Scrambling could be heard in the operation room and it did nothing to help ease the group or the bidders. They've decided to let Katsumi take the surgery and the girl was currently undergoing the said operation.

Homare, usually cold and emotionless, was never more expressive as he was sitting on the floor, of in the corner of the hall, right beside the OR. Kanji was beside the young student, trying to get him to calm down his panicked breathes. 

It has been 3 hours since it all began and nobody has left. But with each nurse and doctor entering and leaving, the tension and fright only grew to higher levels.

Just then, the screams of panic could be heard from the OR and everyone listened carefully for words. 

"Her pulse rate is dropping... Doctor, I think someone injected the wrong medicine!"

"Doctor, the IV's not working!"

That made them all go rigid and after 30, agonizing minutes, her surgeon came out with a gloomy, sullen expression. "Are any of you Ms. Yuriko's family?" he asks quietly, looking at the group who gathered desperately before him.

"Her family passed a long time ago..." Homare answers from the back and everyone turns to him with shock. "She told me."

"Alright... Anyone here close to her? In a relationship, perhaps?"

Everyone urges Homare forward. They know all about his feelings and he should be the one to know first.

"I shall speak to you in private."

~*****~

"She didn't make it."

The words kept resonating endlessly through his mind and he went straight into denial, not believing this to be true.

Not wanting it to be true.

"Homare...? Did she-"

"She's dead. They lost her." he answered shortly. Despite the tears blurring his eyes, all Homare could see was red. 

He lost again.

He lost someone precious to him again.

He lost his father... Now Katsumi... Who's next?

~*****~

"Homare... It's time to go, bro..." Taketo urges, helping the stricken boy to his feet with the help of Yasuto, who nudges the boy into the car.

Today was Katsumi's funeral and even though pushing him into a suit was hard, into the car harder, they knew that nobody had this any worse than Homare did.

They knew the poor boy had never confessed to the girl after he ran off from the hospital after being granted the offer of seeing her a final time.

He was in complete dissent, not wanting to come to the terms of her death.

He didn't want to come to this funeral, but Nagisa and Kanji both coaxed the rest to bring him, seeing as this could be the only time he had left with Katsumi. 

"We're here, Homare. Let's go." Again, the twins, with the help of Kanji and Nagisa, make their way to the funeral, where it has already began.

It was held in a beautiful flower garden in a patch of lilies. Her favorite flowers.

One by one, everyone in the funeral placed a rose or a lily in her coffin beside her. When Homare finally came, however...

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry."

In his hands he held a picture, two for exact as well as a letter and a necklace.

He placed it down, bowing as a tear rolls down his cheek, dropping onto hers. 

The groups watch with the bidders, along with the other two schools, as they lower the coffin but Homare steps forward with a dignified look.

"Can... Can I close it?" his friends were shocked, but definetly proud of their former wallowing friend as the two men looked at him hesitantly before stepping off to the side. He carefully closed it, looking at her beautiful face one last time.

"Thank you... For showing me how to love."

~*****~

He was kneeling before the grave as the others left, leaving him alone, surrounded by lilies. But as he knelt there by himself, he couldn't help but wonder.

"Was I meant to be alone?"

But unnoticed, Katsumi stood beside him with a smile, a locket around her neck and three pieces of paper in her hands.

One by one they fell through her fingers, one of a happy family... 

The other of a couple, the raven haired girl smiling happily while the boy beside her read a book, but a small smile curled on his lips as well.

And finally a letter...

'Katsumi,

I'm never the best at feelings... But I'll tell you now.

Thank you.

Thank you for showing me how to love...

But you left me, tell me...

Was I meant to be alone in this world?'

He remembered it freshly. Each and every word.

But as he looked up to the sky, pink petals of cherry blossoms floating in the breeze, he could hear his beloved's voice, as if whispering to him from above.

"I'm by your side. You're never alone."