I wake in a room that's both strange and familiar. For a moment, I don't quite recognize that the hospital bed I'm in is not my own bed. I look down at my arms and legs. At least I don't see any casts. My head aches, and in some ways I'm in more pain than after the crash, but then they had kept me sedated for several days that time. I wonder how long I have been unconscious.

"Good evening Ametsuchi-san." A cheerful nurse walks in, checks my IV, the equipment I'm hooked up to and the blood oxygen sensor clipped to my finger. "How are you feeling?" She wraps a pressure cuff around my arm, adjusts her stethoscope and takes my blood pressure, even though one of the machines by my bed had already been doing so with intermittent grumbles.

"Terrible."

"That's understandable; you came in pretty banged up. You looked like you'd been in an auto accident. I heard it was a fight?"

"It wasn't much of one. I got jumped—" I suddenly remember. "Shizuku-san! Is she alright?"

"Was she the pretty girl who visited you earlier with your mother and another woman?"

I start to reply but she shoves a thermometer in my mouth. I shake my head and mumble, trying to talk through my nose.

"Keep your mouth closed," she admonishes. "Hold it under your tongue."

For some reason, even though I know she doesn't really care, I am compelled to explain that Shizuku is not my girlfriend. I struggle not to spit the thing out and I wonder how she could have learned such casual cruelty. Was it something they taught to all nurses? I felt like I was going to choke to death before she pulled the thermometer out to read it.

"A classmate of mine," I blurt out, "with long dark hair and an Atarachi High School uniform. She was also attacked."

The nurse, jotting my vital signs on a chart, gives me a minimally curious look. "Perhaps she is our mysterious vanishing patient."

"What?"

"A high school girl came in the same time you did."

"That was probably her. Was she hurt?"

"We don't really know. The admitting nurse looked at her, decided she wasn't in immediate danger and put her in an examining room, but when the doctor checked on her, all he found was a coat belonging to the EMT who brought her in."

Of course! I feel like slapping myself. She's still a shinigami. How could I forget that? I sigh. Pain lances through my chest. It feels like a cracked rib, something I am familiar with. Despair swallows me as I realize the fight—my rescue attempt—was entirely unnecessary. I'm such an idiot.

"So who was that other girl then?" the nurse asks.

"Probably Kyoko-chan."

She gives me a questioning look.

"My girlfriend."

She smiles and nods. "I'll tell her you're OK the next time I see her."

I return a grateful smile, lay my head back against my pillow, then suddenly it's Sunday. More doctors and more nurses come by to check on me. Both my parents come visit but not Kyoko. Not even when I'm discharged the following Monday. Her absence looms like a dark storm cloud, an ominous sign of more disaster to come. I half-expected her to skip school to see me. Even my dad got off work early to help get me home when I am discharged. I tell myself there must an innocent reason; some unexpected circumstance has kept her away. Any minute she will call, apologizing, with a simple explanation.

"Maybe we should have invested in one of these," Dad suggests as he pushes my wheelchair from the car to our house.

Mom's tone does not carry an ounce of amusement. "Let us hope this is the last time."

Dad helps me to my room. I collapse on my bed, dazed from a mix of pain and painkillers. At some point I hear my mother's startled voice, talking on the phone in the other room, but it may just be a dream.

* * *

I wake, uncertain of the time or date. I'm in my room. I look for my phone on the nightstand next to the bed and flames of pain burst out across my head and chest. I squint at the phone's display. It's early Monday evening. I sigh and lay back on the bed, wondering why I still haven't heard from Kyoko. Perhaps she had come by while I was asleep. Time slips past. Mom comes into my room.

"Ah, you're awake. How are you feeling?"

"Well enough, considering."

She hesitates. Her lips draw together, pursed tightly in worry. Her bottom lip twists to the side uncertainly as she speaks. "I talked to Kyoko-chan's mother..." Her eyebrows rise, curving together apologetically until her wrinkled brow stops them. "Did you have a fight with Kyoko-chan?"

"What? No!"

She waits as if expecting me to say something more, like I might be holding something back. My mind races. Had I forgotten something? What could I have done wrong this time?

"The only fight I had was with those yanki's at school. Not that it was much of a fight..."

"Makoto-san said Kyoko-chan visited you in the hospital yesterday but came home upset. Today she came home from school crying and won't leave her room. She won't talk anyone."

"Is it because I got hurt? Does she know the injuries are not that serious?"

Mom nods. "We explained everything to her. But she won't stop crying and she won't say why. When her mom asks if she wants to come see you, she just bursts out into even louder sobbing at the mention of your name."

Why is she acting this way? Why won't she come see me, or even leave her room? It's not as if I had died or we had broken up.

Mom leaves and I lay on my bed, fear and anxiety keep me from sleeping. Sometime later I hear mom on the phone again, reassuring someone. "I'm sure it's just a lovers' quarrel."

What quarrel? What are we supposed to be quarreling over? And yet something must have happened. Could Kyoko have found someone else? She has been spending a lot of time in yearbook. There are a number of male senpais in that club. Somehow, I don't think she'd be this upset if that were the case. The anticipation of disaster grows into a vague certainty.

I call her repeatedly, knowing she is home, but her cell phone is always turned off.