She tries it with Umi first.
They've settled down for the night, under the semi-stable remains of an old corner store. Honoka's already asleep, and she's resting farther off from her and Umi, so Kotori doesn't have to worry about what she'll say.
She watches Umi for a moment, watches the way she rolls her neck and shoulders, watches the wince when she moves her arm too fast. And, when Umi raises one of their newly acquired water bottles to her lips, Kotori sees the look of utter exhaustion on her face.
"You should leave me," she says.
Umi chokes, turning to the side to spit out what water she hadn't gotten down. She coughs for another minute after that before wiping her face on her sleeve and turning to face Kotori with wide eyes. "W-What?" she splutters.
Kotori looks away in shame. "Leave me," she repeats. Her hand ghosts over the tip of her leg, and she winces from the contact but continues speaking. "I'm- I'm a nuisance. I'm only weighing you down." She almost laughs at her word choice, considering the amount of weight she's lost recently.
Umi reaches out and grabs her wrist, pulling her hand towards her chest and away from the remains of Kotori's injured leg.
"Never," she whispers. "God, Kotori, never." She's already crying, voice choked and cheeks flushed with distress. Kotori dares a glance up at her, and she can practically taste the next question from Umi's lips. "Why would you say that?"
Kotori's eyes well up now, because she's hurt Umi again and this is exactly what she was trying to avoid with this idea. Though she knows, deep down, that even if Umi had said yes, they'd both be hurt beyond words.
But Kotori's been keeping things from her, so she's sure the relationship is strained already. She still hasn't found the strength to tell either Umi or Honoka how she lost her leg. When they had first found her like that, thin and starved and unable to reach food, she had thought they would leave her, seeing as she clearly couldn't travel. And she'd almost told them then, almost told them to let her rot in that dusty hospital bed, sun filtering in through the gaping hole in the wall, burning her alive. But they'd been insistent on taking her with them.
Honoka had been the one to bring up the idea of carrying her, and Kotori had all but screamed her disapproval. She didn't want to be any more of a hassle, she had already wasted that doctor's time; he could've saved more people if he hadn't found her.
Even so, they set out the next morning, Kotori draped over Umi's back. Though as soon as Umi started showing signs of strain, Kotori immediately regretted agreeing.
When she speaks again her voice is much more broken than she wants it to be, but she has to get the words out before her throat closes up with memories. "I'm h-hurting you," she cries, voice rising in volume. "We have to stop every hour because of me- Umi, you'd have found other survivors by now if I wasn't with you!"
Honoka stirs, and both girls take a deep breath to try and calm themselves. Kotori shuts her eyes and prays that Honoka doesn't wake up, that she isn't listening, because the look Umi was giving her makes her chest ache and seeing Honoka make the same expression would be torture.
When they're certain that Honoka is asleep, Umi turns back to Kotori. She sighs, and releases Kotori's hand so she can wipe the tears from her face. "That's not true," she whispers, voice heavy with guilt. And Kotori just shakes her head, because she's the guilty one, she's the one causing all this trouble.
Umi steadies her grip, holding Kotori's face still as she kisses her forehead. "You're never a bother. I'll carry you as far as we need."
The second time she brings it up, it's with Maki.
Kotori stares intently at the girl, who is currently in what Honoka calls her "Doctor Mode." Her face is scrunched with seriousness, eyes sharp as she pulls the bandages from Kotori's leg, slim fingers impossibly gentle as she examines the hasty stitches.
"We'll need to clean this," she murmurs, standing to search for a cloth and some water. "You'll need new dressings, too."
Kotori nods and thinks about what a godsend Maki is.
It was Honoka who had found her first. She'd been scouting ahead, looking for food or water or someone who knew what to do with Kotori, who'd become delirious with fever. Umi had stayed behind, holding tight to Kotori as she shivered and groaned through a fever-dream. And, with all the luck they'd been missing, Honoka had stumbled across the mostly intact Nishikino Clinic.
