Patient name: Tobirama Senju

Date of birth: 25/04/1995

Journal entry: 20/08/2023

Currently: Ward staff meeting, all doctors and ward staff who work daytime this week present. Police has informed the ward that the patient's boyfriend is dead. Patient has not yet received this piece of information. The reason of this meeting is to establish when and how patient is to be told. Patient is distressed as he hasn't heard from his boyfriend in two days, has contacted police after one day (the day before today's date) who started a search party. They have found his body underwater beneath the Thomson bridge. Primary suspicion is suicide. All doctors are in agreement patient must be told. Nurse Steven will deliver the news. All participants are in agreement when meeting ends. 

I smiled up towards the sky.

My first.

My first walk alone this round.

It was just an hour ago Izuna left, and I felt something within me had shifted. I can do this. I can turn this around.

A wave of happiness surged through my body as I realised the magnitude of what this meant. All of our dreams. All of our dreams we'd weaved together during endless nights when we had laid together in bed, or texted about from separate beds, creating the most beautiful carpet through said weaving that would be the foundation of our life together. A life that was built not on need but on want, that was stable and healthy and fulfilling. I saw us dancing together, him taking the lead, on a tropical beach under a starry sky where the moon encircled our dance. He smelled of warm flowers and alive skin, and we kissed, newlywed, happier than ever.

I loved that world. And I loved realising that I could achieve it. I looked up on the moon in this world. It needed to rest. But not in that world. In that world where we danced underneath the tropical sky, the moon did not need to rest but soared through the sky endlessly, never tiring of its world or its life because he was in it.

When it happened, I was sitting in the couch in the dayroom of the ward reading my book, Origin by Dan Brown.

I was deeply engrossed in it, absorbing all of the information it shared, learning new things, trying to figure out who the bad guy was. I had a good guess, and I couldn't wait to reach the conclusion to see if I was right, and then brag about it to Izuna although he was lightyears smarter than I was and also, I had noted, had a tendency to always guess how books would end even before reading half of them.

I hadn't noticed the hours that had passed as I turned pages. I hadn't noticed the movement of the moon outside the window of the dayroom. I hadn't noticed anything in particular. But suddenly, my heart fell. There was no other way to describe it. My heart just fell.

I had learned from Izuna, that seemed to be an endless cornucopia of knowledge, that the heart was not to the left of the body, as was popularly believed, but mid-line. Although it was bigger to the left, requiring thicker muscle walls as the left side of the heart pumped blood through the entire body, whereas the right side pumped blood only to the lungs. The result of that was that your heart took up bigger space on the left side of your chest cavity than on the right. But from its attachments in the mid-line of my chest my heart fell, through my diaphragm and further to my stomach.

And out of my body.

It all went so quickly, I didn't even have time to react until it was over, just like you pulled your hand away from the stove before noticing the burning sensation. I sat up violently, drawing breath as if I woke up from a nightmare where I had been without lungs.

"Tobirama, what's wrong?" another patient asked, looking at me worriedly.

My hand had flown to my chest, as if trying to capture my heart. I was panting, desperately trying to decrease my heart rate back to normal.

"Nothing", I said. "I'm fine."

I furrowed my brows, leaned back on the couch.

I tried reading my book but I couldn't focus. 

I couldn't rest.

I walked back and forth, back and forth, my mind spinning into a vortex that kept changing direction.

I wondered where my thoughts went as they disappeared into said vortex.

I tried to force myself to sit down, but then I just started fiddling with my hands. I hated that, so I stood up again, paced. I tried reading my book while pacing, but I kept walking into things so I stopped that as well.

It was one hour ago since I contacted the police. Then, exactly twenty-four hours had passed since I heard from him. He had read my message immediately as I sent it, but then not responded. That wasn't unusual, and it didn't worry me as I knew Izuna sometimes needed time to process my messages and figure out what he wanted to say. And my message had been so heartfelt, so emotional, so raw that I was entirely prepared that he would need even more time than usual.

But when he hadn't responded by midnight, I decided to call him. And that's when I had realised something wasn't right. Not only did he not pick up, but the signal of the phone didn't come through.

I hadn't been able to sleep all night. I had phoned him several times an hour. I had cried. At one point, I had started screaming, and Steven had come in and put his hand on my shoulder and ice cubes wrapped in a thin kitchen towel. I calmed down within twenty minutes. I asked Steven if we could phone the police. That was when he told me that a person is considered missing when they've been unreachable within twenty-four hours. An eternity from then.

"We need to go to his house", I said. "Now!"

"I need to ask for permission-"

"My previously suicidal boyfriend is missing", I said, my voice ice cold.

"I know, but-"

"You know they won't let me out. You know there's no way in hell they'll let me go to Izuna's home. I have his keys." I thought about how happy I had been when he gave them to me. Never had I thought I would use them for this reason.

