Hark, how the bells
sweet, silver bells
all seem to say
throw cares away;
Christmas is here,
bringing good cheer
to young and old,
meek and the bold.
"Caroling?" Aoba asked incredulously.
"Yeah, caroling. We gotta head over to the hospital soon," Koujaku declared, wrapping his scarf around his neck.
"Why didn't anybody tell me we were going caroling?" Aoba continued, following Koujaku out the door with the rest of the choir.
"Well, you weren't here last week. You were sick, remember? We talked all about it."
"You know I hate hospitals and I hate being around-around..." Aoba stuttered and trailed off.
Koujaku stopped, nearly letting Aoba run into him. "I understand, Aoba, I really do. But we're not doing this to specifically torture you, you know."
"It's just so..." Aoba tried, and Koujaku beat him to it.
"It's so depressing and desolate there and I know you hate it, but please just keep your shit together for a couple hours for me, yeah?"
And with a flourish of their long, black coats and the fluttering of sheet music being ruffled by the frigid air, the two choir members made their way out the door of the music room and into the waiting cars.
The director didn't want to disturb any of the patients that may need extra rest or may not even want to be cheered, so the choir did their caroling at various common rooms, which were actually pretty nice. It was the walking through the hallways that nearly caused Aoba to hyperventilate. It smelled of too much industrial cleaner - covering blood -
- his feet pounding on thin, cheap tile and his breath coming in quick gasps, chest burning and tears spilling down his cheeks. He shoved open the door of the ER and sprinted down the rows of hospital beds - where were they?! Where were they?! -
"I need to use the bathroom!" Aoba gasped, clapping a hand over his mouth and ignoring the concerned glances Koujaku and Clear shot him. He made a beeline for the nearest lavatory and emptied his stomach into a toilet.
He spent a few moments just leaning over the toilet, bracing himself against the walls of the stall and breathing shallowly, trying to stave off more nausea. He'd just made it to the sink to rinse his mouth of the acid and digested food taste when someone addressed him.
"Weak stomach?"
In the mirror Aoba spied a teenager behind him. He wore black and green, and had short and scruffy blonde hair. He was toying with a holographic rubik's cube and the most prominent feature he had besides the numerous silver barbells sticking out all over his face were the huge black bags he had under his eyes.
"Something like that, yeah," Aoba muttered, drying his mouth off with paper towels. "I think I gotta get back to my group."
"You were the ones caroling earlier," the teen said, and it definitely wasn't a question.
"Yeah."
"You guys sang a song that nearly put me to sleep," he continued bluntly, "which is really impressive."
"Impressive how?" Aoba asked curiously.
"Insomnia. Haven't had a wink of sleep in the past two days," the boy finished in what Aoba now identified as a very, very tired voice.
"That's rough, dude."
"Yeah, it's not very fun."
There was a very long pause and suddenly Aoba got an idea. "Do you want me to sing for you? I mean, I know it won't have the same effect of the full choir, but it might help you a little?"
The kid considered it for a moment before replying, "Sure, why not. Nothing to lose at this point, right?"
Noiz. The poor insomniac kid's name was Noiz. He said he was from Germany, though he didn't have a hint of an accent. He'd revealed that he'd gotten nerve damage from a procedure designed to help with scoliosis when he was little, so on top of his insomnia and scoliosis he also couldn't feel stimuli unless they were really intense.
Aoba's heart went out to the kid, who honestly couldn't even be a few years younger than himself.
Once Noiz was comfortable in his hospital bed and had removed his impressively flashy shoes, Aoba told him to do whatever he normally did when he was trying to fall asleep. Then, Aoba began to sing Silent Night, followed by The First Nöel and an extraordinarily slow version of the Carol of the Bells. Aoba supposed anything could be a lullaby if it was in a major key and was slow enough.
At some point during the second verse of Carol of the Bells, Noiz's eyes had closed and the teen had fallen asleep. The problem was, he had fallen asleep clutching at Aoba's hand like it was a lifeline.
Aoba Seragaki, who hated hospitals more than anything in the whole world, gently kissed Noiz's forehead and decided to stay by the side of this poor blond insomniac until he woke up, which for the first time in Noiz's life wasn't until the next morning.
It was Christmas, after all.
