This is almost certainly the weirdest birthday fic I've written to date. And this is my eighth. Perhaps this is most notable because it's not only in a different point of view than the character it focuses on (and an unexpected point of view, at that), but as you will soon find out, the title character doesn't even play an active role. And yet he's the driving force of the story, and indeed, the focus. You'll see.

There is no romance in this story. You're all free to interpret, but this more than anything is meant to exemplify the strength of friendship and platonic bonds. Romance is fairly irrelevant. It's post-canon, taking place early in the year after the end of the series.

Story is rated for vague references to injuries.

"Konna Nichi" means "Days Like This." Also, in Japan, "Sensei" refers not only to teachers but to doctors. No joke.

For those of you who are following my chapter fic, "Ore no Sonzai," I apologize, but it looks like it may be a bit longer until the next chapter is up. With the beginning of my second Bachelor's degree, job-hunting, a death in the family and, well, life, writing has had to be knocked down the list of priorities. Also, I'd prefer to have lengthy spaces between chapters now, before the story has gotten into cliffhangers, mild suspense, and such things, so I'm trying to get most of the story done. My apologies. I will have it up as soon as possible. Oh, and just so you all know, this isn't a pity plea: I'm fine, really, though I very much appreciate all the condolences received in your reviews. :)

I really hope you enjoy this little story! Please leave a review when you're done. Happy birthday, Jounouchi!

Konna Nichi

He looked like a mummy.

She nearly slapped herself when the thought first crossed her mind, and she told herself it was just her way of dealing with the stress. When she had first seen him she had nearly cried, broken down on the side of the bed while the nurses stood waiting in the background. Now it had been a while, and every time she looked at him she thought he looked like a very bad Halloween-costume mummy.

She really needed to stop letting this place get to her.

She didn't know how long she had been here, and honestly, she didn't want to find out. Somehow the idea of time right now was terrifying. Ticking of the clock, like the beeping of the machine at the side of the bed, how long had she been standing here, how long since the doctors had left, how long since she had picked up her phone with a smile only to be greeted with the cold medical tones.

The clock seemed a great deal more frightening than staring at the bed.

But she blinked when the faint sound of running in the hallway outside jerked her attention from her trance, and though she did not see the clock, she could feel it ticking.

And the slam of the door flying open against the wall ticked like a needle into the base of her spine.

"Jounouchi-kun!"

Anzu turned her head. The breaking voice racked through her mind, through her body, and she wanted to gasp in her next breath, but she held herself back. She turned, and she saw Yuugi standing just inside the doorway, the door creaking shut behind him, sucking in desperate, panting breaths and his eyes wider than they had been in a long time.

She opened her mouth, but the sound of footsteps stumbling along the hallway shut her lips again.

But when the hand she had seen too many times not to know pushed the door open again, it stopped, and the figure in the old gray hoodie just stood in doorway as his eyes adjusted to the too-bright artificial glow of the room. He stared, first at Yuugi, then at Anzu, then at the figure lying on the bed.

White bandages wrapped around the messy blonde hair. Tiny white strips of cloth tape over little cuts. Arm casted and tucked in a sling, and leg suspended from a metal rod near the ceiling, its cast so thick it looked as if it had swelled twice its size.

Honda breathed out as Yuugi tried with all his might to catch his breath—even to breathe—and Anzu could have sworn Honda's breath trembled even more.

"… Jounouchi …"

Anzu tried to talk, but her throat and her lips failed her. She just watched Yuugi and Honda approach to bed, their legs and feel trembling so she could almost hear when their feet hit the floor.

Tap tap. Tap tap.

The clock ticking in her head.

Yuugi reached a hand toward the body on the bed, barely moving, just enough to show from the beeping of the machine that he was alive. Then he pulled it back and held it close to his chest.

"… what …" He looked at Anzu, and his face racked her to the core. "… how did …?"

He didn't finish. His voice caught, his breath stopped. Anzu pressed her lips together to keep them from shivering as they so badly wanted to do. The cold in her arms burned.

"… car accident."

Yuugi gulped and turned away. Honda said nothing. All he seemed to be able to do was stare.

"They don't know what happened," Anzu murmured. Her voice trembled, and she gripped her arms, wondering if the hospital was really stupid enough not to get internal heating or if they had just forgotten to turn it on in this room. She shook her head. "The other driver's okay, just a broken wrist. They're checking him for … alcohol levels. They think his car just … slipped."

She swallowed, mouth dry, throat aching. It didn't help.

Yuugi could force no more words from his lips. He tried, but with each movement his mouth clamped shut, and Anzu watched him, unable to look away.