Inside, was Maki, who had been helping all those who'd found the office. With either food, water, or what medical help she could offer- which was much more than expected, for a girl her age. And so when Honoka returned with her companions, Maki took one look at Kotori and immediately started directing the other two in what needed to be done.
Kotori is lucid now, after almost three days of unconsciousness and delirium, and she's finally coherent enough to tell that Maki is just a highschool girl and not the doctor who had amputated her leg.
Though their eyes still look so similar, that when Maki starts wrapping fresh bandage around her thigh, the thoughts Kotori had wanted to tell the doctor come spilling out.
"Why are you helping me?" she asks, voice already laden with shame and guilt. Maki's hands stop moving, and she blinks up at Kotori, seemingly snapped from her focus.
"You're hurt," she answers. There's a silence, and neither girl moves.
"But there are people more hurt than me," Kotori shrugs, "you should be helping them."
And though she knows Kotori is probably right, Maki still wants to point out that she's missing a fucking leg.
Her lips part as if to speak, but no words come out. Kotori continues. "You should leave me," she says, and hopes Umi is out of earshot.
At first, Maki doesn't respond, and Kotori is sure that she's finally convinced someone to let her die. She tries to convince herself that this is a good thing, but Maki is just silently fixing her bandages and Kotori wants to cry.
And she does. Her shoulders shake, her lip quivers, she white knuckles the sheets of the bed, and she cries. She tries to stifle it, so Umi and Honoka don't come running, but the residual sickness and the pain in her leg and feeling of absolute uselessness all bubble up in her chest, and before can even think of apologizing she's bawling.
Still, Maki is silent. She gets Kotori turned around so she's sitting properly in the bed, and pushes her down by the shoulders, draping the blanket back over her still shaking form.
Kotori's crying has slowed to whimpers when Maki puts a hand on her forehead. She runs her fingers through Kotori's disheveled bangs, following the flow of her hair down until she reaches her cheek. And when Kotori catches her eyes, they're so soft and full of worry that she can't believe she ever compared them to the doctor's.
"Kotori," Maki whispers, brow furrowing. "We- we're not going to leave you."
She doesn't fight this time, doesn't rattle off her endless list of reasons why her death would be beneficial. She just makes a noise of acknowledgement, takes a shuddering inhale, and closes her eyes with a sigh.
And though Maki says "Get some rest," with a tone that suggests she's leaving, she stays at Kotori's side, playing with her hair until she's asleep.
The third time is awful.
At this point, they've joined up with a group of older girls: Eli, Nozomi, and Nico. They'd been travelling for nearly two weeks, and while they'd found many a survivor, they hadn't found a place to stay. So when Honoka had come across them collecting water from the nearby river, she'd lead them back to the clinic without a moment's hesitation. They've been around ever since.
Nico is like Maki; bad with feelings and worse with words. And while Maki manages to express through actions, Nico remains passive through her aversion to touch. Eli and Nozomi are the only ones allowed to touch her, and even then their touches are barely more than fleeting. Once or twice, Kotori has caught Nico holding Nozomi's hand, or letting Eli touch her hair, but other than that Nico keeps her distance. Eli says she went through a lot before her and Nozomi had found her, and no one dares ask more.
What Nico lacks in understanding feelings, Nozomi makes up for with her near flawless intuition. It had been a little off-putting at first, to have someone seemingly know exactly what she was thinking without a single word spoken. Though Kotori soon came to appreciate it, having Nozomi know when her thoughts were muddled, because while Kotori is nowhere near as bad as Maki or Nico, she's no word wizard either, and not having to talk out the feelings in her chest is a blessing. All of them have experienced Nozomi's little mind readings, but Kotori finds herself subject to them more often than not, as even a minute alone has her ridden with negative thoughts. But Nozomi, kind as ever, pets her hair and tells her everything will be alright.
Eli is an angel, as far as Kotori's concerned. She has Umi's arm strength, but she's much taller, and her legs are also fairly muscular. She takes some of the weight from Umi's shoulders, both physically and metaphorically, as she helps carry Kotori whenever she needs to move. Eli is in the middle, when it comes to emotions. She can be awkward and strained, but she's usually very understanding. And her smile can cure even the darkest of Nico or Kotori's moods in seconds.
