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He was drawing, walking around the outside of their apartment, looking at the sky and sketching backgrounds. He was still close to the entrance door, so luckily he could hear it.
He heard a scream of horror coming from inside the apartment.
And as far as Haruka knew, Takane was the only person living there aside from him. He quickly opened the door and rushed to find her to see if she was fine.
She was sitting on the living room couch, with her knees in front of her chest and her hands touching the lower side of her legs (there was some game device on the floor, too. It was bright blue).
At first Haruka thought it was some sort of prank, but he saw Takane’s terrified face and he knew it was something serious, only he didn’t understand what was exactly happening.
He got closer to her by two steps, originally meaning to sit beside her on the sofa, but he called her name and she looked up instantly. She was breathing heavily and her face was pale.
“W-what’s wrong? Takane?” He wasn’t articulating too well, but he was severely worried. He was used to have attacks and having to go to emergency every now and then, but with Takane that wasn’t the case, so he didn’t know what to do.
Takane immediately got up, squeaked a “Haruka…!” and reached for him. She put her hands around his face, squishing his cheeks a bit. She looked at him in the eye, and she was still shaking, and terrified;
“Can you feel me? Am I— Am I here? I’m real, right?— I—”
Before Haruka could answer something, Takane nearly collapsed against him, although she had her arms around his waist tightly. He was still confused, but he knew it was something he should take care about, for all the times Takane stressed out about his condition.
“Sh- should we go to the hospital? I’ll call an ambulance—”
When he attempted to go away for a moment to pick up the phone and call, Takane clutched her arms around him even tighter and made and anguished noise. Well, that made Haruka know he shouldn’t go away from her at all.
He lead her to sit on the couch again, since it seemed like she wouldn’t be able to stand on her feet for too long. He wanted to know what was the matter and how he could make her not feel like that. He still didn’t understand, but it seemed torturing, to say the least. She was shaking too much and her breathing didn’t calm down yet.
Once they were sitting on the sofa, she kept hugging him quite tight, and he could feel her heart rate. It was going really fast. Looking at her in that state really did make his stomach turn.
He doubted if he could pat her head to make her calm down (he also doubted what he was doing was the right thing) or at least make her aware that he was there, with her. He did reach for her hair and very gently touched it, a bit scared that it’d have a negative effect.
Takane moved her head against Haruka’s hand almost too imperceptibly, but hopefully enough to make him know he could do it with more confidence.
Both of them stayed like that for ten long minutes or so, until Takane’s breathing normalized. She was still shaking, though, and she wouldn’t let go of Haruka. Her face was buried on his chest and suddenly he could feel something wet on his shirt.
“Takane… What’s going on? Do you feel alright? Can you talk? Do you need an ambulance? Please tell me— Tell me anything.”
Her shoulders were slightly shaking by now, probably only by her crying. “I— I can talk. I— I’m fine, I think…”
Haruka wasn’t really sure that that meant to be reassuring, but he let her continue talking; “Don’t go. For now— You’re warm— And alive— I need to— I need to know you can feel me… Haruka…” She looked up, with her eyes soaked in tears “I’m… I’m here, right?” And her face was growing with more horror for every milisecond Haruka didn’t answer.
He was just kind of slow at processing what was happening.
“Y-yeah, I can feel you. You’re right here. With me.” His voice was wavering a bit, mostly because he was confused and scared for Takane. Looking at her crying face really broke his heart.
Takane let a shaky sigh of relief, and planted her face on his chest again.
“But… Can you…” He was unsure if asking about it was the right thing, but he had to know. “Can you tell me what’s the matter? Why did you…?”
“I was playing a game” She gulped after saying that. She calmed down by then, but it still scared her only by thinking about it. She had to explain it to him, anyway. “And suddenly everything got pixelated— And I— I felt like I was floating… And I couldn’t feel anything” Tears formed from her eyes again, but she couldn’t care about them. “I— I can’t go back to that. I can’t do it. I can’t forget about being human again. I can’t forget about feeling again…! I learned my lesson, this— This can’t haunt me anymore!!”
Haruka went silent and dumbfounded for a moment. Right, he was hospitalized because of all the weird things that happened on summer, and he could pass as a coma patient, but Takane’s case was different. She needed some kind of therapist, and how do youbegin to explain her case to one? At least he could understand now that she needed human contact somehow. And also reassurement that she was, indeed, there with him.
He felt really bad because of seeing her crying, but all he could fo was hug her and carress her hair, repeating “there, there…” and “you’re here, don’t worry” trying to make her feel better.
And it worked! Maybe. Well, she had calmed down a little by then, but it maybe helped. Takane looked up again and she was red on the face and her eyes looked tired, but at least she didn’t look terrified anymore.
“I think… I’m fine now. God, that was terrible.” She muttered, looking at the floor. “Thanks… For putting up with that. I love you.”
“It’s fine. What’s important is that you feel well for now!” He got his face closer to her’s so they were touching noses. “Love you too.”