ALICE IN BORDERLAND || HEADCANONS

If it happened differently. | Karube.

Blink.

Blink.

Karube had to blink countless times. He tried rubbing his eyes. He stared at the white ceiling above him for a little too long. What happened before he found himself laying on a hospital bed wearing the usual hospital gown.

He then remembered, Karube touched his neck. There was no collar in it. But he swear, he remembered and it felt real. The games, the collar... and Arisu.

He tried slowly sitting up. Karube is lost in his thoughts. How is he alive?

Everything felt real. The games felt real. Karube should've died but why did he found himself in a hospital room?

The door swung open and Chota entered with a smile on his face making Karube even more bewildered. Chota wore the same hospital gown as him, and he's on a wheelchair.

"Chota..." He silently gasps.

"I'm glad you're awake." Chota's smile never disappeared.

"I- I thought... What's happening?" There was desperation on Karube's hoarse and visibly tired voice.

But Chota was calm and soft, as if he didn't went to the same fate as Karube did. "Do you want to visit Arisu?"

"Arisu..?"

At this moment, Karube couldn't bear it anymore.

He found himself staring from a window. Karube stared at Arisu's unconscious laying body. Arisu's eyes were shut and he had a machine supporting his life.

"What happened?" He whispered to Chota, eyes still focused on Arisu.

"It seems like... when we died... at that place... we came back to the real world." Chota slowly explained.

"How..?" Karube asked, still unsatisfied with the answer.

"Apparently, that's how it is. Knowing that Arisu, he lived in that world... we just have to wait for him."

"How are you calm about this?" Karube asked again. He's surprised how calm Chota is with this matter.

"If I panic and tell them all about the shit that happened, they would've sent me to a mental hospital."

That made both of them laugh.

But that laughter died down. Karube doesn't know what to feel. He sacrificed his life for Arisu to live, only to discover that they're the ones who gets to live.

"Arisu..." He whispered, hoping for the unconscious man to hear even if it was clearly impossible.

Now, Karube watchand wait for Arisu to come back to the real world, to them.

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a/n: y'all this was my first theory when i watched s1 and i really held onto this bc i was hoping for karube to live:[