By the end of the week, everything changes.

Kirie gets word, the morning after being discharged from the hospital, that she will have medical leave until Monday, nearly a week. She argues with her supervisor about whether or not it's necessary - he says it is, she says it's not - until he threatens to fire her if she sets foot in the building and hangs up on her.

"It's not like I'm crippled," she gripes to Eyes over a cup of coffee. "I've gone to work with worse pain."

"Do you want to be fired?" he asks, stirring milk into his own cup.

She grumbles at him and pretends there's something interesting on her empty plate.

Barely an hour later, Eyes' publicist calls with not-entirely-unexpected news of Kirie's shooting having made not only the tabloids, but also some of the more serious local publications. There aren't any photos this time, but it's apparently enough to add fuel to the fire that is rumors of their relationship, based on how much coverage she's told it gets.

She has to admit that it's a pretty good story - her taking a bullet and literally saving the life of the world's most beloved pianist - but when her landlord calls to complain again about a crowd of people in front of her apartment building, it loses some of its luster.

And the fight that follows ends with her being evicted. Over the phone, no less.

By Wednesday, Eyes has convinced her not to worry about her apartment. Through some magic she won't bother to question, he's had her personal belongings retrieved, the majority of them placed in a paid storage unit, and her clothing and a few other important items delivered to his loft.

And he's somehow had her apartment cleaned. And gotten her deposit back from her good-for-nothing landlord, to boot.

"I have half a mind to kiss you for all this," she says that night, turning a teddy bear she's had for an embarrassingly long time around in her hands. "You don't know how much trouble you just saved me."

Eyes, to his credit, only blushes a little. "Consider it a repayment on the debt I owe you," he responds.

"You don't owe me anything," she tells him. "Especially if you're going to be putting up with me for even longer now."

"We will have to agree to disagree."

On Thursday morning, Eyes leaves the loft to meet with the owner of a small Tokyo-based record label. He'd gotten the call through his publicist, and while he'd initially declined - "I have no interest in a contract," Kirie had heard him say - the man had apparently persisted, but in a polite way, claiming he was genuinely interested in Eyes' musical preferences.

After a call to Kiyotaka to check in on the captured Hunter ("he's not talking, or so I hear"), Kirie tests out her healing arm by doing some light cleaning in her room. She suspects that a maid tidies up the loft occasionally, but the state of her temporary room has been a disaster since the week before. And that's putting it mildly.

She spends most of the morning folding, sorting, and putting away clothing - no point in living out of boxes, she thinks, when she has a closet and chest of drawers to use. The boring quilt on the guest bed is replaced with her own sheets and duvet, and she tosses a few items around the room that she's glad never made it to storage - a photo of her mother, a small gold box of jewelry (for the rare occasion she wears any), her stuffed teddy bear, the multiple books she'd been in the middle of reading.

Her arm is throbbing by the end of it, but she doesn't mind - that's what pain pills are for. She lies down on the oversized couch in the living room with her laptop and thinks about apartment-hunting, but falls asleep before she can make any progress.

That night she dreams of the shooting.

In this version she sees the face of the Hunter as she descends the steps in front of Eyes' building, sees his face twisted with hatred as he lowers his eye to the scope of a sniper rifle. She stands frozen in place, cold and frightened, knowing what will happen next - but unable to unroot her feet from the stairs.

In front of her, Eyes is moving to the car; in slow motion, the bullets are being fired. She doesn't see him get shot, only sees blood pour onto the ground -

She wakes screaming.

As soon as she realizes what she's doing she clamps her mouth shut and sits up in bed, clutching at her arm. She'd rolled onto her right side, causing her wound to start aching. She wonders if that's why...

She sits still in the bed, listening and hoping Eyes is a sound sleeper. After a minute she's satisfied with the silence - maybe she hadn't been as loud as she thought - and slips out from beneath her duvet, fumbling her way through the dark to the door. If she can just take a pain pill and go back to bed, then -

She nearly screams again when she sees Eyes standing on the other side of her door. "Raza-kun!" she hisses, forgetting to use his name for a moment. "Don't do that!"

"I was only coming to see if you were hurt." He squints at her in the dark; his glasses are missing and he's wearing only a pair of loose gray pants, as if he'd immediately jumped from his bed and hurried to her door. And he probably did. "Are you - "

"I'm fine. I had a… weird dream. And I need my medication." She waves a hand at him. "Go back to bed."

