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Today, Kanade wakes up to the feeling of black plastic keys jabbing into her cheek.
She cracks her eyelids open, just a sliver, letting in the bright white glare of her computer monitor, shining right in her face. She shuts them again shortly afterwards. Too bright.
Afterwards, she simply lays there for a few moments, completely motionless. Some part of her foggy brain can tell that she's just awoken from an extended period of sleep—but she somehow still feels so, so tired, despite that. She floats within the abyss.
A part of her wishes nothing more than to sink back into unconsciousness. To not have to be this kind of person, anymore.
(Just as always, she wants to disappear.)
But the rest of her knows she still has work to do. She can't disappear just yet.
(But does it even matter? Is she really saving anyone by doing this?)
At any rate, her desires are irrelevant: the tortured sack of flesh and bone that she calls a body is already waking up without her, even as she continues turning those thoughts over in her head. Nerves fire and neuromuscular junctions flare as the music-making apparatus spools up again.
(Welcome back to hell, Kanade.)
Her limbs are the first to come online, though they refuse to make any significant movements. They feel stiff and leaden and numb—and yet they somehow also ache all over, joints and muscles groaning in protest against their working conditions. Kanade herself groans softly in response, breath forced instinctively through disused vocal cords.
She opens her eyes again next, and as her eyes adjust to the LCD light, she soon realizes why her arms and legs ache: she passed out at her synthesizer again, face-down on the keys. One of her arms lies splayed out atop the instrument, joints left to rest at awkward angles; the other dangles limp at her side, fingers twitching ever-so-slightly as she returns to consciousness.
Her head lies on its side, atop her synthesizer's keys—which are still jabbing into her cheek—with her temple resting against the angled contours of the console above, and with a slight pool of drool left on one of the white keys below. The plastic is frigid, uncomfortable, and unforgiving (as it should be), though the ache from resting her head on it is dulled slightly by familiarity: this is far from the first time she's fallen asleep like this.
It will also be far from the last time she does this.
Mochizuki-san hasn't been able to come over for housekeeping lately.
This isn't her fault: the housekeeper had a particularly tough slew of exams the week before last, and she'd asked to take that week's housekeeping appointment off so she could focus on school. Then, the week after that, her family had gone on a vacation together, meaning she couldn't make it for housekeeping again.
It was all very understandable, really. Kanade had even encouraged Mochizuki-san to take those days off—the last thing she wanted was to force the housekeeper to put her life on hold.
Still, when taken all together, this means that Kanade has now been on her own for 19 days and counting.
(Eventually, there will be a lyricist with a heart of thawing ice and overflowing love in Kanade's life, and she will make sure that Kanade is never on her own, even in the dark times.)
(But that won't be for another two years.)
(For now, Kanade is alone.)
It's an uphill struggle for Kanade to muster the energy necessary to get up and peel herself off the synthesizer.
This isn't for lack of desire or motive; her brain is already screaming at her to get up and do your job, damnit, it's the only thing you have to do in this world and you're already fucking it up just like you've fucked up everything else in your life, but even so her muscles simply refuse to listen to her demands. Her body is just... slow. Sluggish.
(Tired. So, so, so tired. Please, make it stop...)
Whatever the problem is, it lies deeper in her brain—or perhaps in her heart—and it forces Kanade to take things slowly, even though she'd much rather get back to composing already. Once again, she curses herself for not being able to do this one simple fucking thing, god, she's an absolute disgrace and she should just kill herself already—
Still, there's nothing she can do about it for the time being, so she flicks her eyes over to look up at the curtains behind her synthesizer. The curtains are thick, but at the edges she can see a hint of deep orange light seeping out from underneath; the sun must be setting outside.
...that doesn't seem right to her. But why?
It takes a few seconds for her to dredge up the answer from her memories: if she recalls correctly... the sun had already set well before she passed out.
Oh, no. What time is it?
More importantly: what day is it?
