The night before we go see her, I lie on my back and watch the ceiling.
The room is dim except for the rectangle of my phone on the pillow next to me. The little bracelet on my wrist is a cool weight against my skin. Somewhere down the street, a scooter rattles past. Somewhere across town, she's hooked up to lines and monitors and a drug that didn't exist the first time around.
In the bad timeline, this is about when the hospital called.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Not thinking about that.
The call log stares up at me anyway: Kaori.
I don't even know which of us hits the button first. The dial tone barely rings once before the line connects.
"Hellooo, Arima-kun," she sings. Warm, bright. No strain.
My lungs actually forget what they're doing for a second. "You really answer everything like you're introducing the weather," I say. "What if I was a debt collector?"
"Then I'd tell you there's no way I'm paying back all the borrowed happiness," she says. "You'd have to come and repossess it yourself."
And just like that, some horrible knot under my sternum loosens. I roll onto my side, facing the phone like it's her.
"Did I catch you at a bad time?" I ask. "You weren't in the middle of seducing a nurse into smuggling you snacks, right?"
"Oh no," she whispers dramatically. "You found me out. I was about to elope with a pudding cup."
Her laugh is light, but I can hear the tiny catch in it when she shifts. The rustle of sheets, the beep of something far from the mic. Hospital sounds. Reality tucked under the jokes.
"How are you feeling?" I ask, because I have to.
"Mm... kind of like a prisoner at a spa," she says. "Poked, prodded, but everyone's very polite about it. They say my numbers look good today. Pills are doing its thing."
Numbers look good. I picture charts, pulses, graphs marching upward instead of nosediving.
"That's... good," I say, and my voice comes out softer than I mean it to.
She hears it anyway. Of course she does. "Oh? Is that relief I hear, Arima-kun?" she teases. "Were you worried I'd up and die without permission?"
"Don't say stuff like that," I snap, sharper than I intend.
There's a beat of silence. Then: "Okay," she says quietly, and I can hear the apology tucked into the word.
I breathe out slowly. "Sorry. Just... don't. You know?"
"I know," she says. "I'll use more poetic phrasing next time. Something like, 'If the curtains close on my mortal coil—'"
"Kaori."
"I'm kidding," she says, smiling in her voice again. "Kinda. But I'll behave. Maybe."
I scrub a hand over my face. "You're impossible."
"And yet you keep calling." Paper rustles on her end. "So, Arima-kun... are you practicing?"
There it is. The other thing tying my insides in knots.
"Yeah," I say. "A bit." A lot. Every free second I have that isn't hospital or school or studying for the future she shoved me toward.
"For Maihou," she presses, as if I could have meant anything else.
"For Maihou," I confirm.
The word hangs there. Last time, that competition became a gravestone. This time... maybe it can be something else.
"I still can't believe you agreed," she murmurs. "Part of me thought you'd run for the hills after everything.."
"I would," I admit. "Then you would tie a bracelet on me and dragged me back."
"Mm, I'm very persuasive," she says. "Also very selfish. I want to see you on a big stage again."
"You won't even be there," I say before I can stop myself. "You'll be stuck in that bed."
"Hurtful," she gasps. "You're going to play your heart out and all I get is a hospital livestream? Tragic."
"It's not like they'll let you out just to boo from the audience."
"Who said I'd boo?" she demands. "I was going to cheer so loud the judges develop tinnitus."
I huff out something that isn't quite a laugh. "That's not better."
"That's love," she says simply.
My throat tightens. I stare at the little airplane-shaped candy wrapper I've pinned to my wall, the one she made me keep like a talisman.
"Hey, Arima-kun," she says more gently. "About tomorrow."
Here it comes. In the other life, tomorrow meant alarms and nurses and the sound of Watari's breath catching beside me in a hallway that smelled like panic.
"Yeah?" I say.
"You really don't have to come every chance you get," she says. "I mean, I love seeing you. Obviously. But I don't want you... stuck here. In this room. With me."
Too late, I think. Out loud, I say, "Tough."
