After dinner, Sana was asleep, his head on my chest. My papa was in the living room with us, sitting in a chair, quietly reading a newspaper, the sports section. Every now and again, he'd mutter something about someone in sports, as he often did. I'd offer a few words. I don't know much about sports, but I was glad he still chose to share these little things with me. The TV was on with the volume on low, and my mom was sitting at the kotatsu with one of my nephew's sweaters, mending the sleeve, watching TV, too. The new humidifier was on, but not making much noise except for a sudden puff of air every now and then.

I was thinking about Sana. What led us to come here in the first place, back at the end of November. My angry post on my blog. It was like fate that it happened, a simple mistake which led us to this almost lucky situation. The mistake that, if I could go back and know what I knew now, had ultimately saved Sana's life. It always made my blood run cold when I realized how simple it had been, how things could have been dramatically different. 

It had been mid-November. Sana and I had decided to go to McDonald's in Akihabara, since it was on our way to our next location, which was a big bookstore there. We'd just been walking around, enjoying perhaps one of the last semi-warm days of the season. Walking hand-in-hand, looking in shop windows. He'd pointed to a cute shop which was one of his favorites, a shop that was dominantly the color pink, and sold a lot of cute things. I vowed to come back and explore it by myself, looking for something for his birthday which was soon. 

At the McDonald's, Sana had ordered some chicken nuggets and fries, and his customary Coke Zero. I'd ordered a burger, fries, and tea. Once at the table, Sana began peeling away the breading from his nuggets, as he always did. This way, he could still enjoy the chicken taste without worrying about the fried bread which made his blood sugar too high. He might still need to take an insulin shot due to the fries, but we ate at McDonald's rarely, so this was a bit of a treat and he said sometimes he allowed himself things like this and suffered a little consequence as a result, and that was okay for him. It made him feel normal, he said. 

We began talking about the books we were going to look at in the bookstore. Sana is a big reader, because he doesn't watch TV much. I liked going to the bookstore with him. He was so serious in there. I began thinking about which books I might get him for his birthday. I'd be on alert as he looked in there today, paying attention to which books he seemed the most interested in. I'd go back later and buy some for him. 

I was thinking about how casual we'd been today. Sana was wearing a pale yellow dress, a flowing material, that went to his mid-thigh. This was a common cut of dress for him. It went just below where his stockings were. He'd told me he often wore this cut of dress for easy access to his thighs, and thigh-high stockings for this reason as well, so there was nothing to take off in case he needed an insulin shot. He was also wearing a white leather moto jacket, fishnet fingerless gloves, cute white pumps, and a long platinum blonde wig, and casual makeup. I thought he looked so beautiful. I couldn't stop looking at him.

We'd held hands the whole day, because to anyone else, we looked like a heterosexual couple. There was a freedom in this, but it also secretly made me a little sad. How we couldn't hold hands if we were both dressed in masculine clothes. Whenever he wore masculine clothes and we were out, I so wished I could grab his hand. But, when he wore women's clothing, he achieved this phenomenon called "passing", which is when someone of one sex looks enough like the opposite sex when wearing certain clothes that they look like that sex and can therefore walk freely as that sex. He in particular achieved this due to his size and his feminine face, especially when wearing makeup and applying a few tricks. He also achieved this due to his voice.

As I was lost in this, Sana stopped eating. He was staring at his food, a quizzical look on his face. 

"Hey," he said, softly. 

I looked up, and my eyes looked curiously at him, my mouth slightly open. He was looking at his hands, which were visibly shaking.

"Huh? What's going on?" I took one of his hands, which was prettily wearing a glittery pink polish. It was shaking in my hand, getting worse.

"Can you take my blood sugar level? I feel weird... I can't... Oh..." His eyes started to droop, right there, right in front of me. 

"Oh, oh, oh, it's okay," I said, watching his head start to rock back and forth slightly. 

It didn't make any sense. I quickly thought back to what we had eaten that day. There was nothing out of the ordinary for him. I knew he wouldn't have been sneaky, not when we were going out to have a fun day together. It wasn't often that I got a full day off from work. I knew he'd had to have been looking forward to this, our day together. 

I set up his glucose monitor, took out a blood strip, his pricking pen. I pricked a finger of his hand in my hand, an act which always reminded me of Sleeping Beauty and the spinning wheel. I used to want to faint at his blood, but it was casual to see it now. I had to be strong for him. I put the blood strip on it, taking a little bit of blood. I inserted the strip into the monitor, and we waited. My toes tapped the floor, impatiently, as always. 

My eyes almost bugged out of my head when I saw the number. 

"Four hundred and thirty-two!" I cried, gasping. A normal reading was ninety to one-hundred and ten!

"Wow," he said in English. His eyes were drooping. I left the glucose kit on the table, and shot up out of my chair. I grabbed his hand and purse in one action, and we walked as fast as we could to the bathroom. 

Once there, I whipped out his insulin pen. I shoved the skirt of his dress up, and injected his thigh with the insulin. I counted to thirty, and pressed my thumb to the injection site for twenty more seconds. He leaned against the wall, starting to breathe heavily, his eyes closed. He looked as weak as a daisy, bowing in the wind. After a few minutes, we walked back out to our table. 

