Tsukushi ran to the train station, heading to the hospital. She could
feel her life tumbling down around her. There were many other people who
were taking the train as well, so she had to stand up. While she stood, she
tried looking for some object to keep her eyes on to concentrate. She was a
mess. Her uniform was wrinkled, and her hair tangled. She was distraught
with the problems she already faced, and now she had to deal with her
parent's accident, too.
She was stood among the crowd, grateful that there were too many people to notice that she was in a very bad situation in life. She was only sixteen! She was still a sophomore!
"Tsukushi, you didn't need to come all the way here," her mother said. She was lying on the hospital bed, a bandage around her head and around her right arm. Her face was covered with bruises. She had suffered from a concussion in the head, and her right arm would probably be useless for a long time.
"Yes, you have to worry about your studies...And how do you think Susumo is doing left all alone in the house?" Her father asked from the bed beside her mother. He had less cuts, but there was a wide sash of bandages around his stomach. Two of his ribs had been broken.
Tsukushi just stood there uselessly and stared at the both of them. Her mother couldn't work in her job as a section chief, and her father was having a hard time just breathing.
"Ma, Pa," she started. "How are we going to get the money for the hospital bills? What about the car?"
Her mother's words came slowly and slightly slurred.
"The insurance company we have only shoulders half the expenses. About the rest...Tsukushi...I don't know...I really don't know..."
In an uncharacteristic display of sadness and defeat, her mother closed her eyes and started to cry. Then the room became stifling. The white walls and the hot aircon and the cream hospital gowns and the smell of alcohol made her dizzy. Tsukushi forced a smile. There was only one solution. She was going to have to act like a charity case, but if it was to help her family, then she would be willing to lower her pride.
"I'll be back tomorrow," Tsukushi promised the two of them as she went out of the stuffy room. Her mother continued crying as if she didn't hear anything, and her father just stared at her, pain from his ribs clouding his eyes.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*
"Please, Kazuya," Tsukushi said very formally. She stood in front of him. The two of them were late for homeroom class, but she didn't care. She had dragged him from his desk, and now she was cornering him in front of the lockers. The hallways were empty.
Kazuya shifted. He looked at her with serious eyes. He cared about her deeply, and he knew that he would have done anything for her, but this time, he wasn't sure if it was in his power to help Tsukushi. He calculated the amount in his ATM accounts. He had just became rich recently, and he hadn't had enough time to build up his account in the bank, but he wanted desperately to help Tsukushi, not because he wanted to impress her, but because he really cared about her. And the way she was looking nowadays frightened him. Especially now. He stared at her face. He didn't seem to have gotten any sleep the night before. She was too busy worrying about her parents. Her jaw was slack, and a bleak hopelessness that was never there before radiated from her.
Kazuya reached into his wallet, and pulled out the two ATM cards that he owned. Tsukushi's gaze was averted somewhere else, and he knew that it hurt her pride very deeply to accept charity. He took her hand and put the two cards there.
"Tsukushi," he said. "I don't know how much money is in the both of those cards, but I'm sure that it can cover, at most, one eight of the expenses. I'll ask my parents for help tonight."
Tsukushi's hand clutched the cards, and her knuckles were white. If it were any other situation where she had any other choice, she never would have considered accepting the money, not even for a second. She bowed from her waist down, very low.
"Kazuya-kun," she said, trying not to choke on her words. "You know that I would never take advantage of your wealth. But-Thank you...Thank you."
Kazuya cleared his throat. Usually around her, he was a merry (^_^) person, and he rarely had to be serious around her. But now, he knew he had no choice. He slung an arm over his shoulder.
"Don't worry! Everything's going to be okay," he said gently, laughing, and wishing that he were taller. He was taller than Tsukushi, but nowhere near the height of someone like Tsukasa Doumyouji, or nowhere near the same build. Tsukushi nodded, and said that she needed time to think. Somewhat hurt, Kazuya went off to the classroom.
