eatsyourscience | For my fine aquatic Otter friend

For my fine aquatic Otter friend

It's been two days.

Two days alone in this house, without Nanako's cheerful "welcome home!". Without the nightly quiz shows on the television downstairs, without dirty dishes in the sink, without the simple knowledge that he isn't the only one there. It's unbearable. Even Dojima's absence, as common an occurrence as it is, seems more obvious than normal.

Souji hates being alone. He'd forgotten what it was like, or has been letting himself think he has. The first night, after coming home from the hospital, he convinces himself to remain calm and settles for pacing first the living room and then his bedroom restlessly. He's gotten used to staying up late, sometimes only sleeping four or five hours a night, so it doesn't faze him when he barely gets about two hours total--stolen ten minutes at a time when he sits down on the couch in his room and considers calling someone, but doesn't.

That first day is a blur, and so is the second night, but in a different way. He knows what he spend the night doing. He knows because his room is a disaster. Everything that he could break, everything he could rip or throw or flip or otherwise destroy has been. He barely remembers doing any of it and he can't bring himself to care when he wakes up on the floor in the middle of the mess on the second day. He doesn't say anything to his friends because if he does they'll worry about him, and he doesn't want that. There are more important things to be focused on right now than his self-indulgent tantrums. Besides, if they knew he was faltering this much, and now when he most needs to be the leader--

And now it's the end of the second day and the start of the third night, and there's nothing left to do except notice how empty the house is around him.

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"...I'm having trouble sleeping." Because that's totally all there is to it. "It'll pass."

Trouble sleeping. He nods. Makes sense. Even Yousuke had had some trouble-- hell, he was here at nearly one in the morning. That should say something.

Unsure what else to say, Souji starts to unpack the food Yousuke brought over.

It's obvious Yousuke has any idea either. He pulls out a chair and sits down, and makes an attempt at being surreptitious, but whenever Souji looks his way is the moment that he decides to look at Souji, and that's nothing but awkward.

It was obvious there was pain here, but... Well, he was a guy. He didn't know how to heal hurts like that. He'd have to know what Souji was feeling, and he didn't have that empathy. He couldn't possibly have that empathy, when he'd never been close to the situation he was in. And his leader was a stoic stone wall, as always, even in front of a disaster that he had caused. Anything to not show how he really felt...

How could he possibly help him?

Souji slumps into the seat across from Yousuke when he's got everything out of the plastic bag and looks at his hands on his knees. "It's late. Are you going to be okay for school?"

Not that they weren't used to being up late waiting to watch the Midnight Channel. It was just something to fill the silence.

"Does that really matter?"

Did it? They always continued their lives as if nothing was going on. It was part of the secret. But now it felt useless, in the face of possible defeat. Just as useless as how he felt now. Without a command, he wasn't good for anything.

"Your scores on the last exams weren't that good, were they?" He means to sound teasing, but the words come out flat. Grimacing, he rubs an eye with the heel of his hand. "I mean, once the investigation is over, you still have to go on to third year."

"I know."

Souji picked a good distraction. Yousuke felt lukewarm about school at best, and wasn't sure of his future. He often thought about the case in favor of that...

He shakes his head. That's not what's important right now.

"I meant, does it really matter right now."

He wonders, briefly, if Saki's death had this impact on Yousuke. He knows how hard it's been for Naoki to do much of anything at all, especially with everyone telling him he didn't have to, after his sister died--

He clenches his jaw hard, focusing on how the muscles in his face feel like they're going to snap. If Nanako--

Shaking his head, he gets up again and starts to put the things Yousuke brought him away.

Saki was different. Saki wasn't as bad as this, he thought. Just a girl he had a crush on, who didn't like him at all. Nanako was Souji's sister, and none of them doubted it for a minute.

For a moment, Yousuke sees that agony on his face. Should he address it, or...?

"You aren't gonna eat any of that?"

"It's one in the morning." And as easy as it would be to microwave this stuff, he just doesn't care enough. "I'll save it for tomorrow."

He pauses, shaking himself. "Unless... Are you hungry?"

"Ah...no," he admits, and realizes it was kind of stupid to think Souji would be. He was just full of bright ideas today, huh. "You're right."

The florescent light in the ceiling hums. It makes the room feel sterile and un-homey-- it reminded him of a doctor's office or a teacher's breakroom. A place where you have to confess.

He sighs.

"I know I'm probably getting in your way. But-- Well, sometimes I feel like all I'm good at is getting up in people's space when I shouldn't be. Haha..."

"...I probably need it." After what Yousuke saw upstairs, he really can't deny that without being a liar.

That makes Yousuke let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. As usual, he hangs on Souji's approval. And this wouldn't do any good if he wasn't willing.

"Then... What's on your mind?"

A ridiculously weak attempt to get through a massive wall of stoicism and solidarity, like pitching a rock at Fort Knox.

"Nanako."

That was too obvious. He closes the cabinet he was putting the food into and turns, leaning back against the counter. Staring at the floor, he tries to find something else to say, but there's no script conveniently written for him down there.

After a minute he closes his eyes and swallows. He can still faintly taste blood in the back of his throat. "I took too long."

"We did everything we could," he said, like he had said it a hundred times before. Most likely to himself, "it's like Kanji said in the hospital. If we went too fast, something else bad may've happened, like one of us dying..."

His words dry up in his throat. It was just a slip of the tongue, but it spoke volumes about what they were all thinking. He feels like sinking into the floor out of shame. This was just going to make it worse.

"I didn't mean--" his voice squeaks, and he swallows hard. Posture withering, he looks down to his knees as well, "she's not dead. She's not gonna die."

He clutches the edge of the countertop until his knuckles go white, and he holds on until the urge to yell dies. He's Seta Souji. He doesn't yell, especially not at his friends. Not when he's trying to help.

Not when he's probably right.

"They don't even know what's wrong with her."

"The TV world makes everyone sick," he reasons, eyes desperately tracing the grain in the wood floors as if it held some meaning, "and she's just a little kid. It'll just take her longer to get better, that's all."

He isn't convinced. Sure the others were all older than Nanako, but some of them had been inside longer than she had and they hadn't been nearly this bad off while they were recovering.

"If--" He can't bring himself to say those words. The kitchen counter creaks and he forces himself to let it go.

Opening his eyes, he stares at Yousuke, and some of his hopelessness comes through in his voice. "...What do I do?"

"...I don't think there's anything you can do," Yousuke replies, feeling the weight of Souji's despair on his shoulders. It's heavy, painfully so, but he didn't come all this way just to make excuses under pressure. He would bear this weight, "everything we could've done, we already did."

"We can only believe that she's going to be okay. I mean, that's all I can think of..."

"What if she's not?" How could he face his uncle again? Or anyone else for that matter.

"...We have to keep on living."

We, as if he knew the feeling. Maybe he did already. Maybe he meant to share it.

"We'll make sure who's responsible gets what they deserve. That's as far as we can go."

"...I know."

He doesn't know what else to say. He wants to flip the table over in frustration, but he's already destroyed his own room and it hadn't helped any. Besides, this was a shared space. This was where Nanako would come home to. He couldn't do anything to damage it.

"Don't push us away, okay? No matter what happens... You're still the same Souji to us."

"Am I..."

Of course he is. He always does, when it's something to do with himself.

"Thanks. I'll...I'm going to do my best."

For my fine aquatic Otter friend

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