Chapter 16: 16 Edge Cases, Part One

In the morning it wasn't quite as cold – whoever was in charge of the temperature control at Zapville had obviously given them a break – so Angharad only layered a slouchy denim jacket and light cardigan over her summer dress and patterned tights. Nothing too zany, of course.

In the mornings it often seemed fairly quiet in Zapville. No birds or yowling cats, of course, no distant sounds of cars like she'd heard at home, and most people didn't seem to get up all that early. So in the maybe two minute walk between her room and the hospital she felt the only peace and quiet she would get all day.

She didn't get far into the hospital before she heard Dr Yeoh and Zelko yelling at each other.

"That's not an excuse for you to go out and start a fight!" Dr Yeoh yelled.

"You can't stop me!" Zelko yelled back.

When Angharad turned the corner, she saw Dr Yeoh scowling and pointing as Zelko threw something at the wall. Ugh, he was such a child sometimes.

"I absolutely could stop you," Dr Yeoh said. "Don't test me."

"Um, what happened?" Angharad said.

Zelko didn't answer her because he was too busy stomping his way out of the building.

Dr Yeoh said, "Follow me," without explanation, and so Angharad did, already starting to worry. Anything could have happened. Sometimes it seemed like nobody in the whole place knew how to communicate, which was deeply frustrating, but she guessed that maybe at home Dr Yeoh got nurses to do all the communication for her or something. That was no excuse for everyone else.

Dr Yeoh pushed open the door to one of the regular hospital rooms and there Tsuyoshi lay in one of the beds, with hair spread messily over the pillow. He wouldn't like to be seen like this, Angharad thought.

"He's asleep," Dr Yeoh said. "Try not to wake him."

Angharad leaned over and pushed a piece of hair away from his eyes. It was always annoying to get hair stuck in your eyelashes. Surely he would rest easier without that.

She paused, her fingers still hovering above her face, looking at the faint purple tint of his under-eye bags. "Did he get sick?"

"Hit from behind in an unfortunate place. He'll piss blood for a few days but as long as he rests he won't damage his kidneys long term. Which is why he's in here where he will actually rest instead of in that room with Zelko."

"Oh."

As she looked up, the doctor's face fell into a sardonic smile. "I shouldn't tell you these things but I've always had a complicated relationship with medical ethics." The doctor turned back to the door. "I trust if I leave you alone with him he'll remain in one piece."

Angharad listened to the doctor leave and found her hand still hovering over Tsuyoshi's face like it had a mind of its own, faintly trembling against the warmth broadcasting from his skin. In one piece? What a responsibility. She spent so much time caring for her father's health at home, nagging him to eat this and not that, to exercise and de-stress, but in Zapville she'd been the one cared for, the delicate object for people to project their victim fantasies upon.

Tsuyoshi was no delicate object, his skin warm and smooth beneath her fingers as touched the hard arch of his cheekbone and dragged her fingers down to the sharp line of his jaw.

Deep down she knew that people couldn't help viewing the world through their own fantasies.

He made a small sound as he moved in his bed and she snapped her arm back and flopped down into a convenient chair. Her body breathed fast through the shock.

She still sat there, stubbornly looking at the wall, when Jin found her.

He led with, "You need to eat this protein bar," which was confusing, as conversational openers went.

"Uh, what? Why?"

"You've lost weight. It's bad for your health."

She leaned back in the chair and crossed her legs so she could look up at him without feeling so prim. "I didn't think anyone noticed."

"I did. Eat it."

"Is it vegetarian?"

"It's made of powdered crickets."

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"I'm not going to eat the crickets," she said.

"What if you were stuck in a situation where your only possible food was animal based. Would you eat the crickets?"

"Are they kosher?"

"I don't know. Why would that matter?"

She shoved herself upright. "Use your brain, Jin. Also, get out of Tsuyoshi's room."

"You first," he said, but she was already halfway out the door by the time he said it. He followed her out into the hallway. She slumped against the wall and he slumped next to her, obviously not going to let the protein bar thing go.

"You should do more strength training. It's fashionable. You care about fashion. Everyone's doing it," he said.

"Wow, they really don't care about personality when they let you into the army."

"Aerial strike force."

"Cannon fodder. Whatever."

Their argument was interrupted by Zelko slinking down the hall towards where Tsuyoshi slept. He didn't pay attention to them as he sat down and picked up Tsuyoshi's hand. Angharad could feel her chest ache watching them.

"It's not like he's dying of cancer," Jin said.

"Go away, Jin," Angharad said, already tired. It wasn't even 9am. But he dragged her with him, anyway.

*

She crept back later to look in the doorway and check on things. Zelko was reading something that looked like one of those dire macho spy thrillers and Tsuyoshi was asleep. Still or again, she wondered. They might as well have been in their regular room for all the difference it seemed to make to Zelko's routine.

"I know you're there," Zelko said.

"I wasn't hiding it."

He put the book down. "Do you want to hear how I met him? It's a funny story."

"Sure, I like funny romantic stories."

"In a restaurant. I bumped into him and spilled my drink everywhere. I kindly offered to let him come back to my place to borrow a shirt. In the morning I gave him the wrong kind of flowers. He insulted my taste and I knew it was love."

"That's a nice story," she said, and smiled. "Is any of it actually true?"

"How cynical of you."

She winked, and it felt like a cynical way to move her face. "Don't tell anyone."

*

She looked for Dr Yeoh again around lunch time and found her checking supplies in a closet, looking at things and taking notes on stock.

"I want to help," Angharad said.

"How?"

"You tell me."

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