Rose liked meeting new people. She watched enough after-school specials as a kid to know that transferring into a new school was hard, so she knew that the nicest thing you could do to a new student was act like nothing was strange about them.

But this girl? She acted like she was from another planet, and everyone else treated her as such. She was Pearl Alantica-Honō, a girl with a mouthful of a name that was preppy at worst, but beautifully memorable at its best. She was a ginger albino, a pale white ghost that was pushing through puberty. Her limbs were short and gangly, her baby fat holding the seat for the curves of the woman that she was going to be. Her carrot hair was combed into a tight bun, pinned down with a white plastic lotus clip. Troops of freckles surrounded her horizontal tower of a nose. When the teacher called her name to go through the same song and dance of introducing a new student in front of the class, Pearl rose silently and swiftly, like a stiff but finely-oiled android following a well-practiced program. She jotted her name on the whiteboard with a hand that gripped the marker tightly. She was visibly frustrated and exhausted by this action through her body language, but her face was trained to keep a calm and distant serenity. Her voice was flat but soft as she droned out a brief summary of the heart condition that kept her in the hospital as of late.

She was plain. She was professional. She was… off. The class couldn't get enough of her.

Pearl was under a barrage of questions at every opportunity. She kept the conversation to a minimum, answering questions as quickly as possible. Sometimes, she answered them before they were even asked. There was one student that Pearl payed a particular amount of attention to, though: Rose. Rose kept glancing over her shoulder, getting the feeling that Pearl was staring at her. Sometimes, Rose was right. Pearl was the first one to find an excuse to go into the hallway and talk.

"Excuse me, you're our homeroom's health representative, correct?" Pearl asked.

Rose nodded with a well-practiced polite smile.

"Care to show me the nurse's office?"

"Okay."

Beach City Junior High was a big school in a small town. Most students didn't even live in Beach City. This made for extremely long hallways with lots of windows towards the ocean. And despite the size of the school, Pearl already knew her way around. She was leading rather than following, but kept her pace slow.

"Rose, do you have any family?" she spoke up.

"Two moms and only the best sister ever," Rose chirped.

"Friends? Boyfriend?"

"Yes and yes," Rose said, clasping her hands together. Pearl was still keeping her voice neutral and maybe a little in a harsh way, but Rose was hoping that was just the way the new girl talked. Maybe she just wasn't the kind of person that liked expressing her feelings; a listener rather than a talker. "Greg and I have been dating for-"

"Would he miss you?" Pearl interrupted.

"Sorry?"

"If something happened to you," Pearl explained slowly, turning on her heel to face her escort, "would anyone miss you?" Rose winced. This was not the kind of question she liked to hear from strangers. But hey! Maybe she wasn't as much as a stranger as Rose first thought. Rose got a hunch, and it was worth asking about.

"Do we, like, know each other from somewhere?" Rose guessed.

"No, I don't believe you've met me before," scoffed Pearl. She seemed disappointed by this fact.

"Really? Because you seem pretty concerned about me, asking questions like that," Rose thought out loud. She was never the type of person to speak her mind if it might offend somebody, but Pearl was the one who made it personal. In the vast, open hallway, Pearl started to look like a cornered animal.

"You're smarter than people give you credit for, you know that Rose?" Pearl wavered. She was smiling for the first time that day, but it was the scared smile one had on when one laughed instead of screamed. Seeing such a calm woman shaken by a small insight; it was a weird day for Rose. That said, she decided to choose her words more carefully.

"Are you okay?" she said, using the tender tone she used during her babysitting job.

"You promise me that you'll be okay?" Pearl requested, her slender hands shooting out to grasp Rose's shoulders. It was an odd line, as if Pearl was getting defensive and begging to Rose at same time. This was the moment where Rose might've guessed that Pearl was in the hospital for psychological reasons on top of her heart problems.

"Pearl, you're hurting me," said Rose. White, bony fingers were digging into her arms, but it was important that her voice was kept even. Pearl recoiled, like she just broke an unbelievably expensive vase.

"I'm sorry," she apologized, her face turning downward. "This isn't usually how we-how I meet new people." Her fists were clutched into tight balls, her silver ring almost cutting into her knuckles.

"Listen, it sounds like you're dealing with a lot on your plate, and you seem pretty scared for my sake," Rose said with a deep breath, "but you know, it would be pretty tough for us to help each other if you act like I'm some cat that you just ran over in the street. A good step in the right direction would be to tell me what's got you so jumpy in the first place. I mean, telling people about your problems can't be that horrible, can't it?" Pearl laughed, a tired laugh instead of scared one.

"You make it sound so easy sometimes," sighed Pearl, idly checking the color of the gem on her ring. Rose knew that she still wasn't on the same page, and she wasn't going to quit until she was. Having a mopey stalker with some kind of martyr complex was NOT a good way to spend the rest of the semester. Pearl was going to feel better, she was going to look after herself, and she was going to like it! At least, that was the working plan. Rose, again, didn't know the exact details on how Pearl was obsessed with her.

"You, uh, wanna talk about this after school?" Rose offered. Pearl hesitated. She seemed to be muttering a series of numbers and dates.

"You know what?" Pearl announced, more to herself than to Rose. "I'll try this. Let's try this. Okay. Yeah. I'm actually doing this. I might've gone insane this time."

"So… that's a yes? Little pep talk after school?"

Pearl was on a roll. "This… can't wait for school to end. In fact, we're not going to school anymore. Wastes too much time." A tiny red flag popped up in Rose's head. It was her turn to laugh nervously.

"Easy there, transfer student," she said, putting her hands up in a 'stop' motion. "Let's not get too crazy. We can't skip school. We have to think of our future, next generation of jobs, American dream, become functioning adults; all that good stuff."

Pearl looked more serious than Rose saw anyone in her entire life. "What if I told you that everyone we know had six weeks to live?"