The automatic doors slid open, and Mizuki stepped inside.
The hospital smell hit her first — antiseptic and recycled air, that cold, sterile stillness that had become too familiar over the past months. Her feet moved on their own, already knowing the way, already heading toward the elevator, toward the ward, toward him —
A nurse stepped into her path. Gentle, but firm.
"I'm sorry. You can't go up right now."
Mizuki opened her mouth.
"He's still being assessed. The team is with him. We'll update you as soon as we can — but right now, the best thing you can do is wait."
She wanted to argue. She wanted to push past, take the stairs, find him herself. But somewhere beneath the panic, a quieter part of her understood. The nurse wasn't being cruel. She was just telling the truth.
Mizuki nodded.
She turned around and walked to the nearest seat in the waiting area. She sat down slowly, like something inside her had already run out of energy, and pressed both hands against her head — fingers curling into her hair, elbows on her knees, eyes fixed on nothing.
And then her mind just... broke open.
It should've been me.
That car — it was coming for me. I was the one standing there. I was the one who didn't move fast enough. Arashi saw it before I did and he —
Why does he always do that. Why does he always put himself first when it comes to me. He just got out. He just — the transplant, the recovery, everything he went through — and now —
I told him not to push himself. I told him to rest. He promised. He said he was fine. He looked fine. He was smiling. He was —
Was that a lie? Was he hiding pain again? Was I not paying enough attention? Was I too busy being relieved that I stopped watching him properly?
I should have been holding his hand. If I was holding his hand we would've crossed faster. If I had just looked up two seconds earlier. If I had just —
Stop. Stop it. That doesn't matter now. That doesn't —
It does matter. It matters because he is in there right now and I am out here and I can't do anything. I can't give him anything back. He gave me his cells, his body, his time — months of his life sitting beside a hospital bed that was mine — and what did I give him? What did I do except get better and then stand in the middle of a road like —
Please.
Please, please, please.
Just let him be okay. That's all. I don't need anything else. I don't need the future we talked about, I don't need next year, I don't even need tomorrow — just tonight. Just right now. Just let him be breathing and stable and okay.
I'll sit here for as long as it takes. I won't ask for anything. I won't complain. I won't even go up there if they tell me not to. Just —
Arashi. Please be okay.
Please.
She didn't know how long she sat like that. Time had stopped meaning anything.
Then the doors opened again.
Ayane came through first — slightly out of breath, eyes scanning the room until they landed on Mizuki. She crossed the floor in seconds and crouched down in front of her without saying a word, hands wrapping around Mizuki's.
Then Hina. Then Satoru and Takumi coming in together, Miyu close behind — all of them arriving like they'd been running, like someone had sent one message and every single one of them had dropped everything.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Satoru broke first.
"What happened? We just got — the message said accident, it didn't say anything else —"
Mizuki looked up at them. Five faces. All of them worried. All of them waiting for her to explain, to give them the version of events that made sense, to tell them it wasn't as bad as it sounded.
She had nothing.
"Mizuki." Hina sat beside her, voice careful. "Where was he? How did it happen?"
She opened her mouth.
Closed it.
"Is he okay? Like — have the doctors said anything?" Takumi asked. "What ward is he —"
"They won't tell me anything yet." Her voice came out smaller than she expected. Cracked at the edges.
"Okay, okay — but what actually happened?" Satoru pressed. "You were with him, right? You were there?"
I was there.
I was the reason he was there.
She stared at the floor. Her throat tightened. She had answers — she knew exactly what happened, she had replayed it a hundred times in the last thirty minutes — but every time she tried to shape it into words, the words just... dissolved.
He pushed me out of the way.
That's what happened.
Three words. That's the whole story.
But she couldn't say it out loud. Not yet. Because saying it out loud made it completely, permanently real — and some small, foolish part of her was still trying to hold the world in place.
Ayane hadn't let go of her hands.
"You don't have to say anything right now," she said quietly, looking up at the others with an expression that meant stop pushing.
Miyu sat down on Mizuki's other side. No words. Just presence.
And Mizuki sat between all of them — surrounded, not alone — and kept her eyes on the doors that led upstairs.
Waiting.
Just waiting.
The clock on the wall read 3:47 AM.
The doors swung open.
Mizuki was on her feet before she even registered moving. Her legs carried her forward on their own — across the waiting room, past the empty chairs, straight toward the doctor before he'd even fully stepped through.
"Doctor." Her voice cracked. "Doctor, please — is he okay? Is he stable? What happened? He's okay, right? Tell me he's okay —"
The doctor looked at her. He took a breath.
"There's good news," he said. "And there's something else you need to know."
Mizuki's hands were shaking. Behind her, she could hear the others standing up.
"The good news — and please hear this clearly — is that he is stable. His life is not in danger. The blood loss was significant, but it didn't reach a critical threshold. We were able to manage it." He paused, making sure the words landed. "Arashi is alive."
The breath she let out didn't feel like relief. It felt like something that had been crushing her chest for hours finally loosening — just slightly. Just enough to breathe.
"And the other thing?" she whispered.
The doctor's expression stayed steady. Calm in the way doctors learn to be when they're about to say something heavy.
"He's currently in a coma."
The world tilted.
Mizuki felt her heartbeat spike — sudden, violent, wrong — like her body had lurched forward even though her feet hadn't moved. Coma. The word didn't sound real. It sat in the air between them and refused to make sense.
Coma.
Arashi.
Then she felt a hand on her shoulder.
The doctor had stepped forward. His voice, when he spoke again, was quiet and deliberate — the kind of voice meant to pull someone back from the edge of panic.
"I need you to listen to me. This is not the worst outcome. His body has been through significant trauma today, and this is its way of protecting itself. We are monitoring him closely. We are doing everything we need to do." His hand stayed on her shoulder. "Don't let your mind go to the darkest place right now. That's not where we are."
Mizuki stared at him.
"What he needs now — more than anything — is support. From the people around him." A pause. "From you."
She nodded. She didn't trust her voice.
"You can see him in a little while," he said gently. Then he gave her shoulder one brief, reassuring press — and walked away.
The waiting room was completely silent.
Mizuki stood exactly where she was. Didn't turn around. Didn't speak.
Stable.
Coma.
Both things true at the same time. Both living inside her chest simultaneously — the relief and the fear, pressing against each other, neither one winning.
She just stood there.
And waited for the world to catch up.