Tsukushi looked at the cards, and then looked up. Her eyes were dry. At most...one eighth of the expenses. She was still lacking a little more than a million yen. And aside from the hospital bills, she was still lacking the money for her own medicine, and she had only five more days to cough up the money. She felt herself momentarily slipping down the locker, but she quickly regained her composure. She stood up again and went off to class.
*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~**~~*~*~*~**~
The seventeen-year old teenager glared at the girl in front of him. Tsukushi stood behind the counter of the pawn shop, trying to hold in her temper. She was feeling much better since she had taken her medicine, but the appearance of Tsukasa Doumyouji was doing wonders to make her feel sick all over again.
"That ring you have is worth seventy thousand yen," she told him coldly.
Tsukasa blanched.
"What the hell are you talking about, idiot?! I don't have a ring! In any case I'm not here to pawn anything I have! I don't need money!"
Tsukushi nodded patiently.
"Are you telling me you don't want to see me your ring?" she asked with deliberate slowness and ignorance. Somehow, she felt some satisfaction in getting him riled up. She was working again, and she planned to make a good impression of herself, and then ask for an advanced payment from the boss, for at least a week, and then she'd try to get a promotion...Seek help from the internet... There were so many things to do.
"I just waited in front of your poor house for the longest time- and then your brother told me you were working double shifts here in this low- class pawnshop! You cant do that!"
Tsukushi looked at the clock on the wall. It read: ten fifty five. It would be five more minutes when she could finally leave the store. She hid her surprise.
"You went to the house? What do you want?"
Tsukasa turned red, and then serious. He pulled out something from his jacket sleeve. Tsukushi saw it clearly enough to know that it was a check. Tsukasa handed it over to her wordlessly, and she looked at the amount. It was a check for one million yen. She choked on her saliva.
"D-Doumyouji," she choked. Her eyes filled with sudden tears.
"I know, I know," Tsukasa said in an annoyed voice, waving his hand around. "You're ever grateful for the financial support. That should be able to take care of whatever medicine you need."
But Tsukushi tore up the check in front of his face. He stopped mid- sentence.
"Don't make fun of me," Tsukushi said through clenched teeth. "There's no way in the world you have access to that kind of money. Idiot!"
Her shift was over. She didn't look at the clock, but she knew that she was now free to leave the pawn shop. She walked out quickly, grabbing her coat along the way outside. Her co-worker shouted out a good-bye. Tsukushi half ran out of the mall and out the dark Tokyo streets. She didn't notice that Tsukasa was following her. she only realized it when he grabbed her arm and whirled her around.
"Stupid woman!" He said to her face. He pulled her to a sidewalk bench, and however much she struggled, she couldn't break free. He sat her down, and then he sat down beside her, and pulled out a check book from his jacket.
Tsukushi was dazed by the angry expression on his face. Doumyouji started scribbling something in the checkbook.
"Okay, stupid! That check you just tore up over there was a real check! Here-one million yen-take it! Dammit its real!"
He threw the check at her. She stared at him. Tsukasa leaned back on the bench, and filled himself with pride.
"Okay, now that that's settled I'll assume that you're going to be getting better," Doumyouji said.
Tsukushi couldn't remember telling him about her stomach virus, but she hid her surprise. She spoke slowly.
"Tsukasa-"
"Don't speak my name so freely. Go with Doumyouji."
"Doumyouji..." she chose her next words carefully. "Thank you so much. I promise you, someday, I'm going to pay you back. This will take care of my parents. Thank you."
She half bowed to him, and ran off, while Tsukasa filled himself with pride. He hadn't heard Tsukushi's last words, and when the meaning finally registered into his brain, his eyes boggles. He hadn't been saving Tsukushi, he had saved her parents!! The idiot Rui must have gotten the wrong information, he said to himself irritable. But nevertheless, he didn't regret giving Tsukushi the money to pay for her parents. He didn't know what was happening, but he knew that he had helped Tsukushi in some way.
