Rehabilitation-4
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”
The girl who had stopped vomiting kept apologizing repeatedly.
She apologized for breaking the rules and for ruining the shopping.
“It's okay. It doesn't hurt, does it?”
Noona kept patting the girl's back.
And she was thinking to herself.
Noona didn't think the girl had broken the rules.
She didn't want the girl to tell her she was in pain or that she felt bad...
The rules had been set exactly so that the girl wouldn't escape from her eyes on her own.
If she had an episode where Noona couldn't see it, it would be honestly unbearable.
So, the sudden reaction now was something she couldn't help.
But the girl didn't seem to think that way.
She kept lowering her head, apologizing, and struggling.
She couldn't speak properly, right.
Not really... No one had told her to speak properly.
She had said it was okay.
Noona swallowed a sigh at the sight of the girl shedding tears.
If she said it's okay here, the girl would probably blame herself again.
The only thing she could do was to comfort the girl until she calmed down.
“Hic, hic.”
Should I go to the smoking area now?
She seemed to like watching Noona smoke...
Noona had thought about that, but immediately shook her head left and right.
If it was really a dangerous situation, she would have considered it, but right now the girl was calming down well by herself.
If she accepted help with cigarettes or something, she might get addicted.
Noona, who thought she had to avoid that, wiped the girl's tear streaks and hugged her tightly.
Then the girl calmed down a bit faster than before, and soon started breathing gently.
Was she a little sleepy?
Noona thought about that, then slightly moved away and looked at the girl's face.
“Are you sleepy?”
“Yeah.”
The girl flinched at Noona's words, and Noona lightly hooked her finger on the girl's reaction.
The girl flinched when her pinky finger hooked, and nodded her head.
“Then, let's sleep a little in the car? Or shall we go to a comic cafe?”
Sleeping in the car is better than in the cafe?
These days, many people set up tents and use them as rooms instead of rooms.
Noona recalled the cafe she saw on the way and hugged the girl, and the girl closed her eyes in Noona's embrace and nodded.
“Want to go to the comic cafe?”
“Yeah, yes.”
The girl answered hesitantly.
The shopping had already gone to waste because of her, and because she was vomiting and suffering, they ended up in a place without schedule.
... It was unavoidable to keep the promise with Noona, but she felt guilty because of that.
The girl bit her lip.
She wanted to punish herself.
It wasn't to erase her mistakes or something, she just wanted to feel at ease.
“Ugh... Ugh...”
Dirty.
Because she didn't have the courage to apologize to Noona, she was self-harming alone, and using that to atone.
Really, really dirty.
The girl was breathing heavily.
Her stomach that had calmed down was turning again, and even though there was nothing to vomit, the impulse to vomit came up.
“Hah, hic!”
“Rin?”
“Ah, ah.”
The girl tried to hold back her breath at Noona's voice.
She couldn't vomit again.
She couldn't make Noona more nervous here.
The girl kept clenching Noona's fingers and chewing on the fact that Noona was beside her.
“Are you okay?”
“Okay...”
And she stopped trying to answer Noona's question immediately.
The promise came to mind.
The promise to honestly tell about how hard and painful it is.
To not fight with each other, at least in that part, she couldn't lie.
Thinking that, the girl bit her lip hard and hugged Noona's waist tightly.
“I'm... okay.”
Her heart was pounding.
She should have said she could handle it alone here to be a good person, but because of the promise, she said she was in trouble.
She said the words to become a bad person.
The girl wanted to scratch her throat.
She wanted to scratch the throat that spat out those words to punish herself somehow.
But self-harm would hurt.
It would break the promise with Noona.
“Gulp.”
What should she do?
To erase the contradiction filling her head, what should she do to feel okay?
The girl covered her mouth with trembling hands.
Her vision blurred, and her breathing was tight, pressing on her throat.
The hand covering her mouth slowly went down.
She wanted to choke her throat.
