#beenwaiting

XXII ███   THE SHIRT SHE HAD BEEN given for her uniform had always been too big. at the time, she didn't want to make a fuss about it. it seemed a silly thing to care about & she'd just made due. her brother had fussed that she should go change it yet that seemed like something so small compared to everything they had to sort out when arriving back home. a shirt too big. feeling so small once again in their hometown. it was a odd nostalgia that she hadn't expected. running around the house, the smell of fresh camphor, the sound of piano & laughter, the warmth of a shirt stolen from her father. just as she had done as a child she did with this shirt--- the tips of her fingers curl about the edge, fiddling with the length until the threads become weak & bare & unravel.

but now this shirt that was too big was thick, heavy, sticky with blood. stained red to brown, dark & swollen down to the threads with it. his blood-- shinjiro's --coating it & intertwining with it. her hands had been more or less wiped down by a concerned nurse who had told her she could leave. but she couldn't. minato had gone out of his way to force everyone else, mitsuru had gone off to deal with doctor's & billing & covering up what happened with some bullshit that will hit the news first thing in the morning. akihiko was all he had in terms of family in any sort of means. but she--- she was the leader, right ? this was her fault. she failed him. she failed ken. she failed akihiko, she failed the team. damned be the title of friend, confidant that she had gained over the past month. with someone who held a darkness within his heart that could match her own.

&& all she did was kill him. probably. her hands had stopped shaking finally, but the surface of her palm & outward still throbbed with the memory of the moon's chest. heaving up & down, slower slower slower to still. pressing, no pushing, the wound as if she tried hard enough she could push all that blood back in. that it could save him, erase this. && she had failed in all of that too, even if she knew it was an impossible feat. everything felt so distant. the white walls, the ticking of a clock, the murmur of people speaking hushed & low to not disturb those asleep in the waiting room for their own loved ones or strangers. even akihiko seemed so far away & he sat right next to her.