[FIN] Just Smile

[Tori Honoo]

Just as everyone else had been overjoyed upon hearing the good news, Dove was more than eager to visit the young man. However, though she enjoyed the company if those around her, she understood full well their right to see him first. After all, too many excited faces at once would be a terrible event for the boy who had quite literally just been given a new heart, and though she had witnessed the tragedy that put him in such dire need, the others had known him much longer, therefore giving them priority over her to visit.

After hours of waiting with the others, Dove had followed a nurse and made her way back to the boy's room, only to find that he had fallen asleep, and though her heart sank at the idea of not speaking with him on his 'first day back,' she nodded politely to the nurse's suggestion to visit the next day, then excused herself.

The next morning, she again followed a nurse to his room, pausing just outside the door and knocking lightly before peeking in, in hopes of not interrupting anything. After all, she was sure his father and Asch would be with him, if no one else, and the thought of walking in on a family rejoicing embarrassed her. When she heard no other voices, she stepped in tentatively, offering a brilliant smile to the survivor.

"Hey, Luke," she said gently but excitedly, "Nice to see those eyes again."  

[Suudonym]

After being thoroughly chewed out by the nursing staff for the condition he had been found in before, Luke refrained from excessive motion even when became aware of company in the room. He regarded Dove silently for a moment with an expression that portrayed no thought nor feeling before smiling lightly at her presence, "Hey." Somewhere within him a small panic stirred, a worry that she would try to tell him the same story that Yuri had.  

[Tori Honoo]

She moved closer to his bed, taking a seat beside him, her smile fading a little at his blank disposition. "How are you feeling?" she asked, running her fingers through the tips her hair. "I came to visit you yesterday after everyone else came by, but you were asleep by the time they got around to me..." Another fleeting smile, this one more disappointed. She had thought it best to let everyone else go ahead, as they knew him better, though had been quietly upset as she had been the only one unable to visit with him.  

[Suudonym]

"I'm all right," he replied vaguely, his eyes focused somewhere distant, "and sorry. Yesterday was kind of…" Tiring? Exhausting. Bad? Wretched. "…not great."  

[Tori Honoo]

Her brows furrowed as she looked him over, her expression that of concern and confusion. "It's okay, don't apologize... We went through a lot, and you kind of got the...absolute worst of it...." she told him gently, setting her hands in her lap. "But you're going to be okay! They said you would make a full recovery... It really was a miracle."

She stayed quiet a moment before speaking up again. "Not great'...? What's wrong? We could have thrown a party with all the excitement there was when they told us you were going to be alright...Rosie was practically beside herself to see you..."  

[Suudonym]

He did everything he could to convince himself to respond positively. Responding negatively meant admitting to the possibility that Yuri was right, and he'd never heard something more completely incorrect than what Yuri had said. Floundering mentally, he latched on to any explanation he could find for his unhappiness. "It's just that someone died," he said suddenly, an awkward defiance in his tone. "I thought it seemed kind of cruel, living because someone else died."  

[Tori Honoo]

She stayed quiet, her shoulders sinking at his words. She nodded, her eyes falling from his face, his tone noted. "I understand..." It couldn't have been easy, knowing something that someone else's heart beat in your chest. "Its not easy, Luke, but the circumstances are innumerable... No matter who it was, or what happened to them, they decided long ago that were something to happen that they would donate a piece of their self to someone in need... and that part of them gets to live on, through you."

She looked up at him again, her face soft. "Fate has an odd way of answering prayers sometimes, and obviously, you weren't meant to die. Now you just have to live life to the fullest with the gift they gave you. And you definitely don't have to do it alone... we're all here for you, whenever you need us."  

[Suudonym]

He forced a strange laugh, fighting desperately against thoughts that gave a slow, steady rise to panic, "Let's talk about something else." His hands clasped tensely in his lap, green eyes adamantly locked there.  

[Tori Honoo]

She nodded almost immediately, reaching out to him. "Okay," she said calmly, her brow knit in worry. "We can talk about anything."

Worry pooled in her chest as she watched him. Had something happened? Though she wouldn't ask him right out, she was sure there was more on his mind, and things hadn't exactly been normal for anyone she knew the past few days. Even Yuri had seemed off, and he certainly knew how to hide his emotions better than anyone.  

[Suudonym]

He searched the room frantically for something to inspire a topic. Why the hell were the rooms in this place so boring. And it was an interior room, so there wasn't even a window-- "What's the weather been like?" He was absolutely desperate.  

[Tori Honoo]

"It's...been raining. A lot, last night..." She would know. She had been awake most of it, fearful of her own mind, even in sleep.

Her face grew much more concerned, and she moved a hand over his, gently squeezing them in a small attempt to reassure him. "Luke, what's wrong?"  

[Suudonym]

Raining. That was cool. Okay.

(Yeah, that was probably his worst attempt at nonchalant conversation ever.)

He offered no outward response to the addition of the hand to his, but he did reply to the question, if not to give a specific answer, "You've seen Asch, right? Like recently. Very recently." All he wanted was confirmation against Yuri's words.  

[Tori Honoo]

Though his response was abrupt, she simply blinked and answered his question, though she looked away as she recalled the situation. "I saw him the day you were brought in, when he and your father arrived," she told him, her heart pounding for no discernible reason. "Have you not talked with him, yet...?"

Something sharp in the back of her mind stung at her conscious repeatedly, and she looked back to Luke, alarm hidden behind her eyes.

The last she had seen of him, Asch had been clearly upset.

It had been a miracle that a heart had been found so quickly, and the transplantation had taken place without a hitch.

Yuri had been upset, even though it hadn't overwhelmed him.

Something was wrong.  

[Suudonym]

"You saw him after that," he insisted, a cold dread filling him. "You saw him yesterday, or today."  

[Tori Honoo]

The girl shook her head, the perplexed look on her face growing clearer. She moved from the chair at his side to the edge of the bed, her concern driving every wheel in her head to find some way to comfort her friend.

"Luke, you're scaring me," she told him carefully, worried his distress would intensify and break him again. She gently squeezed his hand again. "Calm down... What's happened?"

Again, something in the back of her mind jumped at her, only to be pushed back, her unwillingness to confront the suggestion stronger for the moment.