When Mizuki woke up the next morning, he was alone in the room. He rolled over and looked at the alarm clock. 8:30, Saturday morning. Yawn. As the fog of sleep cleared from his mind, he suddenly remembered Atobe was over, and jumped off the top bunk.

The good thing about his hair, reasoned Mizuki, was that it seemed to look the same day in and day out. A look in the mirror confirmed his theory as he touseled his curls out of habit. He threw on some pants, and then searched for a shirt. Which one should I wear? He went through a bunch of white T-shirts and black band T-shirts. Maybe I could impress someone with my good taste in music? He laughed at his own thought, but it was true, he was proud that he had gone to see 3 Nittle Grasper concerts before they broke up.

However, before he could decide on what shirt to grace his lovely body, the door quietly swung open and Atobe walked through it to catch a glimpse of Mizuki standing in the middle of the room, shirtless, not really knowing what to do. Untrue to his quickening heartbeat, Mizuki calmly said, "Oh! H-hey!" Oh crap! I stuttered! He turned around before Atobe could see him blush, and picked out the first shirt he found. It was a pink one. However, in order to look graceful, he put it on as if that were the shirt he'd meant to pick out the entire time. He turned back around, to see Atobe staring at him in silence. This would be a good time to crack a joke! His brain pounded.

"Umm… If anyone asks, this is lavender." He pointed to his shirt and smiled warmly. Atobe laughed out loud, and it was contagious, so Mizuki began laughing too.

Feeling more relaxed, he said, "So… how's Keira?"

"Still here." He smiled. Mizuki nodded, though not really knowing what he meant by that.

"Hey, dad?" He shouted as they made their way into the living room. "How is she?"

"The problem is exactly as I suspected, which means good news and bad news."

Atobe looked at Mizuki for a hint of what this meant, but Mizuki seemed to be as clueless as he was.

"The good news," Continued his dad, "Is that she will make it out of this day."

Atobe sighed relief, but Mizuki worried. "What's the bad news?"

Mizuki's dad looked at Atobe. "She's a purebred angorra, you said?" At his nod, he explained, "Purebreds are prone to genetic defects, and rarely live to their full age. In this case, hemophelia. It can be treated, but not cured. I'm sorry. You will have to watch her very carefully."

Mizuki's dad stopped explaining, and smiled instead. "What's the sad look for, kiddo? She's alive! Go see her!"

Atobe rushed out of the room. Mizuki started to follow, but his dad pulled him aside.

"Now isn't the time, but you need to make your friend understand that because of her condition she could bleed to death from a single cut. That is what almost happened to her last night. I am very surprised she made it."

He searched for a reaction, but Mizuki simply looked down and replied, "I already knew."

With that, Mizuki's dad said, "In any case, she will be perfectly safe here, and should stay here for a couple more days. Why don't you take your friend out and have some fun? Go play at the park or buy some ice cream, or whatever it is you kids like to do these days. Here's twenty bucks if you need it."

He walked into the room with Atobe and Keira. Atobe beamed.

"So she's gonna be okay, huh?" Atobe reassured himself.

"That's what it looks like." He smiled back. "Dad says we should get out of the house and relax a bit. What do you say?"

"That sounds great! I don't even care where we go; I've hardly been outside this entire week!"

So they walked out the front door of Mizuki's house, not having the faintest clue of where they were headed. It felt right that way. Like they could go anywhere or do anything they wanted.

As they passed a nearby park, the tennis courts seemed to call out to them. Looking at Atobe, Mizuki laughed, "You wanna go check it out?"

"Heck yeah!"