Ogawa Ichiro's POV:

Judo didn't hesitate to bound into the entryway to greet Kokone and me. That dog was a sucker for her, and the reason why was still unknown. It was like he was in tune with everything that was up with her; oftentimes, if she ever had a momentarily irregular heartbeat, he'd pick up on it immediately.

For the most part all he did was follow me around in search of food.

"Hey there, Judo. What've you been up to, pal?" Kokone knelt down and scruffed his ears as she cooed and praised him. I proceeded to lug Kokone's box of stuff towards the staircase. It only took her a few seconds to catch up with me.

"I can take that, Chiro," she offered worriedly, the way she always did.

"I got it," I huffed as I started up the stairs. She trailed behind me in silence.

When she asked me whether or not it would be a good idea for us to move in together, I honestly hadn't thought about it until then. Things had changed, definitely, no doubt, but there was still that tension between everything that held us together, even if the distance changed over time. It didn't bother me in the slightest that she would be living here, and actually, I didn't mind that much that she didn't want anything more than for us to be friends.

…Sort of.

"Alright then," I said as I lowered the box to the ground inside of the former guest bedroom. "You know where everything is, but if you need anything, just ask. I'll let you get your stuff unpacked."

"Thanks. I mean it." She sounded earnest, but when I looked at her she was staring at something else, a distracted look on her face. It's amazing how someone so seemingly insignificant had caused so much damage. Her face was worn and tired, and her eyes still seemed lost in the world. Judo, with his tail wagging, nudged her behind the knee and she blinked back into reality.

"It's…no problem. Goodnight."

"'Night."

"Do you mind if Judo stays with you? He can become quite the nuisance sometimes…" I said as I waited at the doorway on my way out.

"He's fine where he is. I don't mind him at all." She smiled slightly and reached out to pat him on the head, something he accepted with a content hum in the back of his throat. I laughed quietly in response; she had him tied around her little finger.

He was just like me.

"I'm on call starting at 8 tomorrow morning, so if I'm gone by the time you wake up that's probably why." A flash of hurt crossed her face, but I couldn't identify the cause.

"O-Okay. If you're still here, will you make sure I get up in time for the interview tomorrow?" She made eye contact with me fearlessly now; I almost forgot that she had asked me a question.

"Yeah, sure. Anyway…night." She nodded and turned towards her box. Just as I was about to shut the door, she started in a sort of panicked voice.

"Chiro!" I turned around and poked my head back into the room.

"Yeah?"

"Will you leave the door open?" She gave me a sheepish look accompanied by a small, pleading smile. Those eyes, I thought. How could anyone refuse this woman anything?

"Yeah." I took my hand off the knob and turned to leave once again, heading for my own room down the hall. When I was all ready for bed and lying there, staring at the ceiling, it took longer than usual to fall asleep. I finally did, however, and this time my dream was definitely not about dancing cinnamon rolls.

Flashes of bright color interrupted my vision in the dream. Something chaotic was happening. At one point, Kokone's face was integrated with the disturbing color combinations. The flashes and bursts got faster and faster until everything was still.

Another flash, this time as if I had been looking at a blank wall and then suddenly decided to shift my gaze to something else. There was Kokone, lying on a hospital bed that was one of many specific to the trauma rooms in the emergency center wing. People were bustling around, and even though they were only blurs of colors unique to the scrubs our hospital provided, I somehow knew that they were all doctors and nurses. Nothing else was clear and defined besides her, and after a moment, I realized that was the last thing I wanted to see.

She was definitely out of it. For seconds at a time she'd be still as a board, her eyes rolled back in her head completely as people tried to diagnose the problem. For once, it seemed, it wasn't her heart.

When she wasn't temporarily passed out, she was groaning a menacing, pain-filled moan that sent shivers down my spine. Something was wrong, and no one had a clue what it was.

Her back would arch slightly and she'd grip the sheets, sometimes her abdomen. Beads of sweat popped out on her forehead and her hair was a ragged mess. She didn't appear to be injured, however, there was no blood, nothing was torn.

For some odd reason, I was powerless to do anything. Something – or someone – was holding me back, preventing me from being the doctor that I pledged to be when I was hired at this hospital. I tried to call out to her, to get her to see me.

"Kokone!" I pushed against an invisible force. "Kokone, what's the matter?" She didn't appear to notice me though as she suddenly squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth, tilting her head back as she clutched at the cloth around her stomach once again. Her jaws parted for maybe a second as she exhaled sharply and sound ten times as frightening and loud as before escaped.

