"Willow! Good afternoon."

Nych seemed to be in a much different mood than the day previous. He had walked up to her at the beginning of class, a smile on his face. "I already signed us out with the professor. Are you ready to go?"

The day before, he'd been much more… Sulky.

Willow's dinner with Blake had been rather uneventful; she still hadn’t answered her question about the bet, and eventually, Blake just gave up asking. They'd fallen asleep watching some dumb horror movie together.

Nych smiled at her, awaiting her response.

Perhaps he was just more comfortable around her.

Willow perked up somewhat when she heard his voice, lifting her head and staring at him for a moment. Her hair was down that day, and everyone could truly see the volume it had. "Oh. Hi." She lifted up her binder, standing up as she looked over at him. "Yeah. I'm ready to go." She noticed the change in attitude, and was somewhat happy to see it. He certainly looked like he was in a good mood.

She'd have to ask him about the rumors.

She tucked her hair behind her ears. "You look… Excited." She tilted her head to the side, smirking somewhat. "Is there a reason for that?"

He immediately toned down the excitement, but the smile remained on his face.

"Oh, it's nothing. It's just… I got some personal good news today, and it was something that I didn't expect. I won't bother you with it, though. Let's go! We need to start building tiny robots today."

He opened the door to the classroom for her and followed her out into the hallway, walking alongside her.

"So what about you? How was your dinner?"

"It was nice." She shrugged, glancing back at him and slowing her pace somewhat as she waited for him to catch up to her. "I dunno. It's a shitty old twenty-four-hour diner, but they have damn good food. It's where we go if we're hungry at three in the morning or hungover as fuck at five." She smirked slightly, shrugging her shoulders as they walked through the campus. She was more at ease with him, she noticed.

It was just something about his presence. She wasn't sure what, but it relaxed her.

"How was your night?" She asked after a second. "You make it home okay?"

"Oh, uhh…" He seemed to shy away at that question, but eventually he answered.

"I got jumped, but it's okay. I don't usually carry money with me anymore because the same guys usually wait around near my apartment. I'm fine, though. Only a few bumps and bruises this time."

That… That was really sad.

He went through that every day?

"But the diner sounds great! You should show me where it is sometime."

"Hold on." She stopped, turning towards him and narrowing her eyes. "You got jumped? Jesus- are you okay?" She furrowed her brows, putting a hand on his shoulder and looking him up and down. "Does this happen all the time? Why haven't you called the cops? Fuck, Nych." She sighed, taking a deep breath to steady herself and simmer down the anger boiling in her chest. She was quick to fight, and often threw punches without thinking of the consequences.

She put her hand to his chin, tilting his head from side to side to check for any injuries. When she found none, she relaxed slightly (aiming for the face was a scummy move, though one she was guilty of) and let out a small noise of disapproval.

"I'm walking you home." She said after a moment. "If those guys want to fuck with you, then they can get through me. I'll grind their asses to a pulp."

"No, Willow, I- It's fine. People have very strong opinions about me, and no one really likes me that much. I've gotten used to it, and they don't do much damage anywhere that's noticeable."

It was at that moment that he lifted his shirt, and oh, those guys were assholes.

There were bruises lining the entirety of his stomach, as well as right on his kidneys, which could honestly kill someone. He let his shirt fall, and smiled a little smile. "I don't need you to walk me home, it's okay. You have other plans, and I understand."

He wasn't used to anyone offering him any kind of assistance.

Her lips parted in shock, and she stared at his stomach for a second or two before she looked up at him. "No, Nych. It's not okay." Her hand moved down to take his, and she gave it a squeeze and stared into his eyes to hold his attention. Her eyes were piercing, but… Soft. She seemed genuinely worried for him. "Those are serious bruises. I've been in a lot of fights, but I've never had anything that bad before. That's not okay."

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and steadying herself.

"From now on." She opened them again, and released his hand. "If anyone gives you trouble, you tell me. And I'm walking you home tonight. And the next night, too. Until those dickheads get it in their head to leave you alone."

