Chapter 13 — Blood
Sunday.
The shop opened at eight.
I was there at seven fifty, glasses on, keys in hand, the shutter going up with its usual reluctant noise. The morning was cool and specific — the kind of Sunday morning that knew what it was and wasn't pretending to be anything else. Empty street. Distant traffic. The tea stall across the road not yet open.
I went in and started the opening routine.
The medicine was in my bag.
I knew it was in my bag. The tablet strip and the two small bottles of drops were tucked into the front pocket where I had put them so I wouldn't forget. Sunday morning dose — one tablet, one drop each eye.
A customer knocked on the shutter before I had finished the opening check.
I let them in. Prescription, straightforward, two minutes. Then another customer behind them, and then the newbies arrived in a cluster at eight fifteen with their usual morning energy, and then Boss called with a supplier question that took ten minutes to resolve, and then the morning was simply happening the way mornings happened and the bag was on the shelf behind the counter and the medicine was in it and I had not taken it.
By the time I remembered it was eleven.
I looked at the bag.
Looked at the customer approaching the counter.
Later, I thought.
---
The newbies noticed the glasses at around nine.
"Boss," said the one nearest the door, whose name was Arjun and who had the specific quality of someone who noticed everything and felt compelled to comment on most of it. "Are those glasses."
"Yes," I said.
"Since when."
"Recently."
"Do you have bad eyes."
"Temporarily."
"How temporary."
"Arjun," I said. "The cold medicine display needs restocking."
Arjun looked at the cold medicine display, which did not obviously need restocking, then back at me with the expression of someone who understood he was being redirected and had decided to accept it for now.
He went to restock the cold medicine display.
The other newbie, Priya — quieter, sharper — waited until Arjun was gone and then said, without looking up from the inventory sheet, "Eye strain?"
"Yes," I said.
"From studying?"
"Among other things."
She nodded and went back to the inventory sheet. No further questions. I had always appreciated that about her.
---
The group chat was active through the afternoon.
Takashi: ran through the mountain section four times. pretty solid now.
Hana: I've reviewed the document again. everything is in order.
Reo: — an audio message, forty seconds long.
I played it between customers, one earbud in, the shop noise around me.
It was Reo running the presentation. Not the mutter, not the corridor rehearsal — properly, the volume and pacing of someone addressing a room. He got one transition slightly fast but caught the rhythm before it became a problem. The plains section, which had started as a YouTube documentary and a wall of words, came out of his mouth as something coherent and even interesting.
I typed into the group.
Mikey: Reo that was genuinely good.
Reo: I know
Reo: I've been telling you
Takashi: he's been practicing since yesterday
Reo: I practice when it matters
Hana: it matters tomorrow
Reo: exactly
Emma's message came through at four.
Emma: everyone ready?
Takashi: ready
Hana: ready
Reo: born ready
I was mid-prescription when the message arrived. I finished the prescription, handed it across, waited for the customer to leave.
Mikey: ready. get some rest tonight everyone. tomorrow will be fine.
Emma: okay. good luck everyone.
Reo: we don't need luck we have mikey
Mikey: you need both
Reo: fair
---
The shop closed at eight.
I did the closing routine — floor check, register, locks, shutter. The street outside had gone from Sunday afternoon to Sunday evening in the way streets did, the light lower, the tea stall doing its last business of the day.
I picked up my bag.
The medicine was still in the front pocket.
I stood there for a moment in the closed shop, the shutter half down, the evening coming in from the street.
Tomorrow, I thought. I'll do both doses tomorrow morning and it'll be fine.
I went home.
My mother had food on the stove. I ate. She asked about school and I told her the presentation was tomorrow and she said good, you've been working hard. I said yes. She said sleep early tonight. I said yes.
I went to the study room. Opened the project folder. Went through the structure once in my head — Emma and Hana opening, me and Takashi on the details, Reo closing. Clean. Logical. We had practiced enough that the shape of it was automatic.
I closed the folder.
Looked at the bag.
Tomorrow, I thought again.
I set an alarm for six and went to sleep.
For the first time in two weeks, I was asleep before midnight.
---
Monday.
The alarm went off at six.
I got up, showered, ate the breakfast my mother had left covered on the counter. Put on the school clothes. Checked the project folder one more time — not because anything had changed overnight but because checking was its own kind of preparation.
Picked up the bag.
The medicine was in the front pocket.
I was halfway to the door when my mother called from the other room asking if I wanted her to pack something extra for lunch since it was a big day. I said yes. She said give me two minutes. I waited at the door with my bag over one shoulder, checking the time, thinking about the presentation order, thinking about whether Reo had slept properly, thinking about whether the sketches had survived being in the folder or whether I should have used a harder backing.
My mother came out with the extra lunch.
I took it. Said thank you. Left.
The medicine was in the front pocket of the bag that was now on my back as I walked to school.
I didn't think about it once.
---
The morning had the specific quality of a day that knew it was going to be significant.
Or maybe that was just me.
