"Come again?"

"Chika, you've got to understand, please.."

"There is absolutely no way I'm staying locked up in a mental institution for God knows how long! I refuse to step in there."

Her mother sighed. "I don't want this any more than you do, but I can't take.. I can't take the risk of you doing something this foolish again."

Chika supposed her mom was right, after all, it had been much less than a week before she tried to end her own life, maybe she should cut her some slack. "Mom, I get why you're doing this, but it's not necessary."

"I'm not only saying this because I thought of it, I'm saying because they're orders from your doctor." Chika froze. Was her condition really that bad?

The two Takamis heard a knock on the door just as a female doctor walked inside the room. "I see you're awake." She smiled at Chika and her mom. "From now on, I'm your new doctor, you can call me Yui." She held her hand out to Chika, she took it and shook it. "I have some news for the two fo you."

"Good news or bad news?" Chika asked.

"I'm afraid they're not what you'd call 'good news', but they're not terrible either. You might wanna sit down." She told Mrs.Takami. "Well, good news is, you don't suffer from schizophrenia."

"W-what? What do you mean by that? I'm no doctor, but case you haven't noticed, my mind is pretty broken." Chika's voice quivered and her lower lip started shaking. She didn't know wether to be happy or confused.

"You're not wrong there," the doctor continued, "but whilst you do not suffer from schizophrenia, you do suffer from depressive psychosis and post traumatic stress."

"So that's why the medicine hasn't been helping.." at this point, Chika was almost gonna cry from frustration.

"I know this might be hard for you to process, but it's not as bad as it sounds-"

"Not as bad as it sounds?! Now I'm actually gonna kill myself."

"Chika!" Her mom barked, her cheeks stained with tears. Chika hadn't noticed tears stared brewing in her own eyes until she had looked at her mother.

The doctor took a step forward and placed her hand reassuringly on Chika's shoulder. "We can treat you, and although yeah, it's not good, it's definitely not as bad as schizophrenia. Though there is more than that.."

Great, just great. As if having depressive psychosis wasn't bad enough.

"Your levels of dopamine are surprisingly low and so are your levels of serotonin. Since you haven't been given the proper medicine, you might need to take an extra dosis of what we'll be giving you." Chika didn't understand a word the woman was saying.

The orange headed girl only nodded and covered her face with the palm of her hands. "Okay.. but what am I gonna do now? What's gonna happen to me?"

"In case your mom hasn't already told you, you're gonna be interned in a mental institution. Don't worry, it's nothing like scary movies portray them to be. We need you there so we can keep an eye on you, especially since the anti-depressives don't start kicking in after about a week."

"What about school? Summer is about to end, I can't just...disappear!"

"We can figure that out later, plus, you won't even be there for more than a month. What matters the most now is your health." Chika's mom added.

"Your mother is right. Now, I'll leave you two alone. In no time there should be someone bringing you your pills, they will tell you when and how many you have to take." She bid the two females farewell and stormed out of the room.

Chika plopped her head down on the pillow and cursed herself for having such a bad luck. Why she out of all people?

After a while, her mom left Chika by herself (at her request). It had been about half an hour when Kanan hesitantly opened the door to the hospital bedroom with a bag hanging from her hand.

The older girl walked slowly up to her friend, almost having a hard time believing any of this was happening.

"You're so stupid..." Kanan finally spoke up. She wrapped her arms around Chika and nuzzled her head into the younger's neck. Kanan blinked away the tears forming in her eyes as the two embraced each other.

When she finally broke off the hug, Kanan took out a worn out cat plushie from the bag she'd been carrying. The cat was placed on Chika's lap, who took it between her hands. "Is this what I gave you for your birthday like 6 years ago?"

"Yeah, I wanted to bring something to you, but flowers and sweets didn't seem appropriate... so I ended up bringing this pal along with me."

Chika had given the stuffed cat as a gift for her 11th birthday. It was a brown cat with black buttons for eyes and a red bowtie tied around his neck. She remembered begging her mother to get it for Kanan cause she remembered just how much the older had loved the plushie when she had first laid eyes on it at a toy store. Chika smile, feeling a bit nostalgic at the memory.

"Well, thank you for bringing Mr.Mittens over for a visit."

Kanan laughed "God, really little me? 'Mr.Mittens'? I had like zero creativity back then I can tell you that much." She sat down besides Chika. "I was very worried about you. Actually, very worried is probably an understatement. I can't bring myself to realize that this is actually... happening. I just never thought that I could lose you like this I guess..." she smiled sadly, placing her hand over Chika's. Starting to rub it soothingly, she continued, "I'm sorry I've taken you for granted all of this time."

