36 What happened? (1)

Once she was inside, Aika stopped only to take off her shoes and then sprinted up the stairs two at a time.

When she got to one of the spare bedrooms, she lay Aria down on the bed and began pacing around the room nervously. Shortly after, her parents arrived alongside a tall tan woman with a shaved head and glasses.

Recognizing Doctor Smith-Monroe Aika totally ignored her parents and called out, "Quickly! Come check on her!!"

"Okay, move out of the way." The doctor set about examining the girl shivering on the bed.

After several minutes, she turned and looked at the worried people in front of her. "She has a fever but other than that she should be fine. Is there anything that happened recently that could of made her get sick?"

"Well, she had a really big shock recently?"

"That would absolutely do it, this seems to be a case of influenza likely brought on by that shock. As long as she gets plenty of rest and fluids, she should be good to go in no time."

"Thank you for coming so late at night, Doctor. We just wanted to be sure it wasn't anything too serious." Yuna addressed the doctor with full respect and even bowed her head slightly in apology alongside her husband.

"Actually, I just woke up a couple of hours ago, it's not really a big deal." She scratched her head and shrugged before turning to leave without saying anything else.

After she left, Aika went to sit down next to Aria and make sure she was okay but was stopped by her mom's arms around her.

Looking down at her daughter, Yuna's brow furrowed and her lips turned downwards in displeasure at her actions. Even though she support her daughter's desire to make sure her friend was okay and take care of her, she had an important competition soon and couldn't afford to tire herself out or get sick.

Once she was released, Aika turned and looked at her mom and called out in confusion. "Mama?"

"You can't stay up all night, and you can't sleep in here."

"Why??" Aika was ready to snap at her mom for trying to make her leave her sick friend's side.

"Because if you get sick or exhaust yourself and can't compete, how do you think she'll feel?" Despite it making her feel somewhat bad to use guilt to convince her daughter, she knew that anything else short of dragging her out of the room would probably fail based on the look on her face.

When she heard what her mom said, Aika nodded in understanding and shuffled out of the room on her own and entered the room across the hall. If she couldn't sleep in there or watch over Aria, then she would at least be nearby in case she woke up and was confused.

Her heart felt suffocated thinking about the pain she much be in and how awful she must feel, it was like a boulder was crushing her constantly from the inside.

Several hours later, Aika turned over in her sleep as nightmares of Aria's condition suddenly deteriorating and being problematic plagued her. Soon, the smell of breakfast drifted through the house and caused her to wake up from her troubled sleep.

After she left her room she was about to head downstairs to ask about the food when she heard a faint moan from the room across the hall and rushed right over. On the bed, Aria was shifting around seemingly uncomfortable and so she went over to her and adjusted the tangled blankets and thrown around pillows back to their normal positions and then moved Aria so she was lying comfortably.

Once she was adjusted the smaller girl stopped shifting around and curled up in bed comfortably, seeming to relax completely. Smiling slightly, Aika reached out and put her hand on Aria's forehead to check how warm she was and was pleasantly surprised when she only felt a little bit warmer than usual compared to the heat the night before.

She knew that it would likely get worse again later in the day, but having the slight decrease would allow her to sleep better and the extra rest would let her get better faster.

Now that she had checked on Aria and made sure everything was going well, she wandered downstairs and called out to one of the servants she saw scurrying by. "Where is the dining room?"

The maid recognized the young lady from when the Suzukis had first moved to B City and she had lived here for several days and pointed down the hallway.

When she got to the dining room, she saw her parents eating and sat down across from them. Only moments after she sat down, a third plate of food was rushed out by one of the other servants.

"Aika, how is your friend doing?" Max who was still being unusually serious decided to address the elephant in the room.

"She seems to be doing better, her temperature felt a lot lower than last night when I checked on her a minute ago."