Plain: Book 2

Evil Will Become

A nurse came back with a clean shirt and a rather terse Lin to drive me back to the hospital. I tugged on the red jacket (as the loss of blood made me cold and with a half-filled balloon for a head), that he handed to me after I'd sign the release form of the nurse.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

Lin made a displeased grunt before saying, "I don't particularly care for Oliver's impression that he commands me."

Which, in English, meant that Lin had wanted to go with Naru back to the old hospital as protection, but had been evaded and told to take me back instead.

"Did he head back with John?" I asked.

"With Ms. Hara."

Ah. How quaint. That short sentence served to feed a squirming green monster in my chest. I'd have to talk to him later about the appropriateness of being alone in a vehicle with a beautiful young woman who loved him when he had a girlfriend...with mild self-esteem issues.

"Where's John?"

"In the car." Which meant I should stop dawdling there asking stupid questions and get going so Lin could get back to Naru.

"Sorry! Sorry."

I had to sigh on the way out. Was I to end up in the hospital every month? Who knew something that was supposed to be insubstantial could do so much physical harm. Then again, it had been me who had bit myself. At the front desk I was handed some pain killers for the next few days, told to set up a date with my local practitioner to get the stitches removed, and set on my way to the back seat of Lin's car.

It wasn't till I saw John's pale face that I remembered. Skipping the open front seat, I slid into the back. John looked surprised, but smiled nonetheless.

"I left the front open for you," he said.

"Aren't you afraid of needles?" I asked. "When Ayako and you came into the hospital, you looked so nervous and she said it was because you were afraid of needles."

He let out a sheepish chuckle. "Oh, well...about that...it's a little more than needles, persay."

I waited. Lin pulled out of the parking lot as John fidgeted.

"Please don't laugh," he said, clenching his hands between his knees. "But just...seeing any kind of needle, be it syringe or IV or anything along the lines sort of...really gets me panicky."

But I didn't feel like laughing at all. "You mean...the whole entire time you were in my hospital room—"

He threw up his hands, cheeks reddening. "It's not that big of a deal, really."

"But I had an IV in my arm the whole time!"

"Well, I've had to put up with it before," he scratched the side of his cheek and switched to staring out the front of the car as his blush grew. "Priests are often needed in hospitals."

"So, then, why you left so quickly afterwards?"

He turned his face even further. "I sort of, um...didn't want to be sick on you...sorry."

Only then did I laugh, but it was more of relief and delight than mockery. Even if he brushed it off as no big deal, the fact that he braved such a phobia and anxiety in order to be there for me really said a lot. Not to mention a tiny part of me had feared he really had leaned in on the impulse to kiss me. That was a whole bag of maggots and worms I didn't want to open, which included, not only John's whole oath of celibacy, but a very moody Naru who probably didn't have the first clue of how to handle jealousy.