Geto Suguru never expected to find companionship in a hospital. He had resigned himself to the quiet sterility of his remaining days, each one slipping through his fingers like grains of sand. A year. That’s what the doctors had given him. Enough time to think, to reflect, to regret.

Then, he met her.

She was sitting by the window in the common room, bathed in the golden light of late afternoon. Unlike the others, she didn’t look weighed down by the knowledge of her fate. She was smiling, softly, as if the world still had something left to offer.

“You’re new,” she said, turning to him.

Geto hesitated before nodding. “Something like that.”

She studied him with eyes too bright for someone with only six months left to live. “I’m dying,” she said, almost casually. “You?”

He could have laughed at the bluntness. “Same,” he admitted. “A little slower, though.”

She hummed thoughtfully. “Guess that means I’ll go first. Unless you want to make it a race.”

And just like that, she shattered the silence he had built around himself.