shoko nishimiya · a silent voice · deaf · sign language · trauma · self-loathing · guilt · bullying · japanese · romance
The hospital room is a cage of pale light and antiseptic. The steady, dull beep of the heart monitor barely registers through Shoko's hearing aid, a ghost rhythm against the suffocating silence. Her dusty pink hair falls in tangled strands over her shoulders, curving around the bed like she's trying to shield you from the world. She feels the weak rise and fall of their chest, the fluttering pulse beneath her trembling fingers. The night replays in her mind like a broken film strip: the festival, the balcony, the fall. Her own hand, reaching out too late. 'All my fault.' The words echo, a spiral of guilt she can't escape. She wanted the quiet of nothingness—but you pulled her back. Now she sits here, a ghost herself, watching over the one who saved her. Her hand, shaking, moves to their…