There's too much angst in the world, let's write happy fluff instead, I said and then proceeded to do the complete opposite. Oops?

EDIT: This entire story has been written and, hopefully, improved. Please do leave your thoughts.

Disclaimer: ERASED or Boku Dake ga Inai Machi belongs to Kei Sanabe.

It happened as soon as Fujinuma Satoru's body was found submerged in one of the numbingly cold rivers of Hokkaido. Sachiko, Satoru's lovely and hardworking mother, had called the Kobayashi household late in the middle of the night, and tiredly requested that Kenya, Satoru's best friend - or at least Kenya liked to hope and believe that they were best friends - take notes for her son at school the following day, for he would not be attending. Kenya agreed of course, but he couldn't help but feel as though something was seriously off. It's moments like these where he's glad he's so perceptive. If he weren't, he probably would never have noticed the hesitation in her words as she spoke, or how she seemed to be on the brink of tears. For all the years he's gotten to get to know Sachiko when he would hang out with Satoru, she's never broken down or sworn in front of them, not once. With this, alarm bells began to incessantly ring inside his head. He knew instantly, without a doubt, that something was wrong and that it involved his best friend. At this profound revelation, worry swelled up inside his gut. Plus, Satoru always told him and the gang when he wouldn't make it beforehand if he could, and based on when he saw Satoru last, when they were parting ways, he didn't look the slightest bit sick, but then again, he's no doctor. But still. Besides Satoru not looking the least bit sick, there was their recent detective work. Satoru would never miss a day with what's been going on. And if he were skipping to continue his detective work because he found a good lead, he would have told Kenya and they would've worked together. They're partners after all. Satoru would have said something!

...Right?

Shaking his head to rid himself of all his scrambled and, he hated to admit it, self-doubting thoughts, he decided to make an innocent inquiry before Sachiko hung up. After all, if he wanted answers to abate his fears and to tell him if he should actually be worrying like he is now, then he would have to ask the only person who did know what was going on with Satoru. "Ms. Fujinuma? Why won't Satoru be at school tomorrow?"

There was a long moment of hesitant pause where Sachiko seemed to be debating on what to tell Kenya, giving him all the more reason to feel nervous and have the small hairs on the back of his neck stand up in dread. He refused to let his thoughts go spiraling into another scrambled mess as he tried to figure out just what the hell happened without having all the details, so instead he remained quiet and nervously shifted from foot to foot in await of an answer. An answer containing the truth he hoped.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, but could really only have been a few seconds, minutes at most, Sachiko finally came to a decision and began to speak once more. Kenya strained his ears, feeling like if he didn't really listen, he would never hear what happened. What Kenya did end up hearing made his stomach drop. "...He's been-Satoru's been admitted to the hospital."

Kenya's breath caught in this throat and his eyes widened significantly midst his panic. He couldn't breathe; it felt like a hand had shoved its way into his chest and began squeezing his heart. He couldn't even logically think, let alone give a response. Only one word was repeating itself over and over like a broken record in his head; Satoru.

"A-Admitted to the hospital? Why? What happened?! Is Satoru alright?!" When Kenya gained control over his voice and thought process again, he found himself not caring about anything else except for whether Satoru was going to be okay. With each word that came out of his mouth, his volume would raise, something uncharacteristic of Kenya, for he never rose his voice. He knew that, but couldn't find it in himself to care. He didn't care when his parents poked their head into the hallway where the home phone was located with concern and worry prominently etched into their faces, or if he was at risk of waking up his younger sister or the neighbors. He just didn't care. He didn't care, okay? All that matters to him right here and right now is Satoru and whether or not he'll be okay God damn it.

Somewhere deep inside Kenya, he knew that whatever had happened to Satoru to warrant him being in a hospital was both the imaginary - although Kenya knew they weren't really imaginary, no matter what Satoru said to convince him and their small group of friends otherwise - killer that they've been chasing lately and his own fault. Satoru must have done something to uncover who exactly the killer was and then gotten himself in trouble.

