The hospital room smelled sterile and faintly of disinfectant. A weak humming emanated from the monitors flickering next to the still body on the bed. Oka Nobuyuki. His face was pale, almost peaceful in the artificial sleep. Every evening, when my shifts at university were over and the stuffy air of the lecture halls was behind me, I came here. It was… complicated.

  Guilt was the first word that came to mind when I saw him like this. A leaden weight in my chest that intensified with each of his motionless breaths. I had hit him. Indirectly, yes, the other driver had lost control, but I had been part of that illegal, stupid race. If I hadn't been there…

  I sat down on the uncomfortable chair next to his bed. The silence of the room was oppressive, broken only by the soft beeping of the machines. It felt as if time passed more slowly here, each second stretching infinitely.

  "Hello, Nobuyuki," I whispered softly. As if he could hear me. But I did it anyway. It was a compulsion, a need to fill this silence with my voice, to tell him about my day, as a kind of… penance?

  The university day had been tough. An endless lecture on medieval literature, during which my thoughts kept wandering. To him. To this pale boy whose life I had so abruptly changed that night. I had barely listened; the professor's words had been like a distant noise.

  After that, the job at the café, the usual stress with impatient customers and complicated orders. Money was tight, always tight. It barely covered the rent, the tuition fees, the food. My family in the countryside couldn't support me much. They had their own livelihoods.

  And then there were the races. The adrenaline rush, the brief phase of freedom when I sat behind the wheel, felt the speed, had control. It was stupid, I knew it. Dangerous. But it had felt… liberating. An escape from the confines of my everyday life. Now it just felt like monstrous stupidity that had caused infinite suffering.

  I took a deep breath and began to tell him about a strange fellow student who always sat in the library with a plush bunny. Ridiculous details, trivial observations. But I had to talk. Tell him. Tell someone.

  Sometimes I wondered if he felt something, heard something. If any part of his consciousness registered my words. I tried different music genres from my phone, carefully holding the headphones to his ears. Jazz, classical, the latest J-Pop song. No reaction. Just the monotonous beeping of the monitors.

  "I'm really sorry, Nobuyuki," I whispered again, my voice breaking slightly. The guilt was like a constant shadow following me. I was alone here in this huge city. My friends at university only knew the facade of the diligent student. No one knew about the races, about the desperation that sometimes overcame me. And no one knew about the terrible accident. Until now. His parents knew. And they looked at me with a gaze… cool and full of unspoken accusation.

  I carefully brushed a loose strand of hair from his forehead. He looked so young, so peaceful. A normal high school student who got good grades, who had friends. Whose life I had so brutally interrupted.

  "I… I didn't want to hurt you," I breathed into the silence. "I didn't want to hurt anyone."

  The night progressed, the shadows in the room grew longer. I remained seated, talking softly, telling him about my loneliness, my fears, the vague hope that he would wake up one day and maybe… maybe forgive me.

  Sometimes, when I lay awake at night, I saw the scene over and over again. The glaring headlights, the roar of the engines, my own shock, the brutal force of the impact. It was like a movie playing endlessly in my head, and I was the main actress in a nightmare from which there was no awakening. The guilt was a constant companion, a weight on my chest that took my breath away. At university, I smiled, pretended to be focused, but inside there was only this gnawing certainty: It's my fault this boy is lying here.

  My loneliness in this city had already been a silent scream before. I had moved here to study, to have a better life than what the countryside could offer me. But friendships were hard to make, and my past, my family circumstances… there was a distance I involuntarily put between myself and others. Nobuyuki's condition only intensified this isolation. I had no one I could truly confide in.

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  The races… it had been more than just money and adrenaline. It was a moment of liberation, an illusion of control in a life that often felt like it was sweeping me away. When I sat behind the wheel, it was just me and the machine, the speed, the rush. For a brief moment, I was someone else, someone strong, independent. Now, that rush tasted only of bitter regret.

  I watched Nobuyuki. His calm breathing, the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Sometimes his eyelids twitched slightly. Was he dreaming? Did he hear something? I clung to every tiny sign, every imperceptible movement, as if it could give me an answer, a hint of forgiveness. But there was nothing. Only the silence.

