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Mahiru is reading over her article for what must be the fourth time, her pencil tucked behind her ear, scratching the back of her neck, when she hears a knock at the front door. Her first instinct is to look at the digital clock on her desk, brows knitting together, but it’s not as though time has been passing slower than she thought it was, or anything—it is in fact two in the morning. Irritation hits with the revelation, but concern comes with it in equal measure as she pushes in her chair and adjusts her reading glasses, slipping through the kitchen.
“I’m coming,” Mahiru calls. She rubs her eye with one hand as she pads up to the door, blinking sleepily. Who on earth could be here at this hour? For what reason? Something must be wrong, right? Nobody should be awake right now, much less coming around to Mahiru’s place. Just as she’s about to unlock the door, she’s seized with a sudden sense of paranoia, a worry that there’s someone sketchy behind the door, waiting to ambush her. She lives alone, and she just thoughtlessly let them know that she’s here. What if they jump her the second she opens it?
Chewing her lip, Mahiru lifts up onto her toes and peers through the peephole. The glass is a bit foggy, but she can make out her friend—if you can call him that—Yasuhiro’s dreadlocks nonetheless, messy and falling into his eyes. The sun set hours ago, but even with the limited street light, Mahiru can see that his skin has taken on a sickly sheen. His posture is terrible.
That fear from before takes on a new colour as she hurriedly unlatches the door and pulls it open, the words, “Hagakure, what happened to you?” already on her tongue.
Yasuhiro jumps, perhaps surprised that she bothered to check. A smile is already halfway across his face, but it’s pained. His shirt is untucked, a jacket thrown haphazardly over it, and one of his hands is clutching at his side with an urgency. Mahiru can put two and two together. She doesn’t say anything else, deigning to let Yasuhiro reply, but she doesn’t waste any time in slipping forward and pulling his free arm over her shoulders, dragging him inside.
“Nothin’, I just felt like stopping by—hey, easy, what’s the matter?” Yasuhiro manages to keep his voice level, which is quite the feat, considering how little resistance he puts up against Mahiru pulling him along. He’s usually much stronger than her, and though Mahiru knows he’d never actually lift a hand against her in any significant way, if he was really fine, he’d probably plant his heels. Contextual evidence aside, Mahiru isn’t blind. She can see him holding his side like he got stabbed or something.
“What’s the matter?” Mahiru huffs. She shuts the door with her foot and continues pulling Yasuhiro along, guiding him to the bathroom. “I should be asking you that. What happened? Did one of your schemes go wrong? Did somebody mug you? Are—”
“Relax, Koizumi-chi,” Yasuhiro says. He sounds alarmed, more than anything else, but this time, Mahiru can hear the pained undertone to his voice. She tries not to panic at the sound of it. Yasuhiro getting himself into a tight spot is far from an abnormal occurrence. He’s not just an idiot, but a con artist and a fraud; it’s only natural that he’d get into trouble like this often. Still, she can’t help the way that her heart blinks in and out, the irrational fear that he’ll collapse and fall unconscious the second she lets go of him. At least he’s here. At least he’s somewhere Mahiru can see him. That’s more than he usually does. She just needs to calm down.
(Mahiru has no idea why she bothers investing so much energy in a jerk like Yasuhiro to begin with.)
“I’m fine, you know? Just ran into a little trouble with a client, guy was a real jerk, but he let me go after some negotiation. It’s all gonna—”
“Sit,” Mahiru interrupts. She points at the toilet cover. Yasuhiro obliges without complaint, a soft hiss of pain escaping him. “Do you think I’m stupid, Hagakure? You didn’t come here in the middle of the night for no reason.” Looking at him hurts for reasons Mahiru doesn’t want to put into words, so she tears her eyes off of him and opens the cabinet above the sink, digging around for medical supplies. She doesn’t have a lot. When she gets hurt, she usually goes to a doctor like a normal person instead of showing up on her friends’ doorsteps past midnight.
Ugh. Mahiru pinches the bridge of her nose, resting her other hand against a shelf. She can be annoyed with Yasuhiro later.
“Just tell me what happened, I won’t be mad.”
“You seem pretty mad already,” Yasuhiro points out.
“I’m not mad,” Mahiru denies. She pauses to wonder if that’s really the truth, though, her brows knitting together. “At least—not at you, not really, I’m just,” she lets out a breath, “I’m just worried, that’s all. It’s really late, and I don’t…” She doesn’t like seeing him hurt like this. She’s also not saying that, though. “Just—just tell me what happened, Hiro.”