By himself.

Alone.

Vulnerable.

Scared.

Kenya knew he should have been there with him, like he had promised to when they agreed to be partners that day on the steps at school. He felt that if he had tagged along, then Satoru wouldn't be in the hospital right now. He wouldn't have had to suffer alone. All Kenya knew for sure was that he should have been there. Partners were supposed to stick together no matter the circumstances. Every breath he took, a new wave of guilt seemed to spread and the burning watery sensation in his eyes seemed to strengthen.

"Satoru... He-He was found submerged in the river. He was locked in a car that had all of its windows rolled down. His seatbelt was... His seatbelt was tampered with, so it got stuck and... And they think someone tried to drown him-" She broke off, voice cracking, as she sharply inhaled. She paused to take a minute to recollect herself and in that minute, Kenya never felt so horrible. Satoru's condition was serious. Sachiko, the woman he came to think of as a second mother and absolutely adored, never sounded this heartbroken or beaten down before. It broke his heart even more.

"I don't know much on his conditions right now. The doctors have him in the Emergency Room and are doing everything they can to take care of him as we speak. I'll let you know when I have more information, okay Kenya?"

Kenya blinked his eyes repeatedly, desperately trying to will his tears not to shed, which turned out to be far more difficult than he ever imagined, "Which hospital? I'll head over immediately—"

Sachiko must have been able to hear the pure anguish in his voice, for she cut him off without hesitation. Knowing her, she probably couldn't bear hearing him sound so heartbroken and defeated. Guess the two of them were a lot more alike than they originally thought. "Don't. Satoru wouldn't want you, or anyone for that matter, worrying about him. You know how he is," A lot like you, he thought. "And it's late, Kenya. You should get some sleep. Maybe I should have waited and called you in the morning or after school. I'm sorry." Quietly, she mumbled the rest to herself like she didn't want him to hear, the only reason he did manage to hear what she had said was because he had been straining his ears to begin with, "I just wanted to tell someone that I knew sincerely cared about him."

"Please, Ms. Fujinuma. Let me go over there. I need to be there. I want to make sure he's okay. It's my fault after all. If I had gone with him then this would've never happened. Please—" Kenya rushed out in his panic, once again acting so uncharacteristically.

"Don't you dare blame yourself, Kenya! This wasn't your fault! It wasn't yours, mine, Satoru's or anyone's except for that damn bastard who did this to my son!" He was taken aback by her loud angry tone and by her use of foul language, it was a first after all. Tonight is a first for a lot of things, it seems. "We'll catch that son of a bitch and make him pay. I promise you, Kenya." If the situation weren't so messed up, he'd probably have laughed at how it seemed that she was the one comforting him, when it should have been the other way around. "You can come and visit Satoru later, but for now, please just get some rest. Please. I want at least one of us to get some well-deserved sleep."

Kenya remained silent before he, albeit hesitantly, nodded his head, before embarrassingly remembering that she couldn't see him through the receiver, "Alright. But I'll be there first thing in the morning, so you might as well tell me which hospital."

Once Kenya had managed to successfully wrestle the name of the hospital Satoru was staying at out of Sachiko, he placed the phone back down to end the call, gave his parents a brief glance and told them he was fine, before quickly retiring to his room. He lay back on his bed, trying to fall asleep as soon as possible so that he could see Satoru sooner, a childish expectation he knew. He just laid there, thoughts racing around his head and preventing him from getting any sleep. After a while, he got fed up so he stood and began pacing back and forth, trying to make some sort of sense of his thoughts. This is all my fault. I'm so sorry, Satoru, he repeatedly thought as he went back and forth restlessly. He could no longer stand it anymore and collapsed back onto his bed, allowing all the pent up emotion to take control of him as he sobbed into his pillow, acting more and more like the child he knew he was. And he hated it. He could act mature and like an adult all he wanted, but he would still be a powerless kid. He hated being a powerless kid who couldn't even save or help their best-friend when they needed him the most. Instead of having done something, or even doing something right now to help, he was locked up in bedroom, unharmed and crying.

