A Firefly's Glow

Chapter Twelve: Part Five

A sharp clatter sounded nearby and his eyes instantly opened in response. What met his gaze was a tall, familiar, domed ceiling.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” a fatigued voice crooned in sincere apology. “Did I wake you?”

Keita lifted his head off of the soft, feathery pillow that it was lying on to glance at the figure that stood beside him. Her fingers were slowly lifting away from the vase that she had sat on the countertop beside him. He figured that a vase as broad and wide as that would have made a clattering noise loud enough to wake him up.

And at this particular moment, he didn’t exactly refuse to the idea of waking up.

“Its fine,” he lifted a hand to his head. The taste of raw grass still stung his tongue. He trailed his gaze from the bed sheets that covered his body to the white curtains that surrounded him.

He had unconsciously returned to the nurse’s infirmary.

As the boy lifted his feet off the bed and onto the floor, the nurse began to stutter.

“You may stay and continue to rest, if you wish,” the nurse offered, stiffly gesturing towards him.

“Has school ended yet?”

“The bell rang a few moments ago—“

Keita rose onto his feet. “Thanks for your time.” He drowsily murmured, wobbling through the compartment’s curtains and towards the set of doors before him.

His memories of last week were vague. He scarcely remembered crossing the street that day and collapsing onto the wet asphalt. He had been ill that day, after all.

But he did remember waking up from the same infirmary, on the same bed, in the same compartment, with the same nurse.

He felt his mouth bend into a strongly suppressed smirk. Perhaps that afternoon, he’d saunter aimlessly down a path. He’d nearly get run over by a car.

And maybe he would remember how the red-headed girl lunged him towards the opposite side of the street.

But he faintly remembered something while lying on that street and hearing the whirring engine of the approaching vehicle.

He had a thought. It was regretful, as if somehow, he had found that the possible accident would have been easier to go through for himself.

His fingers wrapped around the handle of a half of the double doors that stood before him, and the thought continued to linger for a few more seconds.

Maybe he would have asked her why she was as foolish as she was, to jump in front of a moving vehicle to assist someone that fell of his own accord. Who would risk their own lives for someone they didn’t even know?

As his swung the door open, his eyebrows instantly traveled across his forehead as he peered at the klutzy figure that stood before him.

Her dim, gray eyes peered at him with a stuttering voice to match.

How spooky it was how she had appeared only seconds after he was just pondering about her.

“I—I—um—I—Err—“ was what stammered out of her wobbling mouth.

Keita glanced down upon the red-headed girl and molded his face into his unbeatable poker face. “What is it?”

She slowly shifted her hands before him, and what was lying in her hands was a thin pile of parchment.