When I woke up next, the room was dark. My hand twitched. There was a weight on top of it already.

"Oh!" Tetsu gasped. My eyes opened and I looked up into the darkness. There wasn't a window in the room, because there was no light from the outside. I crinkled my nose, testing my face. There was an oxygen mask over my nose and mouth. There was a steady beeping to my left, in my good ear. Tetsu was also to my left. My eyes were half open. I was so tired.

My hand started to roll back and forth. His chair scraped, and his hand was on my chest gently, rubbing. I rolled my head to the left, smiling at his touch.

"You're okay, my darling," he said gently. I smiled more, hearing his voice. "You're in critical care. I'm here with you. You're on a couple of new medications. Are you feeling any better?"

I breathed a response. I was too tired to say anything. He waited for me to say something.

"That's okay," he said, clearly so relieved that I was awake. He rolled my hand some more. "You don't have to say anything. I'm so glad you're awake. You've been asleep for a couple of days, but I've been taking care of you. So has our family. We're still in Tokyo. You're under Yokohara-sensei and Harada-sensei's care. Remember him? Maybe you don't. He was your cardiologist back in December. They really know what they're doing. We trust them one-hundred percent. We've got it all taken care of. Don't worry about a thing. We all love you. I love you so much."

He paused, and his chair scraped again. I wanted to see his face. He continued after a little while. "Ah- oh. It's currently 1:36am. Don't worry about me, I got some sleep earlier. I know you like to know if I ate. Natsuko's been taking care of that, don't worry. I ate some soup. I'm okay. Natsuko and mom are staying at my apartment. Mom says there's cherry blossoms blooming in Tokyo, some early ones. When you get better, we'll go see them. I had no idea you like flowers so much. You taught me so much about tropical flowers! I'll have to see if I can get some. I'll put them in here so you can smell them. You said you like snapdragons, too. I'll get some of those."

His thumb started to draw a circle on the back of my hand. It made my eyes close, such a feeling of contentment in my body at his touch.

"Do you want to go to sleep again? It's okay, baby. You can sleep. You once told me that sleep helps people heal. I think that's true. So, you heal, baby. I love you." His chair scraped again, and in moments the warm wetness of his lips were on my forehead. My eyes rolled towards that touch behind my eyelids. My entire body sighed silently at it.

When I woke up again, the light was on. There was music playing lightly, some violin music. My heart was so glad to see Tetsu sitting there on my left, reading a magazine. I gazed at him for a while, watching him flip pages. His hand absentmindedly went to my bedside table. He picked up a neon green Post-It note packet and peeled one off. He pressed it to one of the pages, and flipped to another page.

What was he doing? I was so curious. His hand wandered to the table again, pawing around. His hand smacked down on a long red box. He picked it up, and I saw it was strawberry Toppo. He took one out and inserted it into his mouth like a cigarette.

He was so cute, that I couldn't help but laugh. He jumped, finally looking at me. His mouth opened, and the candy stick fell into his magazine.

"Oh no, your Toppo," I tsked. He grinned so much. He picked it up and put it back in the box quickly. He closed the magazine, and I saw it was the one Natsuko had bought, the pretty bridal magazine.

He stood up, and immediately cupped my face with his hands. They were so warm. I was smiling immediately.

"Good morning, my darling," he breathed, so beautiful. I watched his face, his large eyes searching me, his full lips in that smile, his familiar nose slightly spread out in that smile, his deep smile lines, the creases around his eyes. Studying his beautiful face that I love.

"Good morning," I said back.

"You sound pretty strong," he said, his eyebrows lifting and his facial expression making me blush. His eyebrows going up had made his eyes even larger.

"Do I?"

"Yeah. Oh- I wonder if the medications you're on are working well! Harada-sensei said he'd had a hunch. Maybe his hunch was right."

My eyes closed again, this overwhelming feeling of tiredness overcoming me. It was like when I had high or low blood sugar, just wanting to shut down and fall asleep, didn't matter what we were doing.

"Sorry," I said, quietly. My chest felt funny, like little ripples were happening in there.

His hand was on my chest again. He patted it softly. I smiled. "You get some rest. That's totally okay, my darling. I'll be here."

"Okay."

He began to make a circle on my chest with his palm, and my head went to the left, nearest to him.

When I woke up again, Natsuko was speaking. "Weather tomorrow will be raining into the afternoon and evening. Flooding warning for the following wards. Hmm. Yeah, we're safe. No flooding near us. Wow, it's raining a lot. I bet the trees are happy."

"That's good. I don't want mom to drive if there's flooding."

"I'll drive her. But, yeah, she's stubborn."

There were chewing, crunching sounds. What were they eating?

"Hmm. Oh, yeah." Natsuko perked up. "I've been looking up florist shops in Hilo."

"Ohh! Yes!"

"Yes! There's many. I don't know which ones will have what we want. We need to narrow down a list of the kinds of flowers we want. But, I know you don't want to do any major planning without Sana's input. But, think about the ones that you want, and we'll find out which ones he likes later, okay?"

