Kota

Kota pressed his lips tight against his desire to yell as he and everyone else except for Mr. Blackbourne sat in a hotel room, watching Dr. Green doctor Luke's nose. Yelling at Luke wouldn't be fair for several reasons. One, he'd just had his nose broken by his brother. Two, even though Kota wanted to accuse him of making things worse, the reality was probably that meeting up with Sang and North again was never going to go well. Three, yelling wouldn't change what had already happened.

He counted out a few more reasons why he shouldn't yell before he was finally able to let out a tired sigh. Even if he wasn't going to yell, Luke still deserved a lecture. "You shouldn't have gone off on your own, Luke. There's a reason why we wanted to plan this carefully. Mr. Blackbourne wanted us in a rental home and established in town before we approached them to show Sang how serious we are about staying." And about being part of her and North's lives again in whatever why they'd let them.

"But it's different," Luke argued, ignoring the annoyed look Dr. Green gave him for talking. Maybe Luke's inability to talk well at the moment was another reason for Kota not to yell—and to talk about this later, but he didn't want to wait. And Luke could talk. All the blood had been cleaned up, and his mouth wasn't hurt, but he did sound funny. Though that would probably be fixed in a moment when Dr. Green straightened out his nose. Which Dr. Green did just then.

Luke yanked back from him, letting out a string of curses as he clutched at his face. Dr. Green looked entirely unsympathetic. But at least Luke sounded normal when he straightened and talked again. "It's different. I know we're all like family, but North is actually my brother. I just went to talk to him. I didn't expect Sang to be there."

The mention of Sang made Kota's chest throb. Luke saw her. Kota hadn't seen her in an entire year, and Luke got to see her. Even though Kota and most of the others had wanted to avoid meeting Sang until they were more established in town, like Mr. Blackbourne had planned for, part of him had still hoped he'd at least catch a glimpse of her as they drove through town. Except that wasn't really what he wanted, and he knew it. He wanted so much more than a glimpse. But at least getting that would be better than nothing.

Gabriel kicked at the bottom of the bed where he sat, glaring at Luke. "Screw you. I can't believe you got to see Sang before the rest of us. That's worth getting punched over. We should punch you over that."

Luke winced at Gabriel's comment, gingerly poking at his nose before Dr. Green smacked his hand away. "I'd rather you didn't," Luke said. "And I don't think North would have hit me if Sang hadn't been there. I'm pretty sure it was her reaction to seeing me that set him off."

His words brought a pause as everyone probably wondered the exact same thing. It was Nathan who finally voiced everyone's unspoken question, his tone reluctant, like he'd rather not know. "How did she react to seeing you?"

Luke answered in a quiet, almost inaudible voice, "She cried. But definitely not like she was happy to see me."

An uncomfortable, solemn silence followed those words. They all knew that this would be difficult, that winning back Sang and earning North's forgiveness would be an uphill battle, but hearing that made how hard this would be so much more real. And maybe it was impossible, but Kota didn't want to believe that. More than that, he couldn't. He couldn't let himself or the others give up hope that Sang would forgive them, not after everything she'd forgiven her own family for. Though maybe it was selfish of him to think like that. And maybe this was different. Maybe they'd hurt her so much more because she'd trusted and loved them so much more.

A pounding on the door had them all jumping and whirling toward it, some of their arms raised in a defensive posture.

"Uh . . . I don't think that's Mr. Blackbourne forgetting his keycard to get back in," Gabriel said, though stayed sitting. The pounding was unexpected, and so fierce that none of them seemed to want to be the one to check who it was. Or maybe they were just too confused to go check. They didn't know anyone in town. At least . . . not anyone except North and Sang.

Silas seemed to come to that conclusion at the same time as Kota, his eyes wide as he went to the door, checking through the peephole. He hesitated before opening the door to reveal a seething North on the other side. Half the room gaped in shock at the sight of him, but North wasn't interested in giving them time to get used to his presence. His eyes were dark as he pointed a threatening finger around the room, pointing at each of them in turn.