The group was already assembled when I reached the classroom — all four of them, which never happened, which meant they had all left home earlier than usual without coordinating it. Takashi was reviewing his notes with the focused expression of a man who had taken the mountain section personally. Hana had the document out, reading it one final time with the calm of someone who had prepared thoroughly and knew it. Reo was standing near the window, lips moving slightly, the presentation running its quiet internal loop.
Emma was sitting at the desk with her bag in her lap, not reviewing anything, just present. She looked up when I came in.
"You're late," she said.
"I'm exactly on time," I said.
"We were all early," she said. "So you're late."
I sat down. Reo came over, dropped into his seat, and said, "Ready?"
"Ready."
That was the whole conversation because there was nothing else that needed saying.
---
Mr. Kenji took attendance. Classes happened. I was present for them in the technical sense — I wrote things down, I answered when asked, I kept my eyes open. The presentation ran its loop in the background, the shape of it automatic by now, not something I had to think about so much as something that was simply there, available.
My eyes were fine.
Slightly dry, maybe. The kind of dry that came from classroom air and not enough water and being on the edge of concentration for several hours. Manageable. I blinked. Filed it away.
---
Lunch.
The group gathered with the particular energy of people who had been waiting all day for a specific thing and were now an hour away from it. Lunch boxes open, the conversation moving the way it did when everyone was comfortable — Takashi making a comment about someone else's presentation in the morning session, Reo providing commentary, Hana saying something that made Emma cover a laugh with her hand.
I was eating and listening and feeling, for the first time in several weeks, that the specific weight of the project was almost gone. One hour. One presentation. And then it was done and we had done it well and that would be that.
Reo said something about Takashi. Takashi responded. The response escalated. Reo escalated back. I was laughing — actually laughing, the kind that arrives without permission, the kind that had been less frequent lately than it should have been.
Reo turned to me. "You, settle this. Who do you think—"
He stopped.
I was still laughing. I registered that he had stopped mid-sentence and I registered the expression on his face and I registered that Emma's expression had changed and Hana's and Takashi's and I thought — stop messing with me, what's behind me, why is everyone—
I wiped my eyes.
One hand came away wet.
The other came away red.
I looked at both hands.
The laughing stopped.
---
The washroom.
Reo had me up and moving before I had fully processed what was happening — hand on my arm, pulling, the classroom door, the corridor, the washroom at the end of the hall. Takashi somewhere behind us. The door swinging open, the tap, cold water, the handkerchief.
I pressed it against the eye and looked at the mirror.
Reo was standing beside me. Not speaking. The not-speaking was worse than the speaking would have been.
"It'll stop," I said. "Ten minutes."
"Mikey." His voice was quiet. Controlled in the way of someone who had decided to be controlled because the alternative was not useful. "When did you last take the medicine."
I looked at the mirror.
"Mikey."
"Friday," I said.
The silence that followed had a specific quality.
"Friday," Reo said.
"I forgot Saturday. And Sunday. And this morning."
Another silence.
"You forgot," he said.
"I was busy," I said. "The shift on Sunday and then the presentation and I just—"
"You forgot," he said again. Not a question. Not accusation. Just the word, sitting there, doing its work.
"Yes," I said.
Reo put both hands on the edge of the sink. Looked at the mirror. In it I could see his jaw working slightly, the specific movement of someone choosing words carefully because the first available words were not the right ones.
"You do this," he said finally. "You carry everything. You manage everything. You make sure everyone else is fine and then you forget to be fine yourself." He looked at the mirror. "I'm not angry. I need you to know that. I'm not angry."
"You seem angry," I said.
"I'm worried," he said. "There's a difference. And you would know that if you ever let anyone worry about you properly instead of hiding things in your bag."
I looked at the handkerchief.
The bleeding was slowing. Eight minutes, maybe. It would stop.
"There are five minutes until lunch ends," I said.
"I know."
"The presentation—"
"I know," he said. "We'll go. We'll do it." He straightened up. "But you're going to stand here for five minutes and you're going to let this stop properly and you're not going to walk back in there smiling like nothing happened. Not to me. You don't have to do that with me."
I looked at the mirror.
He was right.
I had been about to do exactly that.
"Okay," I said.
---
We stood there in the quiet washroom, the tap still running, the sounds of the school outside the door, and I let five minutes be five minutes without trying to manage them into something else.
"Go," I said after a moment. "Tell them to start setting up. I'll be there."
Reo looked at me.
"I'll be there," I said again. "I just need to clean up. Five minutes. Go."
He went.
I rinsed my face. Folded the handkerchief. Looked at myself in the mirror for a moment — red eye, tired face, the glasses slightly crooked from where I had pulled them off at the sink.
I straightened the glasses.
Took a breath.
And walked out.
Emma and Hana were in the corridor. Emma looked at me and I gave her the thumbs up and she looked at me with the expression that said she was going to have things to say about this later and she turned and went toward the classroom. Hana followed.
I stood in the corridor for a moment.