"TTTTAAAAAHH!" she screamed. Once that was out of her system, she followed with whimpering as she tried to curl up into a tight ball against the pain.

I was desperate now. What could possibly be wrong with her? If it was internal, then shouldn't we be doing MRI's and CT's? What about bruising? My mind flooded with numerous doctorly questions that I was so used to asking myself every day on the job. Normally, I at least had an inkling of what to do.

Now, however, was a completely different story.

At the moment a sound protruded my focus and my gaze automatically shifted towards it, where a distinct and clear door stood, now open, with Heiji standing there, a wild look of disbelief and urgency shouting at me through his eyes. He was holding a phone off to the side, and was attempting to deliver whatever news it was that he had brought.

"Ichiro-san! She's – she's –"

I sat bolt upright, my collar damp with a light sweat. I was breathing a bit heatedly, but the darkness of my room was enough to calm me down slowly but surely.

What was that all about? Would this be a regular occurrence now that Kokone was here? Jesus, it was like she was polluting my household with bad, morbid dreams. No more dancing cinnamon rolls, I thought sourly.

Out of curiosity and, okay, I was a bit worried, I got up and padded quietly out into the hallway to check if her bedroom door was still open. It indeed was, but nothing was visible except for a foreboding darkness that made me gulp audibly. I decidedly pushed ahead anyway as I tiptoed to her doorway.

When I peered in, I could barely make anything out, save for a slightly illuminated puddle of white fur on the bed across the room. Definitely Judo, I thought, and he didn't seem to be upset about anything, so there was no reason to worry. Kokone was fine.

I listened closely and concentrated on making out breathing sounds that suggested deep sleep, but there weren't any. My hearing must be bad, I thought as I bit my lip and stepped into the room. Before I even knew what was happening, Kokone had sat up and flipped on the switch for the lamp on the bedside table. I froze midstep, most likely with a bewilderedly guilty look on my face.

"Chiro? What are you doing?" The sheets were covering her legs as if she had been snuggled up only seconds ago, sound asleep, but I knew better. Her eyes were bright and alert, a sure sign that she hadn't slept a wink the entire night. My face softened ever so slightly. Judo lifted his head up lazily as if in greeting.

"I just – I wanted to check on you. Why aren't you asleep?" I took a few steps closer and sat primly on the edge of the bed, careful to keep us separated by the now unaware boundary named Judo.

"Check on me? Is everything alright?" She sneakily sidestepped my question, but I knew better than to push it.

"Uh – I just had a weird dream. That's all. Are you…" Dare I say it? I asked myself. It was either now or never, and if I chose now then…well, I could quite possibly lost my life, depending on the type of mood she was in. "…Scared? Of something?" She blinked and bit her lower lip as her fingers started to fiddle with the sheets. There were creases where her hands were, so undoubtedly this had been going on all night.

"I'm not…scared. But what if -" she stopped herself, suddenly nervous under my scrutiny.

"What if…?" I prompted. She took a deep breath before continuing.

"What if they think I'm crazy?" She painfully whispered this, though it was unintentional, so her voice cracked a few times.

"Who? Your interviewer? Kokone, you're not crazy, you're perfectly fine."

"Or…what if they think I'm suicidal like you do?" These words seemed to tumble out of her mouth, and I felt my jaw drop momentarily before I decided it would be a good idea to respond.

"I – when did I ever say you were suicidal?"

"Uhm…today? After the fire, you said something about it scaring you that I'm so reckless…"

"Well yeah, it scares me, but that doesn't mean I think you're suicidal or anything…"

"You said that I sometimes risk my life for no reason, and that's what scares you the most." She looked at me curiously, almost willing me to disagree as if she wanted to be wrong for once.

I couldn't deny that the thought of her possibly being suicidal never crossed my mind. It had always been behind everything else, like a backdrop to our chaotic lives.

"So do you? Think I'm suicidal, I mean."

"No. No, of course not. You worry me sometimes, but that's not the same thing." She didn't look entirely reassured, but also didn't attempt to ask the question again. After she scooted over a bit towards the wall, she patted the spot next to her and I flashed back to when she had done the same so long ago. At the time, I was still under the impression that she may never speak again, but after I hopped onto that spot and sat there with her, I knew things would somehow turn up. Maybe now, another turning point would be breached. I got up and shifted into the right spot, and she leaned one shoulder against mine as we sat against the headboard of my old twin bed.

"So I won't be deemed insane and possibly committed to a mental institution?" I chuckled.

"No. I know crazy when I see it. You're not the insane kind of crazy."