"...Tough?"
"Yeah," I say. "I'm coming."
"You didn't even let me finish my dramatic speech," she complains.
"I don't care what the speech is," I say. "I'm coming. With Watari. Like we said."
She's quiet for a second. I can picture her blinking up at the ceiling tiles, lips pressed together.
"You're too close, you know," she says softly. "To all of this."
"I know," I say immediately.
"You're not supposed to agree that fast," she grumbles.
"It doesn't change anything," I say. "I'm not... running anymore."
The words surprise even me. For most of my life, I perfected the art of retreat. Into metronomes, into precision, into numbness. Now I can feel my own stubbornness sitting there between my ribs, arms crossed.
She exhales, a tiny surrender. "You're greedy," she says. "You want everything."
"You're the one who keeps asking me for miracles," I shoot back. "Pianist,Friend, Accompanist... make up your mind."
"Never," she says. "I want the world. And I want you in it."
I stare at the hairline crack in my ceiling and swallow hard.
"Toooo heavy," she says abruptly, shifting gears with whiplash speed. "Let's talk about something else. Like what you're bringing me tomorrow."
"I'm bringing you my charming personality," I say.
"Ew, no, I already have to deal with that," she says. "I mean snacks."
"Isn't there a list of banned stuff?" I ask. "Pretty sure anything fun is on it."
"Then we'll smuggle it," she says at once. "Watari can be the mule."
I can actually see Watari's horrified face. "You say that like he won't eat half of it on the way."
"That's why I'm asking you to supervise," she says. "Bring me something cute. And sweet."
"Cute and sweet," I repeat. "Like... cat-shaped cookies?"
She laughs. "Cat, huh. You're obsessed."
A phantom image flashes across my mind—small body limp in my arms, blood on my hands, the futility of trying. Rain in my ears that wasn't actually there.
"Maybe I am," I say quietly.
"If you see a cat on the way," she says, "pet it for me."
"Sure," I lie. If I see a cat on the road again, I'm not just petting it.
"Hey, hey," she pipes up again, suddenly bright. "Do you remember the airplane?"
"Hard to forget," I say, glancing at the wrapper glued to my wall. "You made me keep the evidence."
"That plane flew really far, you know," she says. "Farther than I thought it would."
"You're really going to bring up my childhood record in paper aviation right now?"
"It's a metaphor," she says, patient and smug at once. "Obviously."
"What, for you crash-landing into my life uninvited?"
"For you," she says. "Going further than you think you can. I threw you, remember?"
I let out a small breath. "Yeah. I remember."
"In that case," she says, "tomorrow... let's throw you again."
"Is that your medical advice?" I ask. "Doctor Miyazono prescribing reckless life choices?"
"Exactly," she says. "Kousei Arima, please report to the hospital at visiting hours tomorrow, accompanied by one soccer idiot and a contraband snack. That's an order."
"Yes ma'am," I say. "I'll see what the idiot's schedule looks like."
"Good," she says. There's a smile in the word. "I'll be waiting."
We talk a little longer. About nothing and everything—what Nao yelled at me for in class, how the nurse mispronounced Skyclairs, what anime one of the younger patients made her binge. I keep her laughing as long as I can. Or maybe she's the one keeping me breathing.
Eventually a nurse's voice floats through her receiver. Kaori answers with her usual dramatic sigh.
"That's my cue to be a good patient," she says. "Arima-kun?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm glad," she says softly. "That you're coming tomorrow. Even if you're super clingy."
"I'm glad you're there to come to," I reply before I can stop myself.
The silence on the line is full and warm.
"...Good night, Kousei," she says.
"Night, Kaori," I answer. "Dream something stupid."
"Always," she replies, and hangs up.
I lie there for a long time after the call ends, phone warm in my hand, the ghost of her voice tangled up with the ghost of another night—one with sirens and slammed doors and the smell of metal and rain-that-wasn't.
This time will be different, I tell myself.
I have to make it different.
⸻
The next day, the sky is too blue.
