SHARPER || Chishiya Alice in Boarderland

-28- I need to find him

The street is chaos.

Arisu is bloodied, barely standing, his chest heaving like he's run for miles. Aguni is a wreck—his face is bruised, his body battered, but he's still upright, still breathing.

Takumi...

Where's Takumi?

My blood runs cold.

I scan the wreckage, my breath ragged, my vision blurring from exhaustion and pain. Where is he?

Usagi suddenly collapses beside me, her knees hitting the pavement hard.

"Usagi!" Arisu lunges forward, catching her before she falls completely.

But I stumble past them.

Takumi.

I need to find Takumi.

I push forward, shoving through debris, kicking aside broken glass, my heart pounding against my ribs.

And then—

I see him.

Slumped against a wall, his hands fumbling with a bloodied cloth, trying to tie it around his arm.

There's metal sticking out of it.

"Takumi!"

His head snaps up, dazed, his pupils blown wide with adrenaline. Then, as if he only now registers the pain, he lets out a wheezing laugh.

"Yuki! Holy shit, you won't believe what happened."

I drop to my knees beside him, ignoring the pain, focusing only on his wound. "Are you—Takumi, what the hell happened to you?!"

He waves a shaky hand, still grinning, still too hyped up on shock to feel the full extent of his injuries.

"Okay, okay, listen—so we were gassing up the drugstore, right? Arisu told me to do more, so of course, I did, but then he comes back running like a maniac, yelling 'it's happening soon!' so I got ready, but then—holy fuck, Yuki—the King of Spades just walks in like he owns the place and the bomb doesn't work and I swear to god, I thought we were dead."

I rip a piece of fabric from my already ruined shirt, gritting my teeth as I inspect his arm.

Takumi keeps talking, his words rapid, barely pausing to breathe.

"But then—boom—Aguni comes in, looking like he crawled out of a fucking horror movie, blood everywhere—everywhere, Yuki—I swear he wasn't even human anymore. And then they fought, and we—holy shit—we jumped from a fucking window, and Arisu just—threw the bomb and Aguni shot it mid-air and it exploded and I fell and now I'm here and oh my god, Yuki, it was CRAZY."

He finally pauses, chest heaving.

I nod along, trying to keep him calm while I press a makeshift bandage to his arm.

Then, in one swift motion—I pull the rusty metal out.

Takumi screams.

"FUCK—YUKI—"

"Sorry, sorry," I mutter, pressing the cloth harder to stop the bleeding.

He hisses, head slamming back against the wall, his entire body trembling from the pain.

After a few seconds, his breathing evens out—and then he finally looks at me.

Really looks at me.

And his grin disappears.

"...Shit." His voice is quieter now.

I blink at him. "What?"

"You look like hell." His eyes scan my face, my bloodied arms, the gashes on my waist and legs. His expression shifts from shock to concern in an instant. "Yuki, what the fuck—"