This revelation is alarming enough to put a spark back into Kanade's body, and she quickly sits up, unsticking herself from the keyboard—
—and she winces, as the vertebrae in her spine express their deep displeasure at the sudden movement, and at her sleeping posture. Falling asleep like this, folded over atop the synthesizer, has put a crick in her neck and more than a few kinks in her back. Now, they are making themselves known—in the form of numerous sharp aches that flare up all across her back.
Ow, ow, ow! It hurts!
She pushes past the pain, though, and unlocks her computer—fumbling a bit with the password due to a numbness in her fingers—before checking the time.
Right now, it's 5:30 PM.
Meanwhile, she'd passed out earlier at just past six, so...
...so, she's been asleep for almost a full twenty-four hours. She lost an entire day, somehow.
She sighs deeply, wearily. All that time she could've spent composing, lost.
(This was inevitable. Prior to passing out, she'd been awake for close to 60 hours, composing almost nonstop; her body simply couldn't have kept going, and now it had rebounded after all those skipped REM cycles.)
As Kanade continues to stare dumbfounded at the clock, though, a dull ache in her stomach and a wooziness in her head begin to make themselves known. Right—her body needs food, probably. Maybe.
When was the last time she'd eaten?
There's a half-eaten cup of noodles sitting on her desk alongside the ever-present ocean of energy drink and soda cans, and she's pretty sure that was her last meal—but the noodles have long gone cold, and it's hard to recall when she'd actually eaten them.
The noodles were from... yesterday? No, from the day before that—sometime around four in the morning, the day before yesterday... maybe? It's a bit hard to say for certain, with how all the days in her life blend together.
Either way: she's pretty sure she hasn't eaten in over 36 hours, at the very least.
Hunger and a lack of energy force Kanade to get up. She can't compose with her head all fuzzy like this.
The muscles and joints in Kanade's legs and arms and neck and spine protest as she stands up. Everything hurts.
(She hates it, of course—hates living like this. Who wouldn't?)
Her legs definitely aren't capable of taking proper steps, in their current state, so instead she sort of shuffles to her bedroom door, wobbling a bit from lightheadedness. Discarded drink cans clatter and scrap music sheets crinkle as she pushes through the detritus littering the floor of her room.
(But even if she hates this, what can she do about any of it? She still has work to do. She still has to make things right. There's no escape.)
(Saving people is the only thing she has to live for. She has to make things up to her father.)
The hallways are clear, but there's another debris field spread across the floor of the kitchen, this one made from discarded noodle cup shrink wrap, microwave dinner boxes, and can lids. She nudges the mess aside with her feet as she continues her slow shuffle to the pantry.
(Mochizuki-san will have a lot to clean up, the next time she comes. Another burden Kanade has added to her pile.)
(The thought stabs at Kanade—god, she's a fucking abhorrent wreck—and she wonders why she can't do something as simple as keeping the floors clean. A child could probably do that much—why can't Kanade?)
When Kanade opens up the pantry, she finds it nearly empty. Not that it ever contained very much, to begin with—but now even the noodle cups are starting to run low. Hopefully Mochizuki-san will do some shopping for her; otherwise, another long, arduous trek to the konbini down the street awaits her.
Still, there's a few packages of noodles left, so Kanade grabs one. Peels away the shrink-wrap, opens up the lid. Pours in the water and flavoring packet. Microwaves it. Her thoughts wander as she goes through the motions on autopilot—routine burned into muscle memory after years of repetition.
(Years of this lifestyle lie in Kanade's past, already. Years more lie ahead, in her future. This is just one day in the course of infinity.)
She grabs a pair of chopsticks as the microwave works its magic, and a few minutes later, she has a cup of noodles ready to go. She takes a moment to rest against the counter, catching her breath—standing up must be messing with her blood pressure, again, or maybe it's just the gnawing hunger—before grabbing the noodle cup with both hands, and turning to shuffle back to her room.