The tears Anzu knew grew behind Honda's eyes stayed, held back with each swallow, with the tensing of his face. But she could see them as clearly as if they had been painted on his face, drawing himself in close and tight and scrunching his eyes and mouth as he stared at the figure on the bed.

"I let you borrow my brother's car, and you go and get yourself totaled, you big moron."

Anzu stared, but he did not stare back. She almost reached out, but held back her hand.

"Honda …"

Yuugi's breath sounded like the cold wind outside, rustling the bare trees. "Jounouchi-kun …"

He looked to Anzu, and nothing could have pained Anzu more than seeing his eyes shining as they did. Shivering like his breath, like his body. He swallowed, and Anzu wondered if his mouth felt as dry as her own.

"H-have the doctors said anything?"

Anzu hesitated. Yuugi followed each of her movements as she shook her head, too slow, then too fast, all aching and stiff.

"He was … in the emergency room when they called me," she muttered.

Honda squeezed his hands into fists, then relaxed them, then squeezed them again. His face contorted as if his lips, like his words, could not decide how to move.

"That … he …"

Anzu touched his shoulder, and couldn't tell whether it was her own hand shaking or him. She pressed her lips together, tilting her head, but all the words she had wanted to say came out null. "Honda …"

Yuugi choked on the next breath he pulled. The shining in his eyes turned to tears glimmering in the ceiling lights, then slipped down his cheeks. He did not wipe them away. More than anything Anzu wanted to reach out and pull him into her grasp, but she held herself back. Yuugi curled his arms close to his body and stared at the boy lying on the bed, attached to the faintly beeping machine.

Beep. Beep.

A solitary heartbeat, melded with the trembling breaths of three friends, Anzu swallowing the tears she had already shed, and Honda trying to hold back the glistening in his eyes.

Yuugi did not even try.

Laughter and smiles. Funny comments, elbow jabs in the shoulder, staying up until the late hours of the night watching movies and old TV re-runs. Anzu hadn't imagined this evening more than a few times, but she had a very clear idea of all she wanted to do on that annoying mop-head's birthday.

This was not it.

And she wasn't sure whether the misfortune fell upon him or her or every one of them that this should happen today.

She had brought a chocolate cake.

Well, to be accurate, she hadn't meant to bring it to the hospital. She had just left the store and was heading over to her own apartment, where she had told Honda and Yuugi to meet her, when she got the call. But she had nowhere to put the cake, so she had raced through the front doors of the hospital with a store-bought chocolate cake decorated in thick, creamy frosting, looking around frantically for where she was supposed to go.

She had slipped the cake onto one of the tables in the third-floor waiting room by the vending machines, not thinking about what would happen to it, just needing to find out what was wrong.

She sighed, balanced her chin on her arms, and stared at the chocolate frosting in disbelief in how much money she had spent on such a cheesy-looking cake.

"Anzu?"

Anzu had heard the footsteps, but she still jumped when that quiet, almost innocent voice broke her from her thoughts. She kept her chin close to the table and flicked her eyes up to stare at the boy who suddenly looked tall by comparison, staring down at her with eyes blinking, confused, and a little bit concerned.

She turned her head on its side and huffed a long breath. "Hey, Yuugi."

Yuugi hung his head, his fingers fiddling in front of him like had when they first met. For a moment she felt as if they were just two kids in the sandbox in the park, and Yuugi was still a quiet, nervous little boy with no other friends but her, and she still had to defend him against any and all bullies that came his way.

As if there had been no spirit, and no Millennium Puzzle, and no triumph and pain, and Jounouchi was still a jerk classmate who picked on Yuugi with the excuse of "making him a man."

Then that moment passed, and the triumph and pain and spirit and Puzzle were done and through, and Jounouchi was their friend of nearly two years lying in a hospital bed just down the hall.

Anzu breathed out as Yuugi stood silent near the opposite chair.

"Any change?"

Yuugi looked at her, then down, then shook his head.

"Nothing," he murmured. He pulled the chair away from the table, the legs squeaking as they dragged along the floor. He flopped down into it and laid his chin on his folded arms. "The doctor hasn't come back yet."

Anzu leaned back in her chair.

"It's been an hour … shouldn't they …"

"I'm sure they're trying, Anzu," Yuugi insisted in a voice tired and gentle all at once, but though Anzu somehow doubted he meant those words, she nodded.

"Right …"

Yuugi shifted, his head still down. He glanced at the chocolate-iced cake between them, at the transparent plastic cover and the little chocolate flowers around the edges and the seventeen blue candles and the "Happy Birthday Jounouchi" in thin red icing. Anzu had never actually figured out if chocolate was his favorite cake, but Jounouchi had always whatever was put in front of him as long as it didn't look like poison.