"But... No, I can't do that. It wouldn't be right. We're getting married together. We should plan together. I'm not doing a single thing without him. Ah, I've already broken some rules, looking at dresses without him. What if I came across something that he would have liked for himself? What kinds of moments am I missing? Oh-" His voice became misty. I wanted to reach out and hold him. It was okay to look at wedding things without me, especially if it made him happy. We could look together later, and he could show me what he liked. Guilt was spreading in me.

"It's okay. We don't have to talk about wedding stuff if you don't want to. I just thought it's a good distraction. He's getting better. Harada-sensei said so. He's more stable now."

"Then, why are we still in critical care? It's not that I don't trust him... I don't know. I'm just really stressed out. Can you please tell Haru to stop trying to get Sana's family involved? It's really adding much more stress to me. I know it's his doctor's instincts, but he doesn't understand!"

"Okay. Calm down. It's okay. I'll talk to him again. I don't know what's gotten into him. I know the situation is serious, but he needs to listen to what we're telling him." She sighed deeply. "He doesn't understand LGBT things. He has no concept of what 'abandonment' means. Maybe we can look at it with another angle. I've been thinking about it. I don't know how to get him to understand at all... He's just so convinced that every family would want to know about their child."

"Even if he still has that opinion, can he stop talking about it to me? We don't need to change his opinion, but I just want him to stop bringing it up."

"That's the thing. He'll keep bringing it up, because he thinks it's of the utmost importance." She sighed, and spoke a little more quietly. "Is there really no one in his family you could contact to shut Haru up? Even I find it a little hard to believe that there's no one at all."

"No. His mother is the matriarch of his family branch now. He said everyone in the family bows to her, and wouldn't dare step out of line or risk being shunned themselves. Even if they want to talk to him, they can't."

"That's so awful... So he could actually have family who want to know him, but they can't... I can't imagine it. But...even more so, if that's true... Then maybe Haru is right. Maybe they do have a right to know. If there's some of Sana's family who still want to know him, they have a right to know about this. Maybe they'd reach out now, his mother be damned. It's worth a shot."

"I don't know. Once again, I wouldn't know how to contact them."

"Right... But, and I know this isn't a good idea, but... Haru was kind of right again. We do know someone who might know how to contact them. He's right here in Tokyo."

"Yami won't talk to me. He won't talk to any of us."

"But, are you open to the idea? Of contacting Sana's family if you could?"

Tetsu sighed so hard. "I don't know. They're awful. What kind of family, even if they want to know their family member who's been shunned, doesn't reach out to them after more than fifteen years? Is that power over them more important than love? I- I can't understand it. I never will."

"We can't claim to understand how they feel. But, I still think if there's even one family member who'd want to know about this, who cares, then they do have a right to know. I mean... Imagine if there was? Imagine if this was so important, that they contact us? Don't you want to know such a family member? What kind of person are they? What if they're friendly to us, and we're misconceiving this? Has he said what his family make up is like? Does he have siblings or cousins?"

Tetsu paused. He sighed again. "He has four sisters and two brothers. He comes from a big family."

"Six siblings! Holy cow!"

"But. That's still six siblings who haven't contacted him in over fifteen years. I think there's little chance that they'd be friendly."

"Fifteen years is a long time. You never know."

"Maybe."

"Gosh, six siblings... With that many, there's got to be at least one... I can't imagine all of them not caring! Or maybe that's just me. I'm sorry, but it's so hard for me to understand someone being shunned. I know it happens in the LGBT community..."

"It happens more often than you think. I'm actually lucky that all of you accept me. It's not a common story to be accepted."

"Oh, I know. When I read that, I was shocked. There's people out there with such different opinions than ours. I can't understand it."

"Maybe it's better that you don't. I don't want to understand such awful people. And that's one of the reasons why I do not want to contact his family. We don't need that kind of negativity."

"But... Please, I know you don't want to think about this. I don't, either. None of us do. It's such a hard thing to think about... But..." She paused, her breath struggling to be controlled. She patted some part of him, making light slapping sounds. "If... If this is the last time they might see him, they have a right... That's what Haru means. I- I know. I know. I don't want to think about that. Oh- Tetsu... Tetsu, I'm sorry... I- I'm sorry..."

Light sobbing was coming from him. I wanted to hug him. I wasn't going anywhere. Don't say that. Don't say that to him. Now she was the awful one.

"Don't say that. I never know when he's awake or not. He's been awake a bunch of times. I don't want hi- him to hear th- that..." He was crying so terribly now.

"I'm sorry."

"I've been telling him he's been getting better. Because- maybe with positivity, he might. I j- just..." He sobbed in quick bursts.

"It's going to be okay. I shouldn't have said that. I- I've just been thinking about what Haru said... He talked to me about it, and I'm starting to see his side of it. Maybe that's just because he's my husband, I don't know."

"Well, don't see his side of it. I don't want Sana's family involved. Especially i- if... If..." He let out a loud sob. "And Yami said before, that his family doesn't understand hi- him. That they'd do everything wrong. They wouldn't res- respect him, so... No, they don't care about him at a- all..."

"It's going to be okay. I'm sorry. I'll stop talking about all of this. Oh, Tetsu... Stop... Please stop." She was crying now, too. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

All I could do was lay here and listen. All I wanted was to hug him and make it all better. Make it all better, by no longer being sick.