His eyes flicked around the hallway, and when he found it empty besides the two of them, he sighed.

"Why do you care?"

Damn. That wasn't a direction anyone expected that to go.

"Why don't you care about being seen with me? You must have heard all of the things going around about me. Hell, I've heard before that I've killed a man, which was definitely a surprise from my perspective. So why don’t you care?"

He stared her down, his arms instinctively wrapping around his bruised stomach.

"Why do you care what happens to me, Willow Grace? I'm just another kid in your class."

She hesitated, not really expecting that kind of response from him. "No, you listen to me." She narrowed her eyes somewhat, shaking her head. "Of course I care! I'm not some heartless bitch, you know. You're cool, Nych. You cured malaria and can control thousands of volts of electricity at once. That is so God damned amazing, you know that, right?"

This wasn’t something he’d heard before.

"You are literally the most fascinating and interesting person I've ever had the chance to talk to." She simmered down somewhat, withdrawing herself and speaking with more elegance and class. "And even if I didn't like you, it is wrong that these things are happening to you."

She held out a hand for him. "You're my friend now. I'm going to look after you like I do with Blake and all of my other friends."

No. No, no, no, no, he wasn't supposed to have friends. Not with his…

"I… I…" He was absolutely stunned for words. He didn't know what to say. She was a party girl, extremely popular, and well-known throughout the school. She was also brilliant, knew what he was talking about when he spoke about his projects, and was overall just… Fun to be with.

So why was he hesitating?

"I… Thank you." He just seemed to… Break. He crumbled in upon himself and took her hand, but didn't cry in the slightest. He let his arm leave his stomach, and it became obvious that guarding it was a very defensive move that he often had to make.

"But… You really don't have to walk me home. It's nowhere near where you live, I don't want to burden you."

She squeezed his hand gently, frowning as she looked down at him. She knew this was all probably hard for him, and she waited a moment before she spoke again. "No. I'm going to." Her voice was soft and gentle, and she pinned her binder between her thighs to free up her other arm. She gently put her fingers beneath his chin, tilting his head upwards so she could look him in the eye. Her touch was so gentle, so soft…

"I'm not going to let those guys, or anyone else, hurt you." Her voice was sure. "I can take them. I've won almost every fight I've ever been in. And you're with me now, which means nobody gets to pick on you apart from me." She smirked ever so slightly, before it faded.

She was going to protect him. Someone like him didn't deserve to be treated like this.

"I just… I don't want to see anything happen to either of us, and they carry guns, and when it's just me they don't do anything really rough. But if you're there, they'll feel threatened, because there's three of them and there'll be two of us, and that's closer to their numbers, and they'll pull their guns out…"

He recoiled, shaking slightly as they continued to walk toward the lab.

"Please, just let me keep doing this. Everything is okay right now."

Right now.

"No, Nych. It's not." She pulled her binder into her arms and walked after him. "I refuse to let them keep beating you. They're going to wind up killing you." She sighed, shaking her head as she looked down at the ground. "I'm walking you home tonight. Either that, or you're sleeping on the couch at my place. Blake can suck it up, because I'm not letting them get in another beating on you. No way in hell."

She was awfully stubborn.

"We're calling the cops." She said after a moment. "We can make an anonymous report. But we're getting their sorry asses tossed in jail."

He sighed, looking back to her with pain in his eyes.

"If I sleep on your couch tonight, will you not call the cops?"

His plea was so heartfelt, but… Why? Why wouldn't he want the asshats who beat on him to go to jail? Especially since they most likely didn't have permits for the guns they carried, and that was illegal in Canada.

"I just… Please? I can't explain why, but… Do this for me, alright?"

She stared at him for a couple seconds, and furrowed her brows. She wasn't sure why he was so defensive about this, but if it was what he wanted, then…

"Okay." She sighed, pressing her lips into a thin line as she examined his face. "I'll let Blake know that you're staying the night tonight. Be warned, she's going to tease you, but she'll stop if you tell her to." She shrugged her shoulders, and after a moment smiled slightly. "I can show you all of my equipment and projects in my apartment. I've done some pretty cool stuff if I do say so myself." She seemed to be looking forward to it.