Now she wondered if she should have asked around to find out if he wanted vanilla or red velvet inside.

But Yuugi smiled, a tiny little smile that only lasted a second, his bangs casting shadows on his face.

"The cake looks great."

Anzu grinned in strange irony, just as his smile disappeared.

"It cost a fortune."

Yuugi perked up his head and blinked wide eyes. "Honda-kun and I can help pay fo—"

Anzu waved her hand near her face, and Yuugi shut his mouth, and for a moment she couldn't tell if she had startled him. She rubbed her temples with her thumbs.

"No, no, it wasn't that much," she murmured, shaking her head. "I'm just …"

She sighed, a heavy sound like she was trying to breathe out the weight of an anvil crushing down on her back, and she listened to the way the sound echoed on the walls of the waiting room and the ticking of the clock in the hallway hit her head like a drumstick with each second that passed.

Yuugi reached a hand across the table, carefully avoiding the cake, and laid his fingers on her arm that had fallen in front of her again. Hesitant—and Anzu was fairly sure she could see his cheeks grow the slightest bit pink—he brushed those fingers back and forth over her skin like her mother had once stroked her head when she cried.

He nodded and glanced back down, his fingers only just touching her skin. He breathed out and nodded again.

"I know."

He said nothing else.

Anzu had never asked Yuugi what he knew about Jounouchi when she first caught he and Honda bullying the poor boy. She had never asked him what he thought about them, if he had ever talked to them on better terms. And she had only known the little she knew from rumors school.

They had been her friends because they were Yuugi's.

It was only after Jounouchi dove in the pool to retrieve the piece of the Puzzle—which Honda had once mentioned to her, even though Jounouchi had never told Yuugi himself—that she thought he was decent enough to be given a chance.

She wasn't sure when along the line she had stopped thinking of that moppy-haired boy as a hindrance as she tried to understand Yuugi, to help him stay out of the trouble that seemed to be drawn to him like the electric magnet she had once seen in a lab on a field trip, and started thinking of him as Jounouchi Katsuya, a friend in his own right.

It had been a very long time since she had even thought to ask herself that question at all.

She shifted her head at the sound of another pair of footsteps, their tapping on the floor echoing around the ceiling and the walls. She and Yuugi looked up at once, Yuugi turning around in his chair to look at the approaching figure with a single spike of brown hair trudging toward them down the hall.

Yuugi's eyes were soft, but he did not try to smile.

"Honda-kun."

Honda dragged his feet as he walked, though he didn't seem to notice. He looked up without moving his head from where it hung just a little lower than usual, face oddly stoic, something that made Anzu's stomach twist. She might have laughed if things had been any different, to think that she had always wanted Honda to be serious for once in his life.

Now he was. And now she could think of few things more painful he could do.

He quirked his head and blinked tired eyes. "Is that Jounouchi's cake?"

Yuugi nodded. Honda-kun tried to smile, but it seemed more like his lips twisting up and down.

"You got a good one, Anzu."

Anzu said nothing. Honda pulled out another chair next to Yuugi and sat down with his arms hanging at his sides. He tilted his head.

"He'd probably laugh if he saw us all sitting here staring at a cake."

Yuugi's mouth twitched into a tiny, solemn grin that made something deep in Anzu ache. "Hm."

Honda stayed silent. Anzu huffed her breath as quietly as she could, pushing herself out of her seat so the chair behind her squeaked.

"Do you guys want sodas?" she asked. She tried to smile. "My treat."

Honda lifted a limp hand.

"Just water. Please."

He never said please, but Anzu said nothing. She gave him a second-long glance and turned to Yuugi.

Yuugi shook his head, his lips almost a smile. "I'm alright."

Anzu nodded and turned to walk down the hall toward the vending machine she had seen when she came in.

She glanced over her shoulder, and Honda and Yuugi did not look up. But she saw the cake still sitting between them, and for a moment she imagined Jounouchi slamming his whole face down until his cheeks and forehead and chin were covered in chocolate icing, and he licked it all off with his tongue until he had to use his fingers instead.

She pressed her lips together and slipped her hand into the pocket of her skirt to make sure she still had change.

They sat at the table for a long time after she got back, Honda sipping at the bottle of water that dripped cool condensation until it had formed a puddle around it, and Yuugi staring ahead. The cake remained in the middle of the table, but none of them allowed themselves to dip a finger in.

The icing remained untouched like a taunt, like a laugh, and it took all Anzu had not throw it against the wall.

