Ink Stained

13: left alone*

放っとく

Shiori gaped at Kouta, wide-eyed with disbelief. "You're – you can't be serious. You – Kouta, please, this isn't – that's not true. Tell me that's not true."

Kouta didn't say anything, and that in itself was an answer.

He watched Shiori look over at Pai's pale, still face. She sat in a plastic chair she had pulled up close to Pai's bead earlier, while Kouta had been consulting for nearly two hours with the three Daitengu who remain in the hospital. Ryu was gone by the time he made it to the room, having to go to school.

Shiori needed to go to school as well, but she was adamant that she wasn't going anywhere until Pai woke up. Kouta noticed how Shiori said 'when' and not 'if' Pai wakes up. Shiori still firmly held on to the hope that Pai was going to be able to recover on her own. She clung to that hope, that Pai would wake any minute now.

Shiori's eyes were peeled as she watched Pai breathe. She held Pai's limp hand as it lay atop the blanket draped over her. Kouta could see her hand tighten the longer she looked at Pai's disturbing stillness that spoke to her complete unconsciousness. It almost looked like Shiori thought that if she stared hard enough, Pai would open her eyes and everything would go back to normal.

"She's..." Shiori trailed off, numb. "Wh – why?"

Kouta knelt beside the chair she sat in and took her other hand in his, rubbing his thumb in slow circles over the back of her hand, and almost unconscious habit on his part. Shiori didn't look away from Pai.

"It's her heart," he answered carefully. He saw Shiori frown, eyes flickering at his words, but she continued to steadfastly look at her dearest friend. "The doctors say that her heart is failing, that it's not supporting her the way it should."

"Her heart?" Shiori echoed, and now she turned to look at him full-on. The barely suppressed pain and longing and worry in her eyes brought a lump to his throat. "But no one in her family as heart problems, I think."

"I know." He'd confirmed as much, through Kanou and the documents he'd managed to scrounge up on the Momozono's medical history. "But that doesn't change the fact of what's happening, Shiori."

"Oh." She mumbled, disheartened. She had been hoping that maybe he – the doctors, all of them – were wrong. He could see it, in the way her shoulders slumped. "Then – then can we get a transfer for her, like a donor? They can do that, right? That kind of thing is possible for hearts, right?"

"We would, if we could," Kouta replied hesitantly.

"Why not?" Shiori immediately demanded, voice rising slightly as she looked at him head-on. There was something almost accusatory in her eyes as she looked at him.

He didn't blame her for it.

"Her bloodtype is negative AB," he answered, not rising to the bait he knew she wanted him to take. "It's the rarest blood type. That sort of procedure requires a blood transfusion, and this hospital doesn't have that blood type. Available heart donors are already scheduled for other patients who've been waiting months. By the time both become available, it could already be too late."

"What about other hospitals?" she asked, latching on to that one last hope. "They must have it, right? This one doesn't, but others do, right?"

"They already have waiting lists of other patients who need it for their own surgeries, who waited longer. If we had time, if we could wait, we would, but Pai-chan doesn't have that time."

"But..." Shiori trailed off, staring at him as if she couldn't quite comprehend his words. Her bright brown eyes glistened. "But...that's – that's it? We're just – we're just going to let her die?"