Steven looked at me. I stared back at him.

Then, he fished his car keys out of his pocket.

"If you tell anyone about this, I'll fuck you up bad."

I was eternally grateful for him.

Izuna wasn't home.

The relief I felt was indescribable. Of course, I would have preferred if he was there, cooking for himself, or watering his plants, looking up at me with a surprised expression as I came in.

"Sorry", he would say. "My phone died and I can't find my charger. I was just going to finish this and then come visit you!"

I had no idea why he would be cooking or visiting me in the middle of the night, but it was my fantasy, so I was allowed to make him do whatever the fuck I wanted. Although out of all options, him not being home at all was far better than finding him dead, in a pool of his own blood or hanging from the ceiling. I walked around his apartment in a frenzy, looking for clues, until Steven stopped me.

"Tobirama, calm the fuck down", he said, his way of speaking leaving no doubt that he was here not as my care provider, but as my friend. "Go through this systematically. Are his shoes here?"

Izuna wore the same pair of dressed black sneakers wherever he went, not liking the sensation of new shoes. I basically turned his hallway upside down looking for them.

"No", I said.

"Jacket?"

"It's still hanging here."

"Hmm..." Steven said.

I furrowed my brows. It was too cold to go without a jacket at this time of night. I felt all strength drain me, and I sat down, hiding my face in my hands. Steven sat next to me, put his arm around me.

"What do we do now?" I asked.

"We go back to the ward and wait until we can get help from the police."

We went back to the ward. 

The time between arriving at the ward and being able to contact the police was agony but finally, we had made the call, me speaking, Steven next to me as support. His shift was over, but he stayed. He stayed for me. Now, I was waiting for any piece of information from them. Steven had left me to go speak to the other staff, leaving me alone with my thoughts. It was awful, my mind going in a frenzy about where Izuna could be, what could have happened, when he would be back. Calm down, I tried to tell myself. Calm down. It's fine. It's going to be fine, there's an explanation, there's got to be an explanation, there's-

"Tobirama. Sit down."

I looked up. It was Steven, having come back to my room. I hadn't noticed I had started pacing like crazy, breathing through gritted teeth, my hands in my hair. I did as Steven said, sat down on my bed, hid my face in my hands.

"Tobirama..."

And I understood that Steven hadn't asked me to sit down so I could calm myself, but because he had news.

I looked up at him.

His face was drenched in tears.

If I said I had known it, that I was prepared, that would have been a lie. My heart and soul had clambered on to every last ounce of hope. I wasn't prepared at all. Not even a little bit.

No...

"How?" I asked, and my voice cracked.

"He jumped", Steven whispered. "Izuna jumped from the Thomson bridge."

My mind went into a vacuum. It couldn't process this piece of information. That he had gone to the same bridge where I had tried to end my life twice, and succeeded in what I had failed to do both times.

"He's dead", Steven whispered. "Izuna is dead."

And I knew Steven was lying because Izuna was alive, alive and breathing and laughing and spreading his new, bubbly personality all around him in that way only he could to colour my life. How dare Steven? How dare Steven lie about such a thing? How dare Steven lie about Izuna being dead when Izuna was alive? I was suspended in time for just a moment before I lunged at him, lunged at the man who had not only become the most trusted nurse for me but also my closest friend except for my boyfriend, lunged at the cheating liar who tried to ruin my life by telling me that Izuna was dead and was never, ever coming back, that I was never, ever going to speak to him again.

It took a long time for me to register my screams, as if my world had been sunk into a different medium that slowed the sound waves down, making the speed of sound a fraction of what it usually was so the time between my screams being emitted from my mouth to it reaching my ears was an eternity. I saw flashes of red as I beat my friend, leaving trails of blood and spit and teeth all around me. The rage I felt was white-hot, indescribable, the pain I felt just as. Steven deserved more than to be beaten, I thought. Steven deserved to die.

"Tobirama!"

Steven deserved to die for telling me such a lie about the person I love the most.

"Tobirama, that's enough!"

Steven needed to be beaten so that what he told me was rendered untrue, so that Izuna could come back to me. Izuna wouldn't come back to me until I killed Steven.

"Tobirama, stop it!!"

I turned around and there he is, in all his height, his hair a glorious black so dark it absorbed all light to create a halo around him, and he was looking at me sternly, upset I had beaten our mutual friend, urging me to stop.

"Izuna..." I breathed. 

"Tobirama, that's enough."