The last person she would have expected to poke his head through the door was Bakura-kun.

She didn't remember calling him when she arrived, but then again, she hadn't been the one to call Honda or Yuugi either. The doctor had looked under next of kin and found his father, who hadn't answered the phone, and as she and Honda and Yuugi had been listed in the miniature phone book he kept in his wallet, they had been the next choice.

Anzu was very glad she had gotten there before the doctor called Shizuka-chan. She somehow couldn't stand the thought of putting this on that poor girl's shoulders before they even knew what was wrong, and Shizuka-chan was too far away to do anything at all.

But Bakura-kun. He wasn't even in Jounouchi's phone book, and she hadn't thought Yuugi had kept in contact with him much outside of school after they came back from Egypt. But Yuugi had been the first one to smile when Bakura-kun peeked into the room with that nervous grin, so Anzu supposed Yuugi had called him, and just never said.

And of course, as he had been the one to arrive last—and maybe because he was simply that sort of person—Bakura-kun brought flowers.

Anzu really wondered sometimes how it was that such a sweet boy could have ever been host to Zorc.

Seventeen yellow blossoms—she counted them as he brought them over—all very much alive, all blooming, as if he had just picked them up from the store on the way. She didn't ask, but she suspected that was the reason he was late. One of the nurses shuffled in a minute later with a glass vase and some water, and Bakura-kun slipped the bouquet in and arranged the flowers until they all seemed to meld into one lovely mass of gold.

Bakura-kun looked at Jounouchi for a long time after he set the flowers in, but though Anzu could see words in his eyes, he said nothing at all.

Anzu had no idea how long they had been standing around when Honda finally brought up the topic of money, just as Anzu and Yuugi had taken to watching Jounouchi, checking for any signs of movement, any sign that he would wake up. Honda had been both the first and last person Anzu would have expected to talk about how they were going to pay the emergency room and hospital fees, as they all knew quite well Jounouchi couldn't, even with insurance, even with the part-time job he had taken up on the weekends.

They decided—after very little thought—that they would all help pay. Anzu had paychecks from her own jobs, no matter how much money Jounouchi and Honda had yet to pay her back for the trip to Egypt. She could help, and Yuugi could use the allowance he earned from helping out at the shop. Honda had already taken plenty of loans from his two older siblings, and if he had nothing else, Bakura-kun, in his own words, had enough to chip in.

Anzu somehow didn't think it fitting to ask if he was making chipping in sound easier than it really was.

The door opened just as Honda opened his mouth again, and they all turned, hearts pounding and eyes wide, to meet the eyes of an older man in a long white coat with vaguely messy dark hair and a clipboard tucked in one hand.

The door closed, and the doctor stopped where he stood.

He blinked.

"Ah." He turned his head back and forth at the four of them, one by one, his eyes pausing as they fell over each. He blinked again and inclined his head. "I see Jounouchi-san has … quite a few friends."

Yuugi shifted.

"Is it okay for all of us to be in here?"

The doctor smiled a tiny bit. "Yes, yes, that should be fine. I trust you're not all expecting to sleep in here?"

None of them smiled back, and Honda jerked himself forward to stare at the doctor with impatient, frustrated eyes.

"Can you just get on with it, Sensei?"

Yuugi jerked his head. "Honda-kun!"

Honda dropped his shoulders. Anzu pressed her lips together and stared at the ground, tilting her head.

"I'm sorry, Sensei …"

But the doctor just shook his head with the clipboard securely in both his hands. Anzu wondered how many outbursts he had heard just like the one now, how many times he had had to stand there without saying a word while everyone yelled at him to hurry.

"No, not at all …" the doctor murmured. He cleared his throat, and all went silent to stare at him as he flipped through the charts on the clipboard in his hands. He breathed out. "These are his X-rays. It looks as if he has a fairly bad break in his right leg and a minor fracture in his right arm, as well as some minor cuts and bruises, which we've already bandaged, as you can see. There seems to be a bit of internal bruising, but …"

He paused. Honda threw out his arms.

"But?"

Bakura-kun flinched. "Honda-kun …"

The doctor did not react. Yuugi stared, the questions of desperation pressing at his lips though he never spoke. The doctor paused for a few more seconds, then shook his head again. This time slow, his eyes growing wider and wider by the second. He looked up.

"… his arm should be healed in a couple of weeks, along with most of his other injuries," the doctor began, and he glanced down at his chart twice, though Anzu didn't think he was really reading it. He glanced at Jounouchi. "His leg may take a couple of months, but … I think he should be able to go home very soon."