She liked talking about their work. It was actually quite fun.

He nodded his head, glad they'd finally reached an agreement.

He would be very, very uncomfortable sleeping somewhere that wasn't his apartment, however. He was used to having his own personal space, and having that taken away would be… Interesting.

They had reached the door to the lab, crossing through the school's courtyard, and he opened it with a key on his ring. The hallways lit up like they had before, and he held the doors open.

"After you, oh-so-gracious savior."

"Oh, whatever." She rolled her eyes, stepping through the door and beginning to walk down the hallway. She felt more at ease knowing he would be safe, and she really didn't mind having him stay in her apartment. He was quite kind, and was an interesting person to talk to. She was sure even Blake would warm up to him after she got to know him and figured out the rumors were false.

And they definitely were. They had to be. Nych was a good person.

"So. What are we going to work on today?" She raised an eyebrow, glancing in his direction.

"Well, we need to figure out how to build the nanobots. Considering a transistor is less than a nanometer now, we have to figure out how to get all of our programming into something we can't even see. It'll be… Difficult. That's why it's never been done before."

It would be a challenge, even for Willow Grace.

"Once we get that done, it should be smooth sailing. I've already got the chip programmed with the cancer killing instructions, we just have to make and program the bot to do it."

He walked over to a table, smiling as he did so.

"First, however, I'd like to show you something else."

"Oh really?" She raised an eyebrow, tilting her head to the side as she set her things down on a nearby table. She was curious, because she had no clue what he was going to show her. He was a complete mystery to her, and it was incredibly fascinating. There were so many projects, so many things that he just… Knew. And she loved it, because she had someone engaging to talk to. Someone who challenged her own intelligence.

And that hadn't happened in a long time.

"Alright. Show me." She walked over to him, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

With that, he pulled a sheet off of whatever was on the table, revealing…

A very strange looking machine.

"You've heard the old tales, right? Of alchemists turning lead into gold?"

No way…

"I have." She raised her brows, looking over at him and then down at the machine on the table.

There was no way he’d actually figured out alchemy, right? It was impossible. Scientists had tried for hundreds of years, and had no success. There was no way in hell that he would've been able to do it.

… Right?

"… So where are you going with this?" She asked after a second. "What does this do?"

He laughed lightly, looking down at the machine fondly.

"We've come a long way since the Large Hadron Collider, dear Willow. This little thing… It's another pet project of mine. It's not the smallest of its kind, but it’s definitely the fanciest. And the most powerful."

He looked to her, his eyes full of mischief.

"What I'm saying is that this machine can turn lead into gold."

Willow stared at him for a couple of seconds, a sparkle coming to her eye.

This was remarkable. And there she was, standing right in front of it. Fuck- she was talking to its creator. Nych would no doubt go down in history, and he had already achieved so much in the few years he had been on the Earth.

"Show me."

Her voice was soft, but alight with excitement. She wanted to see this thing in action.

"Of course." He said, a smile on his face as he took a tube from underneath the table. Inside of it was what looked like a rock, and when he held it up to the light, it had a dull sort of sheen. It was strange.

"This is pure lead. You know chemistry; it has an atomic number of eighty-two." He opened the tube and dumped the rock into the opening of the machine, and then closed the top.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"You'll also know that gold has an atomic number of seventy-nine. That's only three protons in the way. And considering this machine works very, very quickly… Watch."

He pressed a button on the front, and the inside of it seemed to explode.

In reality, it was billions of lasers, all only the width of a proton, all slicing through the lead in multiple different spots, making it nearly impossible to see.

"The machine works by utilizing the three extra protons and assembling them into lithium, while leaving the gold behind. The gold would normally be an unstable isotope, but the machine also corrects that by either adding or removing unnecessary neutrons. So, when it's finished…"

Right when he said it, the lasers stopped, revealing two rocks in the center.

One was much smaller than the other, and was obviously the lithium.

