“My body is a cage that keeps me
From dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key”

When Sana woke up, her body ached. It felt sore and she felt weak like she hasn't moved for days – maybe, she hasn't. Her bleary eyes blinking to adjust to the light and she had to close them again, it's too bright.

When she opened her eyes again, she found herself in an unfamiliar room with white walls and the air reeked of sterile halls. The soft sound of people moving about and the chattering outside as the phones ring, it didn't take long for Sana to know she was in the hospital. She frowned and tried to adjust herself, her back aching from lying down for...how long has she been here?

It didn't take her long to notice that somebody else was with her, asleep by her bedside in a position that didn't look all that comfortable. A girl with blonde hair, lightly snoring as she held onto Sana's hand like if she let go, Sana would disappear.

The girl was pretty, from what she could see but it didn't really matter and Sana pulled her hand away, feeling the growing discomfort that somebody (a stranger) was holding her hand for god-knows how long. However, like a sensor had gone off, the blonde-haired girl had woken up and large brown eyes blinked blearily, adjusting to the room before landing on Sana herself.

The girl is pretty.

Soft large eyes on a face with a sharp jawline and high cheekbones. Then, the stranger smiled and Sana feels something somewhere deep in her chest, like her heart had skipped a beat and – no, that's stupid. The girl just had a really, really pretty smile.

“You're awake!”

Before Sana knew it, the girl had flung herself onto her, blabbering about calling the others and how happy she was that Sana had finally woken up. She frowned and there's a thought that's growing in her head, a knowing whisper that swirls in her head and before she knew it, the thought became words, that tumbled out ;

“Do I know you?”

Hospitals always looked cold in Sana's opinion. The way the entire building was all too clean, the sterile air that hangs in the halls, masking to cover up the stench of death that hangs just beneath the surface. Sana doesn't like hospitals but she thinks she hates it more now that it also holds something worse than underlying death.

Heartbreak.

///

Who she was then, is gone.

She's not the same person and Sana hates herself a little bit more, every time they shoot her a look. Hope dangling off their eyes like this was the moment she's going to remember. That this was going to be the time that everything will fall back into place and everything will go back to the way things were before.

It doesn't and the disappointment that follows – She hates it.

///

It was a car accident.

It almost always is. Some drunk driver speeding down the intersection slammed into her car, holding her and two other passengers. It was just a miracle any of them survived. The aftermath of the accident was brutal. Broken glass and pieces of the car smeared the streets. Three bodies laid unconscious, bones broken and blood smearing the interior of the car.

One would think that would be the moment, the moment she died – an instant death but it wasn’t.

The doctors said that she, suffered from a severe concussion (amongst other things) and as a result – memory loss. She still thankfully, knew how to act and function as someone of her own age. It’s just that all the memories of the old Sana didn’t exist anymore.

Gone -poof, blown away like leaves floating with the wind.

The doctors claimed that it may not be so bleak, that those memories may come back in whole or in parts but Sana knew better. The way he had said it, it was too eager, a contradiction to his solemn face – liar.

That Sana doesn’t exist anymore.

All that was left was her shell, a girl with her face.

///

Sana overheard the doctors speaking with them, her parents (who've rushed to the hospital upon hearing about the accident and haven't left since) and eight girls, she assumes friends that she has lost her memories. He recounts what he told her, and tells them the false hope that her memories may come back. The possibility of jogging it should be there, they just needed to trigger it or whatever. It seemed cliché like she was in a movie and she was the typical female lead in an overdone plot.

Except, it wasn't a movie.

This was her life.

She should have felt something then. When the doctor had paused, glanced into her room and Sana thinks she may have met his eyes. She swears she saw in that haggard face, that seemed to search hers as if trying to find something. She's not sure why but he turns away, looks at the eight girls and her parents and informs them.

Sana doesn't need to hear it, she knows what the doctor has told them.

She can tell by the way her mother closes in on herself, hands covering as she shakes and her father wraps her into him. He holds her tight as if he could just steal away the pain for himself, as if this was his burden he could shoulder on his own.

Sana knew as the eight girls break, splintering at the news and a few tumble into her room staring unabashedly at her like she was fine china, while others storm away from the scene unable to deal with what they've heard. She probably should have cried with them, feel sorry, feel something but in the end, all she did was stare.

She didn't flinch when one of the girls threw herself at her bedside, gripping her hand, tears flowing down her pale skin as she begged and begged and shouted; “He's lying, you're still Sana, don't you remember me? Don't you remember us?”