Yuugi's shoulders fell, and he lifted his head. Some of the glaze in his eyes faded away, so he just stood there blinking, then furrowing his eyebrows before raising them up his forehead.

"Jounouchi-kun … will be okay?"

The doctor nodded, but the shock in his eyes did not fade, and his movements remained stiff.

"He looks like he'll be just fine."

There was no collective sigh of relief, as she might have expected. But the tension of the room and all its inhabitants lessened in a split instant, though it seemed so slow. Bakura-kun looked down at the boy on the bed with soft eyes, then Honda, then Yuugi, then Anzu herself. He still slept on with closed eyes and chest moving up and down.

Somehow, the movements of his breathing seemed a little clearer than before.

Very slowly, out of the corner of her eye, Anzu saw the doctor glance at the clipboard and shake his head.

"It's … hard to believe …"

Anzu blinked. "What?"

The doctor swallowed, much like one of them would have swallowed. He stared at the chart yet again as if he thought it was lying to him, sticking out its tongue and waving it back and forth. He parted his lips, closed them, then opened them again.

"From the report the police gave from the car wreckage and the nature of the crash … the injuries most people would sustain after such an accident …"

Yuugi stared. He moved his leg to step forward, but stopped before he could put his foot down again. He lowered his brow and tensed his arms.

"Well?"

The doctor shook his head again, his eyes still wide and focusing more on the chart and Jounouchi on the bed than any of them. "With the head trauma likely to have occurred from the collision, though we didn't find any damage …"

"He should have died, shouldn't he?"

Honda's voice, impossibly calm, cut into the brief silence the doctor left. The doctor blinked, Yuugi turned, but Anzu spun around and stared.

"Honda!"

"That's right, isn't it?" Honda asked. He held firm to where he stood, no expression on his face. Suddenly he looked as tall as he was, and Anzu held back any other outbursts she knew bubbled somewhere within her. She swallowed and stepped back.

The doctor hesitated. Honda did not shift or change his face, and from his spot closest to the bed, even Bakura-kun watched him with eyes wide, but lips that dared not speak. The doctor nodded, slow and unsure.

His hands tightened around the clipboard.

"Your friend … is a very lucky young man."

Anzu looked at the doctor, and everyone else looked from the doctor to Anzu to the bed. Soon Anzu's eyes shifted as well, Jounouchi still lying there, as if he was in his own little world.

As if he was only sleeping, only dreaming. And suddenly, that idea did not seem so strange at all.

The doctor cleared his throat and straightened himself, but kept his head slightly bowed.

"We can discuss insurance and payment when Jounouchi-san's father calls us back, of course—"

"No, I'll take care of that," Honda muttered. He dropped his shoulders, and despite the edge in his tone Anzu could sense a certain relief there as well. He pressed his lips together. "I don't think you can expect to hear from that—from his father anytime soon."

The doctor blinked wide eyes, but nodded. He shifted his clipboard in his hands.

"Yes, well … Very well, young man," he agreed in the midst of a small sigh. His lips turned into a tiny smile. "But how about you stay with your friend for a while, hm? You've all had a very rough night."

Honda paused, then gave another nod in reply. He sat down with a mix of exhaustion and care at the foot of Jounouchi's bed, next to where Bakura-kun stood, careful not to jar any of his bandages or casts or the rod holding up his leg.

The doctor's smile remained when he turned and walked out the door, clipboard still in hand. The door swung open and closed behind him, and as it clicked shut, Anzu shook her head. She brought a hand to her face, over her forehead, her mouth, but said nothing at all.

Yuugi dropped to his knees at the bedside, his arms folded on the edge of the sheets just next to Jounouchi's unbandaged arm, wrapped with a few small pieces of cloth tape over smaller cuts.

He shook his head as Anzu had, but slower, and when he spoke, his voice was a whisper aimed at none of them, nor at the boy on whose face his eyes fell.

"Thank you … thank you …"

Anzu listened to his whispers, and to Honda's breathing, though she did not turn to see his face. She watched the gentleness in Yuugi's eyes, the caring and the tears that glimmered but would not fall. She felt those same tears somewhere deep within her, pressing at her head, though she did not let them out.

She wanted so badly to smile, but somehow that seemed far too useless, too.

She had always heard hospital food, to quote Honda whenever they ended up at a health food store, "tasted like flour mixed with dirt and stale oatmeal, left out in the sun for a week until the ants took half of it away."

Jounouchi probably would have just said it sucked.

