A few days have passed since I took a knife to the back protecting the Tsurugi sisters. I’d genuinely believed I was about to die, but apparently my luck held — no danger to my life.
“Then again, getting tagged by a random stabbing in the first place isn’t exactly what I’d call ‘lucky.’”
When the doctor casually mentioned that if any internal organs had been hit, I might genuinely have died, I went stone cold from head to toe. Apparently the attacker turned out to be a guy strung out on illegal drugs. That’d explain the not-mentally-here thing.
”…This is so boring though.”
They’ve decided to keep me in for a while as a precaution, which means I spend most of the day stuck in this room, and it is killing me. On top of that — being a loner — I don’t exactly have a queue of friends about to drop by.
The likely visitors list pretty much starts and ends with my dad, my mom, and my three-years-younger sister Mio. I’m thinking about all this while reading my LN on the bed when there’s a soft knock at the door.
“Come in.”
I’m assuming it’s a nurse, so when two people walk through the door I just about drop the book. The Tsurugi sisters. Standing in my hospital room.
“Sorry for barging in like this all of a sudden. Riona and I really wanted to come thank Yagami-kun directly.”
“You saved us. Genuinely — thank you, for that day.”
“You came all this way? Anyway — I’m just glad you’re both okay.”
Getting that gratitude straight from two beautiful girls makes my face go embarrassingly soft no matter how hard I try to keep it under control. No man alive could fail to be pleased by this kind of bedside visit.
“You look way better than I expected, Yagami-kun. I’ve honestly been so worried.”
“Nee-chan and I couldn’t stop worrying.”
“Yeah, well — having a classmate die because of you would mess up anyone’s sleep, right?”
“Because if you’d died, neither me nor Nee-chan could’ve forgiven ourselves.”
For a half-second I could swear something thick and viscous was leaking off both of them in a way I really do not enjoy. Has to be my imagination. Anyway — looks like they were genuinely worried about me.
“They’re keeping me for observation a while longer, but as you can see I’m fine. No lasting damage, so don’t sweat it on that front.”
“Okay. Then it’s really fine.”
“We didn’t want to be the reason you suffered.”
The relief on their faces when they hear that is real. They really were that worried about how I was doing.
“How’d you even figure out which hospital I was in?”
“Ah — your family told us.”
“We asked directly. Said we wanted to thank you in person.”
“Got it.”
The three of us slide into casual conversation. I’ve barely talked to Reona-san even though she’s technically a classmate, so I’m tense for the first few minutes — but their easy vibe pulls me along, and before I notice it I’m talking to them like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Visiting hours are almost up. We should be heading out.”
”…Already?”
Visiting hours are thirty minutes, but to me it felt closer to five. Which I guess means I was actually enjoying myself. Realistically, after today I doubt the Tsurugis will ever talk to me again, so it’s a little hard to watch them leave.
The Tsurugis are not the kind of people who’d normally bother with someone like me, a Mob Character B. So I’m gonna chalk this whole thing up to a one-time lottery win and try to be grateful for it. I’m in the middle of that thought when the younger one reaches her hand out.
“Hey, can I borrow your phone for a sec?”
“Sure, but what for…?”
“I want to put my number and Nee-chan’s in your contacts.”
“Wh—!?”
The request hits me from such a blind angle I yell out loud, forgetting I’m in a hospital. If this hadn’t been a private room someone would absolutely have shot me a look.
Apparently I’m about to experience my first-ever exchanging-contacts-with-a-girl event, which I’d more or less written off as something that was simply never going to happen to me.
”…Yagami-kun? Was it a bad idea?”
“If it’s not, then I want to add me and Nee-chan.”
“N-no, not at all. Here, go ahead.”
“Thank you.”
I had absolutely no intention of saying no in the first place, but the brief sad look that flickered across both their faces hit me with such a wave of guilt that I unlock the screen and hand the phone over. The younger Tsurugi proceeds to operate my phone at a frankly alarming speed.
“There. Phone numbers, plus LIME. You’re friends with both of us now.”
I take the phone back — sure enough, “Tsurugi Reona” and “Tsurugi Riona” are now in my address book and added as friends on LIME, the messaging app.
“Thanks. First time in my life I’ve ever exchanged contacts with a girl. I’m a little bit happy, honestly.”
“Hee. So Riona and I are your first.”
“We stole your first time.”
The two of them look very, very pleased about that, in a way that wasn’t quite the same as the expressions they were wearing a moment ago. For a split second they looked almost excited. Probably my imagination. Wait — them swapping contacts does kind of imply they’re planning to stay involved with me, doesn’t it?
“We’ll come by again tomorrow after school. Look forward to it.”
“See you tomorrow.”
They say that and leave. I sit frozen on the bed for a while, brain stubbornly refusing to render the situation, and then slowly start parsing it.
“So ‘girls actually exchange contact info with you’ isn’t an urban legend after all…”
Until today, the only women in my phone’s address book had been my mom and my sister Mio. Now two absolute knockouts named Tsurugi have been added to that list.
It’s so unreal I start wondering if I’m dreaming. Pinching my own cheek confirms that — no, the pain is very much real.
I pick the LN back up in extremely high spirits. Anyone watching me right now would say I looked obnoxiously pleased with myself. I’m reading for a while when a notification dings — and looking at the screen, I notice something off.
“Wait — when did my battery drop this low…?”
It had been over ninety percent. Now it’s somehow down to about fifty. I haven’t touched the phone since the contacts thing earlier, so how the hell did it drain that fast?
“This phone’s been with me a while. Battery’s probably wearing out. Might be time to upgrade.”
I couldn’t come up with any other explanation, so for now I just landed on that.