Chapter 11

Meiko awoke the next morning with a pounding headache. She groaned as she sat up, rubbing her forehead like it might actually help. She couldn't quite recall why her head hurt so much, nor did she remember ever even going to sleep last night, but she couldn't be bothered to think about it much at the moment and brushed it aside. She glanced over at the clock sitting on her bedside table, noticing that it was already close to eleven o' clock. Meiko figured she might as well get up and try to do something productive with the rest of her day, so she stretched her arms up until her back gave a satisfying pop and climbed out of bed. Though, when she turned around to head over to her closet to get some clean clothes, she noticed Kaito sleeping on the bed. She wasn't sure how she had failed to notice this earlier, but the sight caused her to stop in her tracks and stare. Why was he here?

"Ugh, this is making my head hurt even worse," Meiko muttered, placing her hand on her forehead again and frowning.

The sight of Kaito brought fuzzy images into her mind which she assumed were from last night, but it was too hard right now to clearly tell what they were. The only thing she managed to figure out was that she must've gotten drunk last night, and somehow Kaito had gotten here. It was a thought that made her nervous, and she quickly grabbed some casual clothes from her closet before exiting the room. She headed to her bathroom to change and freshen up a bit, wondering what she was going to do about this whole situation. Luckily, Kaito hadn't woken up yet, but he would eventually and she wasn't sure what she was going to do at that point. What made this even harder was the fact that she still couldn't remember what had happened last night. As Meiko exited the bathroom, she heard her cell phone start to ring. She walked over to where it was on the coffee table in the living room and picked it up, not even bothering to see who was calling as she answered it with a simple, "Hello?"

"Hi, Meiko! I got off of work early today, and I was wondering if you'd like to have lunch with me today," SeeU's ever-cheerful voice sounded from the other end of the phone.

Meiko hesitated for a moment, trying to decide how to respond. On one hand, her head was pounding like crazy and she felt absolutely awful from this dumb hangover, yet on the other hand, it would give her the perfect opportunity to avoid having to talk to Kaito whenever he got up. In the end, Meiko's fear outweighed her want to simply do nothing until she felt better.

"Sure, sounds great. Where and at what time should I meet you?" Meiko inquired.

"There's this cute little cafe I've been wanting to try ever since I moved back here- you know, that one on 4th street?- so how about we meet up there at noon?" SeeU suggested.

Meiko hummed thoughtfully as she looked over at the clock on the wall. It was around eleven-twenty now. "Yeah, that'll work."

"Great! See you then!"

With that, SeeU hung up the phone, most likely to go get ready or something like that. Meiko sighed and tossed her phone onto the couch, before collapsing onto it as well. She really didn't feel like going anywhere right now, and she was afraid that SeeU was going to bombard her with questions if she seemed a little off during their lunch, but it couldn't be helped. She had already agreed, and it wasn't like the alternative was any better. Meiko waited another ten minutes or so before grabbing her essentials, slipping on her shoes, and heading out the door. She knew the cafe SeeU had been talking about (although she had never actually been there either), and she figured it would be about a fifteen minute walk from her house, so she didn't bother driving there. Besides, she probably needed the exercise anyway.

When Meiko arrived at the cafe, SeeU was already there waiting for her. SeeU grinned broadly upon seeing her friend and quickly ushered Meiko over to one of the small outdoor tables that surrounded the building, where SeeU must've already been seated. SeeU took her seat at one end of the table, and Meiko sat down across from her.

"It's really nice to have some girl time together, isn't it?" SeeU smiled warmly at Meiko.

Meiko gave a small smile in return, despite feeling that doing so was a challenge. "Yeah, it is."

"Though..." SeeU trailed off, looking thoughtful.

"Hmm?" Meiko looked at her questioningly, waiting for the blonde-haired girl to continue.

"I feel bad that Kaito couldn't be here too. I tried calling him, but he wasn't answering his phone," SeeU pouted slightly. "I guess he's busy, huh?"

"Probably..." Meiko responded, choosing then to shift her gaze down to the menu that was lying in front of her.

Kaito must not have brought his phone with him when he went over to her house last night for whatever the reason may have been. When Meiko looked back up at SeeU, she saw that the girl actually looked sad for once. It was such a strange thing to see that for a moment, Meiko's mind went blank and all she could do was stare at her friend in surprise. Not once in all the years that they had known each other had Meiko seen SeeU look anything but mildly displeased at most, and even that was expressed in a childish sort of way.

"SeeU, is something wrong?" Meiko asked in concern once her mind started to function again.

