Marvello's room was quiet in a way that felt intentional. The curtains were half-drawn, light barely touching the floor.
Amanda sat on the edge of the bed, humming softly as she cleaned the cut on Marvello's calf. Her movements were gentle, practiced—almost casual. Anyone watching would think it was nothing serious.
Marvello watched her hands, not her face.
"You don't have to be careful," Marvello said. "It won't change anything."
Amanda smiled. "I know. But habits are hard to kill."
The smile stayed, even as she pressed the cloth down.
"They destroyed my parents because of greed," Marvello said, voice flat. Not angry. Not sad. Just precise. "They didn't need to. They wanted to."
Amanda nodded lightly, as if agreeing with something ordinary.
"And they erased my twin brother," she added, tone just as calm. "Because he saw it. That was his crime."
Marvello didn't react. She absorbed the words like data.
"He wasn't supposed to be brave," Amanda continued, still smiling faintly. "He just happened to be there."
She reached into her bag and pulled out the document, smoothing it before handing it over. Her fingers lingered on the paper for a moment too long.
"I signed this years ago," she said. "I didn't understand what it meant. I thought it was protection."
Marvello glanced at the page. "You kept it."
Amanda's smile sharpened, just a little.
"I couldn't destroy it. That would be illegal. I can't change the signature either." A pause. "But I can decide who remembers it exists."
Marvello folded the document neatly and placed it on the table beside her bed.
"That's enough," she said.
Amanda finished wrapping the bandage, then leaned back, cheerful again—too cheerful.
"When I met Ji-Ho," she said lightly, "I felt ridiculous. Like I was projecting."
Marvello looked up.
"He doesn't look like my brother," Amanda went on. "He is him. Same presence. Same silence. The way he listens like he's already waiting for something bad to happen."
Her voice didn't shake. Her hands didn't stop moving.
"That's why it felt like I'd known him forever," she said. "My mind recognized him before I did."
Marvello nodded once. "Witnesses tend to find each other," she said.
Amanda stood, brushing imaginary dust from her clothes. "Then let's make sure this time, the witnesses stay alive."
She smiled again—bright, polite, perfectly out of place.
The room stayed cold after she left.
---
Naoki noticed the smell first.
Not disinfectant—he was already used to that—but something colder, cleaner. Like air that didn't belong in a hospital room.
Then the door opened.
Marvello stepped inside, framed by white light from the hallway. Her uniform was immaculate, not a wrinkle out of place, as if the day had never touched her.
She closed the door behind her carefully. Too carefully.
"The principal told me to visit," she said.
Her voice didn't rise or soften. It landed.
Naoki's fingers curled into the sheets.
His leg throbbed dully beneath the cast, a constant reminder that his body had betrayed him. He didn't look at it. He looked at her.
"So this is part of it now?" he said. "Checking on the damage?"
Marvello's eyes flicked to his leg—brief, impersonal, like a note taken and filed away.
"You're stable," she said. "That's preferable."
Naoki let out a short, bitter laugh that scraped his throat. "You talk like I'm a report."
She stepped closer, the sound of her shoes soft against the floor. Not hesitant. Measured.
"Reports matter," she replied. "They decide what happens next."
That made something twist in his chest.
"You don't feel bad," Naoki said. It wasn't a question.
Marvello considered him. Really looked this time. His pallor. The tension in his jaw. The way his anger kept him upright when his body couldn't.
"Feeling bad wouldn't change the outcome," she said. "So no."
Silence pressed in, heavy and deliberate.
Naoki shifted, pain flashing across his face before he could stop it. He saw her notice. He hated that she noticed.
"You think this makes you untouchable," he snapped. "Standing there like you didn't start a chain reaction."
"I didn't start it," Marvello said calmly. "I observed it."
She reached into her bag and placed a thin stack of papers on the bedside table. The sound was soft—but final.
"Class notes," she added. "You're expected to keep up."
Naoki stared at them, then back at her. His eyes burned.
"You ruin things without lifting a finger," he said. "People get hurt around you."
Marvello straightened, hands folding neatly again. "People get hurt around truth."
That word landed wrong. Too clean. Too sharp.
"I hate you," Naoki said quietly.
This time, Marvello paused longer.
She didn't turn around, but her reflection caught in the window glass—still, composed, unchanged.
"That's reasonable," she said. "Hate gives people direction when they've lost control."
The door opened.
"And Naoki," she added, almost as an afterthought, "be careful what you aim it at."
Then she was gone.
The room felt smaller afterward. Louder, somehow.
Naoki lay there, staring at the papers she'd left behind. His leg pulsed. His jaw tightened.
The visit hadn't been concern.
It had been confirmation.
And the worst part—she'd gotten exactly what she came for.
Marvello didn't stop walking until she reached the stairwell.
The door closed behind her with a dull echo, cutting off the hospital corridor and its eyes.
The space was narrow, concrete, unfinished—no mirrors, no windows. Somewhere she didn't have to perform.
She stood still.
For three seconds, nothing happened.
Then she exhaled.
It wasn't shaky. It wasn't loud. Just longer than necessary.
Her fingers tightened around the strap of her bag, knuckles whitening before she noticed and forced them to relax.
Naoki's voice replayed—not the shouting, not the anger.
I hate you.
Marvello leaned her head back against the cool wall.
"Hate usually survives longer than fear," she had said.
What she hadn't said was that hate was predictable.
What unsettled her was something else.
Naoki hadn't looked afraid.
He'd looked anchored—like pain had given him purpose.
Like breaking his leg had stripped away distraction and left him with a single, clean emotion to hold onto.
That was new.
Marvello closed her eyes briefly.
Not regret. Never that.
Adjustment.
She reached into her bag and touched the edge of the document Amanda had given her earlier, grounding herself in paper and ink and things that obeyed rules.
Systems made sense. People did not.
For the first time since entering the hospital, her calm thinned.
Naoki wasn't crushed. He wasn't silenced. He was focused.
That made him inconvenient.
Marvello straightened, smoothing her uniform as if nothing had happened. The crack sealed itself, precise and invisible.
By the time she pushed the stairwell door open, her expression was once again unreadable.
But the plan—quiet, patient, inevitable—had just gained a new variable.
And Marvello did not like surprises.
She stepped back into the corridor, already recalculating.