"..."
"Again with the dream, huh..."
It had been three days since the day I first awakened on this hospital bed.
For whatever reason, I managed to survive the whole accident thing, though I didn't exactly remember what happened. The doctor and my parents said it wasn't my fault, and that a drunk driver lost control of his car and hit me when I was riding my bicycle.
...it sounded somewhat embarrassing how unlucky I was since I was pretty confident I would've seen something as big as a family car coming towards me. But, oh well, no really any point in crying over split milk.
Now the only thing I wanted was to get out of this bed as soon as possible. I didn't want to burden my parents with the hospital fee any longer. I had to go back as soon as possible and continue drawing.
As I moved my eyes from the ceiling, I see an opened curtain to the right of my bed, with weak sunlight shining through the windows. The sky was filled with heavy rainclouds, but there were no signs that a rain had happened.
"Seems like it's gonna be raining pretty hard later. I hope it doesn't happen immediately."
The reason I said those was because on the other side of that window, there was a somewhat spacious balcony.
I had no idea why a room on this floor on a hospital building was built with a balcony. But, thanks to that, I had somewhere to stand or sit on whenever I feel like taking a fresh air.
With that in mind, I started moving my body to get off of the bed.
First, I tried to move my whole torso up. Then, I tried to use my right hand to support it...
-Hmm...?-
"...I can't move my hand."
I could move my upper right arm, but I couldn't move my hand whatsoever.
After 30 seconds or so, I regained my control of my hand gradually, and by the time a minute passed, I could already moved it like usual.
Not minding what just happened, I grabbed the base of the IV stand right next to me and finally stood up from my bed.
I walked away from the bed to open the bed curtain.
After opening the curtain, I turned my face towards the window to open it, but I set my sight back to the second curtain right in front of the one I just opened.
"Hmm?"
The curtain was closed.
"Did someone get admitted last night when I was asleep?"
I was sure I would hear something if that was the case, but I guess I was too tired yesterday.
The bed in front of mine was not occupied up until yesterday, which meant the curtain wasn't really needed to be closed.
-Hmm, I wonder what kinda person they are...-
Well, sooner or later I should meet them anyway.
I once again turned my face towards the window.
I opened the window just to get smacked by a strong gush of wind.
"Argh!"
The wind was strong enough to force me to slightly close my eyes, but as stubborn as I was, I still proceeded to widen the windows.
I carefully placed my hands on the window frame, lifted one of my legs, moved it over the frame, and followed by the other leg.
I was standing on the balcony, engulfed by the strong and cold air.
"Brr... It's cold..."
"If it's cold then don't stand there!"
A sudden loud voice came from my back. It was a woman's voice, rather youthful.
I turned back to see exactly who I was expecting.
"C'mon~, Yotsuhana-san. Don't shout at me this early in the morning. I even opened the bed curtains just to tell you I'm already awake."
"But that's not the main problem here!"
The considerably young nurse showed a rather complicated and irritated face at me.
-W-well... this could be a problem...-
"Come back inside this very moment or else...!"
"Geh...! Alright, alright. I'll go back in."
Not wanting any more unnecessary trouble, I listened to her and got back inside.
"Achoo!"
"See? You still went out after knowing how cold it is, now you're basically acting like you're freezing to death."
"Well... It wasn't that bad..."
The nurse, Yotsuhana-san, was the nurse in charge of taking care of me while I'm admitted here. She was a talkative person who was easy to get along with. Since I myself was someone who enjoyed little talks, there was little to no silent during the time she took care of my hygiene.
Even if this was only the third day I get to talk to her, we could already communicate as if we're friends for quite a while. Also given her young age (allegedly, she didn't tell me the number) and my own age of 16, we weren't really too disconnected with trends there was around, which spawned countless topics.
But as friendly as we got, she was still a strict nurse when the time comes. She's a serious one and loved her job as a nurse, taking care of me as best as she could.
Those were all my impression of her. Really impressive, I would say. But that very point was also why I was so scared of her.
"Things would be a bit difficult if you catch a cold. You've only been awake for 3 days, and even yesterday you still couldn't walk far, yet you were already trying to go over that window. Your mother was very worried when we saw you did that, you know?"
I recalled the scene that happened yesterday.
After noticing the balcony, I immediately tried to go over the window to stand outside since I couldn't really stand being inside the room.
Yotsuhana-san and Mom opened the curtain of my bed and caught me in the middle of going outside. Seemingly misunderstanding something, Mom teared up a bit and immediately got me back to bed.
"W-well... At least she listened to what I said and was okay with it, right...?"
"Even with your fast recovery, getting to the balcony is still dangerous. And who in the world would build a balcony there of all places...?"
I chuckled as I realized Yotsuhana-san was also wondering the same thing.
"It's gonna rain hard from noon later."
"Uh-huh, can I have a cup noodle for lunch, please? Eating it while it rains outside would make it taste so good."
Giving me a bitter smile, Yotsuhana-san could only sigh.
"Alright..."
"Oh, right. I wanna ask something."
Yotsuhana-san opened her eyes and turned to look at me, wondering what I was going to ask.
"That bed over there. Is someone sleeping?"
Yotsuhana-san looked at where my index finger pointed. She then nodded and started to explain.
"Yes, when you were sleeping last night, someone else was admitted to this room. It was a rather hectic situation, and she should've gotten one of the VIP room. But for some unknown reasons, she herself asked to be admitted to a two-person room instead, and this room ended up being the one chosen."
The VIP room, reserved for a patient per room for extra fee. But if I remember correctly, the VIP rooms in this particular hospital is really spacious and extravagant. Or maybe that's the reason why she didn't want the room. Maybe she didn't want to burden her families with unnecessary fee too.
"I see. So a girl, huh? That's surprising."
"Yes. And apparently she's your age. Who knows, maybe you two could be close."
"Hmhmm. I mean, if she's my age, then there's really no reason for me to just be quiet."
"Maybe this room can also be your fated room."
"Yotsuhana-san. Please..."
Yotsuhana-san gave me a little tease with a smirk on her face.
But being a teenage boy myself, there's a little bit of me who thought, no, kind of wanted that to be the case.
Boys are curious creatures, after all.
"Anyway, I'm going to go back to my desk now. Do eat your breakfast and notify me when you need something, as per usual."
"Got it~! Thanks, Yotsuhana-san!"
I opened my right hand and placed it in front of my forehead, making a gesture akin to that of a salute pose.
After giving me a smile, Yotsuhana-san walked through the door and closed it.
Silence once again filled the room as the window started to catch little droplets.
"Rain's starting, huh?"
I set my gaze on the curtains in front of me while sitting on my bed.
Having confirmed that a person did get admitted, I couldn't make much noise as I did for the past two days to let her sleep soundly.
I did find it weird for her to still be sleeping considering it's already near 9 in the morning.
But it was still morning nonetheless. Waking up a little bit late wouldn't hurt.
Besides, this is the hospital. She could've been experiencing something that made her sleep so soundly.
"Oh well. I'm gonna ask her after she wakes up."
I decided that thinking further wouldn't do anything.
I picked up the tray of my breakfast and started with the ham sandwich.
As expected of hospital food, it was not that great. But I didn't really have any choice, so I silently finished the whole food on the tray.
After I put down the tray on the table next to my bed, I picked up a sketchbook placed besides the tray.
"Now then..."
To spend the rest of the morning, I started moving the tip of my pencil on the sketchbook.
The droplets on the window started to increase as the rain outside becomes heavier.