But the other… Was a solid chunk of gold.

"Wow." Her voice left her in a breathy whisper, and she gaped at the chunk of gold within the chamber. It was remarkable, and… Could make a lot of money. If someone could just produce gold like it was nothing, they'd be rich. They'd put gold miners out of business with tech like this.

She grinned, looking over at Nych. "This is incredible! You built this all yourself?" She tilted her head to the side, and then laughed.

He was amazing.

"This is… I- wow." She ran her hands up into her hair. "Alchemy. You're literally an alchemist."

He shook his head with a laugh, looking to her with a smile. "No, dear, I am merely a chemist. A chemist who, instead of doing the easy thing and turning mercury into gold, decided to take the route of the fairy tales and turn lead into gold."

He smiled, handing her the chunk of gold. "I don't use this machine often, because I could flood the market and make gold essentially worthless, but… This should be at least a couple months' rent. That should definitely help a medical student."

He was just… Giving her a chunk of gold worth thousands of dollars?

Talk about a nice guy

She held the gold in both of her hands and looked up at him with shock. He couldn't just be giving this to her, right? This was an extremely valuable chunk of metal, and she didn't know what she had done to deserve it.

"I-" She looked down at the gold, and then back up at him. Shaking her head, she held it back out towards him. "I can't take this."

It was far more valuable than anything she deserved.

Nych rolled his eyes, nodding towards the machine that had just created the highly valuable chunk of metal. "Listen, Willow. You see that machine right there? It can do that however many times I want. So, I would like to make you aware that the piece of metal you're holding right now has no value to me, other than being a pretty decoration. Therefore, because I know you could probably use the money that would come from selling it, I'm giving it to you. So just take it, and don't complain. If you really want, you can use it to fund some party or something. I hear you're into those."

He winked at her, and then turned away, as if he hadn't just helped her substantially with her student loans.

Medical school was expensive.

"So! Ready to cure cancer?"

She stared at the back of his head for a second or two, and then looked down at the chunk of gold in her hands.

She supposed she might as well take it.

"As ready as I've ever been." She set the piece of gold down on top of her binder, turning towards him and pulling her hair back with an elastic band she had on her wrist. "So, what do you have in store for us today, oh wise one?" She said teasingly, walking up behind him with a grin.

She was excited.

"Today, I want to see your skill at working with small robotics. It won't be working with the things tiny enough for our job, but it'll give you a good feel for the mechanics and how everything will be put together. I've been able to build the robot at a scale of ten times bigger than required, but anything smaller than that, I start to… Well, fail."

His voice sounded strained as he said that, and for the first time, Willow wondered why he had such an interest in the cure to cancer.

"Here you are." He said, walking her over to one of the longer tables in the room. In front of them, painted on the walls, were blueprints related to very tiny robots.

And spread across the table were very, very small robotics parts, some of them too small to even be visible. They sat underneath glass domes with labels to show they were there.

"Let's see what you can do."

"Alright." She walked over to the table, and after a second sat down, taking a moment to examine the blueprints and commit them to memory. She soon started to piece the tiny robot together, only glancing up at the blueprints a couple of times.

"So." Her fingers were gentle, and remarkably steady. She held her tools without a shake, which Nych couldn’t manage. That was because of his… Problem. "Blake told me some rumors. About you."

She wanted to let him know what she had heard. "Apparently people think you're sick. Like. Literally. They think you have some disease or illness and that's why you won't talk to anybody." She cast him a brief glance before returning to her work. "And that you experiment on animals and people and shit. I don't believe any of it, really."

Nych's face slowly paled as she made her statements, but by the end of it, he simply sighed. "Well, I suppose rumors do spread like wildfire around here. I'll tell you what I've done, with no lies."

Oh? So he'd actually done one of those things?

"The only time I ever experimented on an animal was my kitten, when she was bitten by some animal and got rabies. I loved her to death, so I tried my best to find a cure for her. Eventually, she passed away. I couldn't do anything to help her."