**~*~*~*~*~~**~~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~~*
Her parent's hospital bills were covered up already, and now Tsukushi was having trouble of her own. He still didn't scrounge up enough money for her viral infection. From another part in school...
"Rui! You gave me the wrong information!" Tsukasa said. Then he laughed. "But there's nothing to worry about! Now Tsukushi thinks of me as a hero! Her savior!"
Rui didn't look at his friend. "She said 'I might be dying.'"
"Well, you heard wrong!" Tsukasa said. They were sitting in the college cafeteria, enjoying their lunch time banter. Soujiro's and Akira's interest picked up.
"You mean you actually helped her, Tsukasa? Why did you go and do something like that?" Soujiro asked, his brown eyes glinting mischievously. "Don't tell me you-"
Tsukasa's temper flared and he almost leaped across the table to strange one of his best friends.
~*~*~*~*~~~~~~~~***********~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**~
"Kazuya-kun..." Her childhood friend was walking towards her. she had been drinking from the water fountain. He was more serious than usual.
"Tsukushi, I've been thinking...Are you alright now?"
Tsukushi smiled. "Yeah, thank you for your ATM accounts...I promise you, one day I'll pay you back..."
Kazuya waved his arm around and laughed. "That's the Makino I know!" He was cheerful again, his seriousness gone. Tsukushi smiled, and the both of them walked off to lunch.
*~*~*~*~*~***~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"I thought it was you..." Soujiro said. Him and Rui had entered the pawn shop. "Since Tsukasa seems to have warmed up to you, what do you say the three of us go on to that new club that just opened?"
Tsukushi shook her head. "I have to work."
The two guys shuddered at the thought of working.
"Suit yourself." The two walked out. Tsukushi realized that the whole time in the shop, Rui hadn't acknowledged her. He was always looking at something else. Something on the floor caught her attention. It was a diamond Rolex, Easily worth more than eight hundred thousand yen. It must have slipped from one of the customers, she thought.
She strayed from the counter to pick it up. Her heart sank. Not just any customer. It belonged to Hanazawa Rui. The engraving at the gold-plated back showed his name in elegant cursive writing.
(I've got to return this as soon as possible) she thought. Then a sudden thought hit her. she could use this watch as the answer to her medical needs...
She was stood among the crowd, grateful that there were too many people to notice that she was in a very bad situation in life. She was only sixteen! She was still a sophomore!
"Tsukushi, you didn't need to come all the way here," her mother said. She was lying on the hospital bed, a bandage around her head and around her right arm. Her face was covered with bruises. She had suffered from a concussion in the head, and her right arm would probably be useless for a long time.
"Yes, you have to worry about your studies...And how do you think Susumo is doing left all alone in the house?" Her father asked from the bed beside her mother. He had less cuts, but there was a wide sash of bandages around his stomach. Two of his ribs had been broken.
Tsukushi just stood there uselessly and stared at the both of them. Her mother couldn't work in her job as a section chief, and her father was having a hard time just breathing.
"Ma, Pa," she started. "How are we going to get the money for the hospital bills? What about the car?"
Her mother's words came slowly and slightly slurred.
"The insurance company we have only shoulders half the expenses. About the rest...Tsukushi...I don't know...I really don't know..."
In an uncharacteristic display of sadness and defeat, her mother closed her eyes and started to cry. Then the room became stifling. The white walls and the hot aircon and the cream hospital gowns and the smell of alcohol made her dizzy. Tsukushi forced a smile. There was only one solution. She was going to have to act like a charity case, but if it was to help her family, then she would be willing to lower her pride.
"I'll be back tomorrow," Tsukushi promised the two of them as she went out of the stuffy room. Her mother continued crying as if she didn't hear anything, and her father just stared at her, pain from his ribs clouding his eyes.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*
"Please, Kazuya," Tsukushi said very formally. She stood in front of him. The two of them were late for homeroom class, but she didn't care. She had dragged him from his desk, and now she was cornering him in front of the lockers. The hallways were empty.