Now that she's had some time to wake up, though, her brain has filled with thoughts about music and composition; she's already busy thinking about what she'll do, when she gets back in front of her computer—
—which means she's too distracted to notice the discarded plastic wrapper on the floor in front of her, before it finds itself beneath her foot.
Kanade immediately slips and loses her balance, falling backwards against a nearby wall with a light thump. The wall at least keeps her from toppling—but it does not keep her from spilling the still-steaming bowl of noodle soup all over the front of her shirt, and ow it BURNS AAAAAAAAA—
Kanade at least has the presence of mind to put the noodle cup down on the kitchen counter, before shuffle-stumbling to the bathroom in a blind panic.
(HOT HOT HOT HOT—)
She practically rips her track jacket and now thoroughly soup-soaked shirt off, just to get the burning-hot liquid away from her, before frantically throwing cold water from the sink onto her skin to wash the rest of the soup off. Then she dries herself off with a nearby towel,
and suddenly it's over, as quickly as it started.
The excitement fades, and a wave of exhaustion hits her.
That was probably more movement than she's done in the past few days combined—not to mention the adrenaline and surprise caused her heart rate to skyrocket. And she still hasn't actually eaten yet, either.
She's just... so tired...
She sits down on the edge of the nearby bathtub—and then thinks better of it a moment later, and slides off to sit on the floor instead, with her back to the tub and the towel draped over her like a blanket. She remains there for a few moments to catch her breath, staring at the wall blankly as the last of the adrenaline fades away.
...
...she still smells like soup. The aroma is overwhelming, even after having washed the broth off.
She's used to smelling like this, though—the soup scent always gets stuck in her hair whenever she eats these noodles. And it's hardly the only smell in the air, either: it's mixed in with the smells of built-up sweat and body odor and energy drinks and soda and god knows what else. Kanade can tell she smells absolutely awful right now.
For that matter, she can't remember the last time she showered.
She should probably take one now.
But...
...but, she doesn't exactly have the energy to get up and do it, at the moment, does she? Even just thinking about doing something as intensive as showering fills her with exhaustion. And besides, it'd take time away from composition.
(Personal hygiene will have to wait for a few days—until Mochizuki-san's next visit, when she gently coaxes Kanade into taking a shower.)
(And when she does, Kanade will have a minor breakdown beneath the running water. As far as Kanade is concerned, Mochizuki-san's kindness would be far better spent on someone who doesn't reek of soup and sweat and sin.)
For that matter, sitting upright is proving to be rather taxing as well. Kanade slowly starts to slump as she sits against the bathtub, her back gradually sliding down the porcelain. Like a music box winding down, slowing and slowing.
Eventually, she slides down all the way, and is left lying flat on the cold, hard tile floor of the bathroom, overwhelmed by exhaustion—a tiredness set deep into body, mind, and soul.
(Tired, tired, tired. Always so tired.)
As Kanade stares up at the ceiling, a million little phantom aches and pains begin to make themselves known, blooming across her body—various parts of herself just hurting all of a sudden, for no apparent reason. Not to mention her stomach is still aching for food, too.
(Other people in her shoes might ask what they did to deserve this—but Kanade already knows the answer to that question.)
Looking at things objectively, this is just a day like any other for Kanade, really.
All that's happened thus far is that she's woken up atop her synthesizer, and spilled a bit of soup on herself. That's all. It really isn't that big of a deal.
(This is pathetic. Why is she like this?)
But still—Kanade has a sudden moment of clarity, down there on the bathroom floor:
This is her life, in its entirety.
This is it. This is all.
Her world does not exist beyond her her trash-filled room, her kitchen, and her bathroom. Time is meaningless, because every day and every waking moment is the same: eat, sleep, compose, eat, sleep, compose, eat, sleep, compose.
Her parents are gone. Her grandmother is too, for all intents and purposes. She has no friends except for maybe Mochizuki-san, and she's thrown away any other chances she had to make friends, too. She is alone.