He steps out of the way but doesn't return to his room, and she can hear him trailing behind her as she walks to the kitchen, retrieving the small bottle of pills that's been stored on a far countertop and unscrewing the lid. "You screamed," he says.

"Like I said. It was a weird dream." She taps a pill into her palm. "And my arm's hurting."

"Was it regarding... " He doesn't finish his sentence. "If you would like to talk about it…"

"Just - forget about it, okay?" She tosses the bottle down on the counter, going to a cabinet to retrieve a glass for water. "I'm fine, you're fine, and as soon as I take this I'm going back to bed."

"Kirie." His voice is unusually gentle. "You do not have to keep this to yourself. It is only natural to be affected by what happened."

She grits her teeth, grabbing a glass and taking it to the sink. "I'm fine."

"I do not believe you."

"Too bad."

"Kirie," he says again, and she can feel his gaze on her as she swallows her pill with a gulp of water. "Please."

"No."

"Kirie - "

"Stop it." She drains her glass and puts it in the sink, gripping the edge of the countertop with both hands. "Look, I really don't want to think about it, or talk about it, or whatever. It was a stupid dream and it doesn't matter."

She hears him moving behind her. "What was it that scared you?"

"Why can't you just - " She exhales loudly. "I had a dream about the shooting. But for whatever reason I didn't tackle you in it. That's all it was. It was a stupid thing."

His voice is quiet. "That is not stupid."

"Yes it is. Because I couldn't do anything to save you, and - "

"Why are you not more concerned about your own life?"

She doesn't know how to respond to that. She's thinking about what to say and how to say it, and trying to decide if she should give up entirely and storm back to bed, and that's when she feels the gentle touch of a hand on her uninjured arm, followed by an arm wrapped gently around her waist. She freezes, unsure what to do or how to react; Eyes doesn't speak but merely holds onto her in a half-embrace, and they stand like that in silence for a while.

After nearly a minute and a half she relaxes her grip on the countertop, her breathing becoming even, and she reaches down to tap him on the wrist. "You can let go now."

"I apologize if - "

"Don't. I think I needed that." As he draws back she turns to face him, feeling a little embarrassed. "I'm… sorry. I'm not good at talking about this kind of thing."

"Please do not apologize." He shakes his head, and even in the dark kitchen she can see the expression of concern on his face. "I know that you have been through a great many changes recently. And to be minimizing the pain and fear you must have experienced that morning… you may believe that it will help you, but I worry that you are only burying such feelings deeper within, to re-emerge at a later time."

She looks away. "It's a little late to be psychoanalyzing me, isn't it?"

He laughs softly. "Yes. You should be returning to bed. But I do hope that you understand why I was worried."

"I… yeah. I do." She sighs. "This situation… even if the Hunter's been captured, it's frustrating to think that you have to worry about being shot, and I might have nightmares about you being killed. It feels like a waste of time. It shouldn't matter anymore who you are or who I am, and what roles we played. All that we've been trying to do is live normally."

"I am more concerned about you than myself, right now." He shakes his head. "You saved my life, and now you are suffering repercussions from that. Such a thing… pains me."

"I'd say it was worth it, if you weren't such a bother."

She thinks he smiles at that, but it's hard to tell in the dark. "I am glad to know you feel that way. And so would I, had I acted similarly."

"There'd be a way bigger scandal if you got killed for me, though."

"That is not what matters." He shakes his head again. "What matters is your safety. Right now, I can think of nothing else."

"Eyes." She reaches up and punches him lightly in the shoulder. "Worry about yourself for once."

"I - "

"I mean it." She makes a face at him. "I can take care of myself. I might have saved you this one time, but there's no guarantee I'll do it again. So stop worrying about me and go deal with your own shit. Okay?"

He opens his mouth, closes it, and then smiles slightly, shrugging his shoulders. "As always, it is impossible to argue with you."

"Good. I'm going back to bed now." She taps him lightly on the shoulder again before brushing past him. "And you should too. I promise I won't wake you up by screaming again."

"But if you do…" she hears him say behind her, "I promise I will be willing to listen."

"Okay, sure," she agrees. "Good night."

"Sleep well, Kirie."

When she wakes up on Friday morning, Eyes is still asleep. But for the first time that she can remember, the door to his room is open - as if he'd wanted to be able to hear her more clearly, in case she stirred in her sleep next door.

She looks at him, lying still in his bed with an arm across his face, and thinks that somehow, in some way, things really have started to change.