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The hospital is cold.
Ken has never enjoyed hospitals, but really, what kind of person would enjoy this place? It smells like cleaning solution, the lights are too bright, and everyone’s always gloomy for one reason or another.
The last time Ken was at the hospital, the doctors told him that his mother was already dead. Today, though, he’s here on a different matter.
Aragaki.
Aragaki took a bullet for him. Aragaki risked his life for Ken, the son of the woman he killed because of Castor. If anyone had told him months ago that Aragaki would come to be one of his favorite senpais despite being his mother’s killer, Ken definitely wouldn’t have believed it. He still doesn’t, sometimes. It’s hard to reconcile the Aragaki who fed Koromaru like a king and watched the fireworks with him to the Aragaki that was responsible for his mother’s death.
Ken should hate him. He did hate him, but now… Now all he feels is guilt.
Aragaki didn’t die. Ken wasn’t really listening when Kirijo explained it to everyone at SEES, but it had something to do with Hamuko’s pocket watch. She said that Aragaki would take a long time to recover, but that he was stable and as long as he had the support of everyone around him there was a good chance he would wake up.
Sanada was there every day, even missing out on boxing club just to spend every minute he possibly could with Aragaki. There were days when he’d have to practically be pried away from Aragaki’s bed. Hamuko and Minato would visit a couple of times a week, while the others would visit whenever they could.
Weeks have passed since the full moon, and it’s Ken’s first time visiting. It’s not as if he didn’t want to visit, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it even when everyone at the dorm would offer to take the train to accompany him. Regardless, he’s here now.
The lady at the front desk helps him check in and he sticks the badge onto his jacket before heading to the elevator. Ken is nervous, he can feel the blood rushing in his ears and suddenly the cold atmosphere of the hospital feels warm.
It stops on the fourth floor. Aragaki’s room is just to the left.
When Ken reaches Aragaki’s room, he finds himself startled by the state that Aragaki is in. Though he’d read about what happens to people in comas, it was an entirely different experience to see it up close. Tubes sticking out of Aragaki’s gaunt frame, the bandages wrapped around his chest, hearing the monitor beep every second.
It feels weird, seeing him like this. Without his beanie and his thick maroon overcoat. The overcoat made him look a lot bigger than he was, but Ken really shouldn’t have been surprised considering Aragaki was sleeping on the streets during the time he left SEES.
Ken drags one of the chairs closer toward Aragaki’s bed.
“Hi, Aragaki-san,” Ken mumbles, swallowing a lump in his throat.
He’s not entirely sure of what to say. What exactly can he say? Still, Ken tries to speak.
“Everyone’s waiting for you to wake up,” is what he settles for. Ken laughs dryly. “But you’ve probably heard that from them already.” A slight pause. “We’re going to be fighting the last shadow soon. Or, I don’t know if I’ll be on the front lines—but I’ve been training a lot!”
The Hanged Man fight is coming up in a week. Ken’s excited to get rid of the Dark Hour once and for all; for his mom, for Aragaki, for everyone.
Ken’s not sure what he’s going to do after the Dark Hour comes to an end and SEES get disbanded, but he doesn’t have to figure that out right away. Truth be told, he’s a little bit more worried about where Koromaru will go, and Ken can’t possibly sneak a dog into his elementary school’s dorms.
“I’ve been taking care of Koromaru but I don’t think he likes my cooking very much,” Ken adds, though he conveniently leaves out the fact that his eggs are rubbery and just barely surpasses Yamagishi’s level of cooking. Hamuko swears that she’s gotten better at it, but the last time Yamagishi had tried, it ended in Sanada having to call Officer Kurosawa and the fire department while Kirijo paid for the renovations.
(Ken’s not fluent in dog by any means, but he knows damn well that nothing will ever compare to Aragaki’s cooking even though Sanada saved all of his recipes and cooking notes for everyone else.)
Minutes pass. Ken doesn’t really have much to talk about, but it feels weird leaving already when he’d just gotten here. So he stays, does his best to fill in the silence with his thoughts here and there. He recalls the story of how Koromaru helped find this kid’s toy while they were out on a walk.
A loud grunt startles Ken mid-story. He looks up in an instant, thinking Aragaki woke up. Ken frowns when he notices that Aragaki’s eyes are still closed.
Ken just sighs. “I miss you, Aragaki-san,” he says quietly. “Sanada has been taking care of me like he promised you, but it doesn’t mean I don’t miss you. I don’t have any friends at school since I’m an orphan. You’re my friend.”
Tears are starting to well in Ken’s eyes, and he thinks that maybe it’s time to go before he starts bawling like a baby. He can’t be crying now, he needs to be strong.
Ken stands up, zipping his vest. “Bye, Aragaki-san. Hopefully it won’t take so long until the next time I visit you.”
His voice cracks as he says that. Ken blames it on puberty.
SEES defeat the Hanged Man as promised. But the Dark Hour doesn’t go away, instead defeating the Hanged Man only gives birth to a much larger shadow: Nyx, who will be bringing The Fall unless they manage to stop it.
Ken still endeavors to work hard in erasing the Dark Hour, but admittedly, he’s still scared about the fight itself. No matter what, they can’t lose. Sure they haven’t lost yet but there’s still a ‘what if’ wriggling around in Ken’s mind.
He fights as hard as he can in Tartarus whenever Minato and Hamuko plan on going. It’s not until Ken passes out from exhaustion halfway through the trip that Sanada puts some sense into him and takes him back to the dorms.
“You won’t be getting any stronger if you don’t take care of yourself too, kid,” Sanada tells him. “You can’t wear yourself out before our final battle.”