Kazuya shifted. He looked at her with serious eyes. He cared about her deeply, and he knew that he would have done anything for her, but this time, he wasn't sure if it was in his power to help Tsukushi. He calculated the amount in his ATM accounts. He had just became rich recently, and he hadn't had enough time to build up his account in the bank, but he wanted desperately to help Tsukushi, not because he wanted to impress her, but because he really cared about her. And the way she was looking nowadays frightened him. Especially now. He stared at her face. He didn't seem to have gotten any sleep the night before. She was too busy worrying about her parents. Her jaw was slack, and a bleak hopelessness that was never there before radiated from her.
Kazuya reached into his wallet, and pulled out the two ATM cards that he owned. Tsukushi's gaze was averted somewhere else, and he knew that it hurt her pride very deeply to accept charity. He took her hand and put the two cards there.
"Tsukushi," he said. "I don't know how much money is in the both of those cards, but I'm sure that it can cover, at most, one eight of the expenses. I'll ask my parents for help tonight."
Tsukushi's hand clutched the cards, and her knuckles were white. If it were any other situation where she had any other choice, she never would have considered accepting the money, not even for a second. She bowed from her waist down, very low.
"Kazuya-kun," she said, trying not to choke on her words. "You know that I would never take advantage of your wealth. But-Thank you...Thank you."
Kazuya cleared his throat. Usually around her, he was a merry (^_^) person, and he rarely had to be serious around her. But now, he knew he had no choice. He slung an arm over his shoulder.
"Don't worry! Everything's going to be okay," he said gently, laughing, and wishing that he were taller. He was taller than Tsukushi, but nowhere near the height of someone like Tsukasa Doumyouji, or nowhere near the same build. Tsukushi nodded, and said that she needed time to think. Somewhat hurt, Kazuya went off to the classroom.
Tsukushi looked at the cards, and then looked up. Her eyes were dry. At most...one eighth of the expenses. She was still lacking a little more than a million yen. And aside from the hospital bills, she was still lacking the money for her own medicine, and she had only five more days to cough up the money. She felt herself momentarily slipping down the locker, but she quickly regained her composure. She stood up again and went off to class.
*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~**~~*~*~*~**~
The seventeen-year old teenager glared at the girl in front of him. Tsukushi stood behind the counter of the pawn shop, trying to hold in her temper. She was feeling much better since she had taken her medicine, but the appearance of Tsukasa Doumyouji was doing wonders to make her feel sick all over again.
"That ring you have is worth seventy thousand yen," she told him coldly.
Tsukasa blanched.
"What the hell are you talking about, idiot?! I don't have a ring! In any case I'm not here to pawn anything I have! I don't need money!"
Tsukushi nodded patiently.
"Are you telling me you don't want to see me your ring?" she asked with deliberate slowness and ignorance. Somehow, she felt some satisfaction in getting him riled up. She was working again, and she planned to make a good impression of herself, and then ask for an advanced payment from the boss, for at least a week, and then she'd try to get a promotion...Seek help from the internet... There were so many things to do.
"I just waited in front of your poor house for the longest time- and then your brother told me you were working double shifts here in this low- class pawnshop! You cant do that!"
Tsukushi looked at the clock on the wall. It read: ten fifty five. It would be five more minutes when she could finally leave the store. She hid her surprise.
"You went to the house? What do you want?"
Tsukasa turned red, and then serious. He pulled out something from his jacket sleeve. Tsukushi saw it clearly enough to know that it was a check. Tsukasa handed it over to her wordlessly, and she looked at the amount. It was a check for one million yen. She choked on her saliva.
"D-Doumyouji," she choked. Her eyes filled with sudden tears.
"I know, I know," Tsukasa said in an annoyed voice, waving his hand around. "You're ever grateful for the financial support. That should be able to take care of whatever medicine you need."
But Tsukushi tore up the check in front of his face. He stopped mid- sentence.
"Don't make fun of me," Tsukushi said through clenched teeth. "There's no way in the world you have access to that kind of money. Idiot!"
