I woke up to the worst pain I had ever felt in my life.
'Holy shit,' I thought, trying to figure out what was wrong with me. 'Everything hurts.'
My ribs felt like someone had kicked them repeatedly. My left arm was wrapped up in some kind of cast, and there was this throbbing pain in my head that made me want to throw up. I tried to move and immediately regretted it.
'Guess the goddess didn't bother fixing my body when she sent me back,' I realized. 'She just shoved my soul back into this broken mess.'
I was lying there trying to figure out how badly I was hurt when I noticed something weird. There was someone sleeping in the chair next to my bed. Their head was resting on my mattress, using it like a pillow.
It was Nina.
I blinked a few times, thinking maybe I was hallucinating from the pain medication or something. But nope, she was definitely there. Blonde hair spread out across the white hospital sheets, still wearing her school uniform.
'What the hell is she doing here?' I thought.
I looked at the clock on the wall. It was 2:15 in the afternoon. On a Wednesday. Shouldn't she be in class right now?
'Did she skip school to sit here while I was unconscious?'
That seemed crazy. We had never even had a real conversation before. I knew her name, she apparently knew mine, but that was about it. Why would she care enough to miss school and sit in an uncomfortable hospital chair?
'Maybe she blames herself for what happened,' I thought. 'Maybe she thinks it's her fault I got hurt.'
I studied her face while she slept. She looked exhausted. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her makeup was all smudged. Her usual perfect appearance was completely messed up.
But even like that, she was still really pretty. I had never been this close to her before. Hell, I'd never been this close to any girl before.
Her hair really was as silky as it looked from across the classroom. It was this nice yellow color that caught the light from the window. And she smelled good too - like some kind of fruity shampoo or something.
'When's the last time I was this close to a girl?' I wondered. 'Never, that's when.'
Being around her was making me nervous in a way I wasn't used to. My heart was beating faster, and it wasn't just from the pain.
I tried to shift my position to get more comfortable, and the bed made this loud squeaking noise. Nina's eyes opened immediately.
"Kofi?" she said, her voice all sleepy and confused.
She lifted her head and looked at me, and I watched her face change as she realized I was awake.
"Oh my god!" she said, sitting up straight in her chair. "You're awake! You're actually awake!"
Before I could say anything, she reached over and grabbed my face with both hands. Her palms were warm against my cheeks, and she was staring into my eyes like she was checking to make sure I was really there.
"Are you okay?" she asked, talking really fast. "How do you feel? Does anything hurt? Should I call the nurse? I should call the nurse, right?"
I could see tears starting to form in her eyes, and something weird happened in my chest. It was this warm feeling I'd never experienced before.
'She actually cares,' I thought. 'She's been sitting here worrying about me.'
Nobody had ever cared about me like that before. Not even my parents, really. They were always too busy with work to pay much attention to what I was doing.
"I'm fine," I said, even though I definitely wasn't fine.
"Don't you dare say you're fine," she said, her grip on my face getting a little tighter. "You almost died, Kofi. You've been unconscious for two days."
'Two days?' I thought. 'No wonder she looks so tired.'
"You've been here the whole time?" I asked.
She nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "I couldn't just leave. Not after what you did for me."
I wanted to tell her it wasn't a big deal, but the words got stuck in my throat. The way she was looking at me, with all that concern and gratitude in her eyes... I'd never had someone look at me like that before.
'This gyaru is really cute when she's worried,' I thought.
Then suddenly, this blue window appeared right in front of my face. It was translucent, like something from a video game, and Nina didn't seem to notice it at all.
[Romance Life System Activated]
I stared at it, remembering my conversation with the goddess. So this was real. The system she had given me was actually working.
[User Registration Complete]
[Name: Kofi L Dameire]
[Age: 16]
[Status: Recovering from major injuries]
[Current Life Assessment:]
[Social Connections: 0]
[Confidence Level: 2/10]
[Romance Experience: 0/10]
[Friendship Points: 0]
'Ouch,' I thought. 'Way to call me out, system.'
[Mission Available]
[Objective: Become friends with Nina Shoka]
[Reward: 5,000 NAD]
[Time Limit: 30 days]
[Penalty for Failure: Mild stomach discomfort for 24 hours]
[Accept Mission? Yes/No]
My eyes went wide. Five thousand dollars? Just for becoming friends with Nina? That was more money than I had ever had in my entire life.
But then reality hit me. This was Nina Shoka. One of the most popular girls in school. She probably had dozens of friends already. Why would she want to be friends with some nobody like me?
"Kofi?" She said, waving her hand in front of my face. "You're spacing out again. Are you feeling dizzy? Should I get the doctor?"
I blinked, focusing on her instead of the system window.
"No, I'm okay," I said. "Just... trying to process everything, I guess."
She settled back into her chair but kept watching me carefully, like she was worried I might pass out again.
"You really scared me," she said quietly. "When you pushed me out of the way and that car hit you... I thought you were going to die right there on the street."
'So did I,' I thought.
"I kept thinking it should have been me," she continued. "I was the one being careless. I should have been paying attention instead of listening to music."
"Don't say that," I said. "It wasn't your fault."
"But if I hadn't been wearing earbuds—"
"Then you might have heard the car and moved out of the way," I interrupted. "Or you might not have. Either way, what happened happened. No point in beating yourself up about it."
She looked at me for a long moment, and I couldn't figure out what she was thinking.
"Why did you do it?" she asked finally. "We don't even really know each other."
I thought about that. Why had I done it? It wasn't like I had planned to be a hero or anything. I had just seen her in trouble and reacted.
"You were in trouble," I said with a shrug, which was a mistake because it made my ribs hurt like hell. "Seemed like the right thing to do."
"Most people would have just yelled a warning or called for help," she said. "You didn't even hesitate. You just ran straight into traffic to save someone you barely know."
The system window was still floating there, waiting for me to accept or decline the mission. Five thousand dollars to become friends with a girl who was already sitting here taking care of me, worried sick about whether I was okay.
'Maybe this won't be as impossible as I thought,' I considered.
But then again, this was still Nina Shoka. Just because she felt guilty about my accident didn't mean she actually wanted to be friends with me. Once I got out of the hospital and things went back to normal, she'd probably go back to hanging out with her popular friends and forget I existed.
'But five thousand dollars...' I thought. 'That's a lot of money.'
"Kofi?" She said again. "You keep zoning out. Are you sure you're feeling okay?"