blivious to all the gazes around her.

Ignoring the guards who tried to stop her and not hearing the female doctor she bumped into in the corridor, she ran toward Nozomu's hospital room.

Irisdina slammed the door open, and beyond her gaze, Nozomu was still sleeping peacefully.

"Haa, haa, haa, haa..."

Without even trying to calm her ragged breathing, Irisdina walked over to the bed where Nozomu was sleeping.

"Nozomu ..."

His name, muttered by Irisdina, melted away into the hospital room.

She put her hand on her throbbing chest.

She clenched her hands so tight that they turned white, she gritted her teeth to suppress the pain, but it seeped out like a leak in the rain.

"H-hey,? wake up. You've been sleeping a little too much. If you don't wake up soon, you won't be able to keep up with your classes, right?"

Her words were just her effort to keep herself calm. However, the tone of her voice was shaky.

The smile she tried to put on her face was stiff, and she found herself biting her lip.

"Somia, Shīna, and the others are worried about you. And... also ......."

Her mind was blank and no words came to mind at all. Just the same words echoing round and round like a snake biting its own tail.

"Wake up, please wake up! ... Let me hear your voice..."

Trying to escape the pain that was clawing at her chest, Irisdina shook the sleeping nozomu. It was like a scene from her past, when she clung to her lifeless mother.

The scene in her mind further accelerated her frustration.

However, Nozomu didn't respond to her grief.

Irisdina's eyes became moist.

A single tear trickled down her cheek, and she could no longer stop it.

As if the dam had broken, Irisdina's tears overflowed and she clung to Nozomu's chest.

"Uu~. Uuu ... ~...!"

She clutched Nozomu's bed cover as if to tear it off, buried her face in it, and sobbed uncontrollably.

Tear after tear drenched Nozomu's chest, but he continued to breathe peacefully in his sleep.

When she looked up, his sleeping face was right beside her.

He had no particular features. But his smile warmed her from the bottom of her heart. But now he was .......

"Hic~, Hic~ ... Nozomu ..."

She brought her face closer and gently touched Nozomu's cheek.

Irisdina pressed her own lips against Nozomu's.

It was her first kiss.

Shīna kissed Nozomu, who had gone out of control in the forest, in order to establish a contract with him.

Like Shīna at that time, Irisdina just wanted Nozomu to wake up, so she continued to press her lips against his.

However, her wish was not answered, and Nozomu's eyelids did not open.

“........”

Irisdina gently raised herself up and left the hospital room in a daze.

She no longer felt any pain in her chest. All she could feel was a gaping hole and an intense chill.

It was already dark outside.

As she wandered the streets with unsteady steps, she was suddenly embraced from behind.

"Ai!"

"Tima ...?"

The familiar voice of her best friend was shouting her name.

It sounded somewhat distant, even though the name should have been shouted near her ear.

"Yeah...."

"What are you doing? In a place like this ..."

What in the world was she doing here?

In her thoughts, which did not revolve well, only her mouth was speaking words reflexively.

Tima did not answer Irisdina's question but continued to hug her from behind.

"I'm alright. I'm ...... alright."

She said the same words, but the exhausted atmosphere emanating from her entire body made her words completely unconvincing.

As if to comfort her, Tima's arms around Irisdina tightened.

"I'm alright. I'm ... Uuu"

The warmth rekindled Irisdina's frozen emotions.

At the same time, tears that should have dried up began to well up again.

To hide Irisdina's face as she began to sob, Tima shifted Irisdina's body and wrapped her face in her own chest.

"Uuu, aaa ..."

Wrapped in the warmth of her best friend, Irisdina began to cry again.

The people around her looked at her to see what was going on, but she didn't care.

"Guu, Uu! Hic~ ... aaaa!"

"Ai ..."

One cannot directly feel the hearts of others.

How anxious were they? How much resentment did they have to endure? How many times did they feel as if their hearts were about to burst?

Her heart was breaking due to the thought of someone who would not wake up, she was jealous of his former lover, and she tried desperately and unsuccessfully to suppress her resentment.

While hiding Irisdina's face, Tima continued to take in Irisdina's overflowing feelings.

Then, at the corner of her eye, she caught the shadow of a figure rushing toward the school in a panic.

"That is...."

It was the female doctor in a white coat. She was running as fast as she could to the school with a look of impatience all over her face.

Something happened to Nozomu.

A feeling of foreboding welled up in Tima's chest.