"Man, my palms are sweating," Watari says, flexing his fingers around a paper bag. "Do you think they'll really let us bring this in?"
"As long as you don't wave it around like you're smuggling contraband," I say.
"But I am smuggling contraband," he whispers. "Chocolate. In a medical facility."
"That is... not the illegal part," I say, adjusting my backpack strap.
We take the familiar route to the hospital. Same intersections. Same vending machines. Same little bush near the corner that always looks like it's trying to escape its planter.
In the other timeline, my legs felt like they were made of lead by this point. Every step toward the entrance was a step toward something I couldn't undo.
Now, my legs feel... normal. My heart doesn't.
"You're quiet," Watari observes. "More than usual, I mean."
"Thinking about the festival," I lie.
He snorts. "Liar. You're doing that thing where you get lost in your own head and forget the world exists."
"Says the guy who forgets everything if there isn't a ball involved," I mutter.
"You wound me," he says, clutching the paper bag to his chest. "Anyway, it's going to be fine. They said she's stable, right?"
"Yeah," I say. "They did."
Stable. Good numbers. Doing its thing.
None of those words existed in the script last time.
We pass through the sliding doors, into the too-clean air of the lobby. The smell of antiseptic hits me, and for a second my vision doubles—one world where we're just visiting, another where a nurse is blocking my way, voice a little too bright as she says I should go home.
I blink hard and keep walking.
Watari does the talking at the reception desk because my tongue has decided to forget both Japanese and basic politeness. The nurse smiles, checks something on a screen, and waves us through.
No one stops us. No one says wait.
The elevator ride up is short and endless at the same time. Watari drums his fingers on the bag, humming some soccer chant under his breath. I stare at the glowing floor numbers and count my heartbeat.
Ding.
We step out into the hallway.
The last time I walked this corridor in this month of this year, there were voices raised at the far end, hurried footsteps, the squeak of a cart.
Now there's... nothing. Just the low murmur of a TV behind a door, the squeak of someone's shoes, the usual beeps and sighs.
Watari glances at me. "You okay?"
"Yeah," I say. "Just... déjà vu."
He grins. "We're such regulars here that the hospital probably has a frequent visitor card for us."
"Great, I can't wait to redeem my free coffee for ten visits," I say.
My hand tightens on the doorknob to her room before I realize it.
I inhale..
I make myself turn it.
The door slides open with a soft whisper.
Then..
There she sits her golden hair making a mesmerizing color with the Sunlight that poured in from the window, spilling across the bed. the two little heads tucked against her sides focused on what was in her hands.
Kaori is sitting up, back against the propped pillows, IV line trailing from her arm. A book rests open in her hands—The Cat in the Hat, Japanese edition, bright red and white cover vivid against the hospital sheets.
"And then the cat said," she is reading, voice animated, "'Now! Now! Have no fear. Have no fear!'"
The little boy on her right gasps. The little girl on her left stares with huge eyes.
"Ne, ne, what happens next?" the girl demands.
Kaori presses a finger to her lips. "That's classified, patient-chan. Maybe if you share your pudding later..."
They both shriek protest.
I stand there in the doorway like a ghost, taking in the whole scene: the sunlight, the kids, the curve of her smile. Her hair is a little messy, her cheeks have color, and when she laughs, it fills the room instead of rattling in her chest.
I feel something in me unclench so fast it almost hurts.
Watari lets out a low whistle. "Well, well," he says. "Spreading chaos even from a hospital bed, huh?"
Three heads turn toward us.
Kaori's face brightens like someone turned up the saturation on the world. "Oh! Look who it is."
"Arima onii-chan!" the little girl squeaks before I can react.
I blink. "Have we met?"
"We saw your picture," the boy announces solemnly. "In Kaori-onee-chan's phone."
Traitor, I think, and my ears get hot.
Kaori looks entirely unbothered. "I had to show them what my airplane looks like," she says.
Watari erupts. "So you do call him that when we're not around!"
