"Ugh... where am I?"

When Gojima opened his eyes, he found himself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling.

"Oh! Y-you're awake..." Someone said from the side. Turning his head, he saw a nurse blankly staring at him.

"I-I'll go inform the doctor!"

"Wait! Is the lady that was—" Before Gojima could finish his sentence, the nurse had ran away.

"—with me... safe..."

Well, he could wait till the doctor arrived.

'Ubs, I assume you will not be telling me either?'

Why stunt your recovery when the doctor will be arriving and telling you any moment?

That... was logical. He decided to wait for the doctor—

And the door opened and a doctor-looking-person entered the room with the nurse.

"Oh, you're finally awake. Good then! How do—"

"Doctor, is the lady that was with me alright?"

The doctor raised his eyebrows, and then smiled.

"She is out of danger, although she will be under complete observation for at least a month. She was lucky that she was rescued by 'someone' before the smokes became hot enough to burn her respiratory tracts," the doctor replied with a twinkle in his eyes, "unfortunately, she did breathe in a lot of toxic fumes. So we need to make sure she is detoxed completely."

"...I'm glad that she's okay."

"Still, you asked about her wellbeing before your own. I must say that is quite worthy of accolades, Gojima Kenzaburou san."

Gojima just returned a wry smile. He was never comfortable with praises from strangers.

"Well then, I believe it’s time you learned about your own situation, Gojima san."

"...Yes?" Gojima knew that he could recover faster thanks to Ubs, but... he never asked to what extent. Would it regenerate severed limbs? Cure cancer? Allow him to live for centuries? Definitely not. Then to what extent?

"You were unconscious for two days. I am glad that you seem okay, though we will have to run some tests to make sure everythinh is alright. Honestly, when you first arrived here, you were in a far worse state than Hanazono Sayuri san. Your brain suffered from internal hamorrhage—which I presume was because of stress as there was no sign of any concussion, even after that crazy stunt you pulled off."

"..."

"Your friends and colleagues mentioned you climbing the walls to get to Hanazono san, who was stated to be trapped in the place where the incident started. However, after taking control of the situation, the firefighters found you on the ground outside the building covered in smoke. Popular theory is that both you and her jumped out of the window and used a tree to cushion your fall, which sounds really dramatic but the only plausible thing. Can you please satiate the curiosity of this old man?"

"...I thought getting our necks snapped would be much less painful than us becoming bbq'd."

Both the doctor and the nurse were at first amazed at Gojima's indirect confirmation of the theory, which was soon followed by awkward smiles at his dark humor.

"I must say, you were either extremely lucky... or extremely skilled to be completely free of any damage from the fall."

"Adrenaline really works like magic. Though it also raised my BP to the skies and popped all my blood vessels..." Gojima said the only thing he could think of at that moment.

"Hmm, I guess you're not wrong. But you know what they say, all's well that ends well. Your recovery has been the fastest I've seen so far. Normally I would have you admitted here for at least a month, or maybe more, but it looks like you will be completely fine within one to two weeks. You sure have a healthy body, Gojima san—"

There was a sound of something breaking. The nurse dropped one of the vials.

"Ah! I'm extremely sorry!" She bowed and started cleaning it up.

"Are you alright, Honda san? You can take a break if you feel unwell." The Doctor asked her with visible concern.

"N-no Sensei! I'm completely fine!"

Gojima felt pity for the lady. She was definitely not okay. She still seemed kinda spaced out and her face was red—

You know unconscious patients have their bodies moved and cleaned regularly so that they do not get bedsores and other stuff, right?

'...Yeah, so?'

So? Maybe she saw something really scary and reallllly amazing?

'I don't ge—oh.'

When she first saw it, she felt like

'Okay! Stop there. I don't need to know.'

Okay then! I will stop. By the way, of the three nurses that took care of you, there is at least one that masturbated to you last ni—

'Just stop!!!'

 

---

 

The very next day, Gojima was informed by the nurse accompanying him—a different one from yesterday's Honda san—that he had visitors.

His room had only two visiting hours—one in the morning and one in the evening, with the number of visitors limited to only five. This morning, he was visited by the Principal, Okada, Isshiki, Hanasato—who came on behalf of the whole class and finally Ichinose—who came on behalf of the track and field club.

Now it was time for the second visiting hour, and there were people who came to visit him.

The ones who entered were Miki, Takeshi, their parents and Ruri.

"H-hello."
"Godspeed!"
"Gojima san, how do you feel now?"
"Damn Gojima san, you sure are full of surprises."
"...Hey Ogre."