Oh…

"And I've experimented on a person once. Because they volunteered to test my cure for malaria. I flew out to Africa and administered my cure for the first time. It worked."

So they were true, but the rumors made him out to be much more… Disturbed than he actually was.

"As for me being sick… I do have an illness, but it hasn't affected my life so far, and I don't really want to talk about it. It's definitely not the reason I don't talk to people."

Willow listened to him speak, and nodded slowly. "I didn't really expect any of the rumors to hold much truth." She said after a moment, narrowing her eyes as she fiddled with some very small parts. "It's okay, though. Now that you're hanging out with me, I bet a bunch will dwindle off. Nobody fucks with me or my friends."

She was very confident in that statement, and why wouldn't she be? She was Willow Grace. Nobody messed with a Grace.

"… I'm sorry about your kitten." She said after a moment, and frowned. "I've always considered getting a cat, but seeing how often I'm out of the house and how much equipment I have in my apartment… I wouldn't want them to get lonely or hurt."

"That makes sense. I used to be home a lot, because that was before…"

He trailed off, electing not to the continue the sentence. His face told that he didn't want her to ask about it, and he walked over to check on her machine. She had, very quickly, assembled the tiny robot that had been depicted on the blueprints.

"You put this together well, but make sure your wires are in just the right spots. That's not usually a problem, but considering we're going to have to build something smaller than a nanometer… We will need the wires to be placed very specifically."

He was right.

In that moment, after speaking, he fell to one knee, a hand clutching at his chest. He didn't make any sound while doing so; it was almost dismissible as purposeful. Only the thud of his knee against the floor and the very slight wrinkle of his shirt in his hand.

… What the hell?

Willow opened her mouth to respond, but stopped when she examined his current condition. She frowned slightly, setting her tools down on the desk and turning towards him. "… Hey, you doing okay?" She was a nursing student, obviously, and this wasn't something that he would be able to brush off so easily. Not to mention the fact that Willow Grace was one of the most stubborn women he would ever meet.

Her concern amplified after a second, and she moved to kneel down in front of him.

"… Nych?"

After a few seconds, he looked up to her, lines of what seemed to be pain quickly fading from his face.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. Hey… Can you show me that diner?"

What?

"I'm kinda… Well, I need to get out of this place. The underground. And well… I could eat. Would you take me there?"

She stared at him for a couple seconds, and then after a moment held her hand out towards him to help him up as she stood. She wasn't sure what had just transpired, and she was worried, but he didn't really seem like the kind of guy to open up the second someone asked him anything.

Doesn't mean she couldn't try.

"Alright." She raised an eyebrow at him. "But you have to tell me what that just was. If you keel over and have a heart attack while eating a burger without warning me, I'm gonna be pissed."

He took her hand and pulled himself up, and admittedly, he felt weak. But he'd be alright. This wasn't the first episode of that nature he had experienced.

"I… Maybe later." He said, though his voice told that he'd never want to tell her what was ailing him.

It was likely linked to the mysterious disease he'd claimed to have.

"So we're bussing there, right?" He asked, walking next to her as they made their way toward the exit.

Willow kept a close eye on them as they walked, grabbing her things as she went and pulling her hair back down so it tumbled in wild curls down her back. "Yeah. I'm saving up for a car, but the traffic here is a nightmare. Honestly, sometimes it's faster to just walk or bus, because at least then you'll know you'll be there relatively on time." She shrugged her shoulders, squinting slightly as they came out into the sunlight.

She glanced around at the people in the courtyard around them, and then looked back towards Nych.

"… Tell me if you need a break, okay?" She tilted her head to the side and frowned a little bit. "I’ve got long-ass legs, so I walk pretty fast."

He nodded his head as he locked the cellar door behind him, walking beside her. He, too, walked decently fast, and pretty much kept up with Willow. There was a slight limp, however, in his step. If one hadn't been looking, they wouldn't have noticed.

Had that always been there?

"So did you move here from Scotland? Or were you born here?" He asked, trying to make conversation as they approached the bus stop.

They didn't, after all, know much about each other.