"Shh, secret," she hisses, laughing. Then, to the kids: "Hey, hey, what did we say about patient privacy?"
"That we don't have any," the girl says immediately.
"...Okay, maybe I need to revise that lesson," Kaori admits.
I step into the room fully, closing the door behind us. The air feels lighter than the last thousand times I've been here.
"Hey," I say, and the word is small next to everything I'm feeling.
"Hey," she echoes. Her eyes skim over me, down to the familiar scuffed shoes, back up, like she's checking all the coordinates. "You look like you slept."
"Rude," I say. "I always look this good."
"We brought contraband," Watari announces, lifting the bag.
The kids gasp. "Contraband?"
"Don't say that so loudly," I hiss.
Kaori's eyes sparkle. "Is it what I think it is?"
"Chocolate and those weird gummies you like," Watari says. "Don't worry, I'll eat the evidence if a nurse comes in."
"You;'re not supposed to eat the evidence," I say.
"Relax," Kaori says. "I'll bribe them with my angelic smile."
The boy tugs on her sleeve. "Kaori-onee-chan, are these your boyfriends?" he asks with the subtlety of a grenade.
The girl shakes her head. "You can't have two boyfriends, that's against the rules!"
Kaori puts a hand over her mouth in exaggerated shock. "Oh no, is it? I must've missed that chapter in the textbook."
Watari sputters. "We're not— I'm— I mean, I am incredible, but—"
I sigh. "We're just friends," I say to the kids. "Loud, embarrassing friends."
"Best friends," Kaori adds, looking at me over their heads.
The word lands in my chest and settles there, warm and heavy.
We hang out like that for a while—Watari doing magic tricks with the chocolate wrappers, the kids demanding another page, Kaori making up half the lines of the story because she's too lazy to read properly. I mostly stand at the edge and watch, letting her voice wash over me.
Every now and then she glances my way, and our eyes catch, and something unspoken passes between us. I'm here. You're here. It's okay.
After a while, a nurse pokes her head in. "Miyazono-san, it's almost time for your check-up."
Kaori pouts. "Already? I was just getting to the good part."
"You can terrorize them with rhymes later," the nurse says fondly. "For now, let's give your friends a break."
The kids whine but obediently slide off the bed. Kaori ruffles their hair, promises to finish the story, and they scamper out after the nurse, clutching their own little bracelets.
Watari stretches, bones popping. "I should go too," he says. "Coach'll have my head if I'm late again."
"Tell him you were doing charity work flirting with sick girls," Kaori suggests.
"Yeah, I'll just tell him the world's cutest violinist demanded my presence," he says, winking. "Obviously he'll understand."
"World's cutest former violinist," she corrects.
"World's cutest chaos gremlin," I offer.
She sticks her tongue out at both of us.
Watari slaps my shoulder on his way out. "I'll wait downstairs," he says. "Don't hog all the visiting time, lover boy."
I choke. "I hate you."
"Love you too," he calls, and disappears.
The door clicks shut behind him.
Silence settles, softer than usual.
Kaori sighs and sinks back a little against the pillows, pushing hair out of her face. "He's the same as always," she says. "Loud, sparkly, emotionally constipated."
"Yeah," I say, moving closer to the bed. "I'm pretty sure his brain is just one long goal highlight reel."
She pats the edge of the mattress. "Sit," she orders. "You've been looming like a haunted coat rack this whole time."
I obey.
Up close, I can see the faint shadows under her eyes. The way her hands tremble just a little when she adjusts the blanket. The flush of real color in her cheeks that wasn't there before Skyclairs.
"How's it feel?" I ask. "Being the queen of pediatrics."
"It feels like I'm being used as a mascot," she says. "I'm pretty sure the nurses are secretly putting me on the payroll."
"You'd bankrupt them in snacks alone," I say. "That's a bad business decision."
She smiles, then sobers a little. "Hey, Kousei."
"Yeah?"
"You look like you're somewhere else," she says. "Even when you're right in front of me."
I swallow. My fingers pick at the edge of the sheet.
