The distance from the coast to Atami Central Hospital wasn't a measurement of miles; it was the space I had to cross to reverse two years of arrested time. I ran, fueled not by endurance, but by a sudden, desperate influx of adrenaline—a chemical reaction necessary to defy the known laws of probability.
The seawater-saturated fabric of my school uniform clung to me, heavy and cold. It was meaningless, of course. My physical form had long since been relegated to the status of a delivery mechanism. My mind had only one objective, stamped with the certainty of an axiom: Jun was there. If this miracle was a cruel, final illusion, I would meet it. If it was the truth I had defended for 2 years, then the only acceptable trajectory was forward.
I sprinted. The familiar stretch of road was suddenly vast and punishing, but the collapsing dam of suppressed hope carried me. I burst through the automatic glass doors of the small, local hospital, leaving a glittering, chaotic trail of seawater on the sterile tiles. The air inside smelled of bleach, controlled anxiety, and the particular flavor of stale institutional coffee—the scent of predictable bureaucracy aggressively fighting the supernatural chaos I carried.
I was a soaking wet, seventeen-year-old out of place and out of breath. My hair clung to my pale face; my eyes must have looked red-rimmed and wild. I didn't stop. I spotted the entrance to the emergency area and slammed the double doors open.
"Where is the boy found on the beach? I need to see him!" I heard my own voice, raw and desperate, a sound I hadn't allowed myself to make in years.
A nurse intercepted me. She had that look of unflappable neutrality common to people whose job involves dealing with unpredictable human variables. I suppose a soaking wet high school girl screaming for a ghost wasn't even high on her list of abnormalities.
"Miss, you need to calm down. There is a patient, a minor, who was just brought in. You cannot go back here. Are you next of kin?"
Next of kin. That phrase was the final, petty obstacle. I had been his next of kin in spirit for my entire life, but the paperwork disagreed. I tried to push past, but her grip was surprisingly firm—the unyielding force of medical protocol.
"Let me go! I just need to see his face! Is he... is he Jun?" My two years of carefully manufactured composure shattered, replaced by raw, humiliating hysteria.
"We can only release information to the official guardian or next of kin," the nurse insisted, efficiently guiding me toward the waiting area. It was the clinical equivalent of being placed in a padded box until the hallucination passed.
Defeated by the simple authority of the clipboard and the white uniform, I let myself be guided to a cold chair. It instantly absorbed the water from my skirt, making me feel even colder. The running was over. The physical world reclaimed me. I shivered violently, my mind numb except for the need to verify the truth.
My fingers, barely working, fumbled for my phone to call the only people who would believe me.
"Mom? Get to Atami Central. Now. They found a boy. I... I think it's Jun."
The next twenty minutes were a temporal distortion. My parents arrived, horrified by the news and by the sight of their daughter—shivering, hair matted, and smelling unmistakably of the cold, desperate sea.
"He's alive," I whispered. The words sounded unreal, as if I had spoken them in a foreign language. "He's here. I just need to know. I need to see."
My father, wearing his usual suit of forced composure, stepped forward to address the young doctor who approached us. After all, the adult world needed an adult spokesperson.
The doctor delivered his clinical, neutral account. "We cannot confirm the identity of the minor patient at this time, as official dental and fingerprint records require time for processing. However, if you have any recent, photographs, we can use them for a quick visual confirmation."
Photographs.
The request hit me with the brutal irony of a cosmic joke. All my recent photos of him were on my phone—the device I had discarded into the very sea that had just performed the retrieval. The physical evidence had been destroyed by the mechanism of the miracle.
"I have it!" I stammered, pulling the cold, damp lump from my wet pocket. I pressed the power button frantically, but the screen remained black, unresponsive. It was working just twenty minutes ago. It had to be. "Wait, wait, not like this," I begged the device. "All of it... all the proof is in my phone. It has to turn on. Wait." Tears of pure, crushing frustration, not of grief, began to stream down my face.
My mother, the pillar in the Hanamura family, placed a calm hand on my shoulder. "It's alright, sweetheart. The phone is ruined. But I have them too."
She pulled out her own phone, the screen brightly displaying a cheerful, fifteen-year-old Jun—the ghost of the past clashing violently with the sterile present. The doctor studied the image.
"There is a strong resemblance. But the boy is clearly older now, and his skin is... unusual. Pale." He handed the phone back. "We cannot officially confirm the identity yet, but given the circumstances, we've moved him to a supervised room off the ICU after preliminary scans."
Pale. Of course he was pale. He had effectively traveled through time.
My father asked if we could see him, but the doctor insisted on stabilization. "However, given the identification crisis, we will allow one of you a brief, supervised visit soon for visual confirmation."
The next sixty minutes were an unbearable, singular point of agony. My wet clothes were now icy against my skin. I stared at the digital clock on the wall, watching the seconds bleed into minutes, my mind cycling between absolute certainty and terrifying doubt. What if the resemblance isn't close enough? What if my whole life was just a mistaken variable?
The silence was finally fractured when a different nurse appeared.
"Hanamura family? The patient is stabilized. We are ready for a quick visual confirmation now. One person only."
I didn't wait for my parents' consent. My heart had fought through the sea, the chaos, and the clinical resistance of the hospital. This confirmation was mine alone.
"I don't care about the guardian or the rules," I stated, rising from the chair. My voice had regained its terrifying, icy calm—the voice of the Silent Princess making an undeniable demand. I pushed past my startled parents and the nurse. "I have to see him. He came back for me." The story wasn't theirs to confirm; it was mine. I walked straight into the restricted hallway.