Trumpets. She could hear…trumpets? And drums. And muffled singing, growing clearer as she blinked a darkness she couldn’t call sleep, not exactly, out of her eyes. A marching band. Dressed in black – or was it white? The colours shifted before her eyes; first adorned in black with grotesque clown makeup, then white with placid smiles and grey eyes. Akira scrambled to get up, realising they weren’t stopping and vaulted herself sideways. Her white dress gathered a splotch of red from her scraped knee. Scraped on what? She hissed in pain and tucked her knees to her chest as the band paraded past, unaware (or perhaps uncaring) of her safety. Once the gold and black elephant rounding out the macabre crew – shifting between black and white with such speed now that to Akira’s eyes their clothes appeared a dull grey, same as their eyes – she stood and surveyed the area.
Nothing.
She reached out for Emi, always the strongest, always there for her, and found an empty void of something darker than black equal in to the white at which she now stared.
Nothing.
I need to get out.
I’ll put one foot in front of the other one
I don’t need a new love, or a new life
Just a better place to die
Hakuba was discharged the next morning and taken home for bed rest. But although he stayed in bed, he did not rest well- it was fitful at best, rife with nightmares and tossing, all of which aggravated his injuries. The image of his friend’s face, slick with blood, or lying there so… gone… he shuddered, dug his fingernails into his unbandaged wrist.
He had flowers delivered every day and waited, pleaded for news. Was she awake? Was Akira all right? They had nothing for him. How would Himura-kun react? What would become of them?
Each question plagued him, drilling holes into his conscious thought with desperate fervor. Why had you been driving so fast? There might not have been an accident. They could have gotten the book, enjoyed an afternoon shopping, gone to the party…
Would she wake up?
When his head had stopped its constant ache and the lesser of the cuts and scratches had begun to heal, Hakuba made it a point to return to the hospital every afternoon to wait at her side. He brought his work with him and sat, like a faithful golden retriever, reading and filling out paperwork with nothing but her breathing and the mechanical sounds that went with the equipment that monitored her progress.
[text] Himura-kun, I don’t know what to do. Is it my fault?
Most days, he ended with his head buried in his hands in exhausted shame, waiting for Baaya to collect him.
One, two, three, four…
Seven… eight…
[text] Akira, please wake up.