"I... rather not talk about that." Kanan nodded sympathetically and let go of Chika's hand. "Though there is something I wanna tell you." Chika told her the news about her depressive psychosis.

"I'm not sure how to respond to that." Chika could basically hear the engines turning in Kanan's brain in order to digest the news that had just been delivered. Though Chika couldn't blame her.

"Yeah, well, neither do I."

"Let's just change the subject to something else! When are they letting you out of here?"

Chika shrugged. "I think tonight. But I'll probably be back in a mental hospital after a week." She grunted, already dreading whatever would happen to her later on.

"Then let's go out to eat! All three of us."

"You too?"

"Yeah, do you have a problem with that?"

"No! Not at all. It's just that uh, I might've done something I am slightly embarrassed about." She bit her inner cheek as she felt a blush creep on her cheeks.

Kanan wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. "What are you trying to hide from me? Did you guys kiss?" She was only joking at first, but seeing as Chika didn't deny her statement, Kanan squealed happily and jumped out of bed. "It was about time!"

"Shut up. I might be drugged, but that doesn't mean I lack the strength to punch you." Kanan couldn't help but laugh loudly at Chika. It was nice knowing she was the reason behind her friend's laughter.

You walked into the same retro dinner the three friends had hanged out together a long time ago. Her heart started thumping loudly in her chest as soon as she saw Chika already sitting at one of the tables, eating fries by herself.

She walked up to the red eyed girl and slid into the sit next to her. Without any warning, You intertwined their fingers together and gave Chika's hand a tight squeeze. Surprisingly, Chika responded to the stimulus and squeezed back.

Chika's phone went off with a message from Kanan. "Gosh darn it," she muttered.

"What is it?"

"Kanan says she won't be able to make it, so it's just the two of us tonight."

They stayed silent for a second before You stood up abruptly. Chika looked at her, startled. "Let's go somewhere else."

"But I haven't even paid fro the fries yet! Hey!" You took out a few bills from her pockets and slammed them on the table, leading Chika outside. "I didn't even had a chance to finish eating, ugh."

A few minutes later, both of them were at the beach, gasping for air. You slumped over before plopping down on the sand, running a had through her hair in hopes of making it look half-decent. "Sorry I dragged you out like that, but if we didn't get here quickly the place would probably be too crowded."

Chika sat down next to her and crossed her legs. "So, about that kiss. Uh, I don't know, sorry about acting so suddenly." The other sighed happily and shook her head.

"Don't apologize, actually, I'm happy that you decided to do it." She slid closer, causing their shoulders to bump together. "I just... there's something I wanna say, but I don't even know where to start..." after thinking for a moment, she continued. "When I saw you jump, my heart stopped. I grabbed you by the arm, I was full on panicking. I was about to be in shock, and that's not even an exaggeration. I screamed and screamed until someone finally came over to help me pull you back up."

"When you arrived at the hospital, I wasn't allowed to see you yet," she continued. "I cried my freaking eyes out. It's so surreal, being in a situation like this I mean. It's not something you would ever expect to happen. I guess what I'm trying to say is... don't try to leave me again." She bit her lip to stop her voice from shaking.

Chika rested her head on You's shoulder. "I can't make any promises." She felt the silver haired girl tense up at the words that came from her mouth. "Maybe it's not what you want to hear, but it's true. What I promise is that I won't lie to you again, not when it comes to something this big, if that makes things better."

You said something under her breath that Chika couldn't quite understand, but she proceeded to talk anyway. "I'll be going away for a bit."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll be interned in a mental institution for about a month, if I'm lucky, less than that. My mom thinks it's what's best for me. And there's also some other stuff the doctor said I should probably tell you. Apparently I don't have schizophrenia."

"You.. don't?" She furrowed her brows in confusion.

"Long story short, I have depressive psychosis. Please don't ask any questions cause I'm honestly not in the mood to answer them."

"Understandable. But... since you're going away, there's something I should do first, because if I don't do it know I probably won't be able to do it later." She cupped Chika's cheeks and turned her head so the two were looking in each other's eyes.

After taking a deep breath and gathering as much courage as she could, You leaned in and pressed her lips against Chika's. The kiss was sweet, and it only lasted about 6 seconds, but it was more than enough to get the two flustered.

"You, the fact that I'm going away doesn't mean I'll be disappearing for forever. It's not even far from here."

"But you might forget about me." She pouted jokingly.

"I would never!" Chika said, placing a hand over her heart and gasping dramatically on purpose. "You're too big of an annoyance, there's no way I'll forget you."

They both laughed and sat there, with red cheeks and butterflies in their stomachs. Feeling like a "normal" teenager with a crush was definitely one of the best things Chika had ever experienced.