And that's what makes it all so awful, when she tells them.
Umi, Honoka, and Maki are all gone to fill water bottles, leaving Kotori and the other girls alone. Kotori, as always, is sitting on one of the beds and pecking away at some bread Honoka had given her. Nico is riffling through the file cabinet in the corner, reading through whatever papers she finds. Nozomi helps Eli with her stretches.
Kotori watches, gulps down a sliver of bread, blinks. Eli stops to rub one of her shoulders and Kotori can immediately feel guilt rising in her throat. A hurt shoulder is always her fault.
She turns away, picking at her bread and ignoring the side glance that she catches from Nico. It's a curse she has, that when she's lost in thought her face tends to screw itself up. It twitches and twists and shows everything Kotori is feeling, leaving with her zero protection from Nozomi and her motherly instincts.
Still, she flinches when Nozomi calls her name, because her voice is so soft and full of worry and Kotori is just being a nuisance, she doesn't deserve that kind of voice.
"I-It's nothing," she shrugs, picking off another bit of bread.
Nico shuts the file cabinet, the sudden noise making Kotori flinch again. "It's clearly something," she says with a roll of her eyes. "You're doing that thing with your eyebrows that means you're upset."
Kotori barely has time to be surprised that Nico noticed something like that before Nozomi and Eli are at her bedside. Eli lays a hand on her forehead. "Are you feeling sick?" she asks, because Maki and Umi had mentioned how she was with her fever.
"Did you not sleep well?" says Nozomi beside her, and Kotori's head is spinning because she's never mentioned her nightmares to anyone.
And god, if they know about that, what else do they know? Do they know how there wasn't enough anesthesia when the doctor was operating on her leg? Do they know that she watched her mother get crushed by their falling home? Do they know how about the emptiness in her chest and heaviness in her head, and the way she clings to the blankets when she wakes from a nightmare?
While she ponders these questions, she becomes vaguely aware of Eli calling her name. She comes crashing back to reality with more guilt on her shoulders, breath coming slow into her lungs.
"Kotori? Kotori, can you hear me?"
"You should leave me," is the first thing she says.
Nico bristles, Nozomi flinches, and Eli can't seem to grasp what Kotori is saying.
"W-What?" she murmurs, eyes wide. She looks like a lost child.
Kotori's crying already, a mess before she can even get the words out. "L-leave me," she hiccups. "Take me somewhere far from here and leave me to d-die." No one says anything, but Eli's hands drop from her shoulders and Nico takes a step forward. "I'm j-just a hindrance, you're all wasting time on me."
It comes as a surprise to everyone in the room, including herself, when Nico is the first to speak.
"We're not wasting time," she says, hands curling into fists at her sides. "And you're no 'hindrance'. We're all fucked up, we've all got hurts and burdens, yours are just more physical. That doesn't make you any worse than the rest of us." She takes a deep breath, looking away to try and regain some composure. Eli and Nozomi are still silent, and Kotori couldn't look up at them even if she wanted to.
Someone tugs the blanket away from her face, and though her eyes are blurred with tears she can still tell it's Nico. "Listen," she murmurs, "we're not gonna leave you. Not me, not Nozomi, not Eli, not Maki, and especially not Honoka and Umi."
Kotori can only nod, and force out some garbled apology before hiding her face again.
Eli moves, finally. She sits beside Kotori and gently brings the girl into her lap, hugging her tightly. She buries her face in the girl's hair. "Nico's right," she says, voice muffled. "We'd never leave you."
The bed dips on her other side, and Kotori finds herself being slipped from Eli's arms into Nozomi's. Nozomi rocks them from side to side, and strokes through Kotori's hair with delicate fingers. And as much as Kotori tries to tell herself she doesn't deserve this, she's already feeling better.
Nico doesn't join in on the touching, but she does move to sit on the edge of the bed. She crosses her arms, and quietly answers all of Kotori's apologies. "It's okay," she says, "you're okay."
And for once, Kotori thinks that maybe she will be okay.