Aftermath

Ch 38: The Mimicry

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to @TimmyTurtle22. Please enjoy, everyone!

(This begins after Sang left.)

Kota

"Good morning, Kota!" Sean walked in, medical bag in hand. He stopped, raising an eyebrow. "Did I wake you?"

Yes, he had. Sort of. I had just laid down for a minute, waiting for Sang to finish her bath. Now, I sat up, rubbing my eyes. I needed to get with it

"Well, go ahead and say something. Let's see if the vocal rest worked." Sean walked over, checking the humidifier.

I didn't bother reminding him that it had ended over an hour ago. I found a note in front of me, something that Sang had left earlier. "Have you heard from Owen? Sang went to breakfast with him. Are they back?"

Sean mock-winced. "Burn! He talks to me, and his first words are to ask for Owen!"

"My first words, so to speak, were to Sang. Regardless, Owen didn't ground me," I pointed out. "And Owen didn't put me on vocal rest."

"A vocal rest that worked," he said. "Way to show that undying gratitude." He smirked as he put down his medical bag. "So how are you feeling this morning?"

I rubbed my eyes again. "I'm not at my best, but I'm not at my worst. I'm ready to go back to school tomorrow."

Sean raised an eyebrow. "Not tomorrow. We have the day off."

I kept my face blank. A January holiday right after the semester had started. How had I forgotten Martin Luther King Day?

"You're usually on top of this stuff," Sean went on.

"My internal calendar is messed up. So is my chronometer." Then I rethought my confession. "But that doesn't mean I can't handle Ashley Waters."

"I'll be the judge of that," he said. "So Miss Sang is with Owen. Good for him. And the others?"

I reached for my tumbler and took a long drink of water. "I don't know. They were all gone when I woke up. I'm guessing morning workouts, the diner—wherever. North left a note telling me to call or text if I needed anything." That was how people were communicating with me now—notes on my nightstand. I really needed to wake up and get with it.

"Wherever?" Sean rolled my desk chair closer before sitting down, setting his coffee cup on the nightstand. "That doesn't sound like you."

Coffee! I wanted some so bad. I tried putting it out of my mind. "It's me on sick leave. It's not my job to keep up with everyone right now."

"Now that's the spirit," Sean cheered. "I believe you're getting a handle on how this works. Doesn't it feel liberating not to be responsible for everyone?"

I gave a half-shrug. If I were being honest with myself, I did feel freer, at least in part. But the rest of me felt rootless and disconnected from my brothers. I was sure they were keeping something from me, but I didn't have the guts to ask what it was.

"I hear you're limiting your reading. How's that going?"

Our game of twenty-questions continued. "It's okay, I guess. I haven't done much. I'm trying to catch up on all the emails I haven't read, but it's slow going. Mostly junk anyway." So far, nothing I had found had helped with my timeline, but I expected to find more information with the text messages later on. "The ten-minute intervals seems to be working. No major headaches so far."

"No major headache," Sean repeated. "But you do have a minor headache?"

"Usually, but it's tolerable. You know that."