I’ve always had an imaginary friend.

Well- I’m not sure if “imaginary” is the right word. I’m sure he’s real. And he’s sure I am, too. 

I’ve always had an imaginary friend. Until now.

-

The name at the top of my paper reminds me where I am. “Haruka Shiina”. It’s usually Shiina Haruka, but here in the States, I’m just as American as the rest of the nation is. America is fine. I like it just as much as Japan, though now I can wear whatever I want to school, and my name seems backwards. 

He’s around more. He notices me less. It’s a little depressing. 

His company is always appreciated- though I have close to no idea how he feels about me. It’s very odd how this works. The boy that appears in my field of vision, I mean. It seems like it happens at random, but he never appears when I don’t want him to. Or- not yet, anyway.  

I glance across the classroom to see his translucent presence. He’s been here about five minutes and still hasn’t noticed that I can see him. I’ve noticed that, whenever I can see him, he can see me. Is he choosing to ignore me…? I take in his shoulder-length choppy brown hair, frosted with magenta at the tips. Shortly after he dyed it magenta, I got the same dye job in red- a much larger contrast to my darker brown hair. 

I subconsciously roll the corner of my paper so it holds the loop when I stop. I keep my eyes on the translucent boy. I wish for all the world that I knew his name. I wish he went to this school. I wish I knew if he really existed. 

“Haruka.” A voice snaps me out of my wishful spiral. Who's calling me by my first name? “Are you even paying attention?” The teacher demands, trying to “teach” trigonometry. If only I cared.

“...yes, sir.” I lie. Obviously, he didn't like that.

“Don't mock me. Get out and come back when you learn some manners.” He snaps at me.

I instinctively get up and follow his instructions. He gets madder. Why? Since when was I mocking him? All I said was “yes sir”. I trudge out of the classroom, my mind cycling through everything but trigonometry.

A few weeks after that, parent-teacher conferences were held. Obviously, my parents wanted to see how I was doing in school, so they signed up and brought me with them.

The first teacher had some… squeamish comments to make about me. A “pleasure to have in class”, a “natural born leader”- which means they've been paying zero attention to me. 

Or so I thought. 

The one thing that all my teachers mentioned was my “unnatural distracted periods”, where they described me staring at a wall or a desk or something around the room instead of paying attention to the lesson. For the whole class period. I don't bother correcting them. After all, they're right. I tried to explain the boy that I often see, but they didn't seem to be having it. 

That summer, I found myself not in summer camp, but in a mental facility.

My parents were reluctant to send me here as well, but after recommendations from every single teacher I have (except my band director), they gave in. They brought me into the large building surrounded by tall fences that seemed difficult to climb. Not that I was going to try, but the thought crossed my mind a few times over the course of my “stay”. 

“Haruka… I’m still not sure this is the right decision.” My mother says anxiously. All that does is agitate me. I know she’ll still end up making me stay, and I know better than to talk back. I stay silent, as does my father. My mother doesn’t say anything else.

We enter the facility through the front gate, which needs to be opened by a mechanism from the inside of the building. It’s a tedious process. No one wants to be here, especially not me. But they don’t seem to care about that. What will they even accomplish with this…? Don’t most teenagers just get sent to a therapist or something? Would it be okay to ask?

I look up from the spot on the floor that I’ve been staring at like it was a riveting display. “Why am I here?” I notice that my parents left while I was zoned out. Without as much as a goodbye.

The woman doing my paperwork behind the desk in front of me looks up. 

“It says here… psychotic episodes.” She raises an eyebrow. “Is that wrong?”

I stand there for a moment trying to make sense of that. Surely spacing out in class isn’t a psychotic episode. 

“What…? Yes, it’s wrong! Who told you that?” I panic. 

She gives me a strange look, which quickly changes to one of practiced dehumanization. She doesn’t think I’m in my right mind. She’s not going to treat me like a person anymore. I can feel my heart pounding in every part of my body. This literally cannot be happening. 

“...many of your teachers included specific notes about periods of time where you-” She checks her papers again. “-spoke to the wall. Or an empty desk. Or the space right beside you. You don’t remember this?”

I stop. Well… at the beginning of the school year, I did try whispering to him when I thought no one could hear me. I wondered if- now that I was somewhere different- he could hear me. He couldn’t.

“...no,” I lie. She sees right through me. “Fine, yes, I talk to myself. Doesn’t everyone?”

“And you talk to yourself…” Her eyes flick over the papers, which have become a little less than perfect after so much shuffling through them. “...like you’re waiting for an answer?”

“I-I’m thinking. Just… thinking of an answer to my own question.”

She clearly doesn’t believe me. But I suppose it’s her job to, because she says, “Of course. Well. Then this won’t take long at all. We’ll keep an eye on you for a few days. If you don’t display any more signs of…” Those damn papers again. “Schizophrenia.”

I stop and relax, if only by a small margin. I didn’t expect to be able to go home after a few days. I clearly don’t have schizophrenia.

Two months in, and I’ve learned to stop looking at him. Stop looking for him. My eyes are bloodshot and have large bags under them. I look like a zombified version of myself. No one here talks to me. They’re all either here for anger issues or depression- no one exhibits “signs of hallucinations” like I do. In my free time, which is abundant, I busy myself with folding paper cranes. My hands have enough cuts on them that the nurses here think I’m doing it to myself. If they find out it’s from paper, I won’t be able to fold any more cranes. So I keep quiet.

The story of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes has always been a morbid favorite of mine. In the original, Sadako is plagued by leukemia, a result of the Hiroshima bomb radiation. Her friend tells her to fold a thousand paper cranes to get her wish granted- her wish was to become healthy again so she could be a runner. However, she dies too soon, having only folded 644 paper cranes. I like to think that, if she finished them, she would have gotten her wish. I want mine. My wish… I’m not completely sure what I want, if I’m being completely honest. It’s a little hard to choose with literally infinite opportunities out there. But I believe that I don’t have to put it into words. Instinctually, I know what I want, I’m sure. My head will figure it out for me when the time comes.

The environment I’m in is- shocker- less than ideal. The facility is small, full of bad-tempered teens, and honestly kind of abusive. Stay outside a minute too long, and you’re sedated and brought back inside. 

The walls are eggshell white and suffocating. It’s freezing. Not that I mind the cold, I just mind how… unfriendly it is, I guess. I just hope I’m out of here soon.