I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

“Did you steal it?”
Hikari is a patient, and from the glossy white band on her wrist, she’s
going to be here for a while. This can only go one way: We keep
exchanging these pleasantries. I offer to help however she may
need. She accepts a bit and declines most. Then we part ways and
become backgrounds to each other.
That’s how it always goes. That’s how the part of me that’s terrified
of her needs it to go.
“Would you like me to show you around?” I ask, recoiling, trying to
stare at the ground instead of at her. “I could show you the cafeteria
or the gardens?”
Hikari laughs, three beats worth, roaming the roof with a slow,
coquettish step.
“No,” she says.
“No?”
“No, I’m not a fan of small talk,” she says. Her baggy white t-shirt
doesn’t quite fit, and the skirt that bares her legs flows with the wind
as her hair trickles like liquid gold down to her forearms. There,
bandages conceal her from wrist to elbow, and though I want to ask
what led her to the hospital, Hikari has other plans.
“I have an agenda,” she says. “Not to mention, I like exploring one
thing at a time.”
“You’re exploring the roof?”
“I’m exploring you.” Hikari hooks her chin on her shoulder, her
mischief grinning back at me. “Didn’t you know, Sam? People have
stories written on them, around them, in their past, in their futures. I
like to unravel them.”