"Do you ever get the feeling," I start slowly, "that you've already walked into a room before? Except last time it was... wrong."
Her eyes search my face. "You mean déjà vu?"
"Something like that," I say.
"And was it... bad?" she asks quietly.
I force myself to meet her gaze. "Yeah," I say. "Really bad."
She reaches out, covers my fidgeting hand with her own. Her skin is warm.
"But this time," she says, "you walked in and I was reading The Cat in the Hat badly to two very impressionable children."
"You were butchering the rhyme scheme," I agree.
"So," she says, squeezing my fingers, "it's different... but not bad..?"
A breath shudders out of me. "Yeah," I say. "It is."
"Good." She leans her head back, looking up at the ceiling. "Then maybe... other things can be different too."
Her words drag my mind straight to a small body on asphalt, to blood, to the helpless way the vet shook his head last time.
I flinch.
She feels it. Of course she does.
"Hey," she says softly. "I'm still here."
"I know," I say.
"You're gripping my hand like I'm going to vanish if you blink," she points out.
"Occupational hazard," I mutter.
She shifts, scooting a little closer. "Kousei," she says. "Look at me."
I do.
Her eyes are clearer than I've ever seen them. There's fatigue there, sure, and pain tucked in the corners, but also this stubborn, blazing thing that made her drag me onto stages and into futures I didn't believe I deserved.
"Pills are.. working," she says cautiously. "The doctors say the markers are better. They canceled the surgery because they don't need to gamble like that anymore. I'm still sick. I'm still stuck here. But I'm not... collapse-in-the-hallway sick right now."
I swallow, hard.
"So," she continues, "you have permission to breathe."
"That's not how that works," I say.
"Then I'm prescribing it," she insists. "One deep breath, three times a day, preferably while thinking about how incredibly cool your girlfriend is."
"You're not my doctor," I say.
"I'm whatever you need me to be," she replies. "Annoying, inspiring, extremely fashionable..."
"Loud," I add.
"Loud," she agrees.
I let myself lean in, just a little, until our joined hands rest on her lap and my shoulder brushes the side of her arm. It feels dangerously natural.
"I'm greedy too, you know," I say after a while. "Not just you."
"Oh?" she says. "Do tell."
"I want..." The words get tangled somewhere between my chest and my mouth. I try again. "I want this. All of it. Time with you. Time... after you. School. Medicine. Music. Everything. It's like someone handed me a second life and I don't know how to not clutch it to death."
She studies me, eyes soft.
"That's not greed," she says. "That's being alive."
"Feels the same," I say.
"That's because you're used to thinking you don't deserve anything," she says matter-of-factly.
I scowl. "When did this become a therapy session?"
"Since always," she says. "You just didn't get billed before."
I snort.
"Tell you what," she says. "You keep being 'too close,' and I'll keep being here. At least for a while longer. Pills is buying us time. Let's be greedy with it."
"Greedy, huh," I murmur.
"Yeah," she says. "Greedy enough that when you walk out of this hospital, you don't spend the whole way home drowning in ghosts."
"Hm," I say noncommittally.
She sees right through it. "You're planning something," she accuses.
"I'm planning to play the piano without puking on the keys," I say. "That's all."
"Liar," she sings.
"Hypocrite," I shoot back.
She grins. "That's love."
We sit like that for a while, trading small stories, stupid dreams. At one point she leans her head against my shoulder, and my heart goes completely, idiotically still.
When the nurse comes back to shoo me out so they can run more tests, I have to physically peel my hand away from hers. She blows me a kiss with two fingers, and I catch it because I'm too far gone not to.
Watari is waiting downstairs, half-asleep in a chair with an empty vending machine cup balanced on his head. I flick it off.
"How was she?" he asks, straightening.
"Louder than you," I say.
"Impossible," he scoffs, but he relaxes.
We step out into the late afternoon. The world feels... tilted. Lighter and heavier at once.
"So," he says as we hit the sidewalk. "You gonna go home and bury yourself in sheet music now?"
