you know I'm such a fool for you


She woke up in the hospital. Everything was dark until she realized her eyes were closed. When she opened them, everything stayed dim for a minute before they went normal again.

Just as light was flooding back to her, a doctor entered. He gave her a look of mixed pity and reproach. "We had to pump your stomach."

She looked down in her lap. She realized that she wore a hospital gown, and that the strands of her long, pink hair hung down as limp and dirty as before.

"I know," she said, "I'm sorry." She said it in the same convincing way she always says it to her parents. She was rewarded with a tight-but-true smile. The doctor proceeded to sit down on the cornermost bit of the bed and went through a lecture on Why Not to Kill Yourself. She played with her hospital bracelet and tried to look appropriately regretful.

"Did anyone come for me?"

"Your parents have been notified," he said."It appears that although you are living on your own, Miss Rikyo, you are still on your parents' health insurance plan."

She cursed her low-pay, no-benefits job and tried to get to her feet. The doctor stopped her.

"You have to rest." He said nothing of how long, or her parents. She eased back on her pillow, muscles still tense and eyes wary.

"No Izumi Rio?"

"Who?

She figured as much. But it would have been curious if he had come. That would have meant he liked her. The doctor marked some things down on a clipboard and left the room without a last glance to the latest suicide attempt. Statistic, she'd said.

With quiet and nervous anticipation her only companions, Meroko pondered. If he liked her, that would be a good thing. Because she was beginning to like him.

Her parents entered; Meroko straightened up. Her mother covered her face and made a gasping-sobbing sound. Her father looked at her with shadowed, dim eyes.

"Moe," her mother said. It was a lament of many things, only one of which was the fact that she had very nearly lost her only child. The child's father said nothing.

Meroko fingered her paper bracelet even more nervously.


Meroko arrived home a few days later. She wore the same clothes that she left in, only clean, thanks to one of the nurses washing it for her. This because she refused to allow her mother to send for her things - she refused because that would have meant telling her mother where she lived.

It was so cold that day, as were so many other days in that damned city, that when she shut the main door to the complex behind her, she was shivering.

She looked around, half-expecting him to be there. The only thing that greeted her was the doorman's station, empty as always, the tiny black-and-white television buzzing.

She hurried up the stairs, all the while rubbing her arms for heat. Anything to stay warm. Shit. Her heat still wasn't on, or her electricity, and she'd already missed two days of work at the club. She'll have to go tonight. No time to rest in bed, trying to keep warm (at least it will be warm at the club). She paused, panting, and coughed weakly. Uh-oh. Oh no.

She climbed the last flight of stairs more slowly. When she came to her own floor, she noticed that Izumi Rio's door had a yellow note taped to the front, small and scribbled with blue ink. She stood and stared at it for a moment. It wouldn't be right to peek. No. Of course it wouldn't. But it wasn't like he'd know… She moved closer and traced over the scribbles, idly, with her index finger. She examined them, trying to decipher the sloppy print.

"What are you doing?"

She jumped. She turned to see him at the end of the hall, dressed similarly, now that she was in a state to notice, to how he was dressed the last time she saw him: smart-looking khakis and a button-down shirt. She noticed that his shoes had not been stained with her puke.

She laughed awkwardly. His expression replied that he was not won over.

"Nothing, nothing, I just noticed a note on your door, and…" she trailed off, hoping her omission would save her.

He put down the briefcase he held; a tatty, pretentious-looking thing. "Do you have that sugar?"

She looked up at him. A smile played there, just the smallest smirk. Her heart leapt.

"No," she said. "I… haven't had time to go shopping. This is the first time I've gotten home. I've been in the hospital."

He didn't reply. Instead, he walked to his door and ripped the yellow note off.

"Thank you," she said quickly, trying to fit her words in, "for bringing me to the hospital. I don't think it was serious but I really appreciate –"

He shut the door, practically in her face.

"Hey," she shouted, aware of how loud her own voice sounded in the empty hallway, "I mean it!" She wanted him to hear, and she was indignant at being brushed off. All her life, if there is one thing she hated, it was being brushed off.

She started banging on the door when he opened it again. His face was indifferent. She brightened up.

"Thank you," she said, trying to convey all of her affection in those two words. What was the world coming to, when a girl could find herself feeling this way in such a short period of time?

"Meroko? That's your name?"

She beamed, pleased that he remembered.

"Do you work at the strip club down the street?"

First, her face turned tomato red. Second, she stumbled backwards, almost tripping, just trying to put some physical distance between herself and him in his doorway. Finally, after a moment of standing there stupid and red-faced, she ran wordlessly the other direction and slammed her door behind her.

She could've died of shame.

With her back to the door, breathing hard and on the verge of tears, she recalled the look on his face. That smile, childishly sweet, as if he had never done and could do no wrong. Like he's not just shot her dignity through the head.

She bit her lip so hard it almost bled. Shit. Her apartment was colder than the hall, so cold she could hardly feel her own toes . She needed to change. She needed to get to work. But to go to work, I have to get out the front door.

She bit a little harder, a nd when she tasted blood she stopped.

Ooh. Shit. Shit. Shit.

It was not going to be easy, living with him across the way.