The room felt fuller than it had in weeks.
Mizuki's bedroom, which had spent the better part of two months existing as a quiet, waiting thing — curtains half-drawn, surfaces untouched — was now crowded with voices and warmth. Everyone had shown up. Miyu and Hina had claimed the edge of the bed. Takumi and Satoru stood near the wall, arms crossed but eyes soft. Ren had pulled a chair close. And Arashi stood slightly apart from the group, in that way of his — present, but never demanding space.
Mizuki sat propped against her pillows, a blanket across her lap. The wheelchair was folded in the corner. She didn't need it as much now. That alone felt like a small miracle.
Ren was the first one to bring it up. He had been watching Mizuki for a few minutes with that particular expression of his — the one that looked casual but wasn't — before he finally said, "So. You never told me."
Mizuki tilted her head. "Told you what?"
"Any of it." He glanced sideways at Arashi. "I had to hear it from other people. Why didn't you say something?"
Arashi met the look without flinching, but he didn't answer right away.
"He was busy," Mizuki said simply.
Ren turned back to Arashi. "Busy."
"Yeah," Arashi said. "Busy. A lot going on. It slipped."
Ren stared at him for a long moment, then exhaled through his nose — something halfway between a sigh and a laugh. "Uff. You can't be that busy?" He shook his head. "Anyway. What's done is done." He looked at Mizuki again, his voice dropping into something more genuine. "How are you feeling? Actually."
"Better," she said. "Genuinely. Not just saying it."
"You look better," Hina offered. "Like, actually."
"She does," Miyu agreed.
Takumi had been quiet, which for Takumi meant he was building up to something. He uncrossed his arms. "So — what actually happened? I heard you needed a blood donation or something?"
Mizuki shook her head. "Not exactly a blood donation."
"Then what?"
"It's called a stem cell transplant," she said. "PBSC. Peripheral blood stem cell donation. It's different — the donor gets injections for a few days to push stem cells into the bloodstream, and then they go through a process called apheresis where the cells are collected. It's not as simple as donating blood."
Takumi blinked. "Oh. I didn't know that."
"Most people don't," she said, without any edge to it.
Ren leaned forward. "Okay but who was the donor?"
"Guess," Mizuki said.
Miyu looked around the room. Hina bit her lip, thinking. Takumi glanced at Satoru, who shrugged.
Then Ayane, who had been quiet for most of the conversation — sitting with her knees pulled up, listening — spoke for the first time. "I think it was probably a registered donor," she said slowly. "Or — a close relative, maybe."
Mizuki smiled. "Not a relative, but someone who is closest to my heart."
And then, in the way that only happens with people who have known each other long enough, every head in the room turned — at the exact same moment — toward Arashi.
The silence lasted about two seconds.
"Ohhhh," Miyu said.
"So that's what it is," Hina said, eyes wide.
Miyu turned fully toward him, grinning. "Arashi. That's how it is. Hm? Hmm?"
Hina leaned in from the other side. "Something you want to tell us?"
Arashi's jaw tightened. He turned his face toward the wall — deliberately, completely — and said, in a flat voice that was doing a very poor job of hiding how embarrassed he was: "You can think whatever you want."
The room dissolved into laughter.
Even Mizuki was smiling, looking down at her hands.
Satoru waited for the noise to die down before he said, quiet and easy, "Alright. But she's okay now, right? That's what matters."
Mizuki looked up. "Yeah," she said. "I'm okay. Better than okay, honestly." She paused. "It just feels good to be back."
Nobody said anything to that. They didn't need to.
Outside the window, the afternoon light was gentle. The room was warm. And for the first time in a long time, everything that was supposed to be in its place — was.
The laughter faded slowly, the way good laughter does — leaving warmth behind it.
Miyu was still grinning. She leaned back on her palms and looked at Mizuki with the particular expression of someone who had been waiting a long time to ask something. "Okay but can we talk about the fact that you kept all of this from us? Like — all of it?"
"I didn't want anyone to worry," Mizuki said simply.
"We would have come," Hina said. "You know that, right?"
"I know." Mizuki looked at her hands for a moment. "That's kind of why I didn't say anything."
Hina opened her mouth, then closed it. She understood.
Miyu shook his head slowly. "You're impossible, you know that?"
"You say that like it's new information."
She laughed despite himself.
Takumi, ever practical, had already moved on. He was eyeing the small shelf near Mizuki's desk — the one stacked with manga volumes and a few novels she'd clearly been meaning to get to for months. "Okay so what did you even do in there all day? Like when you weren't sleeping."
"Read mostly," Mizuki said. "Watched things. Thought too much."
"About what?" Satoru asked.
She glanced up. "Everything. Nothing. You know how it is when you have too much time and nowhere to go."
Satoru nodded like he understood that better than he wanted to admit.
"I thought about all of you, actually," she added, quieter. "More than I expected to."
The room went a little still at that. Not uncomfortable — just the kind of still that happens when something honest gets said out loud.
"Arashi literally turned to face a wall when we teased him," Ren offered.
"I did not—"
"You did," three people said at once.
Arashi pressed two fingers to his temple and said nothing, which was somehow funnier than anything he could have said.
At some point the conversation softened into smaller threads — Takumi and Satoru talking about something on the other side of the room, Ren scrolling his phone while half-listening, Miyu and Hina flipping through something on Hina's screen and occasionally turning it to show Mizuki.
Arashi had moved without anyone really noticing — he was sitting closer to Mizuki now, back against the wall, legs stretched out. Not saying much. Just there.
Mizuki looked at him once, sideways.
He looked back.
Nothing was said. Nothing needed to be.
By the time the evening light had gone golden and long across the floor, the group began to trickle out — hugs, easy goodbyes, promises to come back soon that everyone actually meant.
Miyu squeezed Mizuki's hand before she left. Hina paused at the door and smiled — the kind that didn't need words.
Arashi was the last to leave.
He stood at the door for a moment, one hand on the frame.
"You good?" he asked.
Mizuki leaned back into her pillows, tired in the comfortable way, the way that means a day was full rather than empty. "Yeah," she said. "I'm good."
He nodded once. Then he was gone.
She looked at the ceiling for a while after that — the familiar cracks, the familiar shadows, the familiar quiet of a room that was hers again.
Home, she thought.
Finally.