The television screen that afternoon depicted a press conference. There was a man in a gray pinstriped suit at the podium just outside the hospital's official front door. The captions at the bottom of the screen read, "Zero Hospitalized at New Canterbury University Medical Center. Wilberforce Franklin. Hospital Public Relations."
The hospital representative kept his report brief and to the point. Zero had been hospitalized for a heart attack, but he was now stable condition. He was expected to make a full recovery. No, he did not have an exact date for when Zero would be discharged from the hospital. No, he was not going to discuss Zero's identity. No, he was not going to confirm whether a particular photo was legitimate.
The scene cut to the anchors in the newsroom. Behind them, there appeared a photo of Zero in his mask and another blurry, poorly lit photo of Zero's face that had been taken with a camera phone.
Zero felt a surge of gratitude for the genetic train wreck that mixed his Kururugi and Sumeragi features so that he didn't closely resemble anybody in his family. Otherwise, his identity would have been all too obvious. He was also grateful that age and time had affected his appearance so that, even if he was no longer handsome, at least he was now hard to recognize as his former self.
* * * * *
After being hassled by three levels of security despite having an entry permit from the Prime Minister herself, Kallen stopped in her tracks when she finally got to the hospital room and saw the man in the bed. "Oy. You look like shit. No wonder you've been wearing a mask all these years."
His hair, chestnut brown with a smattering of gray, was sticking out at peculiar angles. His face was pale and smooth from years without sunlight, but it was also deeply creased where there were worry lines. He needed a shave, too. As for the getup, well, hospital gowns flattered nobody.
"You look well, Professor," said Zero.
"Don't be an idiot," Kallen scolded. She sighed with disapproval. "You still haven't learned how to be informal, huh?"
Zero shrugged. "Such things take practice."
Kallen pulled up a chair and sat in it. She smirked at the overwhelming mess of cards, balloons and other gifts that filled the room. "Good thing your fans don't know what you really look like. Goodbye, harem."
"Hah…." said Zero humorlessly. "I thought you were teaching at Sapporo?"
"I'm on sabbatical. I happened to be in town here to examine documents in the national archives."
"Nothing about me, I hope."
"Don't flatter yourself," said Kallen.
"Amazing. I have a heart attack, and you still take the opportunity to insult me. You're worse than Kaguya, C.C. and Anya – combined. What happened to the loyal and devoted Q-1 we used to know?"
"Someone has to keep the attention from going to your head."
"Thanks."
"Any time."
"How are Gino, Colin, Naoto and…. Helene-is it?"
"Colin's still on stage pretending to be me. Naoto is taking apart everything that has moving parts when I'm not looking. I don't know when or if he'll ever put them together again. Helene is painting every blank surface she can get her hands on. And Gino is the same as always. I swear they get it from him."
"At least they got their brains from you."
"Yeah, seriously," Kallen emphatically agreed, "but what can I do? I love the lot of them."
He was ever so grateful that she was treating him as normally as he could be treated. "Thanks for coming to see me."
"Well, you know it's not every day that the great, resurrecting Zero takes off his mask. I thought I'd visit and catch the free show. Theater tickets are expensive lately, and I've already seen Colin's act in Tokyo, London, New York and Kyoto."
Zero buried his face in his hands and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Better than television!" Kallen gloated. "Oh, yeah. I brought you something."
She opened a large zippered lunch box and pulled out a thermos of salt-laden miso soup and boxes of pickled cucumber salad, crispy-fried tempura, deep-fried pork katsu, sticky, sweet white rice and a mochi ball bigger than a hockey puck. Plus, a packet of mayonnaise.
"You got all that through security?" Zero looked a little nervous as he took in the stroke, myocardial infarction and diabetes all-in-one.
"Oh, live a little. It's good for the soul," she insisted. "Besides," she pinched the skin on his muscular upper arm, "I doubt it's what you're eating that made you sick. But if you decide today to spend the rest of your life eating cardboard, you might as well die."
Zero opened the thermos and sniffed cautiously. The aroma of salt, seaweed and herbs conjured a feeling of peace and safety he hadn't known since he was three years old. "It does…. smell pretty good."
Kallen snorted. "Yeah, it'd better! It's my mom's recipe. If you're not going to eat it, I'd like it back. You can have Jell-o or gruel or whatever it is that they make sick people eat in Britannian hospitals."
"You're right. I better eat this, or I might as well die."
"Glad to see you'd like to live." Kallen lowered her voice to avoid being heard by the security guards. "'Cause if you didn't eat it, I'd kill you myself."
"Nice to know you care, Professor," said Zero.
"That's what friends are for," Kallen replied flippantly. "I brought some games and stuff for you to pass the time after dinner. Anything look especially interesting?"
"I can stand anything but poker."
