Hataraku Saibou RedxWhite

Chapter three

It felt like hours for Red, like she had cried, until there were no more tears left, that she could shed. Her voice was hoarse from her shouting and crying in vain.

But only mere minutes had passed.

Red's gaze was slowly wandering to the pile of dead bacteria. Still in a state of shock, she stared blankly at it, denying what just had happened. Then suddenly something changed.

In disbelief, her eyes loomed over the pile. The other neutrophils followed her gaze.

The cause of said disbelief were barely audible curses. They got louder and louder with each second that passed. And if that wasn't concerning enough, the pile began to shift slightly at one point.

Until one pale hand popped out, shortly followed by a second one. In a futile attempt, the hand's tried to move the bodies away, but failed miserably, flailing helplessly around.

Apruptly the hand's stopped moving, almost as if whatever tried to dig it's way out, was giving up at the attempt to get free.

"..... Someone there?" a muffled voice could be heard. The same voice that Red and all the others could hear shouting curses until the hand's showed up. Only considerably louder now.

"...... I know you're there! Great friends you are!" now the muffled deep voice got angry.

At that point, Red was sure, that it was White calling out, because she had memorized his voice and could recognize him out of thousands other sounds. And obviously, he was the only one buried underneath a lot of bacteria. But her mind wouldn't let her proceed to process that miracle.

".... You're having fun watching me right now, am I right!?" a short pause before he continued ".... Would you all be so kind and... GET ME THE FUCK OUTTA HERE! RIGHT! NOW!"

Oh, White was angry, but who wouldn't be if they were in the same situation.
At that point, some of the neutrophils rushed over to help get White out of his misery. While others started to relax and even laughed slightly at his outburst.

Red watched, as White's colleagues dug him out of the pile of dead bacteria. As they finally lifted the last body off of him, and Red saw White, her mind seemed to be done with processing the fact that, "in fact", he was alive.

Another neutrophil reached for White's hand, helped him stand up and started talking to him. Red also rose from her kneeling position and slowly moved towards White.

As she finally stood in front of him, Red was still staring at him in disbelief. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying so it was quite difficult for her to see him very clear.

"You... You are alive.", she quietly said with her broken voice. But it sounded more like a question, trembling from her lips. She feared that he could disappear for real, if she would have said it out louder than she did. Not that she could raise her voice and speak much louder right now.

Slowly and carefully, she placed her hand flat on his chest, quietly repeating her sentence to truly convince herself.

White's hard and angry face that was focused on his colleague until now, instantly grew soft as he noticed her. He carefully layed his hand on hers, which still rested on his chest.

"Shush girl. Of course, I'm alright." he answered her calmly.

To comfort Red even more, he squeezed her hand slightly, which made her shed even more tears.

"Hey. Hey... No need to cry." he smiled softly, patting her head.

Red sniffed and wiped her tears away with her palm. With a thin smile, she looked back at him and nodded her head.