"You—what are you…"
Shiki stared at Yuuki, who was leaving the hospital without even removing his bandages, dumbfounded.
Beside the bench were a bouquet and fruit—typical get-well gifts. Come to think of it, it was Sunday. No school.
"Uh… want me to go back inside and lie down a bit? I discharged early, anyway…"
Yuuki teased lightly, but inside he found it strange that Shiki would be here alone at this hour.
Shiki had a habit of wandering late at night, but it was still early.
If it was a visit, Fujino wasn't with her.
Fujino had mentioned several times she wanted to visit, but Yuuki strictly forbade Fujino from going out alone—especially in the late afternoon and evening.
"If you really want to go, ask Shiki to go with you."
Yuuki had texted that condition.
The result: Fujino never visited him during his hospitalization.
So why was Shiki here today—alone, sitting at the hospital entrance park as if hesitating?
"…Worried about me?" Yuuki asked.
"No. I'm watching something for someone."
So even Shiki lied to hide her embarrassment, huh.
But visiting a friend didn't seem like something that needed this much fluster.
It wasn't like anyone here had a guilty conscience… right?
Yuuki didn't want to leave Shiki stuck in awkwardness. As childhood friends—and each other's only real companion in class—he put on a casual face, grabbed a yellow-white apple from the fruit bag beside her, wiped it lightly, and took a big bite.
"Mmm. Sweet. I like it."
"Hey—ugh—at least wash it! You were hospitalized for acute gastroenteritis!"
"After eating something that intense, I feel like a little pesticide residue can't hurt me anymore. Where's Fujino?"
"At home. And I'm not here specifically to see you."
"Sure, sure. Got it."
Yuuki made a gesture like he was about to leave, but Shiki kept staring at him, speechless. Finally she sighed and pointed behind him.
Yuuki turned and saw a young woman—someone he vaguely recognized—standing there looking at a loss.
...
"S-so… I'm really, really sorry! I'll pay for what I ate—no, the fruit basket was unwrapped too… I'll just buy you a new one!"
"It's fine, it's fine. You were in the bed next to my child before, weren't you? I saw you keeping my child company. Thank you—because of work, my husband and I couldn't stay with him all the time."
As she spoke, Yuuki remembered.
Not close, but he'd seen her.
Her child was a boy a few years younger than Yuuki—Mayu Mizuhara—hospitalized after fainting from anemia due to leukemia. Because their ages seemed "close enough," the kid often tried to talk to him, and Yuuki humored him.
After a few polite exchanges, the woman took her things inside.
Shiki watched Yuuki, expression unreadable.
"Well… life has moments like that," Yuuki said weakly.
"…"
"Hey—are you laughing? Don't laugh at me!"
Something about Yuuki's frantic explanations seemed to hit Shiki's funny bone. The faint curve of her mouth reminded Yuuki of childhood.
Yuuki, Shiki, and another boy whose name sounded the same as Shiki's, but whose written name shared the "ki" character with Yuuki's—those brief days of playing together.
His pre-transmigration memories hadn't fully returned back then, and time had blurred the details. Even so, remembering it made Yuuki feel calmer.
Shiki was his childhood playmate—and now a precious friend.
Even after realizing who she truly was, even after learning she was the Shiki Ryougi from Kara no Kyoukai, their relationship wouldn't change.
"Anyway," Yuuki said, "if you're not here to visit me, why are you here on your rare day off?"
Shiki brushed it off with a casual excuse.
"Wandering. I don't come around here much. Just looking around."
The Asagami and Ryougi households were far apart. When Yuuki collapsed, it made sense he'd been hospitalized near his home—meaning this area wasn't somewhere Shiki usually came.
Even without activating Faerie Eyes (Pseudo), Yuuki knew Shiki was lying.
But if she didn't want to say, pressing her wouldn't help. So Yuuki went with it.
"Then if you're just wandering… want to walk together?"
"I'm going home."
...
As the future heir of the Ryougi family—the only one of the four demon-hunter clans that hadn't declined—Shiki had been an abnormal existence since childhood.
For most people, no matter their talent, they could only reach true mastery in a handful of things in a lifetime.
But the traditional magecraft family, the Ryougi, attempted to create an omniscient, omnipotent being by "fitting multiple personalities into a single body."
Shiki grew up knowing she was abnormal. And because of the second personality inside her, she understood humanity's hypocrisy and ugliness far too early.
She hated humans.
Maybe she hated herself, too.
As for the Asagami family, which should have been only a business connection, Yuuki originally knew nothing—neither about the four demon-hunter clans nor about the details of the Ryougi.
Perhaps that ignorance was exactly why Yuuki became someone Shiki could tolerate.
In truth, even setting aside childhood nostalgia, Yuuki didn't really understand Shiki when they met again.
At first—because Yuuki had spent so long as a businessman, as the true decision-maker for the Asagami family—it was practically a professional reflex.
Whether dealing with an uncle who underestimated him because he was a child, or a hunched old man whose stench was like rotting flesh, Yuuki always "handled" them properly to secure maximum benefit.
When he discovered he was in the same class as Shiki, he tried using that same polished approach on her.
The result was predictable:
Shiki hated him for a while.
Only last month had they finally reconciled.
After all, when you don't cross certain lines, persisting with someone is also one of Yuuki's specialties.
And once Shiki categorized someone as "annoying, but tolerable," she was unexpectedly lenient.
That leniency made it harder for her to deal with Yuuki's persistence.
In the end, even though Shiki's attitude remained dismissive—
She still allowed Yuuki to walk at her side, the two of them heading together toward the Asagami home.
-------
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