Time flew by during their vacation and soon, they only had two full days left before they had to pack up and leave. The day before, they had done a lot of shopping in the city. Makoto picked up souvenirs for his siblings. Haruka bought a dolphin for himself. It was made of glass and its blue-green color danced in the sunlight.
They spent their penultimate full day relaxing at the resort. Well, most of them relaxed. Nagisa wanted to try cliff diving. Naturally, he dragged Rei with him.
"This is a really dumb idea," Rei kept saying.
"I can't come all the way to Hawaii and not do something that I've always wanted to try," said Nagisa, "you don't have to jump if you don't want to." He looked back at Rei who was walking close behind him up the steep incline they were currently on, "well, as long as you go on the slide with me before we leave, that is," He smiled.
"Not that again," Rei sighed.
They reached the top of the cliff pretty quickly. The resort was behind them and to their right. It was sort of far from the beach, but they swore they could see Haruka and Makoto swimming close together in the water. They waved even though they knew there was no way they would see them. They walked to the edge.
"Wow, this really is quite high," Nagisa said.
There was a sign next to the edge that read:
Jump from this point ONLY!
It was written in the same, swirly font that the resort used for everything.
"If you're really going to do this, you have to jump from here," Rei pointed out, knowing that Nagisa was not observing the sign at all.
"But, this is really high up. There's another cliff down there. It's shorter," He pointed down to his left.
"Did you not expect it to be high up?" Rei questioned, and then looked around, "hey, there aren't any lifeguards or anything around. Maybe you shouldn't do this. Cliff diving must only be available certain times." He spotted another sign to his right with the same swirly font, leaning against a palm tree:
No jumping when lifeguards are not on duty!
"We should come back another time-" Rei said, but stopped when he realized that Nagisa was no longer standing there. He turned to his left just in time to see him standing at the edge of the shorter cliff. He grinned. Then, he jumped. "Nagisa!" Rei yelled. He sprinted to where he had just jumped from and looked down, worried. The waves crashed against the cliff walls, and there were extra ripples where Nagisa had landed. It didn't take Rei long to notice the rocks that were waiting at the bottom of the cliff.
"Nagisa!" He called again, but he didn't surface. Why didn't he look first? He thought. He stood there panicked for a few seconds, heart racing as he made a quick decision. He sprinted back to the tall cliff and didn't even hesitate. He jumped. It felt like an eternity before he hit the water.
He surfaced and immediately swam over to where Nagisa had landed. Luckily, the current wasn't strong today. The waves were relatively small. He called out his name again, but to no avail. He began ducking randomly under the water, until he felt something soft and pulled on it. He had managed to bring Nagisa's head out of the water. He wasn't responding. Rei felt like someone had stabbed him in the chest. He was exhausted, panicked, and couldn't see very well, as he had lost he glasses during the jump. Putting both arms around Nagisa, he flipped around and began kicking. He hoped that he wasn't too late.
It took awhile, but he eventually made it to the beach. He was tired, but he was also lucky that Nagisa didn't weigh a lot. He dragged Nagisa's unresponsive body onto the sand and nearly collapsed beside him. He took a moment to breathe before looking at friend. His eyes widened in shock. Nagisa's leg was covered in blood. He had a gash on his left thigh that wasn't clotting. He slowly put an ear to his chest, and was relieved to find that his heart was still beating. He was also breathing. It sounded weak. Rei managed a sigh of relief before he picked him up and ran towards the lifeguard. He was pretty far away, so Rei knew he couldn't just call out for help. Soon, when he was within earshot Rei called out, "help! Help me!" The lifeguard leapt out of his chair and ran over. Dozens of vacationers gasped, some screamed. It didn't take long before Haruka, Makoto, Kou, and Ama-sesei were standing next to him.
"What happened?" Rei heard them calling out, but all he could do was watch the lifeguard bandage Nagisa's profusely bleeding leg. He radioed for an ambulance. Rei wanted to go with him, but Ama-sensei said she should, as she was the only adult. Only once Nagisa was loaded in, with Ama-sensei in tow, did he collapse to the ground and tell everyone else the story. Halfway through, he realized he was crying.