The ceiling was white.

Kaito stared at it for several seconds before the rest of the room came back properly.

The bandage around his head.

The IV line taped to his arm.

The antiseptic smell.

The window to his right, black outside, the kind of dark that meant it had been night for a while already.

His head hurt.

A deep steady throbbing behind his left eye that felt heavy enough to drag the rest of him downward with it.

He turned his head slightly.

Natsume was sitting beside the bed eating a cup of jelly with a plastic spoon. Coat still on. Legs crossed neatly. She looked up the moment he moved.

"How do you feel," she asked.

"Bad."

His voice came out rougher than expected.

Natsume nodded once like this confirmed something.

The door opened.

Hiro walked in holding a vending machine coffee, saw Kaito awake, and immediately pointed at him.

"He fainted," he said.

Kaito closed his eyes briefly.

Hiro looked at Natsume in genuine disbelief.

"From that. A cut on the head and he just collapsed." He snapped his fingers once. "Gone."

"Shut up for a while," Natsume said.

Hiro opened his mouth again anyway.

"I barely even pulled him that hard."

"Hiro."

"Okay, but I didn’t."

He dragged the chair near the wall around with one foot and sat down backwards on it, arms folded across the top of the backrest.

For about five seconds he actually stayed quiet.

Then.

"I still think the table corner did most of the work."

Kaito stared at the ceiling.

Natsume set the jelly cup down on the bedside table.

"I’m sorry," she said.

Hiro rubbed once at the back of his neck.

Silence stretched.

Then, with the energy of somebody being legally forced.

"Yeah. Sorry."

Kaito looked at both of them.

"This is why I wanted you gone," he said quietly. "Every time you two show up, I end up getting hurt somehow."

"That’s not fair," Hiro said immediately. "Most of those were training accidents."

"You threw me through a door once."

"You were standing behind it weird."

"I was in my room."

Hiro paused.

"...Okay that one might’ve been my fault."

Natsume took another spoonful of jelly.

"You also hit him with a practice spear when he was eleven."

"I said sorry for that."

"You laughed first," Kaito said.

"I was twelve."

"You laughed for ten minutes."

Hiro pointed at him.

"It’s your fault for being funny."

Kaito looked back at the ceiling again.

His head was starting to hurt properly now.

A dull pulse behind his eye every few seconds.

He shifted slightly against the pillow and immediately regretted it.

The IV line tugged against his arm.

"Which hospital is this," he asked.

The thought came immediately afterward.

Hospital room.

IV line.

White ceiling.

Hana.

The Sunflowers beside her bed.

The machines.

The silence after the ghost finally left her body.

His stomach tightened before he could stop it.

"Seiran General," Hiro said. His voice lost some of its joking edge automatically when he answered.

"East district." He lifted the coffee can slightly. "Fujino owed us anyway. Don’t worry about bills or insurance. It’s handled."

Seiran General.

Not the same hospital.

Kaito let the breath out slowly.

Some of the tightness in his chest eased.

He stared at the ceiling again without really seeing it.

He didn’t ask what Hiro meant by owed us.

He already understood.

Job yesterday.

Hospital.

Fujino.

An exorcism. Probably recent. Hiro and Natsume handled it. Hospital manager owed them afterward.

Simple.

That was how they worked.

Fast. Clean. Coordinated.

Even as a kid Kaito had understood they were good together in a way most exorcists weren’t.

Watching them train never looked difficult the way training usually did.

Hiro moved first. Natsume adjusted around him before he finished moving.

They barely needed to speak. Timing just happened naturally between them.

Like they trusted each other’s instincts completely.

Kaito had wanted something like that once.

Badly enough that remembering it still embarrassed him.

There had been a time .

Young enough that he hadn’t learned shame properly yet, when he thought he and Kazane might become something similar.

She had been one of the strongest in their generation.

He had been the weakest.

At the time he convinced himself that didn’t matter.

A duo wasn’t supposed to be about matching raw output. It was timing. Trust. Knowing somebody well enough that fighting beside them stopped feeling separate.

At least that was what he’d believed.

Kazane never did.

She switched groups whenever instructors paired them together.