She slowed slightly to give him a bit of a break, leading the two of them through the campus so they could get to the bus exchange. "I was born here. My parents immigrated here from Scotland a couple years before they had me." She didn't ask how he knew she was Scottish, it was blatantly obvious. She was practically a walking stereotype, truth be told. "They own some property outside of the city limits. Couple acres."

That was interesting. Were they farmers, or ranchers perhaps? A lot of land outside of Vancouver was used for that sort of thing.

"What about you?" She raised an eyebrow. "Where is your family from?"

"I was born in the States." He said, though there wasn't much pride in his voice with that statement. "In between the states of bumfuck and nowhere. That is to say, right on the state line of Wyoming and Montana. My parents… They weren't very happy with my aspirations toward technology."

It made sense. Most of the people in those parts of the USA nowadays were inhibitive conservatives, a newer party trying to hold back progress of technology. Not everyone, of course, but a good percentage. His parents were a part of that percentage.

"When I was sixteen I stole a bunch of jewelry from my mother and made my way here, on a bus. That was a hellish, terrifying ride, especially at the border. But I'd gotten all my documents and passport legally, and they let me through without a hitch. When I sold the jewelry, I got an apartment for two months, and during that time I built my machine that could change lead into gold."

Wow. His life… Was interesting.

"And then I bought a chunk of lead with what I had left and turned it into gold, sold it, and that's how I've been living ever since."

Willow stared at him for a couple seconds, slowly nodding. "Wow… That's really impressive, actually." She sent him a glance, brows furrowed slightly as she examined his face. He could be incredibly rich if he wanted to, judging by the machine he had down in the laboratory. She had to wonder why he lived in an apartment in what she assumed was a bad part of town, considering he was getting mugged every night.

"Yeah. My parents and I have had a bit of a rocky relationship." She shrugged. "Not really their fault though. I'm not the most cooperative daughter. Doesn't sound like it can compare to your situation, though." She tucked her hair behind her ears. "I'm sorry about that."

She was so much… Nicer than she had seemed.

Nych stared at Willow for a few seconds, and then looked forward. They were coming up on a bus stop, where luckily, nobody else was waiting. He didn't feel like controlling his topics like he would around others.

"Willow, I've got a question."

Oh?

"Why is it that you present yourself so differently? I was hesitant to work with you at first, not because of your intelligence, but because of your reputation. I thought that you never took anything seriously. Now that I know you… You aren't like that at all. So why?"

That was a loaded question.

She glanced towards him for a moment or two, and after a moment smiled and shook her head as she laughed. "Nych, I was an absolute monster when I was a teen." She looked ahead, shrugging her shoulders. "I'm serious. I'd get drunk and smoke pot on the regular- I mean, I still do. But I'm nowhere near the level I was at when I was like seventeen." She walked up to the bench and sat down as she set her things on her lap.

"I still enjoy that life. Going to punk-shows, getting smashed, running from the cops with Blake. But…" She looked down at her binder. "I know now that I have to keep that life separate from my school and professional life."

She perked up again, and shrugged casually. "I don’t know. I guess that's just the way I am."

He seemed to ponder over that for a few moments, before he nodded his head.

"I guess I've never really been able to get into that kind of lifestyle. I mean, the way I am… I wouldn't get invited to parties or anything of the sort. I can't handle loud noises and such, and I… Well, I can't be away from medicine for too long."

He stopped talking as a bus pulled up to the stop. They presented their student passes, got on the bus, and continued down the aisle.

"I've always wanted a quiet future. One where I might have a couple kids or something. Change the world with the things I invent. That's what I really want."

He sat down on the inside seat, giving her the outside.

"I want to make the world better than it was when I came into it."

"That's fair." Willow nodded, leaning back in her seat and relaxing in the crowded bus. The buses that ran through the campus were always crowded. It was kind of a given at that point. "I'll show you some of my projects tonight. I've got working prototypes and everything." She grinned somewhat, apparently excited to show off her own projects. She could talk to Blake about them, yeah, but she never quite got it.

