Chapter Seventeen: Consequences

"Tomoya, sit down!"

Kyou's words barely reached my ears as I paced back and forth in the hospital waiting room. I don't know how long I'd been pacing, but I knew it had to have been while since my feet were starting to hurt.

"Okazaki-kun, pacing isn't going to help Nagisa-san," Ryou said.

I stopped in front of the three girls. "I know, but I'm too worked up to just sit!" I started pacing again. I had to, or I'd go crazy.

"Tomoya-kun…" Kotomi's soft voice penetrated my chaotic thoughts.

I immediately walked over to my fiancée and pulled her to her feet to hold her. Or maybe so she would hold me. "I still feel like this is my fault," I said.

"I know," Kotomi replied. "But you heard what her parents said; she chose to keep her feelings to herself."

I couldn't refute her statement, but I still couldn't stop feeling guilty…like I should have seen it and addressed it sooner. "I could have been more aware-"

"GAAAH!" I looked over to see Kyou rubbing roughly at her head before getting up from her chair to march over to us. "Knock it off, idiot! She knew you were clueless when it came to women. Nobody was stopping her from getting it off her chest!"

"Onee-chan!" Ryou protested. "We're in a hospital!"

Kyou glanced over at her sister and took a deep breath. "Look Tomoya, I'm glad that you're worried about Nagisa; that tells me that you have a conscience, not that I ever doubted that. But beating yourself up over this isn't going to help her, and could end up making you sick, too."

"Kyou-chan is right," Kotomi agreed. "You could end up weakening your immune system, making yourself vulnerable to many different illnesses."

I sighed heavily as I gently rested my chin on top of Kotomi's head. "I know you're both right. I guess I just wish there was something I could do since I'm part of the reason she's like this."

Kyou shook her head with a smile. "You were just the…target. It could have been Sunohara and she probably would have done the same thing."

I couldn't help but laugh at the idea of Nagisa being in love with my old idiot friend. "I hadn't thought of that, but that's true. I could see that, too."

"See?" Kyou wore an expression of pride. "This was out of your control from the beginning. All we need is for the doctors to do their job and it'll be the five of us again."

"Onee-chan," Ryou said as she pointed down a hallway.

We all looked to see a doctor talking to Furukawa's parents. We couldn't hear what was being said, but we could see the doctor moving his hands as he spoke. In his hands was a clipboard, which he pointed at several times.

When he laid his hand on Akio's shoulder… "No…" I couldn't believe it.

"Tomoya-kun?"

"No…no…" I don't know how many times I repeated that word as I let go of Kotomi and stumbled toward the doctor and Furukawa's parents. As I got closer, I saw Sanae cover her face with both hands, and Akio wrap an arm around her shoulders as he covered his face with the other hand. "Oh, god…"

I didn't want to bother them so I grabbed the doctor by the elbow as he turned to leave. "How is she?"

He gave me a confused look before looking to Akio and Sanae. "It's fine; you can tell him," I heard Akio reply in a strained voice. "He's a friend of hers."

I took a deep breath as I released the doctor's arm.

The doctor started to point to the clipboard but stopped himself. "I'm sorry…" he said sadly, "…but your friend has died."

I barely heard Kotomi call out to me as my strength gave out and I crumpled to the floor.

I opened my eyes to whiteness. Whiteness with little black dots.

"Tomoya-kun!" Kotomi's face suddenly appeared in my field of view. "Are you okay?" She looked above me, and I realized that I was lying down, so 'above' had become relative. "Is he okay?"

"He's fine, physically," I heard the doctor say. "I think that the death of his friend was more than he could handle."

'Death'? I sat up and my head promptly punished me by throbbing. "Owwww…" I looked around for other friendly faces and found Kyou and Fujibayashi sitting nearby. Their reddened and puffy eyes told me that they had been given the bad news. "How long was I out?"

"About an hour," the doctor replied. "I'm sorry; I didn't know that the two of you were so close."

"She was…a really…good friend to us…" Kotomi managed to say before breaking down in tears herself; she must not have shown any signs of grief until just then. Was she so worried about me that she didn't think about her friend? I ignored the pain in my head as I grabbed onto Kotomi and held her tightly as she sobbed uncontrollably.

As I listened to Kotomi cry, one question came to the forefront of my thoughts: Why?

Then I noticed: "Where are her parents?"

The doctor gestured to the doorway of the room I had been put in. "They're in with their daughter." He gave me a meaningful look. "I understand that you're upset over the loss of your friend, but the Furukawas are going to need strong people around them to help deal with their loss. Can I count of the four of you to be there for them?"

The words were barely out of his mouth before Kyou shot to her feet. "You can count on me," she declared boldly, though her voice wavered noticeably.

Kotomi's crying subsided, blinking away tears as we watched Fujibayashi rise to her feet as well. "Me too."

I slid off of the table onto my still-unsteady feet and slid my arm around Kotomi. After exchanging a small sad smile with her I said, "We'll be there for them." I didn't know how much help we would be, but we would do what we could.