Ignoring the fact that even the son of his neighbor was calling him with that cringey nickname, Gojima smiled at them.

"I am fine, thank you. I am sorry that the lives of the children were under threat right on my watch."

"N-no! Not at all!" Mama Kobayashi waved her hands, "This was not anything you could have done anything about!"

"That's right, Gojima san! You were not even on duty of that particular floor, right? Not to mention you yourself charged—or rather, climbed towards the danger zone yourself just to save our children! That, we will forever be grateful for." They both bowed.

Gojima winced at the fact that Papa Kobayashi even knew who was given responsibility for which floor. They definitely were angry—although not at him. "Eh, no... I did what I had to do. I'd have never been able to forgive myself if something happened to them." Then he turned to the kids.

"Are you guys alright?"

"Y-yes, uncle! We're fine!"
"Hm."
"We are super fine! More importantly, did you really jump from the windo—"

Mama Kobayashi hushed his son, who had stars in his eyes and whose sound volume was increasing every second. This was a hospital after all.

"A-hahaha... um... did you people visit Hanazono san? How is she doing?"

They all had wry smiles on their faces.

"She is out of danger, but is extremely weak right now. The doctors did not allow us to visit her. We will have to wait for another day, they said."

"I see." Gojima was glad to hear that she was at least okay. Then he noticed Ruri, who was silently looking downwards.

"Hm? Ruri chan, what's wrong?"

Ruri looked at his face with a weird melancholy on her face. It looked extremely weird on her.

"You could have died."

"Hm? Well, I didn't."

"But you could've. Both you and Sayuri san."

"W-well, probably. But things worked out fine, right?"

"...Things don't always work out fine..." Ruri... her shoulders shook. She was... crying?

Gojima didn't like it. Tears didn't suit her.

She continued, "most of the times it doesn't. It didn't work out for Mom and Dad." The others ran up to her and hugged her. Gojima would have done the same, if he could mutter any strength in his legs.

"M-mom and Dad... they couldn't get out of the car! I could because I flew out from the impact! T-they burned... and I-I just watched..."

Gojima watched as the others consoled her. He didn't know she had a past like that.

He, however, knew how she felt. He knew... how it felt to one day suddenly see everything fall apart.

But it was not something he could just tell the girl.

"U...um, the visiting time is over." The nurse, Kushieda san, reminded them awkwardly.

"R-right. We will be going now, then." Papa Kobayashi looked at Gojima, and then smiled. "Gojima san, we will visit you again. Rest well and recover soon."

"Yeah. See you later."

The Kobayashi couple took the children with them and went outside. Then suddenly Takeshi came inside again.

"Um... the visi—"

"Please let him. Did you forget something, Takeshi kun?"

"Umm... Gojima san. This..." Takeshi handed him a folded paper.

"What is this?" Gojima unfolded the paper and saw a lot of scribbles on a block of... letters consisting of only B, R and G.

"Ruri was really frustrated about this puzzle, you see? So I thought maybe if she... um... 'somehow manages' to solve it, maybe that will... cheer her up?" Takeshi replied whie fidgeting.

Gojima gave him an amused smile, and then concentrated on the blocks of letters. There were only three letters, but that wasn't enough.

"Did the puzzle say anything about the answer?"

"Well... it said something about password."

"A password? Hm... that means either a number or a word. A collection of digits or numbers. Three colors. Three different colors... what does that imply?"

<Three different color means three different bases to at least express the meaning. A ternary coding system. -1.27 AP>

'Hey. What happened to my faster recovery?'

<Cheering up Ruri is important too, right?>

'Hm. That is true. So... a ternary coding system...'

Gojima scanned the letters from top to bottom. Could it be...?

Gojima started grinning. "So that's how it is..." Takeshi perked up.

"Huh? Did you figure it out?! This fast?!! No wonder others call you Godspeed!"

"Call me that one more time and I will never tell you the answer."

"Eh? Uh... okay! I won't call you Godspeed anymore—ahh!!! I called you Godspeed again—ahhhhhh!!!"

Nurse Kushieda asked Takeshi to calm down. The fact that her shoulders were shaking did not escape Gojima's eyes.

Gojima sighed.

Just give up. You cannot escape your destiny, Godspeed :3

'Stop using emojis. It's creepy.'

Ouch. I even went through the trouble of cataloging them :(

He ignored Ubs and turned towards the boy.

"Say kiddo... have you ever heard of the Morse code?"