It was quiet for a moment or two.

"You know, if you ever wanted to come to a party, you could come to the next one I go to." She looked towards him. "Just chill with me for the night. They get kinda crazy but… That's part of the fun."

Nych looked at her, surprise lacing his eyes, and asked, "Why?"

That… Was an odd response to that statement.

"Why would you want to be seen, at a party, with me? That would put a definite dent in your reputation, no matter who you are. Do you care that much for me, to be seen with someone universally hated at a party he never should have gone to?"

That was the first time he'd let genuine self-hate show through.

She frowned, and after a moment shook her head. "You think I care about what a bunch of dumb frat boys and sorority girls think of me?" She said after a moment. "There is not a brain cell in a single one of those parties, they're the dumbest fucking people I have ever met."

A brown-haired girl standing nearby gasped, scandalized, and glared at Willow. Willow glanced towards her, and after a moment flipped her the bird and rolled her eyes as the girl huffed and turned her back towards her.

"The reason I go is because they have booze, and admittedly, it's hilarious watching them do dumb shit." She shrugged her shoulders, looking towards Nych and putting a hand on his knee. "I have fun because my friends are there with me. That's why me and Blake do everything together. It's fun." She sent him a reassuring smile. "I would take you to any party you wanted to go to, because I think you're cool and I like hanging out with you."

She leaned back in her seat. "And I'm six foot one of pure Scottish muscle and I'll beat up anyone who questions me." Ah yes. There was the rebellious Willow again.

It was a good thing that they had nearly reached the diner. Because Nych reached up and pulled the rope, signaling for the driver to stop. He then stumbled out of his seat, making his way toward the entrance of the bus and falling to the ground outside of it.

He was coughing.

He was coughing up blood.

But that wasn't the thing that he was most concerned about. Oh no, this had become rather normal. The thing that alarmed him, well…

It was the fact that there were tears rolling down his face.

It didn’t take long for Willow to follow him.

"Shit-" Willow cursed, looking down at him. She carefully hooked her arms beneath his, and lifted him out of the way of the other exiting passengers as she ushered him towards the side of one of the buildings lining the streets. "Fuck, are you okay?" She knelt down in front of him, looking him up and down with worry as she put a hand on his shoulder, gently rubbing his back. She wasn't sure what was happening.

"Should I call an ambulance?" She fumbled her phone from her pocket, almost dropping it before she looked back towards Nych. "Nych?"

He was going to have to tell her what was wrong sooner or later.

"N-No." He said, blood dribbling slightly down his chin as he weakly tried to slap her phone away. "D-Don't call an ambulance. They'll take everything away. All my work. All of it."

He was mumbling now, and everything he said was barely audible.

"Just… Give me a second. I'll be okay."

With that, he pulled a bottle of pills from his pocket, unscrewed the top, and downed two of them.

He stood up very slowly, using the building as support to pull himself to his feet.

"Hey, no. Sit your ass down right now." She lightly eased him back down to the ground, hesitantly putting her phone away and furrowing her brows as she looked to her friend in front of herself. In her eyes there was absolute worry, and she was clearly very concerned for his well-being. "Take it easy, Nych. I'm a medical student for God’s sake, you can't just pull this and expect me to brush it off."

Her features softened after a moment, and she took one of his hands and squeezed it. "… You need to tell me what's going on."

She sighed, shaking her head. "I… I gotta know what's wrong. You're obviously in some pretty bad shape, considering what I've seen today. I'd like to know what's going on so I know how to deal with it too, and I can help you. Otherwise, I'm just going to treat it how I see it."

Nych stared at her for a long, long while, with tears streaming heavily down his face. This was the first time that someone, anyone, had cared this much about him. Nobody had ever noticed the coughing fits, the reddened tissues, the sudden bursts of weakness. He had always wanted someone to hold onto, to help him with this, but after so many years of isolation… He didn't know if he could do it anymore.

"I… I…"

In that moment, he threw his arms around her, and began absolutely sobbing.

"I have cancer."