"You bastards have some nerve showing up here, thinking you have any sort of right to be anywhere near Sang after all this time, after what you did." Kota's mouth crowded with excuses. After all this time? North knew where they'd been. They were on a mission to help the entire country, to help every last citizen, and the other teams doing the exact same thing had been counting on them. They wouldn't have held off on chasing down Sang for anything less. "I don't know what the hell you think you're doing here now, but we don't want to see any of you."

"North," Victor began, his tone relatively calm, but his eyes blazing, "we came here literally the moment we could, the moment we were released from our mission. We couldn't—"

"Endanger your mission for a woman you'd already abandoned," North snapped. "There are two keywords there. Already and abandoned. So what the hell do you think you're doing here now, huh? You already made your choice, and it wasn't her."

"It wasn't like that, and you know it!" Gabriel argued, leaping up from the bed. "We never wanted to leave her. We—"

"Yeah, that's why you did leave her, huh?" North challenged. "Because it wasn't what you wanted. And you were so broken up about it too, so broken up that you haven't even looked at a girl since you left her, right?" His eyes swept the room, taking all of them in as Gabriel went white at his words. Kota was pretty sure he did too, a sinking feeling in his gut. Yes, several of them technically took girlfriends, but not really. They'd never done much with them other than try to make an effort, other than to feel like everything about the situation, every touch, every word, every date was so, so wrong.

North's eyes flickered with rage, his shoulders rounding at whatever he read on their faces, but before he could say anything, Gabriel, his voice think with held back tears, shouted, "Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up! You have no idea the hell this past year has been for us without her! You were with her, while we were stuck thinking about her every day having no idea where she was and what she was doing and—"

"And whose fault is that?" North boomed, drowning out Gabriel. "Who made that choice? All of you chose your priority, and it wasn't Sang. So, what, now that they've got nothing pressing to do with your mission complete you decided to drop by for a visit?"

"We're here because Sang is our priority," Dr. Green argued quietly. "Yes, we chose to still complete the mission for many reasons, but Sang is our only priority until we get this sorted out. For all of us. And she will continue to be our main priority until the day she demands we leave her life and never return."

Kota flinched at those words, feeling like someone had just grabbed his heart and squeezed it. He had the feeling Sang saying those very words while staring down at him in contempt were going to feature in his nightmares, even though he couldn't imagine the real Sang ever saying that to anyone. The weakest and most fearful part of him tried to argue it had been an entire year since he'd seen her, and he'd left her, so far as she was concerned, so what did he know about how she would react now? But there was no way she'd changed that much. It wasn't possible.

"Whatever," North said, flinging an arm in an angry gesture before spinning around and stomping out the door. "I don't want to hear anymore."

Several moments of grim silence passed before Luke looked around with a shockingly optimistic look at everyone. "Did anyone else notice what was most important about that interaction?"

Nathan, Victor, and Kota stared at him like he was crazy. What was most important? That North was livid and he and Sang didn't want to see anyone? That North had probably figured out at least some of them had had girlfriends and he might tell Sang, who would think all the wrong things about it? That North now knew just what to tell Sang to say to all of them to make them leave?

Dr. Green frowned at Luke, not like he was upset, but like he was trying to puzzle out what Luke meant, while Gabriel glared at him before suddenly brightening with a devilish grin. "He yelled at us. All he did was yell at us."

Kota let out a sigh of relief that was almost a laugh as what Luke and Gabriel were saying finally clicked. North yelled. More than that, he'd hunted them down just to yell at them. That meant he still loved them, still cared about them, no matter how upset he was right now.

Victor brought the rising mood crashing down the next moment. "Just because we have a hint that North will welcome us back eventually doesn't mean Sang will. And we all know that North will go with whatever Sang wants."

Gabriel and Luke deflated, and everyone was sitting with a despondent air when Mr. Blackbourne returned a few minutes later. He took one look around the room before he frowned, his gaze catching on Kota as he asked, "What happened?"

Kota sighed. "You might want to sit down for this."