Her shift was over. She didn't look at the clock, but she knew that she was now free to leave the pawn shop. She walked out quickly, grabbing her coat along the way outside. Her co-worker shouted out a good-bye. Tsukushi half ran out of the mall and out the dark Tokyo streets. She didn't notice that Tsukasa was following her. she only realized it when he grabbed her arm and whirled her around.
"Stupid woman!" He said to her face. He pulled her to a sidewalk bench, and however much she struggled, she couldn't break free. He sat her down, and then he sat down beside her, and pulled out a check book from his jacket.
Tsukushi was dazed by the angry expression on his face. Doumyouji started scribbling something in the checkbook.
"Okay, stupid! That check you just tore up over there was a real check! Here-one million yen-take it! Dammit its real!"
He threw the check at her. She stared at him. Tsukasa leaned back on the bench, and filled himself with pride.
"Okay, now that that's settled I'll assume that you're going to be getting better," Doumyouji said.
Tsukushi couldn't remember telling him about her stomach virus, but she hid her surprise. She spoke slowly.
"Tsukasa-"
"Don't speak my name so freely. Go with Doumyouji."
"Doumyouji..." she chose her next words carefully. "Thank you so much. I promise you, someday, I'm going to pay you back. This will take care of my parents. Thank you."
She half bowed to him, and ran off, while Tsukasa filled himself with pride. He hadn't heard Tsukushi's last words, and when the meaning finally registered into his brain, his eyes boggles. He hadn't been saving Tsukushi, he had saved her parents!! The idiot Rui must have gotten the wrong information, he said to himself irritable. But nevertheless, he didn't regret giving Tsukushi the money to pay for her parents. He didn't know what was happening, but he knew that he had helped Tsukushi in some way.
**~*~*~*~*~~**~~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~~*
Her parent's hospital bills were covered up already, and now Tsukushi was having trouble of her own. He still didn't scrounge up enough money for her viral infection. From another part in school...
"Rui! You gave me the wrong information!" Tsukasa said. Then he laughed. "But there's nothing to worry about! Now Tsukushi thinks of me as a hero! Her savior!"
Rui didn't look at his friend. "She said 'I might be dying.'"
"Well, you heard wrong!" Tsukasa said. They were sitting in the college cafeteria, enjoying their lunch time banter. Soujiro's and Akira's interest picked up.
"You mean you actually helped her, Tsukasa? Why did you go and do something like that?" Soujiro asked, his brown eyes glinting mischievously. "Don't tell me you-"
Tsukasa's temper flared and he almost leaped across the table to strange one of his best friends.
~*~*~*~*~~~~~~~~***********~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**~
"Kazuya-kun..." Her childhood friend was walking towards her. she had been drinking from the water fountain. He was more serious than usual.
"Tsukushi, I've been thinking...Are you alright now?"
Tsukushi smiled. "Yeah, thank you for your ATM accounts...I promise you, one day I'll pay you back..."
Kazuya waved his arm around and laughed. "That's the Makino I know!" He was cheerful again, his seriousness gone. Tsukushi smiled, and the both of them walked off to lunch.
*~*~*~*~*~***~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"I thought it was you..." Soujiro said. Him and Rui had entered the pawn shop. "Since Tsukasa seems to have warmed up to you, what do you say the three of us go on to that new club that just opened?"
Tsukushi shook her head. "I have to work."
The two guys shuddered at the thought of working.
"Suit yourself." The two walked out. Tsukushi realized that the whole time in the shop, Rui hadn't acknowledged her. He was always looking at something else. Something on the floor caught her attention. It was a diamond Rolex, Easily worth more than eight hundred thousand yen. It must have slipped from one of the customers, she thought.
She strayed from the counter to pick it up. Her heart sank. Not just any customer. It belonged to Hanazawa Rui. The engraving at the gold-plated back showed his name in elegant cursive writing.
(I've got to return this as soon as possible) she thought. Then a sudden thought hit her. she could use this watch as the answer to her medical needs...