The glowing red LED sign reading "SURGERY IN PROGRESS" hovered from the pristine white ceiling, casting a cold and ruthless light onto the tiled floor like the judgmental eye of the grim reaper.
That was the only light anchoring Ichinose Chizuru's remaining consciousness.
She sat with her knees pulled to her chest on the stiff plastic chair, her body curled into a tiny, trembling mass. Her pristine white sneakers were now stained with dark patches. Blood. Kazuya's blood. The mud from the port mixed with that pungent liquid had dried and flaked onto the floor, but the metallic scent of death seemed to cling stubbornly to her every olfactory cell.
The first three hours since the blood-soaked stretcher vanished behind the operating room doors felt like time had been twisted into a grotesque shape. The chaotic sirens of the ambulance, the shouts of the special forces, and the haunting, continuous beep of the heart monitor when Kazuya stopped breathing on the way to the hospital... all of it was mashed into a broken cassette tape, replaying endlessly in her mind.
A nurse rushed out to fetch more reserve blood, leaving behind only brief, dry explanations.
The sole miracle in this dark night was that the combat engineers had managed to use hydraulic saws to shatter the concrete block right inside the ambulance. His legs, luckily, were freed just in time, completely avoiding the muscle necrosis of Crush Syndrome.
But that was the only piece of good news. The rest of the medical report was a pending death sentence. Kazuya's body had suffered multiple traumas from brutal beatings: three shattered ribs, internal organ damage causing massive hemorrhaging, and worst of all, an immune system heavily ravaged by acute myeloid leukemia. Chemotherapy had drained his body's platelets. He had no ability to clot blood on his own. The current surgery was not just about piecing together broken bones or stitching ruptured organs. It was a frantic race against death to pump blood into a body bleeding from every corner while maintaining the beat of a heart that had already stopped once.
...
The clock struck the tenth hour.
The hallway outside the operating room was no longer empty. Kazuo leaned against the wall, his eyes bloodshot, his graying hair making him look a decade older in just one night. Harumi buried her head in her husband's shoulder, her choked sobs occasionally breaking out and tearing through the thick atmosphere. In another corner, Kibe and Kuribayashi sat on the floor, their hands gripping their hair, their hollow eyes staring into the void. No one spoke a word. Any sound uttered right now could snap the fraying nerves of everyone present.
The steady clatter of wheels echoed from the end of the hallway. A nurse was carefully pushing a wheelchair closer. Sitting in it was Grandma Sayuri.
Despite her severely weakened health from prolonged treatments, Sayuri remained lucid. Her wrinkled face held a profound sorrow, yet her eyes radiated a heartbreakingly immense compassion. The wheelchair stopped right in front of Chizuru. The old woman struggled to lean forward, placing her bony, warm hands over her granddaughter's ice-cold ones.
"Chizuru," Sayuri's voice was hoarse, trembling but full of comfort. "Stop torturing yourself, my dear. You have been sitting like this for ten hours."
Chizuru blinked slowly. She raised her head, her sluggish, empty gaze meeting her grandmother's sorrowful eyes.
"Grandma," a dry, shattered sound escaped Chizuru's throat.
"I know everything," Sayuri patted the back of her hand, trying to suppress a sigh. "The police explained it. Kazuya is a brave boy. He did that because he wanted to protect you, because he loves you more than his own life. Kazuya is very strong, he definitely will not give up. So you must not blame yourself, do you hear me? This is not your fault."
The sincere words of comfort carried a grandmother's boundless love. It was the gentlest sedative anyone would need in a moment of despair.
However, for Chizuru right now, that gentleness morphed into a sharp, invisible blade, piercing straight into the core of her conscience and twisting deep into the rotting self-blame within her soul.
Not my fault?
A bitter, silent laugh echoed in Chizuru's mind. How could it not be her fault?
She lowered her eyes, staring blankly into space. The court of conscience began its most brutal trial. Her mind churned with memories, rewinding every frame that led to this bloody tragedy.
If she had not stepped into his life as a fake rental girlfriend in the beginning... If she had not stubbornly clung to him when he built an icy wall to push everyone away. If, in the hospital hallway that day, she had listened to his heartless warning and walked away, leaving him to sink into the safe solitude he created for himself... then perhaps, Kazuya would not be facing death's door today.