SeeU seemed startled for a second, before she gave her companion a sheepish smile. "Ah, well... I was just thinking about how Kaito told me about Miku's situation, that's all." She paused for a moment before continuing. "To be honest, after he told me, I started looking into Miku's medical records and exams since I was curious. I did that today, too, and... well, I don't think there's much more we can do for her."

Meiko's eyes widened a little as she realized what SeeU meant. "So, you're saying..." It was too awful to even finish the sentence.

"This morning, she took yet another one of those tests that everyone in her ward keeps conducting to try and see if there's any advancement in the illness. On my way out of work, I decided to check the results of that test just to see how she was doing, and it didn't look good. I knew about her losing her eyesight a while ago, but now she's losing her ability to speak too," SeeU explained while staring down at her hands, which were folded in her lap.

"And that means that she doesn't have much longer, huh?" Meiko muttered solemnly.

"They suspect that it could be anywhere to a month or two to even half a year, but yes, it's not too much longer," SeeU replied.

Meiko sighed and put her head in her hands, wondering what to do. If Kaito heard about this, which he inevitably would, it was going to do all sorts of damage to whatever stability he had. Just when it seemed like his spirits might actually be rising again, they were going to be crushed and thrown away like trash. Meiko wasn't sure she or SeeU would be able to keep him together after that. Worrying about this caused Meiko's insistent headache to worsen.

"Though, the one I'm really worried about is Kaito. Doesn't it seem like he'd only become more depressed once he learns about this?" SeeU commented.

"It'll absolutely destroy him," Meiko answered without even looking up.

SeeU frowned slightly at this. "But what if... What if Miku wanted to die?"

Now Meiko looked up, fixing SeeU with an incredulous gaze. "What?"

"Well, it's obvious that Miku isn't happy with how things are either, and I'm sure she hates seeing everyone being so upset, so what if she wanted things to end? She's probably come to terms with the fact that she won't get better by now, and most of the time when patients realize this they feel like death isn't such a bad thing. It ends the suffering for both them and their loved ones, even if it ends up breaking a few people sometimes," SeeU pointed out.

"I can't say I quite understand what you're going for here..." Meiko said slowly, trying to understand what SeeU meant by this.

"What I'm saying is, what if we talk to Miku and get her to convince Kaito that her dying won't be the end of the world? That, in fact, it will be a good thing because she won't have to be miserable anymore and he would also be free from a burden?" SeeU suggested.

"Miku isn't being a burden," Meiko stated coolly, feeling defensive for the young girl in the hospital.

"I know that, but her illness is," SeeU started gently. "I mean, it costs a lot of money to keep someone in the hospital that long and conduct all those tests and treatments on them. And the emotional strain it's put on everyone around her, I'm sure that itself has led to a number of problems."

Meiko thought back to Rin's hysterical visits, Kaito's seemingly incurable depression, her own recent return to drinking, and felt in the back of her mind that SeeU had a point. Though, for whatever reason (whether it be the influence of Kaito's protectiveness over Miku, or her own attachment to the girl), Meiko refused to think of any of this as Miku's fault. After all, this illness that she had developed was far out of anyone's control.

"It's just something you'd expect in this kind of situation. We're human beings, we have problems and flaws, you can't blame anyone else for that," Meiko responded a bit curtly.

SeeU gave a low hum, though whether it was thoughtful or displeased, Meiko wasn't sure. The rest of their lunch passed by in mostly silence, with small bits of idle chit chat here and there during the meal. Once they both finished eating and paid for their food, they bid each other farewell and went their separate ways. Though, as Meiko walked home and thought back to her parting exchange with SeeU, she realized that that kind of goodbye was something you'd say to a coworker or acquaintance, not to someone you had been friends with for years. This thought left a heavy feeling in Meiko's chest, and she almost felt like crying for the first time in a while. She knew that after today, SeeU might as well be a stranger to her.

A/N: Ahh I'm getting so bad at updating! DX I'm really sorry guys, but life and a lack of inspiration caused this story to have a minor hold up. But (hopefully) now I'll be able to post the next few updates within a reasonable time frame. This chapter didn't exactly go in the direction I thought it would, but hey, it's done so whatever. Even if it's a lot sadder than I originally meant it to be, at least I managed to finally write something. On the bright side though (is it a bright side?), this chapter establishes a major point in this story: Miku does not have a lot of time left to live. I'm not going to say exactly how this affects the story, but it should be pretty obvious that our characters now have to deal with this fact in their own ways. It should be interesting to see how they do that~

Ugh, I'm rambling, nooooo... Anyways, as always, please tell me what you think of the story so far and have a great day/night/whatever!