"Maybe later," I say. "I'll walk a bit."
"You sure?" he asks. "It's kind of out of the way for you."
"It's fine," I say. "Go ahead. Don't be late."
He eyes me for a second, then shrugs. "Alright. Don't get run over."
"Thanks for the concern," I call as he jogs off.
The streets are busy but not crowded. People move around me like I'm a rock in a stream. The sky is bleeding orange into purple. My brain replays Kaori's face when she saw me, the kids' heads against her arms, the way her fingers tightened when she said greedy.
I almost miss the shape in the road.
Almost.
A small knot of people is gathered near the crosswalk, murmuring. A car door slams. Someone swears under their breath.
My stomach drops.
No.
I push through the bodies without thinking. "Excuse me—sorry—"
There, just off the white-painted line, lies a small, crumpled shape. Fur clumped, one side matted dark. Tiny chest fluttering in shallow, frantic bursts.
A cat.
Everything inside me tilts.
For a second I'm standing in two places at once: here, now, and there, then. Same street. Same smear of color on asphalt. Same horrible, sinking feeling.
Last time, I hesitated. Just long enough to watch the light change, the traffic surge, the distance between us become a canyon.
This time my body moves before my brain can get in the way.
"Hey!" someone yells as I step off the curb.
A horn blares, close and angry. A car squeals to a stop a few meters away, the driver's face pale behind the glass.
I'm already there.
I scoop the cat up with both hands, jacket thrown around its shaking body. It's small. Too small. Warm in the wrong, feverish way.
"Idiot," I mutter, voice shaking. "Why'd you pick the road, huh?"
The cat makes a small sound, half hiss, half whine. One of its paws twitches weakly.
People are still talking at me—"Is it alive?" "Careful, it might bite," "There's a vet two blocks down"—but it all sounds far away.
Two blocks down.
Last time, I ran farther. I don't know why. Panic, probably. By the time I got there, its chest had stopped moving.
Not this time.
"Excuse me," I say, already backing away. "Sorry—sorry—"
I run.
The world narrows to the rhythm of my feet and the bundle in my arms. My lungs burn. My brain throws up a slideshow of everything that went wrong before. The smell of blood on my hands. The vet's apologetic bow. The park sink where I scrubbed at my skin until it turned raw.
The cat wheezes against my chest.
"Hang on," I tell it. "I'm not... I'm not losing you, too."
The vet's door bell jingles as I slam it open with my shoulder. A woman in scrubs looks up, eyes wide. "Can I help—oh!"
"I found it on the road," I gasp. "It's breathing but—"
"Exam room three," she snaps to someone behind her. "Now."
They take the cat from me, transfer it to a blanket far more gently than I did. A man in a white coat appears from nowhere, stethoscope already in hand. They vanish behind a door.
I stand there, jacket smeared, hands sticky, heart doing something ugly in my chest.
"Please wait here," the receptionist says gently, gesturing to a chair.
I sit because my legs are suddenly made of jelly.
The waiting room is small and smells like disinfectant and shampoo. A poster of grinning golden retrievers beams down at me. Somewhere, a dog barks once and is shushed.
I stare at my hands.
There isn't as much blood as last time.
My brain, traitorous as ever, supplies the thought before I can stop it. Last time it soaked into my sleeves, my skin, the cracks of my life.
I flex my fingers. They're shaking.
I don't know how long I sit there. Minutes. Years. The wall clock is useless; the only time that matters is beating at the base of my throat.
The door opens.
The vet steps out, mask pulled down, expression... calm.
My breath lodges halfway.
"How is it?" I ask.
He glances at my hands, then at my face. "You were the one who brought the cat in?"
"Yeah." My voice sounds like it belongs to someone else. "I—I found it on the street."
He nods once. "You did well bringing it quickly. It's got a nasty hit to the leg and some bruising, but no internal bleeding that we can see. We've stabilized it. Barring complications, it should recover."
For a second, the words don't compute.
No internal bleeding.
Should recover.