He was a man bearing overlapping scars from the past, a porcupine raising its quills to reject the world out of fear of betrayal. He was safe in his glass cage of apathy. But she, with her sheer stubbornness, had shattered that glass, dragged him out into the light, and forced him to acknowledge his feelings.
And what was the price for his courage to love again? Being targeted by a Yakuza syndicate, being dragged into Mami's muddy vengeance, and having to use his own life as bait.
The memory of the bracelet with the GPS chip flashed through her brain, making her heart contract violently. She had personally clasped it onto his wrist, proudly declaring it a shackle to ensure he would never disappear from her sight again. She thought she was binding him to safety. Little did she know, he had used that very bracelet of love, turned it into a tracking beacon, and willingly jumped into the tiger's den to draw enemy fire, clearing all threats so she could live a peaceful life.
He was not stupid enough to fall into a trap.
Chizuru bit her lower lip until it bled, tasting the metallic rust on her tongue. He knew it was a trap, but he walked in anyway. Because he wanted to trade his life for her absolute safety.
The agony suffocated Chizuru's chest, turning into a monster eroding her last drops of vitality. The comforting words of her family, of Sayuri, and of her friends were now meaningless. How could they understand the cruelty of Kazuya's love? He loved her with an extremism so profound that he was ready to destroy himself, ready to die alone at the freezing bottom of the sea just so she would not have to shed a single tear in fear.
...
The twentieth hour.
Time seemed to have frozen solid. The hospital hallway sank into the polar night of the soul, a place where the sunlight outside could not possibly penetrate. Kazuya's parents were exhausted, taking turns napping on the bench. Sayuri had been escorted back to her room by the nurses per medical orders. Kibe and Kuri were running around handling administrative paperwork and buying snacks.
Only Chizuru remained in her original posture. A soulless stone statue.
"Ichinose, have some porridge. You have not had a bite since yesterday afternoon," Kibe gently placed a warm paper cup of porridge next to her, his voice full of concern. "If you collapse, Kazuya will literally tear us apart when he wakes up."
Chizuru did not answer. She did not even blink. All her physical senses seemed completely disconnected. Her stomach cramped from hunger, her throat was as dry as a desert, her legs were numb from sitting too long, but she felt nothing. Her brain was on strike, refusing to process any information unrelated to the operating room doors in front of her.
She was being punished, and she accepted that punishment.
When the operating room doors swung open for the nth time for the doctors to hold an emergency consultation, Chizuru faintly caught fragments of words falling from their mouths: "Blood pressure dropping rapidly...", "Cannot stop the bleeding...", "Hypovolemic shock..."
With every word uttered, the fragile thread of hope within her snapped a little more.
...
The twenty-fourth hour.
Physical exhaustion began to spawn hallucinations. Chizuru's vision blurred, the red "SURGERY IN PROGRESS" light smudging and glowing like a will-o'-the-wisp. Kazuya's whispers by the Izu beach, his arrogant smirk upon discovering his cancer diagnosis, and the passionate kiss in the hospital room... all intertwined, flickering before her eyes.
And then, when despair crossed the threshold of panic, a bizarre psychological state set in. A chilling silence.
Chizuru stopped crying. Her tears had dried up. The fear of losing him that once made her scream and claw at the concrete floor now solidified into a cold, sharp, and terrifyingly cruel decision.
She stared fixedly at the closed doors. Her mind ran through a scenario. If, in a moment, that red light flickered off and the doctor stepped out with a bowed head and a helpless shake of his head.
If Kazuya truly left her behind in this world...
"What will I do?" Chizuru asked herself.
The answer that popped into her consciousness was not frantic screaming, nor was it a devastating breakdown. On the contrary, it was a spine-chillingly serene acceptance.
If he died, a part of her soul had already died with him on that blood-soaked stretcher.
This world, without his gruff, toxic tone that always stood up to protect her from every storm; without his deep black eyes that always saw right through her fake facades... that world held no meaning to exist anymore. He was the one who taught her how to live true to herself, the one who tore apart the empty rental girlfriend shell to save her life. She owed him a life, owed him a dream, owed him an entire soul.
