The ride to the hospital was a relatively short one. It was difficult for Mikomi to hide his smile as he sat there in the passenger seat of his mother’s car. All the while, he questioned whether or not his elation was normal. Of course, Mikomi himself understood the significance of this event and while it was making him happy, worry and doubt still found a comfortable little spot to nestle themselves within the back of his mind.

Mikomi knew how the world responded to saving Serah and how it robbed him of everything that he had worked so hard to achieve. That nagging feeling that the world may try to do it again weighed heavily on his mind but at the same time, he knew that he had to move forward or else nothing would change at all. Ha had prepared himself for the best and the worst outcome, just in case the world did try to rebalance itself. Perhaps the reason why he hid a smile on the inside was another nagging suspicion that he had. A suspicion that he prayed he was wrong about.

Karoline found an open parking spot at the hospital and turned the car off. Mikomi was, as usual, lost in thought and didn’t even realize that they had arrived. Karoline nudged his arm to let him know that it was time to head inside. Once Mikomi snapped back to reality, he took a deep breath and exited the car. They walked into the hospital and went up to the service desk to inquire about which room Ryunosuke was in. The nurse there told him that he was in room 307B but he wouldn’t be there much longer as they were preparing an operating room for emergency surgery.

Karoline looked a bit shocked as she had no idea that he was going to be heading in for surgery. When she heard those words, she knew just how serious the situation was. Mikomi, on the other hand, simply stood there as if the news left him unaffected. After all, this was something that he had expected so the news of his father’s upcoming surgery was something he had counted on hearing. He continued to hide his smile as he knew that everything was moving forward the way he intended it to. The necessary steps were being taken and he felt victory within his grasp.

Despite his imminent departure, they decided to head to the room anyway and took the elevator up to the third floor. Once there, they followed the signs which led them down a few halls until they came to the room in which Ryunosuke was being held. The doctor was already there explaining the procedure to him and took notice of Karoline and Mikomi entering the room.

“Ah, you must be Mr. Saigo’s family. Please, come in and have a seat.”

They both took a seat as did the doctor. He pulled his chair up close and showed Karoline her husband’s medical chart.

“Mrs. Saigo. I’m Doctor Taylor. To put it simply, your husband needs to undergo double bypass surgery. He has two partial blockages in his veins and while there are other options, they are a bit too risky. One would be to try and dissolve the blockages but in doing so, a piece may break off and that could lead to a fatal situation. We feel the best option is to perform the double bypass to restore optimal blood flow to your husband’s heart. While the two blockages still allow blood to flow through those veins, the blood flow there is severely weakened. If this goes untreated, the blockages could grow and cut blood flow off completely which would, in turn, cause severe damage to his heart. At that point, chances of survival are slim.”

Karoline began to quiver at the thought of losing her husband. Mikomi; however, remained completely unchanged by the doctor’s words. He just continued to sit there and listen. Doctor Taylor took notice of Karoline's uneasiness and grabbed her hands to calm her.

“Mrs. Saigo, I know that this news must come as a shock and might frighten you but the good news is that it was detected early enough to where we can prevent it. It was nothing more than pure luck that your husband decided to get a routine checkup, otherwise, this would have gone unnoticed seeing how this stage of heart disease doesn’t produce any symptoms. We have excellent surgeons here and I will be personally overseeing the operation. The chances of this surgery being a success are nearly one hundred percent. You shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”

Doctor Taylor stood from his chair.

“No doubt that you will want to talk to your husband before we bring him into O.R. The room should be ready by now but I’ll give you some time alone. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

With that, Doctor Taylor took his leave of the room. Karoline stood up and immediately rushed to her husband’s side. Mikomi stood and slowly made his way over as well.

“You heard the doctor, honey. There’s nothing to be worried about. If anything, we have Mikomi to thank. If he didn’t urge me to go get a checkup, who knows what would have happened? Who knows how much longer I would have had? Our son is living up to his namesake!”

Even in this situation, Ryunosuke found the will to chuckle at his remarks. Mikomi wondered what his father meant by living up to his namesake but he didn’t think it was the appropriate time to question it. Instead, he stood back and let his mother have a conversation with him. Even though Mikomi knew that the chances of this working out were all but guaranteed, he still wanted his mother to have one last conversation with his father on the off chance that the world decided to rebalance itself during the operation.

As he promised, Doctor Taylor re-entered the room and mentioned that they were ready to bring Ryunosuke into the operating room. The nurses came in and prepped his bed for transport. Karoline grew even more restless as she watched them wheel her husband away. Mikomi merely stood there and observed, knowing that this would be the moment of truth.

“How can you remain so calm?” asked Karoline.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Mikomi realized he wasn’t showing much emotion. He was trying his hardest not to look excited that he didn’t realize that he gave off the impression that he was emotionless and unaffected by everything that was happening. It was a bit too late to show some kind of emotion so Mikomi had to respond with the only answer he could give.

“I don’t know.”

Karoline gave Mikomi a hug. The hug was more for her than it was for him. She needed it because she knew that the next couple of hours would pass incredibly slowly. It’s the kind of agonizing wait where seconds would feel like minutes; minutes like hours; and hours like days. Karoline couldn’t decide if she should sit and wait outside of Ryunosuke’s room, go down to the cafeteria to eat, or go back home and wait for a phone call. She turned to Mikomi and asked him what he wanted to do, hoping that he could decide for her.

“I want to just sit and wait.”

“Okay, then that’s what we will do.”

As anticipated, the seconds ticked by slowly and time dragged on for what seemed like forever. Karoline would occasionally get up and pace around the room, hoping that a nurse, a doctor, or anyone would walk in and deliver some sort of news.