She had managed to make it the two hours—or had it been three?—they had been here with just a diet soda from the vending machine in the hall, but after a while she started scooting her chair around the floor so no one else would hear her stomach growling. It was only after Bakura-kun began to give her strange looks that everyone else noticed.

Honda snorted. Anzu held up a half-serious fist.

Honda went quiet.

Yuugi had given him one of his gentler smiles, the kind that reminded her that the Yuugi she knew was still in there, glazed over by all that he had gone through and all that it was going to take him a very long time to get over. She smiled back, her smile sheepish, and he chuckled and nodded and suggested that they go pick up snacks from the cafeteria while Anzu stayed with Jounouchi.

Apparently, they had rice, salmon, squid, macaroni and cheese, Italian pasta, and a few things that she couldn't recognize but suspected were Spanish. And considering that Honda was the first out the door and rushing toward the elevator, the food had a decent chance of being good.

Bakura-kun was the last to step out. He paused and gave her a small smile, the kind that comforted her even if she didn't understand what he was trying to say. Then he left, too.

She was alone.

Well, not quite.

Anzu shifted in the chair by the bed, and she looked up at the blinding white of the ceiling and the floor. Hospital rooms had become far too familiar for her comfort, when Yuugi had been stuck for a day after the fire, and when she had accompanied Ojiisan in while Yuugi dueled Kaiba-kun over a year ago.

And now Jounouchi. Here, wrapped in bandages, with a broken leg and a fractured arm and bruises on his ribs.

But alive.

She turned her head and quirked an eyebrow as she looked at him, still on that bed with his leg in that bulky cast and so much of the rest of him covered in white wrapping. And that hospital gown, which looked just as humiliating as she had always thought. He probably wouldn't mind. He would probably dance around the room acting like he was Scottish and was the only guy around who could wear a skirt without getting laughed at. He would probably ignore his broken leg and dance on it anyway, so that he broke it a second time and had to get an even bigger cast and ran up a hospital bill his insurance would never be able to pay.

Anzu smiled a half-smile and listened to the machines beeping and the faint whooshing of breath from the bed. He did not laugh now. He did not dance or chatter on or make comments not at all appropriate for the situation. He just slept, breathing mask still over his mouth, even though the doctor had said he no longer needed it.

He would have other birthdays, and someday they might forget that he had had to spend this one like he did. He probably wouldn't spend another one in the hospital, lying wrapped up on a bed looking like a bad Halloween mummy, and next year, the cake probably wouldn't have marks on the frosting from being thrown against the plastic cover as Anzu ran as fast as her legs could go.

Anzu looked at him, very closely, very definitely, and a moment later, her eyes went very wide.

Her eyes had tricked her in the past. After all she had gone through with Yuugi, she was surprised her eyes didn't trick her more often. Only occasionally had she woken up in the middle of the night thinking there was a Duel Monster floating beside her bed, and usually that was after another crazy dream of old shadow games. It was vague. It was dark.

But this time, it was not dark, and no matter how much she blinked, the form before her eyes did not fade. She blinked again, and this time, she could see all too clearly the ethereal shape of a person standing on the other side of Jounouchi's bed, the window and the night outside shining through him, and his eyes on her with a smile she wished did not hurt so much to see.

His skin was tanner than she remembered—of course, she realized, of course it would be—but his hair had not changed a bit from the color and style Yuugi would never dye. The gold decorating the white linen draped over his body glinted, even though it did not quite reflect the artificial lights glowing above.

His violet eyes blinked at her, and that smile was so horrendously familiar, painful and real. She stayed in that chair, no matter how much she wanted to run over and see if he was real. She stayed frozen, and she stared, her heart beating faster than she could stand against her ribs, and her breath coming in short, forced gasps.

Atem lowered his brow and frowned in a strange sort of concern.

Then he relaxed and smiled again.

He turned his eyes toward Jounouchi on the bed, and Anzu only spared a second to do the same. She looked at all he had injured and at all that he had not injured. His torso intact, no organs truly damaged. His throat uncut, his body unmangled.

Atem looked back at her and she looked back at him. She blinked, and with a smile that grew just a tiny bit upon that movement, he gave her a small nod that said more than she thought she could ever understand.

Anzu considered, once again, getting up from that chair. Speaking. Doing anything. But she looked in his eyes and she didn't. She couldn't. She couldn't even decide for sure if what she was seeing wasn't just her mind playing tricks.

It might have been. But when she thought about it, she didn't really care.

The sound of bustling feet grew louder and louder until they were right outside the door, and Anzu glanced to the side to see the knob turning as the group returned, surrounded by the smell of food. The door opened when she glanced back to that spot by the bed, and when her eyes settled, there was nothing there. Nothing but empty space and a teenage boy on a hospital bed who had yet to wake from his far-too-peaceful sleep.