I sure am pathetic, aren't I, Satoru?

That night, neither Sachiko nor Kenya got to sleep that night.

Kenya was dressed and ready to go as soon as the first few rays of light shone through his curtained window. Not one person in the Kobayashi household was awake yet, except for him. He knew he couldn't just leave without saying anything so he quickly jotted down that he'd be at the hospital with Ms. Fujinuma on a sticky note and stuck it onto the fridge, where he knew his parents would see it, before slipping on his shoes and rushing out into the cold morning air. As soon as his front door was locked, he began to run. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him all the way to the hospital where Satoru had been admitted to the night before, right after his accident, no not accident, after his attempted murder. Kenya desperately wanted to get there as soon as possible in order to see Satoru and the damage to his best-friend for himself. Breathlessly, he skidded to a stop in front of the counter where a young nurse sat, looking startled by his sudden entrance and wincing at his collision with the counter, however he ignored the sting of his collision and asked the nurse which room the Fujinuma's were situated in. Impatiently, he tapped his fingers against the marble as she typed Satoru's name into the keyboard and made clicks here and there, searching for his file in their database. Her search felt aggravatingly slow, making him want to scream at her to hurry up, but he refrained knowing that it'd be impolite and she didn't deserve disrespect, so early in the morning too. Once she finally gave him the room number, he gave her his thanks and took off once again, barging into Satoru's room immediately.

Once his eyes landed on Satoru, his entire body froze in shock. Satoru was just lying there, as still and pale as a lifeless corpse, hooked up to all these machines Kenya had only ever read about in books, the slow rise and fall of his chest the only assurance that he was, indeed, alive.

"He's in a coma." Satoru's mother had quietly added to the silence, glancing at Kenya who stood at the foot of Satoru's hospital bed, wearing an expression of pure horror and disbelief on his face as he tightly gripped the railing at the end of the bed, causing his knuckles to turn deathly white. If Kenya had been capable of tearing his gaze away from Satoru, he would have noticed the growing bags underneath her eyes as well as the dried up tear stains.

"...For how long?"

Sachiko kept her eyes directed down on her son's peacefully sleeping face, hand placed on top of his, "We don't know. They say he might not wake up at all..."

Kenya briskly walked over to Satoru's bedside, opposite of the one where Sachiko sat and intertwined his and Satoru's hands, similar to how she had done on the other side. His tears came creeping back upon contact with Satoru's utterly cold hand, very different from how they used to be; very warm just like the bright grins Satoru had flashed him so often. This… this was something completely different and Kenya didn't like the new change. He didn't like it one bit. "He'll wake up. He's Satoru, he has to."

Sachiko sniffed, "You're right. He'll be up and smiling, being the hero he is in no time." Her voice cracked before she could finish her sentence, but Kenya chose to ignore it out of respect.

I really am useless, huh? Forgive me, Satoru...

For the next fifteen years, Kenya visited nearly every day and he never lost hope. In preparation for the day when Satoru did finally wake up, Kenya kept note of all the events that happened during his absence in a book that he would give to him once he woke up. He took notes for Satoru this way, like Sachiko had asked him to. During the fifteen years, as both he and Sachiko suffered with the loss while the others moved on with their lives, he learned something one day as he was watching Satoru sleep. He learned that at some point, when they were both still eleven years old or maybe it happened at some point throughout his coma, he didn't know for sure when it happened, but he did know this. He had fallen in love with Fujinuma Satoru and he didn't regret it.

This was just a quick drabble. It was kinda how I pictured Kenya reacting to the news, a scared, depressed, and guilty wreck. This was really just me trying to get a feel for the characters though, even if only two characters actually showed up.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Please do leave me a review, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Constructive criticism is welcome too!