"Utopia? Dr. Matsumoto will see you now," the nurse called from the desk.

"Go get 'em!" Alfred cheered me on. I rolled my eyes at the group of eight kidnappers and walked toward the door that led to the check up rooms. However, before I could open it, the door burst open to reveal a woman in a white doctor's coat.

"Oh! I'm so sorry sweetheart," she apologized sheepishly. "You're Utopia, yes?"

"Yup."

She glanced over to my friends. "Are these boys with you?"

"Yeah, they dropped me off. They're planning to go to the mall right now."

She waved them over, to which the boys complied. "If it's alright with you, I'd like to have a couple of you stay here for a few minutes or so. It's nothing big. I just wanted to ask a few questions about Utopia."

I frowned confusedly. But I was standing right here…

"I can stay!" Felice chirped happily.

Dr. Matsumoto grinned. "Okay! I'll take this one here and…you, big guy," she added, pointing to Ivan.

"Eh? Me?" he said in surprise.

"Sure! The rest of you can go to the mall," Dr. Matsumoto allowed. "Don't worry, these two won't be long."

"You can keep the Russian," Alfred muttered, inducing a dark look from Ivan.

"Come on then, Utopia and Utopia's two friends."

The three of us split off from the main group and walked inside the main branch of doctor's offices. I was escorted to office number 23 while Felice and Ivan were brought to somewhere else for some questions. I wondered what Dr. Matsumoto could've wanted from them she couldn't get from me.

In the meantime, I looked around the room. It was very small with a sink and supplies in one corner, a scale in the other, some health posters, and a padded mattress covered in crinkly paper that was so high off the ground, I would be at Dr. Matsumoto's eye level if I sat down on it.

So I took a seat on a ground level chair and waited patiently for her to come.

Ten minutes later, Dr. Matsumoto swept into the room, her red curls bouncing.

"Sorry for taking so long," she said with a smile on her face. "So! Hello, Utopia. It's nice to meet you for the first time!"

I shook her outstretched hand. "Nice to meet you, too. Actually, can you call me Tope?"

"Sure, if that's alright with you."

Dr. Matsumoto did some standard checks (heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, weight, etc.) all the while making pleasant small talk with me. You know—"How was school?"; "Does your head hurt a lot?"; "Have you been feeling a little off lately?" I answered as best as I could.

An hour later, I was pulling hair ties out of my hair and taking off the X-Ray equipment from my body. Dr. Matsumoto had me take an X-Ray of my head just in case there was damage to my skull (though she high doubted it). She also made me take some other complicated operations, explaining that they would help her give an inside picture of my brain. I forget already; being dragged around the hospital was extremely boring.

Finally, at long last, I was released from my monotonous torture. In her office once again, Dr. Matsumoto told me the news.

"Okay, Tope," she started, "I think I've got all the information I need to run a full analysis. However, it'll take me a while to run things through with my colleagues and I'm pretty sure you're tired of staying in the hospital. How's about you meet your friends at the mall and stay there, and then come back in an hour or so and I can tell you our final conclusion. Does that sound okay to you?"

I nearly jumped up and shouted YESS!

"Sure," I said. "That sounds perfect."

"Okay then, Tope. Back here in my office in an hour." With that she left me alone.

While leaving, something on the sink's counter caught my eye. It was a loose folder with my name on it and today's date.

Curiosity got the better of me. Just a quick glance, I promised.

The first page had basic health diagnostics and information, the second even less interesting. However, the remaining page was what piqued my interest.

Feliciano Vargas (classmate)

1) Perfect, smart, good cook, very helpful, good friend.

2) Reading, singing, music, "I don't really know anything else."

3) "Utopia? Ve~ (?), she's still really, really, really (…) NICE and happy and cute. She used to eat pasta with us all the time! And she also stopped everyone from fighting! Everyone liked her. Ah! Did I mention she's cute? Ve~ (?)"

Ivan Braginski (classmate)

1) Perfect, quiet, intelligent, diplomatic, nice, pretty, likeable, cold, distant, fair, beautiful, a whore, attention-inducing, "like a sunflower," pure, innocent, sad, mysterious, helpful, etc.

2) Singing, music, studying, keeping the peace, butting into other people's business, playing hero, playing perfect, being an impassive bitch, etc.

3) "Utopia was perfect. Now she's different. I think that's all you need to know, da?"

I stared at what was written on the paper. These must've been the answers to the questions that Dr. Matsumoto had asked Felice and Ivan. At a first glance, their answers looked normal. But when I read Ivan's one closely, it looked like he both hated me and liked me at the same time. He called me a whore, and then called me "innocent" and "pure" right after! I sighed. Nothing about Ivan ever made sense.