Evidently, he’s benched for the rest of the week. With nothing better to do, or really anything he feels like doing, Ken takes the late night train to see Aragaki. The nurse tries to tell him that visiting hours are almost over but it’s clear that she feels sorry for him. He’s used to that by now, the sympathetic look everyone gives him when he tells them of his situation.
Ken doesn’t know how his father died; all he knows is that he died before he was born and that his mother worked really hard to support him. He didn’t have any relatives, and if he did, they probably disowned his mother for being a single parent. At nine, the only family member he knew was taken away from him.
And now Aragaki might get taken away from him, too. It’s been more than two months—chances of recovery are extremely slim and it’s going to take nothing short of a miracle to bring him back.
Aragaki may not have been family but he still took care of Ken as if he was. He made sure he was fed, always had his back in Tartarus, and made him happy those few times they got to hang out with each other. Ken treasures those moments.
“It’s me again,” Ken says as soon as he slides the door open. Aragaki is looking thinner than he remembers. It’s still weird seeing him hooked up to all of those machines.
“Sanada-san benched me because I fainted in Tartarus,” he explains. “I know what you’d say if you could talk. You’d probably give me the same speech he did telling me to take care of myself better.”
Ken attempts to do his best impression of Aragaki. “Like, ‘that was stupid as shit of you, Amada. What would you do if Aki wasn’t there to help, huh?’” It doesn’t come out the way Ken hoped. His voice is squeaky, a polar opposite compared to Aragaki’s gruff tenor.
“... that was an awful impression. I wish you’d at least laugh at it,” Ken says with a huff.
Still, Aragaki doesn’t stir.
“Do you remember when you caught that goldfish for me during the festival?” Ken asks. “I’ve been taking care of it. I still keep it in the dorm and Sanada has been helping me with the fish food. Koromaru almost knocked the fishbowl over when he ran into my room to play, but thankfully it only wobbled before settling down.”
Ken thinks about the time a couple of months before his mother had passed when he asked about having a pet only to understandably be turned down. Now, he has both Koromaru and his fish.
(He should probably name the fish at some point, he realizes.)
“I hope you and I can go to the culture festival again next year. I hope we can do lots of fun things together once the Dark Hour ends.”
There’s a knock at the door, and it’s the nurse ready to change the dressing on Aragaki’s wounds. It’s Ken’s cue to go home for the night, he’s pretty sure he’s overstayed the hospital’s visitor policy anyway.
On New Year’s Day, coming back from the Naganaki Shrine, Sanada asks if Ken would like to join him in visiting Aragaki. Reluctantly, Ken says yes.
He doesn’t talk much during the visit, instead letting Sanada talk until his throat becomes sore. It’s interesting to hear Sanada reminisce over his memories.
Even before Ken’s mother died, Ken didn’t have many friends. People who wanted to play with him would still ostracize him once they found out he didn’t have both of his parents. Ken wasn’t sure which was worse in his peers’ eyes: having only one parent or neither of his parents.
He loved spending his childhood with his mother at the parks and tagging along on her grocery trips, but he still felt envious that Sanada and Aragaki have been so close for so long.
Aragaki and Sanada didn’t have easy childhoods either, having been orphans since before Ken was born. Sanada had to deal with the pain of losing his little sister who barely even made it to first grade before losing her life in a fire.
Ken always wondered why Aragaki cared about him so much when he didn’t have to, especially considering Aragaki killed his mother, but he thinks he gets it now. Aragaki knows how tough it is being alone as a child. It’s a time where kids are supposed to maintain their innocence, and yet both Aragaki’s and Ken’s had been ripped away from them a long time ago.
Before he knows it, Ken hears Sanada clear his throat and the chair grate against the floor as he pushes it aside.
“Happy New Year, Shinji,” Sanada tells Aragaki, patting his shoulder. “You gotta wake up soon; how much longer are you gonna be a stubborn ass and keep everyone waiting?” He lets out a breath. “Well, no matter. You know we’ll be back soon.”
“Bye, Aragaki-san,” Ken croaks out. “See you later.”
Neither Ken nor Sanada say anything on the way back to the dorms, but Sanada has his arm wrapped around Ken the entire time and it doesn’t take rocket science to know that they’re thinking the same thing.
Ken comes back to the hospital a few times during the month of January, but it’s different on January 31st knowing what lies ahead.
He prepares to say goodbye, in the event that he’ll lose his memory of the Dark Hour and his connection to Aragaki once Nyx has been defeated, but he can’t bring himself to do it.
Instead, Ken pretends that this is just like any other visit where he talks to Aragaki about his friends and Koromaru. He stays for as long as he can until Minato and Hamuko call to remind him the team has to meet up before they head into Tartarus.
“This isn’t goodbye, Aragaki,” Ken says confidently. “I won’t let it be goodbye. We’ll defeat Nyx and you’ll wake up. I won’t forget about you, and I know Sanada won’t forget you, too.”
And Ken was right, because the hospital calls Sanada right before the graduation ceremony to let him know that Aragaki is awake. They rush to the hospital as soon as possible, barging into Aragaki’s room to find him sitting up. True to Aragaki’s nature, he’s scowling as he stabs his fork into the food tray in front of him, but his face softens when he sees Sanada and Ken in front of him.
“Hey, Aki,” Aragaki rasps.
Sanada hugs him tightly, nearly knocking over the tray in the process, but Aragaki manages to push it aside just in time. The hug lasts for what seems like forever, but eventually breaks apart.
Aragaki looks at Ken. “C’mere, you,” he says, and Ken starts crying despite his promises to himself that he wouldn’t cry when the day came.
“You two were like flies buzzing around my ear with how often you guys kept talking and talking,” Aragaki tells them.
Sanada punches him in the arm, to which Aragaki winces. “Shut up, we missed you, ‘s all.”
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Ken says through tears.
Aragaki grins. “Yeah? Me too, kid. Me too.”