Three hours and twenty minutes had passed before Doctor Taylor returned and knocked on the door. Karoline immediately stood up and felt a bit of relief when she saw a smile on the doctor’s face.

“Mrs. Saigo. I’m happy to report that your husband’s surgery was a complete success! Blood flow to his heart is stronger than it was before! His blood oxygen levels are near one hundred percent, which is a very good sign. At the moment, he is still under anesthesia so I’m afraid it’ll be a little while longer before we bring him back to his room. Once he wakes up, we’ll want to run a couple of basic tests, and then we’ll bring him back here where he will remain for a few days for observation.”

“So, this means he won’t be coming home for Christmas?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Saigo but we want to make sure that there are no complications from the surgery and that he heals properly. I’m afraid he’ll be spending Christmas here with us.”

The sigh Karoline gave off was a mixture of disappointment and understanding. She simply nodded and Dr. Taylor apologized before taking his leave. Even though Karoline had to wait until Ryunosuke was brought back to his room, the wait seemed less agonizing since she knew that he pulled through the surgery just fine. Meanwhile, Mikomi continued to sit there, trying to hide his excitement.

I guess spending Christmas in a hospital is a small price to pay for the fact that I, once again, just changed the world. The world may have taken Serah away from me but I’m not going to let that happen again. What I’m going to have to do now is make an even bigger change so that the world ignores the one I just made. It’s a theory that I have and this is the perfect opportunity to test it but the question remains: what do I test it on? What major change can I make to offset this one? Ideas like this are simple in theory and difficult in practice.

It was about another hour before Ryunosuke was brought back to his room. He was still a bit groggy from the anesthesia but he was able to communicate. Karoline immediately rushed to her husband’s side who cracked a reassuring smile. Although the reunion was joyous, it didn’t last long as Ryunosuke fell asleep. The effects of the anesthesia were still being felt by him and anyone who just went through a double bypass would want to rest and regain their strength.

Karoline realized that she hadn’t eaten this entire time and decided to head to the cafeteria, leaving Mikomi alone in the room with his father. He sat there and glanced at him as he lay there slumbering. While it may have appeared that Mikomi was keeping watch over his father, Mikomi was, per usual, lost in thought as he tried to find an event big enough to offset the change he made to the world.

Thinking about this, it took years for the world to counterbalance the change I made with Serah. I started the ripple when I was a freshman in high school and it didn’t kick in until senior year. Even still, the world waited until the day she died in the original timeline to put things back in order. Would that be the same in this case? If so, then that means Dad could still die during my sophomore year in college but is that true?

As Mikomi realized that, he felt a slight headache come on but it mysteriously disappeared just as quickly as it had arrived. Mikomi didn’t think much of it and continued his thoughts.

The situations are different. With my father, his death was health-related. He overworked himself to the point where the stress caused his heart to fail. We now know that it couldn’t handle the extra stress due to his undetected heart disease. Now that we fixed that, if Dad takes it easy, then there is little chance his heart could fail. I gave him the foundation to complete Daphne and now that I did all the leg work, it has resulted in shorter days for him. It took him a while to get to that point but it just means that he’s not enduring as much stress as he was when he didn’t have the answer to why his A.I. wouldn’t work.

Serah’s death seemed strange, though. She was perfectly healthy and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Since I changed the cause of my father’s death, could a freak accident try to take his life? No… it shouldn’t because there is an X factor in all of my thinking which is Ryan. Ryan and I ended our friendship over Serah in the original timeline and even her death didn’t bring us back together. Here, Ryan remains at my side as my best friend. That’s another ripple I started here in my freshman year and nothing, so far, has tried to remove Ryan from my life.

So that begs the question of why did the world go after Serah and not Ryan? Does that mean that it will target my father or is Ryan going to disappear from my life next? Maybe the world didn’t balance anything out. Maybe Serah’s death was a freak accident but the fact that it happened on the same day is too coincidental. Argh… all of this is making my head hurt!

The look of mental strain was evident on Mikomi’s face when his mother returned with a few sandwiches. She handed a turkey on rye to Mikomi before letting her mother’s intuition take over.

“What’s bothering you?”

“Nothing,” muttered Mikomi.

“Your face says otherwise. When I came in here it looked like you were in a bit of agony. Are you worried about your father?”

“No. It really is nothing.”

“Look, Mikomi. I know what Serah meant to you. We all did. I know that you blame yourself for what happened to her and you didn’t want to see it happen to anyone else. That’s why you begged your father to come to get this checkup and look at what happened. You ended up saving your father’s life. His heart could have taken him from us at who knows what time but he’s going to be around now because of you. Maybe, that’s what is bothering you? Are you afraid that you were right about your father’s health?”

“Maybe I was hoping that the doctor couldn’t find anything to put my mind at ease. I guess I still can’t believe a gut feeling led to all of this.”

“It is surreal, isn’t it? You shouldn’t let that bother you, though. Your father is alive thanks to you so be happy about that!”

Mikomi nodded and took a bite of his sandwich. His face cringed a bit as there was nothing on the bread except the turkey.

I know this is a hospital and nutrition is a huge factor in everything they serve, but come on… at least put some mustard or SOMETHING on this!

It was about another hour before Ryunosuke woke back up. During that time, Cassandra stopped by with an offering from the company: a beautiful bouquet of roses of different colors. She carefully placed them on the table by his bed and excused herself, asking to pass along a message of well wishes. After Cassandra had left, Karoline had fallen asleep herself. She was absolutely exhausted from having to deal with all of this and her body finally gave up. Mikomi had placed a blanket over her and continued to sit in the chair closest to his father’s bed. All they could do was wait for him to wake up.