Maybe it’s the use of his nickname that gets him, because Yasuhiro nods slowly, removing his hand from his side. Predictably, there’s a dark, crimson stain spreading throughout the fabric of his shirt. Blood drips down his side and splatters against the bathroom tiles. Mahiru has to look away, taking a couple deep breaths. This so isn’t what she’s good at. She’s a journalist, not a doctor. What she really needs to do is call an ambulance, but… but not with Yasuhiro bleeding out like this, and anyway, he came all the way here, to her, and if she turned him away when he came to her like this, she wouldn’t…
“Koizumi-chi,” Yasuhiro whispers. His unbloodied hand, large and remarkably soft, cups the side of her face, tilting it up to meet his brown eyes. Mahiru realises that she’d spaced out, incomprehensible, panicked thoughts running through her head on loop. “You okay? Sorry to uh…” He trails off, wincing. “To put all this onto you, I just… wanted to see you.”
“I bet you did,” Mahiru bites out, and she clamps her mouth shut so she won’t call him an idiot, pushing his hand away and turning back to the cabinet, blinking back tears. “You’re going to be fine, Hagakure. I’m going to—I have some saline in here and I can clean you up and wrap it so you don’t lose any more blood, and then I’m going to call an ambulance. Gosh, I can’t believe you came here— how far did you even have to walk?”
Yasuhiro hesitates in that way he often does right before he tells a lie. “I was already in the area.”
“No you weren’t.”
“No, I wasn’t.” He chuckles. “When’d you get so good at reading me?”
“You’re not so hard to read,” Mahiru utters. She finds the bottle of saline solution and a tube of cotton swabs. She doesn’t have bandages, but it’s not like this is a permanent solution. She just needs to stem the blood flow until paramedics get here. A clean towel from one of the drawers under the sink should work fine.
For now, though, she kneels in front of Yasuhiro and rolls up his shirt with some difficulty. He shrugs off his jacket with another wince and reaches down to help her, but Mahiru stops him with a shake of her head. She doesn’t want him moving too much right now, and hearing him try and stifle pained sounds for her sake makes her want to cry. Yasuhiro’s side is bloodied, but the wound doesn’t look that deep, Mahiru tries not to let her emotions show on her face either way. She doesn’t want to give any impressions in case she’s wrong. It’s been years since she took her first aid course back in university.
Yasuhiro remains quiet throughout the cleaning of the wound. Quiet and pliable, shifting when Mahiru urges him to, lifting his arms and doing what she instructs as she packs a dark coloured towel against his side. By the time she’s done, Mahiru feels a bit numb, exhausted, like she just finished crying (even though she didn’t cry at all). She rises to wash her hands, but Yasuhiro stops her with a hand on her wrist. When she meets his eyes, he’s frowning, more serious than she usually sees him.
“I, uh… I really am sorry about this,” Yasuhiro says. His brows knit together. “I know you already got me pegged for an irresponsible twerp, and this isn’t gonna help, but I sort of…” He trails off. “I didn’t know where else to go. Sorry.”
As Mahiru listens, the realisation that the threat of tears has not passed entirely hits her all at once, and she sucks in her lower lip, shaking her head.
“It’s okay—really, I was already awake, and I wouldn’t want you out there, just… alone and bleeding—I’m glad you came, even if I can’t… really fix you up that well.” Mahiru clears her throat and blinks hard. She is not going to cry in front of Yasuhiro when he’s hurt. That would be so incredibly lame. “I need to… call 119, okay? And wash my hands.”
Yasuhiro nods. He doesn’t release her wrist, though. Instead, he gazes up at her, looking thoughtful. If Mahiru didn’t know him better, she almost wouldn’t notice the pain, hidden deep behind the concerned warmth in his eyes. He must be working really hard to hold it back.
“Hiro, I need…” Mahiru trails off as his hand releases hers, coming up to cup her face again. “If I don’t hurry, you’ll…”
“Thanks, Mahiru,” he mumbles. His voice is quiet, suddenly exhausted, much more vulnerable than she’s used to from him. Mahiru is going to cry herself to sleep tonight. “Knew I could rely on you.”
“Yeah, well,” Mahiru sniffles. She wraps her arms around him, hands held up so she won’t get more blood on his shirt, or in his hair. Yasuhiro rests his forehead against her chest, his arm hooking around her waist. “Don’t get used to it. I don’t want this becoming a habit.”
Chuckling, “Might be a little late for that.”
“You’re such a jerk.”
Mahiru can’t find any heat to put behind those words. Yasuhiro must be able to tell, because when she pulls back, he’s smiling, almost a smirk, his eyes half lidded. He really is a jerk. Mahiru’s gonna get him, the second he’s better, and he’s going to deserve it.
…Or maybe she won’t. While she’s on the phone with the emergency operator, Mahiru catches him staring at her from the bathroom, one hand holding his towel and the other cupping his cheek. There’s so much softness in his face that Mahiru has to look away, her breath hitching. He’s such an idiot. How is Mahiru supposed to deal with him if he pulls something like this and then looks at her like that?
Mahiru’s an idiot too, though. That’s the only explanation she can think of for why the lopsided smirk he offers her when she returns to the bathroom makes her heart skip a beat. If it weren’t for the blood on her floor, for the way Yasuhiro sways back and forth every time his eyes close… Mahiru would almost be okay with that.