And the image of him dispersed and disappeared, and in front of me stood not Izuna but another nurse, and as soon as I stopped hurting my friend I felt a pair of strong arms grab me from behind to prevent me from going berserk again, and as the nurse who had urged me to a stop stepped in to take care of the bloody mess on the floor that was Steven, I felt myself calm down, resting in the fact that Izuna was, in fact, not dead but alive, that there had been a mistake and that he would show up any minute now with an entire bouquet of sunflowers and a promise of eternal life with him by my side. 

The hardest part was having no clue as to why. That there was no text. No note. No voice message. Nothing to explain why he had turned so suddenly, and ended his life. I would never know. I would never know whether something had suddenly happened, or if it had been within him this entire time.

He can't lie, I reminded myself. He said he was happy and he can't lie.

Then, I realised that if that was a lie in itself, the entire notion that he couldn't lie was pointless.

The first days, I existed in a confused state of denial. I didn't know, even deep down, that he was dead. I was genuinely waiting for him to show up.

And he did. Multiple times. When I lay sleepless to lay next to me in bed and hold me. When I couldn't eat to come in with a tray of food to feed me. When I couldn't get into the shower to get me there and carefully wash me. He was there.

But then, I would snap out of it and realise that he wasn't, in fact, there. That I was still waiting.

And I kept waiting.

"Do you want to see his body?" a nurse asked but I didn't understand the question as you only called it a body if the person it belonged to was dead.

"Izuna isn't a body. He's my boyfriend."

"Do you want to meet your boyfriend?" the nurse corrected herself mildly; a way more appropriate question.

I declined.

It was the consultant who had permitted me and Izuna to go out that first time, the grey lady, that convinced me. She succeeded by just ordering me to go do it, leaving me no option. In my auto-pilot state, I did as she said. I went to see my boyfriend.

I didn't see my boyfriend. I only saw a hand. I furrowed my brows, wondering where the rest of him was because as the blanket covering him was just a tiny shape beneath the blanket, not Izuna's tall body at all.

And that's when it struck me.

That's when it truly struck me why I saw only a hand and why it wasn't attached to his entire body.

Izuna is in pieces. My boyfriend is in pieces and this is just one meaty chunk of him. Izuna is dead. My boyfriend is dead and my heart is in pieces just like he is. He shattered my heart into a thousand bits as he hit the surface underneath the bridge and killed himself.

I fell down to my hands and knees and screamed.

I had no idea what had happened to Steven. He had just disappeared one day. I thought about him a lot. I finally asked another nurse about it.

"What happened to Steven?" I asked.

The nurse furrowed her brows.

"He... He's in hospital."

I was taken aback.

"Why?" I asked, worried.

The nurse furrowed her brows.

"Because you-" She stopped herself, as if realising something. "He- There was an accident", she finally said.

My heart was already in pieces so it couldn't shatter again.

"How bad is it?"

She didn't respond.

There was nothing to describe the sadness. Nothing at all. And even if there had been I didn't have the energy for a description.

I cried myself to sleep every night.

I woke up screaming.

I had so much chest pain I was sent to the ER twice to check it.

I forgot to eat and drink.

And I googled.

I googled a lot.

I googled time travel, writing letters that I dreamed of giving to him when I met him again after time travelling. I googled about people who had died and come back to life to see whether there was an afterlife and wrote letters for that scenario as well. I did all sorts of other crazy things.

But one thing I didn't do was trying to kill myself.

I had thought about it. Of course I had. Because even if there was no afterlife, even if I would not meet him, the fantasy of escaping the pain brought so much relief, I felt my heart click into place. But still, I didn't try. Not because I didn't have the possibility in the ward, especially now when they were keeping an extra eye on me. But because I had come to realise that I no longer wanted to die.

I kept talking to the doctors. I was given trauma consultation. I took my medicine. I cried. I wrote my letters to my dead boyfriend. I existed in a black void, as if underwater, but it wasn't impossible. Somehow, I did it. I pushed through. Day after day, I pushed through.

And then one day, they wrote me out. I hadn't noticed I had gotten better, but I must have because they actually wrote me out. And I was too numbed to feel anything about it other than strangeness, as if I had felt all of my feelings when my boyfriend had died and had nothing left within me to feel.

I didn't fight it. I didn't argue against them. I didn't feel scared, or stressed, or relieved, or excited. I just was. I just was in the world where I no longer needed psychiatric in-patient treatment, where I wasn't depressed, where I didn't want to die, where I was filled with so much longing it felt as if though I would die in pure, distilled sorrow.

I just was in a world where Izuna didn't exist.

And the moon was still in the sky.

And it was so strange to me that it had not yet fallen down, that it still had the stamina to stay up, not being allowed its underwater rest. 

I wondered if I came down from the sky and lay to rest beneath the water, would the water that touched my surface ever be the same water that had touched Izuna's dead body?

At some point, if I rested for long enough, it would be.

At least in some parallel universe, it would be.

I was okay.

Somehow, I was okay.