“Jo...” Ayase closed her eyes and breathed heavily into her pillow. “M-make sure somebody wakes me up the second we hear anything.”
He swallowed. “Right.”
“P-promise me.”
“I promise.”
She sighed, an edge of something unreadable at the end of it. “I trust you. But not...because you make it easy.”
Jo actually jerked back at that, his eyes widening. He wasn’t sure she’d ever even implied something that personal before. He realized, as he stared down at the groggy girl shifting in her bed, that he’d rarely heard her ever say a nice thing about him.
Then...why did it kill him when he felt like he was letting her down?
He took a long breath and rubbed his face, dropping to sit on the bed beside her. She stirred again, the soft press of her knees through the comforter brushing against his back.
“Ayase,” Jo whispered.
Ayase moaned dreamily. “Hm?”
He hesitated for a long moment. “I...I want to tell you something,” he breathed.
Oh snap, new chapter is out.
Awesome hospital disguise illustration by @tsulala