"So it's... okay?" I manage.
He smiles, small but real. "It's going to be alright."
Something in me cracks.
I suck in a breath that feels like the first real one all day. The waiting room, the posters, the weird potted plant in the corner—they all snap into focus.
"Thank you," I say, and my voice breaks around the edges.
He tilts his head. "It's a good thing you acted quickly. Many people hesitate when they see an animal like that. You didn't."
I want to say, you have no idea how long I hesitated the first time. Instead I just nod.
The receptionist calls me over a few minutes later with a clipboard.
"Since you're the one who brought it in, we need to ask," she says gently. "Do you want to register as the owner? If not, we have a charity fund for strays. We can treat it without cost to you, but it won't be yours. We'll try to find a home later."
She taps a line on the form. "If you sign here, you won't be financially responsible. The clinic will cover it."
I stare at the paper.
Last time, I signed.
Last time, I told myself it was better that way—that some abstract, faceless kindness would do a better job than I could. That I had nothing to offer a half-broken creature except guilt.
Now, my wallet feels like a weight in my pocket. Heavy with the money from all the bets, the trades, the calculated risks I took when I woke up in this second chance. Money I told myself was for tuition, for lab fees, for whatever future Kaori shoved me toward.
The pen is in my hand before I realize it.
"Actually," I hear myself say. "I'll... take responsibility."
Both of them look faintly surprised.
"You understand that means you'll be responsible for the cost of treatment and any follow-up?" the receptionist asks. "We can give you an estimate, but—"
"It's fine," I say.
It's not "fine" in the sense that it's cheap. The number she eventually shows me makes Watari's soccer gear look like pocket change.
But it's fine in the sense that—I can pay it. Because of every greedy move I've made since waking up in this rewritten life.
Because I want to.
"Are you sure?" she asks.
I think of the cat's tiny chest struggling under my hands. Of Kaori telling me to be greedy with the time we've been given. Of the version of me who walked this street before and went home with only blood to show for it.
"Yeah," I say, signing my name. "I... want to see it again."
She smiles. "In that case, we'll register it under your name for now. You don't have to decide anything permanent yet. You can think about whether you want to keep it once it's recovered."
Keep it.
The idea lodges in my mind like a strange, warm splinter.
I picture a small body curled on a bed, soft breathing instead of ragged. A living weight instead of a memory I can't wash off.
"What's its name?" the receptionist asks, pen poised.
I freeze.
In the other timeline, it never lived long enough to deserve one.
I look down at the bracelet on my wrist. At the little bead Kaori tied there, ridiculous and cheap and more valuable than anything else I own.
"Not sure yet," I say slowly. "Can I decide later?"
"Of course," she says. "For now we'll put 'Arima's cat.'"
That sounds... weird. But also strangely right.
I pay the deposit. The numbers flash on the card reader, a tiny, solid proof that I can change something concrete in this world.
When I step back out onto the street, the sun has dipped low. The air is cooler, the traffic lighter. My jacket still smells faintly of blood and antiseptic.
I walk without really choosing a direction.
Somewhere behind me, in a small clinic room, a cat is breathing easier because I moved faster. Because I refused to sign away my responsibility.
Somewhere across town, in a hospital room painted with late light, a girl is probably annoying a nurse into smuggling extra pudding.
For the first time since I woke up in this second chance of a life, the weight of the past and the pull of the future feel... balanced. Not even. Not easy. But not completely tilted toward disaster, either.
Last time, I failed at everything that day. Failed to save her from pain, failed to save a small life on the road, failed to see a way forward.
This time, Kaori laughed and read a stupid book to two kids who think I'm an airplane. This time, the cat lived. This time, I signed my name.
Maybe it's stupid to tie all that together. Maybe it's too much meaning for one throwaway moment on a street.
But as I head home, hands shoved in my pockets, I can't help it.
I think of Kaori's voice on the phone:
'That plane flew really far, you know....'
Maybe, this time, it will.
And if I have anything to say about it—
This time, I won't drop it.