"Anzu?"

Anzu jumped and snapped her head to the side.

Yuugi clung tight to the steaming bowls of rice in his hands. He blinked, and she blinked, and she opened her mouth as if to speak. He quirked his head in her direction, the movement gentle and caring, like so many of the gentle and caring expressions he had given her in the past.

She sat back, sighed, and shook her head if only to herself.

"Sorry, Yuugi," she muttered, so quiet she wasn't even sure if he could hear it. She looked back to him, and she knew that he had. She offered the biggest smile she could manage while her heart still pounded against her ribs. "Just zoning out."

He smiled, a confused, but very Yuugi smile, and handed her her rice.

Anzu was just finishing up her cup of ramen when Honda walked back into the room, carrying the unwrapped chocolate cake with surprisingly careful hands and even more careful steps across the floor.

She slurped up the last noodle wrapped around her chopsticks as quietly as she could—though some of the broth still flicked onto her cheek—and stood from what had now become as much "her" chair as it was ever going to be. Bakura-kun looked up with the spoonful of macaroni and cheese still in his mouth, and everyone else just stared at the last person any of them would have expected to be carrying a cake.

Honda furrowed his brow and frowned. "Oh, come on, someone had to bring this thing in!"

Anzu wanted to laugh, but for the sake the solemn nature of the situation, she just smiled and shook her head.

He slipped it onto the table next to the bed, alongside the vase of flowers Bakura-kun had set there some time ago. He said nothing else, but his eyes fell upon Jounouchi for a moment, breathing in and out, his eyes still, his body unmoving except for his chest.

Then Honda turned away and went back to the bowl of rice he had yet to finish, which was starting to grow cold and stale.

Again Anzu wondered if it was just her, or if the hospital room was as cold as it felt.

She sipped at her ramen, even if it was no longer hot. Bakura-kun ate his macaroni, Honda his rice, while Yuugi had put away his own bowls some time ago. They waited. The clock still ticked, but no longer did it sting like needles in her head.

She stared at the door, even though she knew it would not open for a long time.

The gasping breath in of the not-so-young boy behind her broke her from her trance, and the word nearly screamed from his lips shattered the glaze in her head.

"Jounouchi-kun!"

They all jolted, Bakura-kun's next spoonful of macaroni splattering on the floor but Bakura-kun hardly noticing at all. Anzu's eyes focused on the bed, focused where Yuugi stared at the boy with his head on the pillow.

And as her vision grew clearer, as she saw bit by bit, Jounouchi's eyes began to blink open, squinting, one eye at a time.

But open they did.

Anzu slipped her ramen onto one of the little tables and scrambled ahead.

"Jounouchi!"

"Jounouchi!"

"Jounouchi-kun …" Bakura-kun murmured, shaking his head with disbelieving eyes just as Honda skidded to a stop as close to the bed as he could get.

But Jounouchi's eyes didn't fall upon Bakura-kun or Honda. They didn't fall upon Anzu. They didn't even fall upon Yuugi, not even when Yuugi stood the closest to the bed with wide eyes almost brimming with the tears of before.

They fell upon the little table alongside his bed, and they opened just a bit wider as his eyes focused and he tried to lift his head.

But even when his head fell back onto the pillow, his eyes stayed where they were.

"… who brought the cake …?"

Anzu laughed. She laughed as she felt the old tears she had managed to hold back for so long return, pressing at her eyes, but this time different. This time she looked at the boy on the bed, alive, blinking, his eyes opening more and more by the second. She shook her head, and when she tried to speak her voice caught in her throat. But not for the life of her could she care.

Honda squeezed his hands into fists, but did not raise them. He let them go and shook his head back and forth, his lips twisting into what looked so like a smile.

"You idiot … you wake up when we thought you were in a coma and the first thing you ask about is cake!"

Jounouchi turned his eyes to Honda and blinked without changing his face.

"… looks like a good cake …"

Yuugi put a hand to his head and brushed fingers through his hair, his teeth biting his lip but the smile pressing through it all, however small that smile was.

"Jounouchi-kun …"

Bakura-kun set his macaroni on the ground by the bed and stood. He rubbed his hands together, eyes flicking between Jounouchi and everyone else.

"Should I … go get the doctor …?"

Anzu couldn't bring her lips to move. But Jounouchi's brow furrowed as much as his tired face could, and he looked at Bakura-kun with blank eyes turned confused.

"What …?" Then he looked down at his leg hanging from the rod and his arm in a cast nearly as thick, and the white bed and the white room all around. He blinked. "I look like a mummy."

