Walking down the brightly lit and overly clean hallways, Miwa's footstep echoed. It hadn't been the first time he had traversed down this very corridor. In fact, he had been coming often lately, but it still did not make hospital visits any more cheerful. He sighed, frustrated. He wished his friend could get discharged soon, and return back to school where they would be able to go back to their daily lives.
Thankfully, it was just a few more days until then.
Footsteps slowed down upon reaching a door. Miwa tried to put up his best smile, and sucked a breath in. In no way was he going to go in showing Kai a sour face. Reluctantly, he opened the door, and popped his head in.
"Yo, Kai, how are you doing?"
The occupant within looked over from the bed, a stoic expression covering his face. "Fine," the brunette replied, and turned to look out of the windows again, seemingly absorbed in watching the clouds float by idly overhead. The rustling of a plastic bag filled the room. When Kai turned around, he found ruby apples sitting on the table beside his bed.
A look of both guilt and irritation crossed his face upon seeing it. "You didn't have to."
"Be quiet." Miwa chided. "I bought these specifically for you, don't you dare turn it down." Recalling the sink sitting at the side of the room, he picked one of the apples and settled a slightly blunt knife beside the stand. "You want some?"
Kai nodded. He doesn't have much say in the matter in regards to food. Not when he has been become so unnaturally thin as a result of his own actions, no less. Kai's guilt felt like a balloon that inflated whenever someone visits him in the hospital offering edible items. He should have taken care of himself more - no, - should have not been so stupid in the first place. It had been his own fault that he ended up collapsing in his own home, and would have ended up even worse if not for Miwa's mother hen-ing tendency.
He still remembered waking, hooked to IVs and machines. Surrounding him in a circle, the group from Cardfight Capital gathered around him, and he remembered a handful of worried voices calling him things like 'idiot'. Having no strength to refute, he could only take their statements while staring at them. A little while after the commotion, no one said anything that night. Somewhere in that same heap of hazy, jumbled memories, he recalled his uncle arriving much later, worriedly talking to the doctor. He didn't have the strength to even explain much of anything to his uncle whom was standing in as his legal guardian that night.
"You should really take care of yourself more, you know?" Miwa sat beside the bed, taking up the knife and carefully peeling off the skin with it with speed and ease.
"I know."
"You had us worried."
"You all say that every time each one of you visits."
"But we were. How could anyone end up collapsing in their house from exhaustion mainly because they weren't eating enough?" Miwa sighed, pinching his temples, balancing the knife within his fingers. "You scared the living hell out of us."
Kai returned his attention to the windows. He knows that he had gotten physically weaker, his looking visibly thinner as compared to what it was months ago. It was a gradual change that hadn't went by unnoticed to the people he hung around with. He had been called out several times for it but he had been unconsciously making himself avoid any adequate nourishment. Needless to say, it led to the current circumstances he was in. Everyone had visited Kai, even Ren and Tetsu, but only Miwa came every single day, treating the occasion as if they were hanging out as usual.
He briefly wonders why Miwa was so committed; the male had not missed even a single day. He still couldn't help but be guilty, because it was the blonde who had been keeping an eye out for him, but yet Kai had failed his friend by making him worry even more.
The peel of the red fruit came off in a neat, long strip. It wasn't long before Miwa moved on to cutting the apples humming a little tune while doing so.
"Apples are done, Kai." Miwa said as he lifted the plate holding the sliced apples. He got no response from the other male. Picking up a piece, he waved it around in the air, trying to get attention. "Hey? Kai? I said the apples are done. Or… would you preferred it if I fed you?" He gave a grin. "Say 'aaah…'"
"No," came the immediate reply. Kai reached out a hand and snatched the piece sitting in between Miwa's fingers in a flash, and proceeded to consume it. If he had knew any better, the look on Miwa's face had suggested that the blonde was really going to hand feed the apples to Kai, by force if necessary. He would like to avoid that scenario – he wasn't a child, after all.
Still, Miwa didn't feel like playing charades any longer. The conversations he had tried to hold for past several days led Miwa to dead ends, and as much as he had wanted to help his friend, he couldn't. The way Miwa sees it, he wasn't even given a chance; Kai had shut himself in, silence reinforcing his refusal to let the other help. Miwa, however, was having none of that today. "I'm still waiting for you to tell me what has been bothering you." Miwa stated his objective. "I've been waiting for several days now, isn't it about time you told me?"
Kai continued munching anyway, ignoring his friend's attempt to reach out to him.
But Miwa was getting desperate.
"Listen, Kai, I'm not a psychic, I can't read your mind. If you don't say anything, I can't help you."
No response.
Miwa groaned. "Hey, friends help each other, right? Am I not a friend to you, after all these years?"
Kai visibly flinched upon hearing those words.
"It's not like that," a faint twinge of anxiety stemming from guilt painted his speech. It was not lost to attentive ears.
"What then? I can tell that something is bothering you, but you're not willing to say anything about it at all." Miwa almost yelled, but he didn't. "Let me in, Kai."
Silence quickly replaced the room. Kai looked downwards to the white bed sheets covering his lower half. He might as well let it all out, he thought. It was only Miwa, a person who has never once betrayed him even after all these years. Perhaps pride was getting the best of him.
Reluctantly, he spoke. "I… was getting left behind." Emerald eyes glanced downwards.
Miwa disagreed, feeling somewhat relieved that he had finally succeeded. "You aren't."
"No, I am." Kai turned, their eyes making contact. "Ren has Foo Fighter, a group of recruits who have made it to the finals. Tetsu's helping Ren in training them. Team Q4 has worked hard and won the finals, with Aichi as the champion. Everyone has accomplished something." He rambled. "Aichi has his own friends and share of rivals. I'm not even a decent challenge to him anymore. They've all surpassed me somewhere along the way, even though I should be ahead of them from the start."
The confession came quick and simple, but…
He was… depressed?
It would explain a lot.
"You're not getting left behind." Miwa placed his hand over Kai's, trying to give him a sense of assurance. "Haven't I been following you around all these time?"
"Haven't I been constantly checking up on you?" Miwa inched his face closer, overstepping the unspoken boundary of personal space. He locked gazes with Kai, making sure he sent his message across.
"Sorry."
The apology was simple, but it felt like Miwa had finally gotten through to the other.
"At times like these, you should say 'thank you', Kai."
"Thank... you." He uttered, but the words felt foreign, rolling awkwardly off his tongue.
Miwa grinned at that, and shoved the plate of apples back into Kai's hand. "Now then, hospital food is bland; you're better off eating other things outside. So hurry up and get discharged, alright? It's been a while since we last went to the shop. Everyone's waiting for you."
Kai stared at the apples blankly. They sat there innocently, and to Kai, seemed like they have turned into a ticket back to the world outside. One where there's people waiting. He knew about that, but somehow when Miwa had reassured that they were in fact, patiently waiting for him to return, everything suddenly felt a little better.
"Also," Miwa started, scratching the side of his right cheek with a finger, "I'll be by your side too, you know..?"
The brunette blinked.
"I mean that… I'll be there if you need… That is…" Miwa stumbled, trying to grasp for those words to explain himself, but it seemed impossible to express it without making the statement sound embarrassing. Frowning, he ran a hand through his hair. "Argh, jeez, quit staring! Don't make me say that kind of things out loud, you know what I mean! Eat your apples!"
Surprise set in when Miwa saw the look on Kai's face. He smiled too, feeling as if he had finally done something worthwhile as friend.
You're welcome, you idiot.