We Are Similar

Memories pt5

Moving on to the next memory, they didn't expect to end up in a hospital room. They spotted a familiar duo, but very young and in hospital clothes. The small boy was on a chair, swinging his legs as he read the book he placed on the bed. The girl was asleep, but she was twitching every now and then.

Ban blinked. "Jin, is that..."

He nodded. "Yeah. It's just a couple of weeks after the incident."

"What incident?" At Asuka's question, Ban, Jin, Yuuya and even Hiro cringed.

"... We'll talk about that later." The red eyed boy finally replied. "Now, we-"

"Oh hey, you're up!" His younger self cheered when the blonde girl rubbed her eyes and yawned.

"Mmhm... Hiya..." She yawned again. Then she brightened up. "Did you bring them?"

He beamed and reached for the basket he had under his legs. "A whole lot of them!"

She opened the basket excitedly and all kinds of different flowers could be seen. "Perfect! I'll start making one then... Or, do you want me to teach you too?"

He shook his head. "No, it's okay. My hands still shake a lot. Maybe next time."

"Aww okay." She began to work on making flower crowns. Not a minute later that she started another conversation. "I heard from the doctors that your roommate was taken away?"

"Ah... Yeah..." He hummed. "Maybe he got adopted."

"If that's the case, then good for him." She smiled. "I hope you don't get lonely though."

"No way!" He grinned. "I still have you, so everything's great!"

"This is so sweet..." Ami sighed. A lot of the girls agreed in a similar fashion, aside Niara, who just continuously jabbed Triton from the back.

"Let's just look for that key." He didn't know if he was blushing, but he probably was. Either way, that wasn't important. Seeing all these memories, good or bad, it made them happy. But they can't forget why they were here. Their priority is to save Eva. Touching on a finished flower crown, Triton disappeared.

~~~~~

They landed in another car. The same blonde girl was there, humming happily with her brother beside her, reading something on his tablet. Watching this from the screen, Hugo tensed up.

"What do you want for dinner?" His younger self asked the small blonde.

She turned from the window towards him, smiling brightly. "Curry!"

He chuckled. "Curry it shall be."

"So this is Eva's side of the incident..." Ban muttered. He expected a response from Jin or Yuuya, but neither of them did.

Triton was staring out the back window, watching the car just behind them. It's been ten years since the bridge fell, meaning it's been ten years since he last saw his parents smiling as they were right now. Liu Bei was in front of another window, staring at his younger self as well. After all those years of being an experiment, he had completely forgotten his parents' faces.

"You mentioned it again." Ran stated. "What happened exactly?"

Ban swallowed nervously. "Well, see... Ten years ago-"

He was cut off when the ground shook. Suddenly, the car stopped moving. The driver had problems moving forward and back.

"W-What's going on?!" Jessica panicked.

"Hey, look!" Kazu pointed at a fireman by the car behind them.

He lifted the younger Jin out from the window of the car before running to a barricade made by the police officers. The smaller Eva saw what happened and turned to her brother to ask, but Hugo had grabbed her and held her close to him. Right then, the bridge fell.

They all braced for impact, but when the ground hit and they realized none of them were hurt, they remembered it was all a memory. Ami suddenly screamed.

In front of Pandora were the siblings. Eva was unconscious and they could see part of her head was bleeding. On the other hand, Hugo had a pool of blood under him. A piece of the bridge had fallen down on top of him, piercing his chest. It was safe to assume that he had died. This was the first time for many of them to see a dead body in person.

Without getting another chance to react, the memory shifted itself and they were suddenly above the bridge again. There, they found the boy being held back by that same firefighter, calling out for his parents.

Inside his pod, Jin gripped on the controls tighter. His tension got worse when the media began to surround his younger self. He remembered just how afraid he was when he saw his parents fell and just how frustrated and panicked the media caused him to be. That was when, exactly how this memory was playing, Kaidou Yoshimitsu saved him. He blocked the media from taking any more pictures and he lifted the child into his car, driving off towards the hospital.

"That... was..." Hiro was speechless. As were the rest of them. Only now did they, especially Ban, Ami, Kazuya and everyone else involved in the Innovator Incident, understand why Jin was with Kaidou at the start.

The memory shifted again and now they were inside of the car. The little boy hadn't stopped crying, no doubt still thinking about his parents, but a pat on the head caught his attention.

"How sad." The elder male smiled at him. "You're not the only one who's suffered. I'll be your family. So don't cry anymore."

Most of them were in tears, if not feeling bad for their friend. None of them commented until Odin Mk2 took a step towards Triton. "Jin..."

"... We need to find that key." His voice was cold and stiff, but they knew it wasn't because of them.

He himself wasn't so sure about what it would be. They spent a couple of minutes searching before the car pulled over. The little boy had stayed back and watched as Kaidou told him to wait and went out of the car. They looked out the open door and found paramedics rushing about. It appears they were at the bottom of the bridge.

One of them had a stretcher, carrying an unconscious young Yuuya. He didn't seem to have gotten too injured, only a few scratches and bruises. Putting down his mug, the younger Jin swallowed as he watched the bodies get carried into different cars. He wasn't sure which one it was, but two of them have got to be his parents. He made a move to head out,  but hesitated when another stretcher passed them by, this time carrying younger Eva, who had suffered much worse. Now in a bit of light, they could see just how badly her head was damaged and they understood why she needed the Optima, even if it was just a prototype. Seeing the small pool of blood under her head, he jumped back in and hugged his knees.

Jin felt sick when he saw his younger self's reaction. He had forgotten about that. That was the only time in his life that he felt grateful... That it wasn't him instead of her.