I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

“For Sony.” Hikari holds her knees in the crooks of her elbows. She
knows.
That Sony isn’t doing well right now. She knows it pains me as much
as it pains her.
“Can I ask you something?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“What is a life to you?”
“There is a medical definition,” I say. “Neo says there are too many
philosophical ones.”
“I didn’t ask for a definition. I asked what it is to you.”
What if I told you that I am not meant to be alive? What if I told her?
Do you think she’d understand?
Hikari’s earlier coldness resurfaces. “My parents think I’m throwing
my life away,” she says. “They say I don’t want anything worthwhile,
and when I
bring up the fact that they’ve never asked what it is I want, they call
me childish. My parents are logical. Their faith is expensive. It has to
be earned.
They believe scans, bloodwork, doctors, but whatever I’m feeling?
Whatever I say?” As if her parents are sitting across from her, a
barrier a table thick between them, she sighs. “It’s difficult to feel
heard by people who have no faith in your words.”
“They don’t believe you’re suffering?” I ask.
“It’s not that.”
Hikari’s fingers caress the scar from the crook of her shoulder to her
chest.