Her body is breaking down day-by-day, falling apart at the seams because she can't muster the willpower to live. If she had any dreams or plans for the future, they disappeared when her dad went to the hospital. She has no ambitions beyond her unattainable goal of writing a song that will save someone. She has nothing more than her synthesizer and her obligations. She is a failure, in every sense of the word.
There is nothing Kanade can look forward to in her life, other than this.
The view from down here—lying defeated on the floor of her bathroom, staring up at a blank ceiling—is a view into her future.
Another girl perhaps could've processed the grief in a healthier way.
But Kanade didn't. Instead, she locked herself away inside her house, and sank into the abyss. Drowned in it. Everything she had, all the love her parents gave her and all of the hopes they passed on to her—all of it, she threw away, in favor of becoming a modern-day hermit.
Maybe Kanade is to blame for her father's collapse. Maybe she isn't. (No, she definitely is.)
But everything after that—the isolation, the stagnation, the misery on repeat? She knows she only has herself to blame for that.
(And now it is all she has left.)
And now, Kanade lies on the floor, amidst the ruins of her life, and realizes: this is where she will die.
It's not a desire. Merely a fact.
She doesn't want to die, not really; she really would prefer to live, if given the choice. (And perhaps there's a part of her that wishes someone would save her, too.)
But this is unsustainable. She is unsustainable—incapable of maintaining her own survival. Her death is inevitable, in light of her complete failure to do anything, up to and including composing music; it is simply a logical conclusion, as self-evident and incontrovertible as one and one making two.
She wonders how long it would take for people to even notice, if she disappeared. Days, probably.
For that matter, would anyone care? Probably not.
But that's her fault, too.
Eventually, Kanade picks herself up off the bathroom floor, takes what remains of her noodles back to her room, and continues working. Continues composing. Continues trying to save people.
26 hours later, she goes to sleep again.
And then she wakes up the day after that, in the same bedroom she's locked herself inside for the past few years. Her synthesizer and her obligations await. There is nothing else for her. The cycle continues.
She wakes up to the feeling of black plastic keys jabbing into her cheek, and she does this all over again.
(Welcome back to hell, Kanade.)
Elsewhere in Tokyo, Saki Tenma looks out the window of her hospital room. She wishes she could go back to school and be with her friends again. She wishes to be able to live freely again, beyond the confines of this sterile white hospital room she's been stuck inside for the past few years.
Eventually, her wishes will be granted. She'll get better, leave the hospital, reunite with her friends, and catch up on all the things in life that she missed while she was sick.
If she wakes up sprawled across her synthesizer, it will be because she chose to nap on it, not because she passed out after using it for 60 straight hours.
Kanade, on the other hand, will remain stuck for much, much longer. There are no doctors here. No cures.
Her high school years will vanish into an abyss. Life will fly by without her.
A nurse will come, eventually, to discharge Kanade from her home. But not yet. Not for a long time.
Two years later, Kanade meets a girl who needs to be saved.
Over the course of a year spent helping her, Kanade catches a glimpse of life on the outside: the world outside of her house, outside of music composition. She learns something of what it is like to not be alone. She peeks into the day after infinity.
But still, Kanade does not escape. Not fully. The ruins of her old life continue to haunt her, chain her. She does not know how to live outside of them.
The cycle continues. She wakes up, day in and day out, and every day she finds her synthesizer and her obligations waiting for her.
She does not move forward.
One day, Luka asks Kanade a simple question: if you no longer had to make songs for Mafuyu... what would you do?
And that question terrifies Kanade to her core, because the only answer she can think of is to return to her old life, once more.
She's still trapped amidst the same ruins as always. The cycle will continue.
Nothing awaits but her synthesizer and her obligations.
Tomorrow, she will wake up to the feeling of black plastic keys jabbing into her cheek.
(See you back in hell, Kanade.)