Haruka notices the careful way she slides the door open, how she sits gingerly on the edge of the chair so the edge of it doesn't touch her knees. He doesn't know what to make of it, but he collects these moments for later examination, sketching them out whenever he's afraid he might forget.
Takane catches him, glances over his shoulder and sees the drawing of her at the window, her arms hugging herself instead of resting naturally on the windowsill. She's grown out of her tendency to screech or lay blame, but she does go a little pink when she taps the page, her eyes flickering in his direction.
"That's me," she says, obviously expecting an explanation. It doesn't mean much that she realized; though she is far from the only one that figures into his sketchbooks, she's the only one he draws with a face. The others are oddly-clothed and blank-featured. When he stares down at one, his pencil tapping the page pensively, she tells him, 'You'll remember soon.'
He's sure she's right.
Now, though, Haruka laughs guiltily, turning the sketchbook back towards him and adding a few more lines to the folds of the jacket across her shoulders. They have outgrown school uniforms (though he doesn't remember graduating) and somehow that blue jacket seems more 'right' on her than her pale sweater ever had. He supposes she was simply too much for one school to contain, too much personality and fire to be cut down to the simple matching shapes of uniform ties and straight-pleated skirts. "I've just noticed," he says quietly, "that you don't like to touch things. You use your sleeves to avoid it, right?"
In the past she would have shrieked at him, would have been flustered and maybe a little frightened by the way that he'd calmly been watching her. But now she bites her lip, looking like she's trying to solve a puzzle of her own.
"When I was really sick, when we both got really sick, I lost most of my ability to 'feel'. So now, it's really too much sometimes." She smirked, adding, "it's a little dumb that touching a jacket is easier than touching a wall. You probably think I'm crazy, right?"
He doesn't think she's crazy at all. If anyone is crazy, it is Haruka, with his old-man hair and the dreams where he wakes up screaming, convinced his hands are red and dripping. Besides, despite her past tendencies to overreact, he always thought of her as the sensible sort. She certainly had always been quick to cut short on his flights of fancy.
Another thought occurs to him, though: when she entered earlier he'd called her over to his hospital bed and hugged her, and she'd jerked away too fast, her fingers curling inwards and her face flushed red. Their feelings for each other were understood but not yet put to words, so he'd chalked it up to that. Now, though, he realized that might not be the case.
"Ah! I touched you!" he exclaimed in remorse, his eyebrows drawing together in worry.
Takane snickered, and he felt a concerning thunk in his chest that might be another heart attack, or it might just be a reaction to seeing her laugh so uninhibited. "Don't worry about that! If touching hard surfaces is bad, and touching the jacket or clothes is neutral, touching you is… I'd say it's good." Her words were bold, and before he knew it he was holding out his hand as though offering a handshake.
She hesitated, and then grasped his hand, her palm square and her fingers short, in stark contrast to his artists' hands, built gracefully and slight. Seeing them together, he found it hard to believe he'd ever had anyone's blood staining his skin. Maybe his dreams were wrong.
Her skin is warm, and he squeezes her hand, laughing a little at the solemn ridiculousness of it all. "If cloth is better… d'you wanna come sit in the bed with me?" he asks, glancing up at her.
The hard surface of the chair and floor must have been bothering her more than he thought, because she lurches to her feet, swaying a little like she's not used to walking (and he's used to that too, and she explained to him before that she slept so long she forgot she had feet). She perches at the edge of the bed, letting go of his hand to pick at the messy knots on her sneakers and kick them off onto the ground. Then she joins him as he wraps an arm around her shoulders. Takane's body is a small warm shape against his side, and the warmth seems to spread until he's warm all over, through no help of the light blanket tossed over his legs.
An embarrassed pause fills the room, and then Takane starts to chatter again, filling him in on events in the news while he was sick. The details wash over him — terrorists, apparently, a mall— and he finds himself more interested in the fact that her hand has found his own again, her fingers twining between his as she talks.
Haruka's sketchpad lies forgotten on his knee, though he almost wishes he could leave his body to draw the two of them, or maybe ask one of the nurses to take a picture. It's a silly thought, and when she pointedly asks if he's listening to her, he chuckles. "I'm listening!" he insists, and puts in a concentrated effort to pay attention to her stories of what the rest of the world's been up to, although he only really cares about this room right now.