After Story: Compassion

Chapter Seventeen: Final Preparations

I rotated my shoulder as I passed through the gates to the school. I had slept well during the night, but was still stiff and achy because of all the work I had done the previous day.

"You look pretty sore, Tomoya," Tomoyo said when I found her.

"What can I say?" I grunted as I squeezed a bicep. "All that hammering hammered me."

She chuckled as she pulled out the map. "Well, you ready for another day of hammering?"

"Nope," I replied honestly. "Let's do this."

Fortunately, we had managed the bulk of the work the previous day, setting up booths and tables, so all we really had left was setting up chairs and building the occasional game.

I was hammering together the platform for a ring-toss game when Kyou found me. "Hey, Tomoya; where's your friend?"

"Huh?" I straightened up to give her my undivided attention. "You mean the pastor?"

"Yup!" she chirped, her nod matching her words.

"At his church right now," I replied. "He has a service until about 11:00. Didn't I tell you about...no, that was Tomoyo..." I lightly bopped myself in the head. "Sorry, I got my people confused."

"'Tomoyo', eh?" she said with a sly smile. "When did you two get so close?"

"Yesterday," I replied. "But it's not what you seem to think. I think she just trusts me more than before because I helped her yesterday."

"Suuuuure," she said teasingly. "You better watch yourself, or I'll tell Ryou that you're hitting on other girls."

I grunted as a sharp pain stabbed at my heart, and one hand moved on its own to cover it as the other reached for something to hold me up.

"T-Tomoya?" I could vaguely hear her say my name. "A-Are you okay?"

I shook my head; about the only thing I could do.

"I-I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed. "I didn't mean to..."

I nodded, holding up a hand as the pain subsided. "S-Some things don't go away so easily."

"Still a touchy subject... I'm sorry, Tomoya," she said softly, and I could feel her rubbing my back, which helped me feel better.

A few minutes later I was back to working on the platform, this time with Kyou's help.

"How's this?" she asked as she help up one of the corners of the platform.

"Looks good," I said with one eye closed to gauge the height. "Hold it just like that..."

"Good morning, Miss Kyou!" I heard a familiar voice call out, bringing a smile to my face. "Beautiful day, isn't it?"

"Y-Yeah...Yeah!" I heard her reply as the board wobbled a bit.

"Have you seen Okazaki-san?"

"I'm down here," I answered. I figured he wouldn't be able to see me since I was lying down behind the wall that would be between the player and the bottles. "I'm laying down on the job."

I heard his laughter get closer. "So you are, I see. I swear, kids these days..." he said in mock annoyance.

I finished hammering the nails in and slid back slowly in case he was behind me before getting to my feet. "Whew!" I said, wiping the sweat off my brow. "It's hot down there!"

"Then you might like this," Ashton said, holding out a sweating can of tea.

"I might, thanks," I replied as I took the can and held it against my forehead; the coolness felt so good. "You done with church for today?"