There were also some doctor's notes on the left-hand margin.

Doctor: Janet Matsumoto

~Feliciano = energetic, but honest

~Sweet, attracted to Tope?

~Nice, good friend, trustworthy opinion

~Optimistic

~Ivan = Regard with caution

~Schedule appointment with therapist? Check school records.

~Trustworthy?

~Intense, cold, cruel

~Friend?

I quietly closed the folder.

Who was Ivan to Utopia? Why could he be so spiteful towards her?

Who was I to him now?

xXx

As soon as I walked out of the doctor's door and into the waiting room, I was greeted by the sight of Ivan sitting down with a bunch of little kids, playing with tiny toy cars and making funny sound effects as he pretended one flew into the air and exploded. His wide-eyed audience watched his movements in complete awe, fully entertained.

"I-Ivan?" I tried not to laugh. "Watcha doing?"

When Ivan looked up, there was a light in his eye that I could only describe as childish. He looked so innocent, violet eyes shining, a big smile on his face. He let the children have the cars and bid them good bye (in Russian, no less) before standing up to join me.

"Were you waiting here this whole time?" I asked.

"It wasn't so bad," he replied. "The children were very fun to play with."

I smirked at the thought. "I didn't know you were good with kids."

"I'm not. They just seemed to like watching cars exploding and people dying."

"I…have nothing to say to that."

xXx

"So you have an hour to relax here?" Ivan asked, holding the door open for me.

"Yeah," I said, walking inside and feeling the heater's warmth fall over me like a blanket.

The mall looked so much bigger on the inside with all sorts of shops going down long, tall halls and people everywhere. I counted three floors going up with escalators and elevators. The tiles and walls had an eye-pleasing 'earth' tone to them.

"Let's go eat something, Tope," Ivan said, already walking down a hall. "You didn't eat breakfast, did you?"

"Nope," I answered, catching up with him. "But I can wait until we get back. Besides, I have no money with me right now."

A low rumble in my stomach made me blush and Ivan smirk.

"I can pay," he reassured. "There's a café over there."

He and I got in line for the café and ordered little bits of food and drink to substitute for breakfast. Ivan took a simple cup of coffee and a flatbread. I asked for lemon iced tea (gods, I loved iced tea) and a chocolate muffin. We took a small table to ourselves and ate our food in silence.

"Excuse me," said a young business man, coming to our table. "Would you and your girlfriend like a chance to win in a drawing contest? The prize is an all-day pass to—"

"No," Ivan cut him off.

"We're not dating," I said as well. "Sorry." The businessman shrugged it off, thanked us for our time, and moved on to the next table. Ivan and I continued eating in silence.

Come to think of it, we did look like a couple, didn't we? Same age, alone together in a café. I contemplated the thought of us dating. Did we look like a lovey-dovey couple? Or did we look more like friends grabbing a quick bite to eat?

"Let's go shopping," Ivan suddenly said, bringing me out of my thoughts. "The others are ahead of us in buying Christmas presents."

I glanced at my iPod. There were at least forty-five minutes left.

"Sure," I said, gathering our rubbish and tossing them in the trash. We left the café and walked back into the wonders of the mall. "So what do you want for Christmas, Ivan?"

He shrugged. "My country doesn't celebrate Christmas on the 25th. We have a holiday on January 7th, and even that's more like the New Years for us."

"So if I buy you something really cool, you won't want it?"

"Нет, if you insist, you can still give me a present," he teased.

"Then what would you like?" I asked. "Is there anything that you had in mind?"

He pondered this. "Hmm…vodka?"

I mentally made a list of presents to buy in my head. "Okay, vodka. Anything else?"

"A sunflower. What about you, Tope? What do you want for Christmas?"

I pursed my lips, thinking but not coming up with any answers.

"Nothing really. I'll be happy if I can spend Christmas with you guys."

"What about your birthday?"

Oh yeah…that was coming up in a month, too.

"Um…I don't know?" I said helplessly.

"Bad answer. Try again."

"Then…a hug!"

Ivan was surprised. "A hug?"

I nodded, very sure of myself. "Yes, I want a great big bear hug on my birthday. If you can give me that, then you're good."

He frowned. "But I can give you a hug right now. Your idea is too simple."

I stubbornly shook my head. "Nu-uh. I want a hug and I'm sticking to that."

Stepping in front of me, Ivan held his arms out wide. "If I give you a hug right now, then will you tell me what you really want?"

I grinned and dodged his arms, continuing to walk forward. "Nope! You're not going to cheat your way out like that. If you really want to get me a present I'll like, you have to find one yourself."

"Don't be so mean, Tope," he sang.