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean, that I'm the good kind of crazy? Is there even such a thing?"

"Relax, relax!" I responded buoyantly. "You are the good kind of crazy in that you're unbelievably brave and risky."

"Oh, so I'm risky now, huh?" She laughed that bell-like laugh, and I couldn't help but do the same.

"I'm telling you, people take chances when they enter your life. Sometimes extreme ones."

"Honey, I'm still free/Take a chance on me," she sang perfectly, just like ABBA in perfect English. This only made us laugh harder. I had missed these moments the most: the ones where all we do is roll around in each other's ridiculousness. When that moment was over, she sighed contentedly.

"Thanks."

"Anytime. Have you really not slept all night because of that?"

"Can you blame me?" She said defensively. "This is a matter of whether or not I get my life back, Chiro."

"Don't be too dramatic. Sure you're job's important, but you have other things to focus on." She grimaced.

"I don't want to focus on those things right now though."

"Oh."

"Did you say you had a weird dream?"

"I did."

"What was it about?" Where to begin, I thought…

"Uh…well…"

"Was I in it?" Even though the part she played in the dream was definitely not romantic in any way whatsoever, I felt my face get hot.

"Y-Yes…"

"And you came in here to check on me…so did something happen to me in the dream?" She was pretty good at this whole deduction thing, no doubt because of hanging around with a famous detective as a job all day.

"…Something was wrong with you."

"What was it?"

"I don't know. That was the problem. You were in pain or something…no one knew what was wrong, and Heiji came to tell me right before it ended so I never figured it out."

"And you call yourself a doctor…" she teased lightly, poking my shoulder. I snorted.

"Speaking of which, I will probably have to get up in the morning, and I know you will too for your interview, so why don't we get some sleep, ne?" I started to get up, but she stuck her elbow out and pushed my chest back against the headboard. I looked at her, my eyebrows furrowed together while she countered with a look of determination. Finally, she spoke.

"I didn't even tell you."

"…Tell me what?"

"When you said you still loved me. I didn't tell you that I still love you." I exhaled.

"You didn't have to, and you still don't. If you don't feel comfortable -"

"Ichiro, no. It's not that I'm uncomfortable, I'm just afraid of screwing up, to be honest."

"Kokone, what could you possibly screw up?" She was so absurd sometimes, I thought to myself. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

"I screwed up everything with Hyo Yeoung. Even though I didn't love him or anything…it still didn't work out even as friends. All because I wouldn't sleep with him. What if you get too impatient with me one day? I know you put up with a lot, but it is me we're talking about here." I was shaking my head in disagreement before she even finished her statement.

"It's ridiculous of you to think that you not sleeping with him caused all of this."

"Okay, but what about before that?"

"Before?"

"I was stupid and reckless, as usual. I came to your house and – we've never talked about this yet, have we." She was fiddling with the sheets again, her face turning rose petal pink. I'm sure mine was just as red.

"It takes two, Kokone," I mumbled almost inaudibly. There was a reason we hadn't talked about this yet…

"Yeah, but it only takes one to initiate it. I shouldn't have done that. Things would have been so much more different if I hadn't barged in like that…" I sat quietly for a moment, letting her think to herself.

"Listen." She looked up at me cautiously, those cerulean orbs of hers penetrating and sad. "We share equal blame in that…part...of the whole thing, but after the fact…Kokone, that guy was complete scum. While he's trying to put the blame onto your shoulders, he has absolutely no right to do so. Just because you wouldn't…look, it's not -"

"Ichiro, you're going to hurt yourself." She reached up and touched my shoulder almost playfully now. "I get it, I get it. It's okay. I just wish there was something I could have done."

"I know. Get some sleep, alright? Quit worrying, everything will turn out alright. I promised, didn't I? But you have to sleep and get through that interview." I started to get up, but she stopped me once again.

"Just stay here," she yawned, already scooting down and pulling the covers up to her chin. "I don't know why you insist on pretending we were never this close."

"I most certainly don't!" I protested incredulously as I copied her movements anyway. This was getting to be as comfortable as sitting on the same couch with any given friend.

"Whatever you say, Ichiro. You have enough room?"

"More than enough. You're still tiny as ever." A sharp kick landed on my shin, causing me to wince. Judo looked up in suspicion once more before putting his head back down at the foot of the bed.

"Ow," I grumbled.

"Goodnight!" She chimed in a sickly sweet voice.

"Hmph." She smiled sleepily before turning over to face away from me. After only minutes, we were both sound asleep.