She should have felt something, guilt maybe, but all she said was; “Should I know you?” and felt nothing.

///

Sana knows that her name is Minatozaki Sana. She is Japanese and her blood-type is B. She moved to Korea for her college years with her two best friends whom, she shares an apartment with in Seoul. No, wait, that's not right.

She moved to Korea for her college years and lives in an apartment that she shares with two strangers in Seoul.

Her memories are fragmented, large pieces were missing and it frustrates her. She remembers bits and pieces, like being 5 years old and crying a lot because some snot-nosed brat decided to push her in the sandbox because she was 'hogging up' the toys they gave out. She remembers her parents, vaguely, singing her happy birthday and giving her gifts upon gifts for their only daughter.

She doesn't remember much of anything else though.

It seemed what retained was useless and whatever memories that made Sana who she was just disappeared.

///

“You used to try to kiss us. A lot.”

Sana hums in response, she's been discharged from the hospital for about a month now. Her parents back home, in Japan, after a lengthy battle about whether or not she should return with them. She thinks she only won that battle after her father had seen her discomfort. The sight of his own daughter unsure if her parents were really her parents.

It must have hurt, Sana thinks and for a fleeting moment, she thinks she feels sorry.

She shakes the memory out of her head and turns a page in some stupid Japanese fashion magazine (apparently hers), trying to distract herself. She feels Momo's gaze on her and she hates every single thing about it. She ignores the whisper that hangs in the back of her mind that tells her (you thought she had a pretty smile though) and focuses harder on a gaudy piece of clothing featured in the magazine.

It doesn't take long for Sana to stop perusing though and look up to match Momo's stare. The older girl's eyes are large and beautiful, full of child-like glee but there was a sharpness to it, hidden layers that you'll never know unless she wanted you to know.

“I never tried to kiss any of you.”

She emphasizes herself, and levels Momo's eyes with her own. She knows what Momo is doing, trying to do and she's sick of it. They've tried countless times since she's woken up. She's sick of looking at hopeful eyes as her parents and those eight girls recall memories and all the things they used to do. All the things that Sana used to do. She sick of Momo the most, who quietly tells her, when they're alone, of the little quirks Sana used to have.

She wants to scream that she's not that person anymore.

She doesn't.

Momo stares, her eyes sad and dark as she gives out a hollow chuckle, “Yeah, you don't.”

It's too much and Sana stands, grabs the keys to the apartment (because it's not really her apartment) and looks away before she can see how Momo's face fall, or how her large eyes widen even more and one can see the hurt in them, see the pain and...

She leaves without a word and is glad that Momo doesn't follow her.

///

Sana thinks she's been gone for about two hours, wandering the streets of Seoul with no destination in mind. Most of her time spent was just sitting on the train, riding from one end to another and maybe, she was hoping to get lost so, she would have a reason not to go back. But there's something inside that lets her know; when to get off, where to switch trains, and it's all there like nothing ever happened.

As if she didn't lose pieces of herself.

It's not true though, she knows it because it happened and she figures this is just muscle memory. Retention of a past that doesn't really exist for her now.

Sana turns the corner of a block that houses a restaurant that sells pig feet and she scrunches her nose in disgust at the thought of the food item. It sounded unappealing and as she gets closer and closer to the apartment complex, she feels her chest clench tight and a pit opening up in the bottom of her stomach.

She’s been through this already but it feels strange to walk into a home that doesn’t feel like home. She knows she lives there and it’s supposed to be her home. She's lived there for about six-years or so she's been told. Her time spent there building memories were all hanging from the walls but that’s not right.

It’s not her memories, not her life – those belonged to the girl from before.

Sana walks forward though, stepping through the entrance way and stops. She just stands there, looking at the dingy walls of a dimly lit hallway. They live on the 3rd floor. She scowls.

This isn’t where she belongs.

///

She doesn't say she's home and breathes a sigh of relief to find no one in the living room.

She slips out of her shoes and walks quietly through the hall and goes into her room as silently as possible. She drops her keys on her bed and looks around the room she's spent a month in. The sheets are garish, a hot pink that she wouldn't choose for herself. She's not sure if it was a gift or if the Sana then bought it herself. The walls aren't bare, Polaroids lined the walls, years (six to be exact) worth of memories line against the white backdrop.

Sana used to smile a lot, laugh and go out to beaches and it just seemed like the girl always was on some sort of adventure; big or small.

The Sana now, hates it though, finds it mocking and stomps towards the wall, tears the Polaroids off the white backdrop and the anger only builds when the photos don't fall fast enough. She doesn't hear her be