I pick one up. It’s so soft, and strangely warm between my fingers. Smells like lemon to me. It almost feels wrong to do this … like I’m about to eat a living thing …

Cybelle. Mochi is vegan. Everyone knows that.

I eat one. And another. And another. And the last two.

Delicious.

seventeen

THE EIGHTH SQUARE

噂をすれば影が射す

Speak of the devil and he shall appear

Everyone is staring at me. Of course, they are. I’m a gaijin. Sitting in a hospital. In her pyjamas. I’ve never felt so out of place. Beats talking to police in my PJs, I guess. Oh gosh, is someone going to call the police? Maybe someone already has. My fists clench in my lap. Two more months and I would have been free! I can’t have a criminal record now; I was doing so well … No, Cybelle, it’s fine. You’re fine. Why would anyone need to call the police? It’s fine. But I try to play cat’s cradle with the handles of the plastic bag in my lap to keep myself from fleeing out of the hospital waiting room, into the night.

For someone who bragged about being fluent in Japanese just a few weeks ago to the world’s bitchiest co-worker, it turns out I have a long way to go. Getting Zaniel out of that horrible place and into a cab was the easy part — he was surprisingly lighter than I’d expected — but when we arrived at the hospital, I was at a loss for words about what exactly was wrong with him. I managed to explain to a nurse that my friend was unconscious and that he didn’t look hurt. He woke up just enough to say something to her that I didn’t quite catch. Then it was all rush-rush as the nurse hailed a barrage of orderlies to lift Zaniel from my arms onto a gurney and whisk him away with an oxygen mask on his face and an IV in his arm. It was like a TV show — running down the hall with him, holding onto his hand until someone wrenched me away before a set of double doors could smash me in the face. At least I was able to understand that Zaniel would be fine and that I was to sit in the waiting room and fill out some forms for his admittance.