Chapter 4 - One More Visit

—Because nothing says "emotional stability" like bleeding your way back to a girl who plays music in a trash alley.

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My nose was probably broken.

Again.

I wasn't sure anymore. There were so many fractures in this body that it was starting to feel like a very sad, very punchable Lego set.

The fight that night had been bad. Not the worst. But bad enough that I was walking with a limp and leaving a red trail like some tragic anime side character about to monologue his death.

I should’ve gone home.

Should’ve let the blood dry. Should’ve let the ice pack numb whatever nerves I had left.

Instead, I found myself turning into that same narrow alley, under the same flickering streetlight, with the same slightly burnt smell in the air.

And there she was.

Again.

Yume.

Sitting cross-legged with her busted keyboard in her lap, like the alley was hers and she was the queen of dumpster ballads.

She was humming something slow tonight. A lullaby. Or maybe a funeral song in disguise. Hard to tell with her.

She paused mid-note.

> “...You’re limping.”

I froze.

Of course she noticed. She couldn’t see the blood, but she heard the way my foot dragged against concrete like I owed the floor money.

> “You got into another fight, didn’t you?”

Silence.

> “Kazuki,” she said, voice flat. “Are you seriously bleeding in my concert again?”

I didn’t say anything. Mostly because talking hurt my jaw, and also because I had no valid excuses that wouldn’t make me sound pathetic.

Which I was. So maybe it wouldn’t have mattered.

> “Sit,” she sighed.

I sat.

> “Not there. That’s where the cats pee.”

I moved over one foot to the left.

She placed her hands on her keyboard again but didn’t play.

> “Why do you keep coming back?”

A dangerous question. The kind people ask right before they make you feel something.

“I don’t know.”

It was honest. Pathetic, maybe. But honest.

> “Do I look like a hospital?”

“You don’t look like anything,” I said before I could stop myself.

She laughed. A sharp, surprised sound.

> “Wow. Was that a joke? You trying to impress me with disability humor now?”

“I’m concussed. Everything’s funny.”

> “That explains a lot.”

A few moments passed. She reached out suddenly and tapped my knee.

> “You’re shivering.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. Don’t argue with me. I may be blind but I’m still smarter than you.”

She pulled a faded scarf out of her backpack and shoved it toward me.

> “Here. Wrap that around your neck before you start dying romantically on me.”

I stared at it.

“You’re giving this to me?”

> “I’m loaning it to you. I want it back. It smells like mint and judgment, and I like it that way.”

I took it. Wrapped it around my neck. Warm. Fuzzy. Smelled like—well, mint and judgment.

She smiled like she could feel me relaxing.

> “You’re a mess, you know that?”

“I’m aware.”

> “But you’re a consistent mess. So I guess I’ll allow it.”

She finally started playing again.

Slower than usual. But beautiful in its imperfection.

I sat there, bruised and broken in every possible way, and listened.

Not because I had nowhere else to go.

But because somehow, this stupid alley, with its blind girl and busted piano, had started to feel like the only place in the entire city that wasn’t trying to kill me or forget me.

> “You’re not gonna die on me, right?” she asked without looking.

“No promises.”

> “Then I’m not writing you a song. Not until you stop limping like a tragic shoujo protagonist.”

I smiled.

The first real one in… I don’t know how long.

And for the first time, I didn’t feel like I was bleeding just to feel alive.

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