The days blurred.
Arashi had stopped counting them the way ordinary people count days — by mornings, by meals, by the slow rotation of a school schedule. He counted them differently now. By the number of times Mizuki's chest rose and fell while he sat beside her. By the hours he managed to steal from sleep before the anxiety pulled him back to wakefulness. Two hours, sometimes less. Never more.
His parents were abroad. He had called them once, kept his voice level, told them he was fine. They had believed him, or had chosen to. Either way, no one was waiting for him at home — no questions at the dinner table, no one to notice the hollows forming beneath his eyes. He moved through the apartment alone, ate when he remembered to, and spent the rest of his hours at the hospital as though that room at the end of the corridor was the only place in the city that made sense.
At the hospital, he had made himself a fixture. The nurses knew his face. The chair beside Mizuki's bed had a shape to it now that was almost his. He brought her flowers she couldn't see yet, changed them when they wilted, and talked to her in the quiet hours when the ward went dim — not because he believed she could hear him clearly, but because the silence was worse.
Sometimes the others came.
Miyu and Hina would arrive together, usually in the afternoon, carrying snacks they weren't supposed to bring past the front desk but somehow always did. They would sit on either side of the bed and talk to Mizuki in soft voices — about school, about small things, about nothing in particular — the way people talk to someone they refuse to believe isn't listening. Ayane came too, quieter than usual, her usual sharpness filed down into something more careful. She would stand near the window sometimes, just looking at Mizuki's face, and Arashi had learned not to interrupt those moments. Takumi and Satoru came less often but stayed longer when they did — Takumi filling the room with low, steady conversation, Satoru sitting in the corner with his hands clasped and his jaw tight, the way boys look when they don't know what to do with worry.
Arashi was grateful for them. He didn't say it, but he was.
Still — when they left, he stayed. And the nights were his alone.
A month passed.
And Mizuki did not get better.
It was on a Tuesday — gray outside, the kind of gray that felt permanent — that Arashi finally walked to the doctor's office and knocked.
Dr. Hayama looked up from his desk. He had kind eyes, the sort that had learned over years of practice how to carry difficult news without flinching. He gestured to the chair across from him.
Arashi sat. He folded his hands in his lap, and for a moment he just looked at the surface of the desk — the stethoscope coiled to one side, the stack of patient files, the pen resting at an angle.
"It's been a month," Arashi said.
"I know."
"She's not getting better."
Dr. Hayama set his pen down. "Her body is fighting. These things take—"
"A month." Arashi's voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. There was a weight behind it that was heavier than volume. "I understand that recovery takes time. I've read everything I could find. I'm not here because I'm impatient." He paused. "I'm here because something isn't moving. I can see it. And I think you can too."
The doctor was quiet for a moment. He looked at Arashi the way people sometimes look at someone younger than them when they realize the youth is beside the point.
"You're right," he said finally, carefully. "Her response to the current treatment has been... slower than we'd like."
"Then I want to know if there's another way."
Dr. Hayama leaned back slightly. He pressed his fingers together, the gesture of a man thinking through something he hadn't fully decided to say yet.
"There is one option," he said. "It's more intensive. We haven't raised it yet because it carries its own risks, and we typically wait to see if the body stabilizes on its own first."
Arashi didn't move. "Tell me."
The doctor looked at him — at the stillness of him, at the dark under his eyes and the steadiness of his expression — and seemed to understand that this was not a boy who needed to be protected from information.
He took a breath.
"Peripheral blood stem cell transplantation," Dr. Hayama said. "It's a procedure where a donor's stem cells are collected from the bloodstream and transplanted into the patient. If her body accepts them, it could give her immune system the foundation it needs to begin recovering properly." He paused. "But it requires a compatible donor. Someone whose blood markers align closely enough with hers."
Arashi was silent for exactly three seconds.
"How do we find out if someone is compatible?" he asked.
The doctor studied him.
"A blood test," he said slowly. "It's a simple screening. We compare the donor's markers against Mizuki's profile." Another pause. "Arashi—"
"When can I come in?"
Dr. Hayama opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked down at his desk, then back up at the young man sitting across from him — the one who hadn't slept properly in a month, who had spent thirty days in a chair that wasn't his, who had just asked about compatibility testing the way someone asks about a bus schedule.
Calm. Certain. Already decided.
"Tomorrow morning," the doctor said quietly. "Come in at nine."
Arashi nodded. He stood, pushed the chair back in, and paused at the door.
"Thank you," he said. And then he was gone — back down the corridor, back to the room at the end of the hall, back to the chair that had taken the shape of him.
He sat down beside Mizuki, and he looked at her face for a long moment.
Then he reached over and took her hand.
"I found something," he said quietly, to the silence, to her. "I'm going to fix it."
Outside, the gray had not lifted. But inside that small room, something had shifted — quiet as a tide turning, certain as a decision already made.
The clinic was quiet at nine in the morning.
Arashi sat in the waiting area for eleven minutes before a nurse called his name. He followed her down a short hallway, rolled up his sleeve without being asked, and looked away as the needle went in — not because he was afraid of it, but because there was nothing to see. It was just blood. A small thing. He'd give far more than that if it meant something.
The nurse told him results would take a few days. He nodded, rolled his sleeve back down, and left.
He went straight to Mizuki's room.
Three days later, Dr. Hayama called him into the office again.
Arashi sat in the same chair. Same desk. Same coiled stethoscope, same stack of files. He waited.
The doctor looked at him for a moment before he spoke.
"The markers match," he said.
Arashi didn't react immediately. He just let the words settle — the way you let something land before you decide what it means.
"Well enough to proceed?" he asked.
"Better than well enough." Dr. Hayama folded his hands on the desk. "Arashi, compatibility at this level is rare. Especially between two people who aren't related." A pause. "It's a good sign."
Arashi was quiet for a moment.
"Then let's proceed," he said.
"There are risks involved. For you as well — the process isn't without discomfort. We'll need to administer medication beforehand to stimulate stem cell production in your bloodstream. It can cause bone pain, fatigue, headaches. Some donors find it difficult."
"Okay."
"I want you to take a day to think about—"
"I don't need a day." Arashi's voice was even. Unhurried. "I've already thought about it. Tell me what comes next."
Dr. Hayama studied him for a long moment. Then he picked up his pen, opened a file, and began to explain the procedure — the medication schedule, the collection process, the timeline. Arashi listened to every word without interrupting, without looking away, without flinching.
When it was over he stood, shook the doctor's hand, and walked back down the corridor.
He stopped at Mizuki's doorway.
She looked the same as she had yesterday. Pale. Still. The slow rhythm of the monitors the only proof the world hadn't stopped inside that room. He walked in and sat beside her, and for a moment he just looked at her the way he always did — like she was a problem he had already decided to solve.
He leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees.
"It matched," he said quietly. "You and me." A small pause. "Funny how that works."
He reached over and adjusted the blanket near her shoulder — a small, unnecessary gesture — and then sat back.
"I start the medication next week," he said. "So you better be ready. I'm not going through all of this just for you to give up on me halfway."
The monitors beeped softly. The curtain near the window shifted in the air conditioning.
He stayed until visiting hours ended.