『 drowning 』

prologue

A pair of sleepy, magenta eyes blearily opened, straining against the unexpectedly bright lights. ...What happened? He looked around him, finding his head somewhat restrained; he couldn't look directly to either side of him. And what was on his neck?

There was something strapped over his mouth too, pumping oxygen into the boy's lungs so he wouldn't have to. He was... Strapped to some kind of bed. His vision focused on the white blur in front of him, revealing a professional-looking man with a clipboard. Looking around him, the blonde realized that he was being pushed somewhere. And... Wait, was that Rei? A masked face with dark blue hair was being whisked away on a stretcher, EMTs pushing him along and calling out to each other. Nagisa couldn't understand a word any of them were saying- everything was just... Silent. Was he deaf now?

His eyes snapped open. Th-that's right... They had gotten into an accident, and obviously it ended up being pretty serious.

"R-Rei," the blonde whispered desperately, his voice hoarse.

Rei!

The blonde made an attempt to sit up for a better look- that couldn't have been him, right? But tightly-bound straps restrained him to the stretcher that carried him down the hall.

"Rei!" he cried out weakly. No sign of acknowledgement was given. Fantastic.

The white noise that filled his ears cleared out as he made out the doctor's words.

"It looks like he's regained consciousness," a professional-looking woman said, peering at him over her clipboard. "Take him to an exam room. Make sure the other young man is set in a room with life support. We have no idea how long his body will be able to provide proper support; there's a chance his vitals could drop any moment."

Nagisa barely understood any of that in his hazy state, and before he could ask the doctor to please clarify, he was whisked down a hallway in the opposite direction. The blonde tried to tilt his head back enough to catch a final glimpse of Rei, only to realize it wasn't him.