stand back up (#2, Go Read The First One You Rotten Amimal)

4.

I've been here for about a month now and still have no idea what the fuck is going on, but I just roll with it.

I have grown the closest to Kageyama and Otonashi, which makes sense since the three of us are the 'newbies' though I'm not sure how long they arrived before me. Despite this, I do make it a hobby to tease Noda - though these days it's more of just petty arguments over the tiniest shit rather than actually teasing him.

Today's operation is to break into Angel's lair. Otonashi, Yuri, and a couple others are going there while Girls Dead Monster distracts her. Aparantly, last time they did this, Iwasawa got obliterated and they never made it in time. So it's up to me and Kageyama to keep her distracted if the new GirlDeMo doesn't do a good enough job or something goes south.

Please, God, don't make me do any work. I've managed to get out of quite a few pickles by being lazy, manipulative, and beating round the bush. But this time it's important, meaning I'll actually have to try if the band goes to shit.

It's starting to get dark, and the band begin setting up their instruments. Before I know it, they're playing Thousand Enemies.

Kageyama and I are both patrolling the halls, waiting for her to show up. Then, like on que, we get a radio transmission from TK that she's heading over our direction.

We both quickly hide between food vending machines to stay out of sight. In hind sight, it probably isn't the best spot considering how tight it is, but it is pretty much the only spot with cover in this damn hallway.

The space is so small and I can feel Kageyama's breathing on my forehead. That's so strange though, I can't feel his chest being puffed out at all.

I stare at him for a moment, deep in thought.

He stares at me blankly for a moment. "What?"

I put my heart on his chest quickly. I can feel it beating. That's so strange, our organs work, even though we're dead. If that's the case then...

"Where are your lungs?" I ask.

"Huh?" He responds, completely bamboozled.

"I might just he going crazy, but surely your chest is supposed to puff out when you breathe."

Before he gets to answer, Angel walks a safe distance away from us so we finally exit the cramped gap. I wait for him to get a milk carton from the machine before we follow Angel with a considerable gap between her and us.

"That's actually how I died," he admits, carrying on from my question earlier. "I gave my lungs away to save..." His mind wanders off for a moment, "to save a friend. The rest of my organs were donated as well, but I guess I still have them now because it wasn't them operations that killed me."

"Wow," I reply in shock, not really knowing how to respond, "you must've been really close with him."

He chuckles, "I guess so, but he's actually a she."

I smirk, "I see - are you sure the right word was friend?"

"Unfortunately, yeah. We never made anything official or spoke about it. That's the problem, and actually why I'm here, I never actually told her how I feel."

"Oh," I frown. Why is he telling me this? "So, if she was here, what would you tell her?"

"I'd tell her... I don't actually know. I'd want to tell her... um... I'd say..." Eventually, he gives up on trying to mutter the words, and just softly smiles while shaking his head. "There's a lot of things I want to say to her. But it's not the right time, I want to spend more time with her first."

"That's understandable, is she here?" I ask, happy that he's opening up to me. But all it does is make me wonder about my life even more.

"Sort of."

"Why don't you say anything? Do you want to stay here with the others?"

"It's not that," he tells me, "I honestly don't feel like this is my fight, nor something for me to care about."

He throws the empty milk carton in the bin a few feet ahead of us.

"I'm not ready to disappear yet."