The first thing Aqua remembered was the water. Cold. Black. Endless. It filled his lungs again the moment consciousness returned, phantom pressure crushing his chest, like a vice tightening between his ribs. His body reacted before his mind caught up — a violent jerk beneath the sheets, fingers twitching uselessly against the rough cotton as if he were still sinking, still fighting the undertow pulling him downward into that endless, silent dark.
For a moment Aqua Hoshino was there again — suspended in that suffocating depth where the sky had disappeared above him and the world had narrowed to the frantic, burning demand of his lungs. Air. His chest spasmed. Something in his throat rasped. Air entered. Thin. Mechanical. Real. The sensation was wrong. His lungs expanded painfully, the air scraping through his throat like broken glass, and the shock of it forced a faint, involuntary sound from him — not quite a gasp, not quite a cough. His ribs protested violently, a sharp, blooming agony spreading from the left side of his torso and radiating outward like someone had driven a spike between his bones.
His thoughts stalled. Because pain meant something very inconvenient. Pain meant he wasn't dead.
His eyelids felt like they had been stitched shut. It took several slow attempts before they lifted even halfway, the sterile brightness of fluorescent lights stabbing into his skull hard enough to make him squint again. White ceiling. Flat. Unremarkable. Aqua stared at it for several seconds, the image swimming slightly as his brain struggled to reconnect pieces of the world together. There was a sound nearby. A repetitive one.
The rhythm cut through the room with clinical precision, steady and indifferent, like the quiet ticking of a clock that had continued running whether he lived or died. Machines. Hospital machines. The realization came slowly to him then, dragging the rest of reality along behind it.
That… really shouldn't have been possible. His last clear memory arrived in fragments, sharp and vivid against the fog in his mind. The cliff. The fall. The knife.
Aqua remembered the weight of the blade when it went in. Not the pain first — strangely enough. The pressure. The resistance of flesh giving way. He remembered the wet warmth spreading across his shirt. He remembered the way Hikaru’s expression had changed in that final moment — something fractured, something hollow. Then the drop. The cold water closing over his head. Silence swallowing everything. Aqua’s eyes shifted slightly. That simple movement alone sent a dull ache rippling through his skull, as if it had been cracked open in the back. His body felt… heavy. Unresponsive. Like his every limb was being weighted down by stone. His right hand twitched weakly against the sheets, the motion barely noticeable even to himself. A plastic tube ran from the back of his hand to a clear bag hanging from a metal pole beside the bed. The fluid inside it dripped down slowly, each drop sliding through the line and into his veins with quiet inevitability. IV. Bandages pulled tight around his torso beneath the hospital gown. He could feel them when he breathed. Which was still unpleasant. Breathing hurt. Moving hurt. Existing hurt.
Aqua stared back at the ceiling again. So this was the aftermath.
Revenge, apparently, had inconvinient side effects. He exhaled slowly through his nose, the motion shallow and careful, testing the boundaries of his own body like someone prodding a bruise just to confirm it was still there. Alive. The thought settled over him with strange neutrality. No relief. No joy. Just quiet acknowledgment. Alive meant the plan worked.
And if the plan had worked—
Then Hikaru Kamiki was dead.
The chain that had wrapped around Aqua’s life for years — the quiet, suffocating obsession that had driven every step he’d taken since childhood — had finally snapped.
No more chasing ghosts tied to Ai Hoshino.
…So why did everything feel so empty?
A faint sound pulled him from the thought. Fabric rustling. Movement beside the bed. Aqua’s gaze shifted slightly to the side, his vision still unfocused enough that the figure beside him appeared at first as little more than a blur of color and shape.
Small shoulders hunched forward.
The shape didn’t move for several seconds.
The blur lurched upright so quickly the chair behind it screeched loudly against the hospital floor.
Recognition settled into place.
Her face came into focus slowly, like a photograph developing in dim light. Her eyes were swollen. Red. The kind of red that came from crying far too much and sleeping far too little. For several seconds she simply stared at him. Like she couldn’t quite trust what she was seeing.
Her voice wavered dangerously.
The words barely left her lips before she threw herself at him, arms winding around his torso, pressing her face into his chest. Aqua barely had time to react, body stiff and in pain, but he felt the desperation in her hug as she held him tightly to her, the unspoken fear behind every shuddering breath.
Her breath hitched violently.
Behind her, the door burst open. Footsteps rushed inside. White coats. Nurses. A doctor leaning over him with a small penlight already poised in his hand.
" Patient is conscious. "
" Mr. Hoshino, can you hear me? "
The light flashed briefly into his eyes. Aqua didn’t react much beyond a faint squint.
The doctor seemed satisfied anyway.
" Remarkable, " the man murmured quietly.
Behind him, another familiar figure stood in the doorway.
She looked composed. At least on the surface. But Aqua noticed the tightness in her shoulder. The exhaustion in her eyes. The way her hands were clenched tightly around the strap of her purse.
" …So you finally decided to wake up, " she said quietly. It wasn’t scolding. It wasn’t angry. Just tired. Relieved.
Ruby sniffed loudly beside the bed.
" You were in a coma, " she muttered.
Aqua processed that number with distant interest. Two weeks since the water closed over his head. Two weeks since everything ended. He shifted slightly against the pillow. Pain flared instantly through his abdomen, sharp enough to make his breath hitch. The doctor noticed immediately.
" Careful, " he warned. " You’re extremely lucky to be alive, Mr. Hoshino. "
The irony almost made Aqua smile. Because luck had never had anything to do with his life. Not since the night Ai Hoshino died.
The room settled into a quieter rhythm after that. Machines humming softly.
Ruby was still clutching onto him. Miyako standing silently near the door. And Aqua lying there in the center of it all, staring up at the sterile hospital ceiling.
For the first time since his rebirth…
He had nothing left to chase.
The future stretched ahead of him now — wide open, uncertain, terrifying in a way revenge had never been.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, uninvited but persistent—
A flash of red hair passed through his mind.
Aqua closed his eyes again.
…That was a problem for later.
