Hello, Ray is saying. Hi. I hope this is the right number. Kai? Kai Hiwatari? This is Ray Kon?
As if Kai could forget the sound of his voice.
It's a lullaby half-forgotten, distorted with age — lower than he remembers, and softer too. Kai presses the phone against his face hard enough that it hurts his cheekbones. Something stirs inside his ribcage. He wants to talk to Ray so badly that it hurts in every hollow corner of his body.
When he opens his mouth, however, his throat closes up before he can form the words.
The line buzzes. He can hear Ray breathing. "Kai?" Ray says again.
Speak, Kai tells himself, but a dull panic fills his airways, and after a moment Ray mutters something to himself that the connection isn't good enough to handle, and hangs up the phone.
Ragamuffin swats at his feet. Kai slips his phone into her pocket and crouches beside her, pokes at her soft paws with his index finger. She mewls and presses her body against his knees.
It's better this way — easier, at least. The fear disappeared with the click of the receiver.
#
Ray tries twice more after that. Both times, Kai lets the phone ring out without answering it. He leaves it on the other side of the room and balls up old newspaper to throw for Ragamuffin while he waits for it to quiet.
He tells himself he's ignoring it because he's moved on. Because speaking to Ray isn't advantageous to him anymore. Because he needs to keep the line free for the hospital, just in case. He makes up lies until they blur into nothingness inside his head.
After it's fallen silent long enough that he's certain Ray has given up, he drags his futon into the kitchen and curls up onto it. He sleeps there, the smell of cooking all around him, Ragamuffin crawling over his chest, the clunk-clunk-whirr of his refrigerator covering up the sounds outside his window.
He dreams of tops spinning eternally, and children who held gods in the palms of their hands.
#
On his way to the hospital, he passes the cigarette guy in the hallway again. There's something hungry in his eyes, something raw.
Kai pauses for a second, then turns away and sweeps past, tugging his scarf up around his face until it swallows up his nose and his mouth.
#
Grandfather is doing better than anyone expected. When Kai gets there, he's standing in the middle of the room with his walker, breathing hard. He's turned away from the door. Kai steps back into the hallway before Grandfather notices him.
He's weak, now. He depends on people to take care of him. Maybe that should make it easier to look at him, but it doesn't, not even a little bit — Grandfather's strength was never the problem. Grandfather was never the one who dragged kids down dark hallways, or locked them in basements for their inadequacies.
Anyway, it isn't as if Kai hates him. He's blood — the only thing either of them have left.
Before he can register her, the food lady brushes past him with her tray. "Hi," she says, brusquely, and his cover is blown. Grandfather looks up as she chirrups at him. "You're up! How fantastic! Are you feeling better?"
Grandfather grunts at her. Kai slips into the room, pressing his back against the wall. He doesn't like leaving it exposed.
"What are you hiding back there for?" Grandfather snaps.
Kai shrugs. Grandfather sits back down and watches the food lady distribute his lunch on the table.
"You just let me know if you need anything else, sweetheart."
"This is fine," Grandfather says. His voice is hard, but she doesn't seem to notice. She tuts at him, swings her cart around, then turns to Kai as she's leaving. "You take good care of your grandpa, now," she says, sternly, before turning down the hallway.
Grandfather and Kai wait in embarrassed silence.
Kai wants to tell her, don't you know who this man is? Don't you know how successful he is, how powerful — you aren't supposed to cluck at him and call him a sweetheart. You're supposed to do exactly as he says, or else. He doesn't know why it matters to him, but it does, a lot.
They don't look at each other, and then Kai's phone rings again — Ray's song, the little trill Kai gave him, and Grandfather snaps at him. "Well, pick it up."
Kai obeys without thinking, and then Ray's voice is suddenly in his ear. He's talking slow but relentless, the way Ray always has when he's worried. "Oh, god, good, you're here — I wasn't worried at first, but I talked to Max and Kenny and they told me how you walked out on them last month — then you weren't talking on the phone — they're not mad, of course, but they're concerned. I know you don't like people to worry, but — Kai, are you there?"
Kai hangs up.
"Who was that?" Grandfather asks him. Kai shrugs. He sits down beside Grandfather and points at the tray of food.
Remarkably, Grandfather listens to him, and begins to eat.