I threw him a smile. "I'll be mean if I want to, Ivan."

xXx

More than a half-an-hour later, my time at the mall was up and Ivan brought me back to the hospital. We didn't buy anything from the shops, just walked around to random places and tried to avoid running into the others. We were almost seen by Kiku and Felice at the bookstore. Ivan and I tried to stop from laughing when the two of them tried to find the source of popcorn bits being thrown at them.

"Hi, I'm Utopia," I said to the nurse at the desk. "Dr. Matsumoto wanted to see me?"

The nurse gave me a smile. "Yes, you can wait for her in room 23. She'll be right with you."

"Thank you." To Ivan I said, "I'll meet you guys by the van in half-an-hour."

"See you soon, Tope," he said.

In Dr. Matsumoto's office, I didn't have to wait very long before the woman came in the room.

She looked grim.

I said nothing as she closed the door behind me and gestured that I take a seat. I followed her directions obediently, wondering what sort of bad news she was planning to share that reflected so clearly in her eyes.

"So, I ran through your diagnostics with my colleagues and we talked over an analysis about the data we got. We went over several different variations of your circumstances and we've come back to the same conclusion with every run."

"…just say it, doctor," I said bluntly. "Don't beat around the bush."

"When your head hit the ground, your skull wasn't damaged in any way, but there was a strong impact sent to your brain and the vibrations…they…just hit your temporal lobe the wrong way. I'm afraid that you have permanent amnesia."

I stared at her.

Permanent.

Amnesia?

I tried to keep my face focused and stop the grin from spreading across my face.

"So that means that…?"

"Your memories won't be coming back. But you seem to be doing just fine now," she quickly added. "Though your behavior is slightly different from before, based on some comparisons we made with Feliciano and Ivan and…some of your teachers, I don't think that any difference from before will affect you very much."

"So does this mean that I'll never, ever get my memories back?" I asked, daring to hope.

She gave me a sad look. "Yes, I'm sorry to say."

I shook my head, waving my arms around in denial. "No, no! I'm actually really happy!"

Dr. Matsumoto blinked in surprise. "You're happy? Why?"

"Well, I've got a theory," I explained. "I didn't want my memories back because I actually like living like this—having no memory, being a different person than who I was before. I was kinda scared that if I suddenly remembered who I was, I would go back to acting like the old Utopia."

"…and you don't want to go back to being Utopia," Dr. Matsumoto confirmed.

"Yeah," I sighed. "That's the gist of it."

"I see…"

The woman gazed at the wall, considering my explanation. She looked back at me with kind eyes.

"I guess that makes sense," she said, an honest smile on her face. "So you'll be okay?"

"Yes, I'll be fine."

She helped me up from my chair and stood with her hands on her hips as I stretched.

"You know," she commented, "those boys, Feliciano and Ivan?" Dr. Matsumoto grinned. "They both seem to be smitten with you. They said that you were pretty."

I blushed, but rolled my eyes. "They're probably just weird that way. Are we done here?"

She gave me a knowing look. "Yes, we're done here."

We walked outside her office and down the hall to the door that led outside.

Before she opened it for me, Dr. Matsumoto said, "Tope, there's something I need to tell you."

"Hm?"

"There's still a slight chance that you get your memory back. But the only way for that to happen is if you either experience major brain trauma equivalent to your fall, or extreme emotional trauma."

"What are the chances of that happening?"

"Very, very slim. In fact, I don't even know why I'm telling you this."

"Okay then, Dr. Matsumoto," I said, opening the door myself. "Thank you for everything."

"No problem. Be sure to come back if your head starts hurting."

"'Kay."

"Tope!" exclaimed Felice, running up to me. "Are you finished?"

To my pleasant surprise, I saw the whole gang sitting around in the waiting room, patiently waiting for me. Ivan and Alfred were playing with the trucks, entertaining little kids; Ludwig, Arthur, and Kiku were browsing through catalogs; Yao was having a conversation in Chinese with a young man; and Francis was hitting on nurses by the counter.

Feliciano glomped me, making my knees buckle. "F-Felice! Hey you guys! I thought I was gonna meet you guys by the van."

Ivan handed his prized Hot Wheel to a little boy that had been begging for it for a while.

"I went back and got them to come up here," he said. "Now we can all leave together."

"Well, let's get back to campus, then."

~~~15 minutes later~~~

"HOLY SHIT, LUDWIG YOU'RE FORTY MILES ABOVE THE SPEED LIMIT!"

"Hm?"

"Don't worry," Ivan said from behind me. "He always drives like this."

"At least it's not Feliciano," Alfred called.

There was a murmur of mutual agreement.