3 Months later
Yuu's point of view
My room is cold, and I lay on my bed, looking up at the roof. It's December now, and the heating still isn't fixed. At the beginning of October, we started having issues, and the director promised us she'd get someone out to fix it. Two months later, and I'm still sitting in the cold. Akane runs into my room and begins tugging on my sleeve.
"We're going to see Mika! Get your coat on, It's freezing." I stand up, and follow her down the stairs. Chihiro hands me my Parker, and smiles up at me. I manage to catch a glimpse of myself in he reflection of her glasses. My hair is a mess, and my eyes are sunken into my sockets, slightly bloodshot.
"Come on, into the minivan," the director calls, opening the door to the house and unlocking the van. "Do you want to sit upfront with me, Yuu?"
"Sure," I reply, my voice rough and low. What happened to me? After school started again, after the fall break, I haven't been able to see Mika as much. He got sick near the end of September, and when he first went into hospital, the director let us all have a little bit of time off school everyday to go see him. After a week or so, she said we had to start going to school full time again, as 'Mika needs his rest' and 'It'll go on our permanent record'. During fall break, I was able to walk up everyday to see him, and went for an hour every Saturday with the rest of the kids. Now, I can't visit him during the week, and we only visit for half an hour on Saturdays- 45 minutes if we can't visit the week after.
We arrive at the hospital and make our way to his room. We enter, and the kids rush up to him to say hello. His skin is pale, his hair almost as messy as mine, and his eyes don't shine like they used to. He attempts to prop himself up, but struggles.
"We drew this for you!" Taichi and Fumie say, handing him a painting. "It's our family!"
"There's me!"
"And me!"
"You and Yuu are at the back with the director, see." Mika smiles and begins listening to the childrens' stories about school and back home. Akane steps back and holds my hand.
"Yuu, why don't you smile like you used to?" I look down at her, puzzled. "You used to smile alot, and when you smiled, it made us all smile, especially Mika."
"What do you mean?"
"Mika once told me how much he loves your smile. 'He looks like a sweetheart crossed with a dumb ass'."
"Hey! Where'd you learn that language?"
"I was just quoting what Mika said." She giggles and drags me over to Mika's bed side. Mika looks up at me, smiling.
"Hey Yuu, how's things?"
"Fine. How about you? How much longer are you going to be here?"
" I don't know. They were talking about putting me on stronger medication. Maybe after that I'll be cured and I can come back home." We look at each other for a minute, reading each others expressions.
"Yuu," he says finally. "Is everything ok at home? Akane told me you don't come out of your room much." My eyes widen, and I have to look away.
"Everything's fine."
"You don't look fine."
"It's fine Mika...It's just....boring without you."
"What can I say, I'm the life of any party," He jokes. I can't help but have a goofy smile on my face. "There you go! Smiling wasn't that hard, now was it?"
"Come on Yuu, we have to go. We have to get Chihiro to her Piano lesson." I stand up and rush to the door.
"Bye Yuu."
"Bye Mika."