He sat down, and put his forehead in his hands, his elbows on the table. I quickly replaced the needle on his pricking pen with a clean one, prepping it for next time. I placed the used testing strip and needle in his thick plastic safety jar for biohazards. This was routine by now, this prepping. Just something that needed to be done after every time. It was happening more and more often. I was worried. 

"I wonder what it was," he sighed. My eyebrows creased in concern. "I have to figure out what I ate that caused this. That's so dangerous. But, I eat this sometimes. It's never like this. These fries never make me go much above two hundred, if I have a reaction at all."

My eyes stared at his food. He'd hardly eaten his fries. His nuggets were gone, the breading still in the box. He never used any sauce, unnecessary sugar, he'd said. Even ketchup had a high sugar content, I'd learned. 

After a few minutes, my eyes went wide. My heart dropped into my stomach. My blood ran cold. His head was still in his hands. He hadn't moved, still breathing slightly heavy. 

I picked up his soda. It was mostly gone. I stared at it, and froze. 

"I'll be right back, please wait a minute," I told him. He just nodded. 

I went up to the counter, holding his drink. I waited my turn, and stood in front of the cashier. She asked how she could help me. 

"Hello. My friend ordered a Coke Zero. Is this Coke Zero?"

She just smiled at me. "We're out of Coke Zero, so we replaced it with regular Coke. Our Coke Zero machine part is out of order. Sorry for the inconvenience."

I found myself shaking. The ice in the drink was sloshing around. I was... I was livid!

"YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" I shouted. I heard the restaurant go quiet. I didn't care! 

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience," she repeated, her head bowed now. She sounded so unapologetic. 

"YOU COULD HAVE KILLED MY BOYFRIEND! HE HAS DIABETES! WE HAD TO GO GIVE HIM AN INSULIN SHOT JUST NOW! HE THOUGHT HE WAS DRINKING COKE ZERO WHICH HAS NO SUGAR! BUT HE WAS DRINKING A REGULAR COKE BECAUSE OF YOU! HE DIDN'T KNOW! HE COULD HAVE DIED! YOU COULD HAVE KILLED HIM!" I was screaming now. I'd never been that furious in my life. I had to make her understand!

Her face was the picture of shock. In an instant, she was bowing over and over, apologizing over and over, her voice going to a softer, sincere tone. I didn't care. It wasn't enough! 

A middle aged man ran over to her from the back. His tag said manager. All of the other employees were staring at us, stopped what they were doing. 

"We're so sorry, what can we do to make this right?" He said, probably saying a company line. What was wrong with these people?! Couldn't they see what they'd done was wrong? How serious this was? 

"You can't make this right!" I shot at him, my tongue a dagger. "You can't just replace things like that! You don't know if that person has a medical condition or anything like that!" 

"We can comp your meals, I'm sorry," the manager said. It didn't sound like he'd heard a word I said!

I felt a hand on my arm. I jumped and turned. Sana was there, his face pale, looking a little clammy. He was still slightly breathing hard. 

"Sana, they-" I began, starting to shake in my anger. 

"They didn't know," he said, weakly. "It's not their fault."

"But- but-" I sputtered. 

Now he was the one bowing. "Please be more careful in the future," he said, calmly. He was being so elegant about it all. Impossibly.

"Yes, it won't happen again. I'm really sorry," the cashier said to him, bowing in kind. 

"Please let us comp your meals," the manager said to him, bowing to him, too.

"Okay," he agreed. He handed them our receipt from his purse. They did some fiddling, and said the money would be back on my card very soon. They bowed to each other again, and Sana took my hand, and we went back to our table. Once there, we gathered our food and threw the rest of it away. I didn't want to eat this food anymore. I was too angry. I couldn't even dream of coming back. Sana wasn't feeling very hungry anymore, and just wanted to lay down.

We took a cab to Sana's apartment, which I was happy to pay for even though it was expensive. He laid down on the couch, his head on my lap. I smoothed his bangs down over and over until he fell asleep. 

I was still so furious. I couldn't calm down. So I took out my phone and started writing on my blog about what had just happened. I named the McDonald's location in Akihabara, something I wouldn't normally do. I don't usually want people to know where I like to go. But I wanted to warn people about what had happened, telling them to stay away from there. 

In the post, I realized later when my mom called me, I had called Sana my boyfriend, forgetting the safeguards I usually put in place. I usually called him my "friend". But in my anger, I had forgotten. In my love for him, I had forgotten to hide. I'd said, "the McDonald's we went to in Akihabara almost killed my boyfriend today". A simple mistake. 

And because of these simple mistakes, Sana was here today. Safe, sleeping, his head on my chest. I could watch him peacefully sleep, protected and warm. 

My papa looked up at me. "Tell Sana later that the Hanshin Tigers are prepping for their pre-season. There's a small article about it. I don't think they're going to beat the Yokohama Baystars this year. I still can't believe your boyfriend has to be a Hanshin Tigers fan. We're a Yokohama Baystars family." He pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes at this. 

"Leave it alone, papa," my mom said, not looking up from her mending, "he can like the Hanshin Tigers all he likes."

My papa grumbled and went back to his paper. I started laughing gently, trying not to wake up Sana with this. 

I put my hand on his head, and started to slowly smooth down his long blonde wig with long strokes. I hoped this soothed him in his sleep, too. I stretched my neck, and kissed the top of his head, then relaxed back on my couch pillow, sighing in how lucky we were.