Anzu held back her laughter, but she could no longer hold back her tears. She felt them slip down her cheeks, and her arm reached up to wipe them away, but back they came. Her face contorted, her eyebrows scrunched, and when she finally wiped them onto her sleeve she found Jounouchi smiling at her with weak, small lips from the bed.

"You sure look funny, Anzu."

Anzu squeezed her fists.

"Shut up!" Anzu shouted so loud that Bakura-kun flinched. Her breath trembled, and she gripped her arms to hold back the rest of the tears. "Just … shut up … you big idiot!"

Jounouchi smiled at her, eyes tired but mouth mocking, and motioned his head toward the little table by the bed.

"So, is the cake for me?"

Honda crossed his arms over his chest and sniffed so quietly Jounouchi didn't seem to hear. "It's your birthday, isn't it, stupid?"

Jounouchi lifted an eyebrow so the bandage over his eye quirked.

"You gonna keep calling me stupid, Honda?"

"As long as it takes for it to sink in, stupid," Honda shot back. "And you owe my brother a new car."

Jounouchi dropped his head on the pillow so the blonde hair that wasn't wrapped in bandages bounced. He blew out a long stream of air though barely parted lips.

"… I wonder if my insurance covers something that nice …"

Honda came so close to laughing and so close to crying at the same time.

Anzu wondered if Jounouchi would have mocked him for the tears not quite in his eyes, if he had had the energy in him to see.

Bakura-kun reached for the button on the wall to buzz the doctor. His finger hovered over it, then paused. He turned his head, first to Jounouchi, then to Honda to and Yuugi, then finally to Anzu. His hand fell to his side. Anzu did not need to smile for her eyes to thank him well enough.

Jounouchi yawned particularly wide so the bandages around his face twisted.

He settled back onto the pillow. "So, are you guys gonna give me some of my cake or what?"

Yuugi pressed his lips together, then laughed out loud. His laughter shook like Honda's head, but with the air of one trying to hold back the joyful tears Anzu had seen in Yuugi's eyes all too many times, although he so rarely let them fall.

"Jounouchi-kun, you can't even move!"

Jounouchi made a face.

"Well, it's my birthday," Jounouchi nearly whined. He wiggled his nose and held his chin high like a child on a cardboard throne. "Someone feed it to me."

Honda put a hand to his head, shaking it back and forth, and gave Jounouchi one of the most serious, exasperated looks Anzu had seen him give to anyone but the doctor in a long time.

"You can eat later! Right now, we should call … Anzu?"

He turned his head, but Anzu did not respond.

She dug around in the purse she had set on the side of the room when she first arrived. She shifted past her cell phone and her wallet and the spare key to her house, then pulled out a small emergency lighter from one of the side pockets. She walked back over to the little table next to Jounouchi's bed. She flicked the lighter on.

And with a steady hand, she began to set each candle aflame.

Bakura-kun flinched out of the corner of her eye.

"… Anzu-chan … I don't think we're supposed to light fires in here …"

Anzu said nothing, and she kept with her lighter, letting the wick of each candle burn as she passed along the flame. She could see Jounouchi watching her as well, and for once in his life, he did not speak or comment or even make a joke. He just watched, and when all seventeen candles were lit—just like the seventeen yellow blossoms as bright as the fire—she stood in full.

She turned her head.

"Are you all going to join me or do I have to sing alone?"

Yuugi blinked. "Anzu?"

"We'll call the doctor right after we're through," Anzu explained with her form straight and her eyes falling upon each of her friends, one by one, pausing on the last. "Would you mind, Bakura-kun?"

Bakura-kun hesitated. His wide brown eyes blinked and shifted, but then his shoulders dropped. Very slowly, his lips turned into a smile and his head lowered in a nod. He shuffled over to the wall near the door and flicked off the artificial lights, letting the moonlight shine in through the single window and the light of the candles glow from the table alongside the bed.

They all stood together in front of the boy whose smile and gentle laughter seemed to glow like the candles themselves, and they sung.

Their voices filled the room, ringing out separately, then ringing out as one. And it grew very difficult for Anzu not to believe the thought that had been flickering through her head when Jounouchi sung as well, his laughter louder and his head lifting to swing from side to side.

Somewhere out there, she could feel their very own guardian angel laughing, too.

Five minutes later nurses came running in to yell at them for having fire in the room, and Jounouchi laughed so loud his casts and his bed shook, creaking, alive, as the candles flickered on and the wax dripped onto the cake.

It was a very long time later before he leaned over and blew them out.