During exercises she answered him politely without ever sounding openly annoyed, the tone she usually used for stranger.

Over years she made one thing very clear without ever actually saying it:

she would rather work alone than work with him.

He had wanted it badly enough that it took years to stop wanting it.

Something sharp stung unexpectedly behind his eyes.

Kaito turned his head toward the window before either of them noticed.

Dark glass reflected the room back at him faintly.

Bandage.

IV line.

Natsume sitting quietly beside the bed.

Hiro turned sideways in the chair now, looking out the window instead of directly at him.

"You know," Hiro said after a while, voice quieter now, "you were actually getting better before you left."

Kaito looked at him.

Hiro shrugged without turning around fully.

"Your reaction speed, I mean." He scratched once lightly at his jaw. "You stopped freezing during close-range stuff." Another pause. "You still sucked, obviously. But less than before."

Kaito stared at him for a second.

Then looked away again.

That was probably the closest thing to praise Hiro had ever given him in his life. Thanks to the guilt he felt.

"When did the doctor say discharge," Kaito asked.

"Tomorrow night probably," Hiro said. "Twenty-four hours minimum. They want to make sure you didn’t knock your brain loose."

Kaito exhaled slowly through his nose.

Twenty-four hours.

Mei... she would’ve already started worrying when he didn’t reply to her messages.

He knew exactly what her messages would look like without even checking. Careful wording at first. Trying not to sound clingy. Then shorter once she started worrying properly.

"My phone," he said.

Natsume reached into her coat pocket immediately and handed it over.

"Your girlfriend has been texting," she said. "She isn’t clear, but I think she is worried."

Kaito unlocked the screen.

Mei’s messages filled it immediately.

The timestamps got closer together the farther down he scrolled.

kaito-kun?

did you get home safely?

are you sleeping already?

is everything okay?

you didn’t say good night yet.

can I call?

The last two had been sent only minutes apart.

He stared at them for a few seconds.

His chest hurt a little.

Not emotionally dramatic.

Just tight in a quiet way.

"I need to sleep," he said finally. "Both of you should go."

"We’ll leave in the morning," Natsume replied.

"Fine. Then don’t talk to me." He looked at Hiro. "Especially you."

Hiro opened his mouth.

Natsume looked at him once.

Hiro closed it again and leaned farther back in the chair with visible annoyance.

Kaito looked back down at the phone.

He typed carefully.

sorry. i fell asleep for a while

im okay. just tired

i think i’ll sleep again soon

goodnight girlfriend

He stared at the screen for a second before sending it.

"Lying to your girlfriend is a bad idea," Natsume said.

Kaito looked up immediately.

"Stop looking at my phone."

"I’m not reading it," she replied calmly. "I can see your screen from here."

"Then look somewhere else."

"Fine."

She looked toward the window instead.

Kaito hit send.

Mei replied less than thirty seconds later.

A relieved emoji.

Then.

goodnight kaito-kun

sleep well

see you tomorrow boyfriend

The tightness in his chest eased slightly.

He set the phone face-down beside him and closed his eyes.

The room slowly went quiet around him.

He still heard Hiro crack open another coffee at some point.

Then the scrape of a chair.

Then nothing after that.

Kaito woke sometime later with his head throbbing.

The room was dark.

No overhead lights. Just pale moonlight through the window stretching across the floor and the lower half of the bed.

For a few seconds he didn’t move.

His forehead hurt.

Not sharply anymore. Just heavy. Every pulse behind his eye felt slow and deep.

He turned his head slightly.

Hiro was asleep across two chairs shoved together near the wall, one arm hanging halfway off the side.

His jacket was bunched under his head badly enough that his neck was probably going to hurt when he woke up.

Natsume was still in the chair beside the bed.

Asleep too.

Her head rested sideways against the edge of the mattress near Kaito’s legs, dark hair fallen partly across her face.

Her coat was still buttoned properly even now. One hand rested loosely against her lap.

Kaito stared at both of them for a moment.

Then looked away again.

The room smelled faintly like antiseptic and canned coffee.

His phone lit up suddenly on the bedside table.

The brightness hurt his eyes immediately.

Kaito reached over slowly and unlocked it.

Shizuka.