eatsyourscience | 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 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."

"And..."

He looks up, as sincere as someone like himself can be.

"I'd like to help you. To... be there, I guess. I'm second in command for a reason, right? I may not think things out all the way, but that's why I'm the one that ends up coming on a night like this."

"...I'm glad you came."

"You're welcome."

He can feel his face flushing some, so he puts his hand on his neck and tries to distract himself.

"I'm sorry you saw that. Upstairs."

"It's okay," he shakes his head, "it's totally okay. Honestly, if something like that hadn't happened, I'dve been more worried. And it's fixable."

He isn't sure that kind of thing is normal or healthy, but he doesn't feel like arguing the point.

"At least my uncle isn't here." Dojima would have been... Well, concerned might be putting it too lightly.

"Heh, yeah," he chuckles, with the slightest inclination of a smile, "I could totally see Dojima-san throwing a fit over something like that. He's on your tail so much..."

"He worries." Though that doesn't totally account for the way that almost all of their conversations turn into interrogations.

For my fine aquatic Otter friend

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