Unlike when she choked because she hated women's voices, she really wanted to die and wanted to choke.
“Rin.”
But Noona's hand came up and held the girl's hand.
“Thank you.”
“Hic.”
“Thank you for telling me. It must have been hard, you did well.”
And at Noona's words, the girl started hiccuping.
“Can you get up?”
“Hic, hic.”
“Shall I get you water?”
“Yeah, hic!”
The girl was surprised when Noona stood up.
Just a moment ago, she thought she had to die.
Since she couldn't be a good person, she thought she should die now to become less ugly.
But when Noona said thank you, her mind went blank.
She felt an indescribable emotion.
Was it happy?
It felt guilty to say so.
If she asked if it was sad, her chest was throbbing.
She didn't know.
She really didn't know.
What should she say to express the emotion...
The girl crouched over her own confusing emotions and unconsciously took a deep breath from the smoky scent of the coat.
“Hah, ugh...”
She didn't even notice the hiccups stopped, and continued breathing that way.
Every time, the tangled thoughts quickly unraveled, and the girl yawned belatedly.
She felt empty stomach, and her skin felt cold from the cold.
... Noona, she missed her.
“Ah.”
The girl was surprised at the emotion she felt.
Lonely.
She hadn't felt it when going to middle and high school for 6 years without a friend, and when she became independent and left her family's embrace.
But in just 5 minutes, she felt lonely?
The girl's mind tangled again.
“Ugh...”
But the current tangle didn't lead to self-harm.
“Rin.”
“Haru, Noona.”
What followed was action.
The girl jumped up from her seat when Noona came holding a PET bottle.
Her ankle tingled from suddenly exerting strength, but the girl didn't care and limped to Noona.
And she hugged Noona tightly.
It smelled of cigarettes.
Unlike the faint scent left on the coat, it was a strong smoky scent.
The girl buried her face in that scent and took a deep breath.
“Umm.”
Noona was surprised at the girl's sudden action.
She had been worried that she might be crying in the corner before going to buy water, but suddenly she actively hugged.
“Thirsty?”
“Yeah, ugh... No.”
“Then you want to go to the cafe?”
Still... it felt good.
The shoulders that had been raised from vomiting and not coming down started to lower.
The eyes that had been quickly scanning the surroundings fixed comfortably, and she stopped biting her lip.
Noona naturally smiled.
She didn't know the reason for the sudden change, but it was still a good change.
“I want to go.”
“Are you very sleepy?”
“Yeah. Yes.”
“It's fine, since you're close, let's go slowly.”
Noona walked slowly matching the girl's pace, and the girl felt her heart beating with Noona's consideration.
Every step, she felt her heart racing with the sound.
But strangely, her body felt at ease.
Her heart was beating loudly, her breathing was tight, but her body felt at ease.
It didn't seem like an attack was coming, and anxiety wasn't approaching.
What she felt was anticipation.
Anticipation for a comfortable rest, for the warmth to watch over her, for comfort...
Too many expectations came at once and tangled her head, but the girl didn't feel anxious and leaned her body on Noona.
There was no anxious look like when climbing to the observation deck.
The girl completely leaned on Noona.
When going to the nearby comic cafe from the underground shopping mall, when sticking too closely so the cafe staff looked at her suspiciously, when limping into the tent.
She dove into Noona's side with her body completely leaning, and immediately closed her eyes.
Her shoulders drooped and she was sleeping soundly.
Noona smiled faintly at the sight of the girl sleeping like a cat and stroked her head.
“Sleep well.”
It looked more comfortable than sleeping at home.
Noona felt a bit envious of the sight and lightly pinched the girl's cheek, then when the girl dug deeper into her arms, she hugged her shoulder.
“Yeah, Noona.”
The girl hugging Noona's waist while muttering in her sleep.
Now, treating her as a pillow, Noona smiled faintly, covered the comic book and hugged the girl.