  His parents came every other day. Their faces were marked by worry, their voices quieter than usual. They thanked me politely for my presence, but in their eyes lay reproach, a silent question. They didn't know who I really was, what role I played in this misfortune. And I couldn't bring myself to tell them. The fear of their contempt was too great. His little brother, Kiyoshi, looked lost and scared, clinging to his mother's hand.

  Shigeo talked incessantly, trying to create a normal atmosphere, but his forced cheerfulness seemed fragile. Emiko's silent sympathy was almost harder to bear. Her gentle glances seemed only to reflect my guilt more clearly.

  Every evening, I fought with myself before coming here. Should I stay away? Would my presence only make things worse? But then there was this compulsion, this unbearable burden of responsibility that drove me back to his bedside again and again. I had to tell him, even if he couldn't hear me. I had to confess my guilt, at least in the silence of this sterile room.

  Sometimes I was on the verge of confessing everything. To his parents, Shigeo, Emiko. The truth about the races, about my role that night. But fear held me back. Fear of the consequences, of the contempt, of causing him, his family, even more suffering. So I remained silent, speaking only to the unconscious boy whose life was so tragically linked to mine. Hoping that my whispered words would eventually find an echo in the shadows of his coma.

  The days blurred into a monotonous sequence of university, part-time job, and silent visits to the hospital. Every evening was a struggle with my conscience, an inner monologue of guilt and remorse. Sometimes, when Nobuyuki's mother was there, she tried to start a conversation with me. Her questions were careful, tentative, but I felt the unspoken accusation in her eyes. "You seem very concerned about our son, Kasumi-san," she said once with a gentleness that was almost more painful than open hostility. What should I reply? That I was the one whose reckless actions had put him in this bed?

  Once, I met Shigeo and Emiko together in the waiting room. Shigeo was unusually quiet, his usually lively eyes dull. Emiko gave me a weak smile, a gesture of politeness that reached no warmth. They looked me over, asked how Nobuyuki was doing, and the silence that followed was deafening. I felt their questions, their suspicion. Who was this strange girl sitting by his bed every evening? What did she want?

  In my mind, I imagined confessing the truth to them. The words formed in my head but never crossed my lips. The fear of their reactions, the thought of how their gazes would change, paralyzed me. It was cowardly, I knew it. But the truth felt like an abyss that would swallow everything.

  One evening, as I sat by Nobuyuki's bed as usual, quietly telling him about an interesting lecture on Japanese mythology, I heard a soft voice behind me. "Excuse me… Kasumi-san?"

  I jumped and turned around. A young girl stood hesitantly in the doorway. She seemed unsure, her eyes darting nervously between me and the unconscious Nobuyuki. My breath caught. Was that…?

  "I'm Hana," she said softly, stepping closer. "I… I was there too. That night."

  My heart began to race. Hana. The girl who had tried to save him. Her eyes were still marked by deep shock, but there was also a kind of quiet strength in her gaze.

  "I'm sorry," I finally managed, my voice trembling slightly. "I'm so sorry about what happened."

  Hana nodded slowly. "It was… terrible. I tried…" Her voice broke off.

  We stood there silently for a while, the quiet of the room broken only by the beeping of the monitors. A storm raged in my thoughts. What did Hana know? Had she seen me? Would she mention my role in the races?

  "I visit Oka every evening," I finally said, breaking the silence. "I… I feel responsible."

  Hana looked at me attentively. Her gaze was searching, but not accusatory. "He was… he didn't deserve what happened to him."

  "No," I whispered. "He didn't."

  In that moment, I felt a tiny sense of relief. For the first time since the accident, I was talking to someone who had been there that terrible night. Someone who might understand a piece of my burden. But at the same time, there was also fear. What would Hana do next? Would she bring the truth to light?

  I looked over at Nobuyuki, his pale, peaceful face. What would he say if he knew we were both standing here, two strangers connected in such a tragic way?

  The encounter with Hana threw my already confused feelings into even more turmoil. The guilt remained, but there was also a new complexity, a connection to someone who shared the trauma of that night. And the anxious question of what this encounter would mean for the future.