going for mysterious edgelord. I’ll try harder next time.” The taller one said sarcastically. Hajime wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so he just took another puff of his cigarette and called it a close.
He thought for a moment, and the topic of Chiaki came back to him. She had mentioned earlier that Komaeda may need more than a professional right now. According to Komaeda himself, he’d been here over 7 months, and he didn’t have a support system. So.. only professionals.
Did Chiaki have a point there? Maybe so. Or maybe this was a way to ease his guilt about his selfish investigation and ignorance in regard to reporting his Komaedas risk.
He could make up for that, and if he accepted.. Chiaki might’ve been right anyways.
He hesitated for a moment, then reached into his pocket again—this time for his phone. “Here,” he said, pulling up his contact screen. “If you ever need anything… or just want to talk outside of therapy hours.”
Nagito tilted his head, skepticism flickering briefly in his eyes. “Is this a professional gesture or a personal one?”
“Call it both,” Hajime said. “Just don’t abuse it or think too hard about it. We’ll be seeing each other for a while so it’s fine if you just need to talk between our sessions.”
He said plainly, though part of him was already regretting it.
Nagito’s faint smirk curved upward. “You’re awfully trusting for someone who just learned I’m creative with sharp objects.”
“I’m not trusting,” Hajime said. “I’m… stubborn, I guess. There’s a difference. And this is to help you succeed in the long term, patient relationships are important in progress with them.”
Nagito accepted the number anyway, typing it carefully into his phone with his remaining hand. “Alright then. But don’t expect me to text you about stretching routines.”
“What did I expect.” Hajime said, pocketing his phone again. “Make sure to head inside before they go looking for you and put you a flight risk.”
Nagito gave a small salute with two fingers. “Goodnight to you too, Hinata.”
They lingered for another quiet moment before Hajime found himself slipping back through the door, holding it open just long enough to make sure Nagito was safely inside first.
The hallway light washed over them, dull and even. They exchanged one last glance, something unspoken passing between them—an odd kind of understanding that neither of them wanted to define yet. Then, without another word, they walked in opposite directions.
The door clicked softly shut behind them, leaving the balcony empty again—just the fading scent of smoke and the hum of the city below, like static between two frequencies still learning how to meet.