Sakuragi-kun is limping even more by the time we reach my house.
“I’m back!” I call as I push the door open and tug him inside.
Mama and Papa are sitting at the kitchen table.
Mama sees me.
Sees my shirt.
“Welcome ho—oh my god,” she half-yells as she crosses the room. “What happened?!”
“Mama!” I rush. “I need the first aid kit!”
“Are you okay?” she repeats. “What happened?”
I’m too focused on speeding towards the bathroom—towards our first-aid kit—to answer.
Then I realize that I’m not pulling Sakuragi-kun anymore.
I pause and turn back.
He’s still hovering by the door?
Mama notices him as I do.
“Oh!”
She looks between us, processing.
“Ren—what happened?”
“Sakuragi-kun!” I call, just as Mama calls “Ren!”
I answer before Sakuragi-kun does.
“I’ll tell you everything,” I say as I walk back over towards Sakuragi-kun. “I just need the first aid kit first.”
“Are you okay?” I ask as I reach him.
He looks at me a little wide-eyed. Not used to new places, maybe?
He kind of lifts his head up as if to nod, but stops midway through the motion. Just kinda makes him look like a baby bird or something.
Wait. Not the time, Ren.
“It’s okay,” I try as soothingly as I can. “Everything is gonna be okay. We just need to get that cleaned up, okay?”
It takes him a second and he nods.
I grab him by the wrist again and tug him past Papa—still on his laptop—and towards the bathroom.
Mama is already there, pulling open the cabinet under the sink. Bottles clink together as she pushes them aside.
She pulls out our first-aid kit.
“Sit,” I tell him, pointing to the toilet.
He puts the lid down, then sits.
“He fell on the baseball diamond,” I say before Mama can ask again. “Got a bunch of dirt in his knee.”
“And you tried to wipe it off with your shirt?” She raises an eyebrow, but her face says she’s amused.
“It’s all I could think of,” I shrug.
She cracks open the first-aid kit and grabs a cloth from inside.
“I’ve got it,” I say, reaching for the cloth.
She pauses.
Looks at me.
Then—hands it over.
“Alright,” she says. “But I’m helping.”
“Of course,” I smile.
I run the cloth under warm water from the tap and wring it out.
Then I step over to Sakuragi-kun myself.
“Now, this is gonna sting a little,” I tell him—
—and press the cloth to his knee.
He sucks in a breath and grips the edge of the counter.
Dirt smears away under the cloth, but not all of it.
I rinse the cloth out and the water runs pink for a second.
Then I press it to Sakuragi-kun’s knee again, slower this time, pressing more carefully around the scrape.
“There’s still stuff in it,” I mutter.
“It’s fine,” he says through gritted teeth.
“It’s not fine,” I say. “It’ll get infected.”
Mama leans in a little. “Here—gentler,” she says, guiding my hand slightly. “Don’t scrub. Dab.”
“I know,” I say automatically—
—but I adjust anyway.
I rinse the cloth again.
This time I get the last of the dirt that I can see.
Toss the rag in the sink to take care of later.
Okay! Next is…
Is…
“Antiseptic?” Mama suggests.
Right.
“Yes, please.”
I knew it all along. Obviously the next step is antiseptic.
She pulls out a bottle and box of swabs, then hands them to me.
“Almost done,” I tell Sakuragi-kun as I dip a swab in the bottle.
He doesn’t answer—just kind of glares at me—but he doesn’t pull away either.
“This part’s gonna be… a little worse,” I warn him as I approach his knee with the swab.
Closer… closer…
The swab touches Sakuragi-kun’s knee, and he flinches.
“I hate you,” he says through gritted teeth.
“I know,” I smile.
I dab the swab up and down the bruise. My swab gets bloodier, and Sakuragi-kun gets jumpier, but it’s hard to tell anything else.
“Do I need another one?” I ask once my first swab has been thoroughly dirtied.
“No,” says Sakuragi-kun.
“Yes,” says Mama.
Mama wins.
I soak the second swab the same way I did the first, then go through a few more swabs that way until Mama tells me to stop.
Finally: the easy part.
Mama hands me a bandage, and I press it into place, smoothing the edges down with my thumb.
“There,” I say.
I glance up at Mama.
She gives a small nod. “Perfect.”
Sakuragi-kun looks down at it like he’s not sure what to do next.
Papa’s voice carries from the other room:
“Finish up, then go change your shirt.”
“Okay!” I call back.
I’ve already finished up, so I just push myself back onto my feet.
“Don’t go anywhere,” I tell Sakuragi-kun. “I’ll be right back, and then maybe I can show you my room! I just got this awesome new poster from this anime I think you might really like. Oh! And there’s a pond in the woods out back that Shizuka-nee and I go to and sometimes there are frogs and—”
“Ren.”
I stop.
Turn to Mama.
“…Your shirt?”
“Oh yeah!”
I dart down the hall and into my room, then yank my shirt off and wrap it into a ball, bloody side in. I yank the first clean shirt over my head I can find, then head back down the hall before I’ve even finished pulling the sleeves straight.
By the time I get back, Sakuragi-kun’s in the kitchen with Mama and Papa, talking into a cell phone I don’t recognize.
“…yeah,” he’s saying. “I’m at Fujimura-kun’s.”
He pauses.
“Mhmm. Fujimura-kun from the team.”
Another pause.
I miss what he says next because Mama talks to me.
“What happened to your shirt?” she asks.
Uhhhh.
Thinking…
Thinking…
Right.
My floor.
“We have to wash it or it’ll stain,” she says.
“Yeah, but—”
“Go get it and I’ll wash it for you,” Mama says.
“But I wanted to—”
“Now, Ren,” she says.
Uggggghhhh.
Fiiiine.
I run back to my room and grab my shirt off the floor.
Back in the kitchen, I hand Mama the shirt.
She thanks me, but my focus is already back on Sakuragi-kun.
“Okay. I’ll talk to you later,” he says—which sounds like really good news.
I’m already bouncing on my heels by the time he pulls the phone away from his ear.
“What’d she say?!” I ask as soon as he’s off the phone.
Sakuragi-kun doesn’t quite match my level of enthusiasm, but he still seems a lot better since we patched him up. Thank goodness.
“It’s fine if I stay for a bit,” he answers, and I almost jump for joy.
“Oh! Yay yay yay! This is gonna be so much fun!”
I grab his arm again—he seems to be getting used to that—and pull him towards my room.
And this time, my parents don’t stop us.
“Finally,” I grin at him, “I’m the one who gets to show off.”