CH 55

“……Mmmm.”

When I opened my eyes, I saw something completely white. At the same time, I knew that I had apparently fallen asleep.

As I strained my arms to get up, my head throbbed and I frowned a little. As I looked around, I saw a small TV, a locker-like thing, and a few chairs, and I knew I was in a hospital room, a private room, because there was an IV hooked up to my arm.

Why am I here? What happened?

I asked myself these questions, but I couldn’t remember anything. Why am I here, what happened, who am I?

I tried to remember, but all I get is a headache and nothing comes to mind.

I looked around a little more carefully, trying to get a clue. Flowers and fruits that someone must have left behind. Among them, I find no clue as to who I am.

I looked a little more closely, wondering if there is really nothing there.

Then I see that hidden among the gifts is what looks like a smartphone. My body aches a little, but not so much that I can’t move.

I managed to pick up the phone and turn it on.

On the lock screen, there was a picture of four people, one boy and three girls to be exact.

There was a boy in the middle, and the girls lined up around him. All of them had well-defined faces, and two of them, the most mature one and the youngest one, looked so much alike that I wondered if they were sisters.

But that’s not the point. Is the boy pictured here me? That is the most important point. If so, I may be able to unlock that lock screen by some means. For now, it seems that facial recognition doesn’t work, so I’ll try fingerprint next. If it requires a password, there’s nothing I can do.

Hoping that it would work, I pressed the button with my thumb..

Then the lock screen is unlocked and the home screen opens. The fact that the screen is now open means that I’m the owner of this phone. Relieved for the moment, I search for an app where I can get some information about myself.

I find the Photos app and open it, hoping it might provide some information. Many of the recent photos were taken with the three people who were on the lock screen earlier, and they all looked like they were having fun. Sometimes there are two people who are different from them, and I wonder if they are friends or something, and I think about it for a bit.

These people were probably not related to me. They didn’t look too much like me (or someone else) in the picture.

At first, I narrowed it down to the ones that showed me and looked through the photos. After going back several months, I found another photo of a different person. This time, it was two boys and two girls. Except for one boy, the other three were good looking men and women, and the “one boy” had a dark look on his face. I wondered if it was my imagination that his face looked like my own face from earlier.

Not being able to get much information, I tilted my head and looked at the screen of my phone. Then there was a knock at the hospital room door.

“Excuse me.”

It seemed to be a nurse who entered the room. She stared at me in surprise.

After a few seconds had passed, the nurse, as if realizing something, shook her head, hurried out of the room, and ran somewhere.

“Doctorーー! Nanase san woke up!”

I heard such a voice as soon as she left, and I thought again. I wondered if my last name was Nanase. Nanase ……. ………… [Nanase]? I guess there are only a few kanji that seem to fit the bill. Even though I knew my last name, I couldn’t remember my first name, and I kept groaning for a while.