If the grim reaper was determined to steal him away, she would not let him walk into that cold darkness alone ever again...
In her exhausted mind, Chizuru began making arrangements. She would handle his funeral flawlessly. She would use all her savings to ensure Sayuri received the best medical care until the end of her life. She would bow her head and apologize to Mr. and Mrs. Kinoshita for failing to protect their son. And after all her earthly duties were completed, she would choose a day shrouded in rain, the quietest night, to go find him herself.
That was not the impulsive thought of a heartbroken teenager. It was a death sentence that a guilt-ridden sinner pronounced upon herself. Chizuru's psychological dependency on Kazuya had reached an extreme level matching the sacrifice he made for her. He was the only anchor keeping her tethered to reality.
Without that anchor, the ship named Ichinose Chizuru would automatically sink to the bottom of the deep sea.
...
The thirtieth hour.
Click.
A small, dry sound echoed. But in the silent space, it felt like a roaring thunderclap tearing through everyone's eardrums.
The brilliant red light displaying "SURGERY IN PROGRESS" abruptly shut off.
Time truly stopped flowing. The hearts of the six people standing in the hallway seemed to stop beating as well.
The heavy stainless steel double doors were slowly pushed open to the sides.
The lead surgeon stepped out. His green scrubs were drenched in sweat and covered in bloodstains he had not had time to change out of. He removed his surgical cap and pulled down his mask, revealing an incredibly exhausted, haggard face after thirty hours wrestling with the grim reaper. His eyes were deeply etched with red, bloodshot veins.
Kazuya's parents rushed forward first, tripping over their own feet. Kibe and Kuri held their breath and stood up. Chizuru also stood up, but her legs trembled so violently she had to dig her bleeding fingers into the edge of the bench just to keep from collapsing. She stared blankly at the doctor, holding her breath, waiting for the fateful shake of the head she had mentally prepared herself to accept.
The doctor swept his gaze over the faces distorted by fear. He took a deep breath, his chest heaving, and gave a slight nod.
"The surgery is complete."
His voice was hoarse and weak, but every word was clear.
"The patient lost too much blood, his body was almost completely depleted, and there was a moment his heart stopped beating on the operating table for several minutes. Performing surgery on a leukemia patient was an incredibly cruel gamble..." He paused for a moment, smiling faintly, an exhausted smile that glimmered with absolute respect. "But he possesses an extraordinary will to survive. It was as if some power adamantly pinned him to this world. We successfully stopped the bleeding and stabilized the damaged internal organs. He lived. We brought him back."
He lived.
Those two words hung suspended in the air, then detonated into an explosion of light that wiped away the entire dark polar night.
"Oh my god! Thank heavens!" Harumi let out a heart-wrenching scream, dropping to her knees on the floor, covering her face as she sobbed. Kazuo hugged his wife tightly, tears streaming down the weathered man's cheeks. Kibe and Kuri hugged each other, roaring in joy like children.
And Chizuru...
When the words "He lived" passed through her eardrums and reached her brain, all her deadly plans, extreme thoughts, and the cruel coldness she had built over the past dozen hours instantly shattered into thousands of glass shards.
Just like a death row inmate standing on the gallows suddenly receiving a pardon at the exact moment the blade was about to fall.
The thousand-pound lead weight pressing on her chest was abruptly lifted away. The rigidity of her sympathetic nervous system, the toxic adrenaline that had maintained her alertness for the past 30 hours, was instantly drained without a single drop remaining.
She opened her mouth, intending to thank the doctor, intending to smile and share the joy with his family. She wanted to run over, wanted to see him immediately.
But her lips had barely curled up when a wave of dizziness struck. Chizuru's vision suddenly narrowed into a pitch-black tunnel. Earth's gravity abruptly conquered every effort her body made to stay upright.
"Ichinose!" Kibe cried out in panic upon seeing the petite girl stagger.
Chizuru's legs gave out. Her knees slammed hard against the cold tiled floor, but she no longer felt the pain. Her utterly depleted body collapsed, passing out instantly amidst the frantic shouts of the nurses and her friends.
Darkness enveloped Chizuru's consciousness. But unlike the darkness of despair from before, this was a gentle, warm darkness that brought absolute liberation...