Chapter 5

Month: May

A week later Shuichi, Yuki, Suguru and Sakano were on a plane headed for Japan. They'd been treated in hospital for slight dehydration and a few minor cuts and bruises. But all in all, they were claimed to be the luckiest bunch of survivors to the entire world. At least that is what the news said about them, but they certainly didn't feel like the luckiest survivors. Each was going home bearing scars, scars of terror from the plane crash and the loss of Hiroshi and K.

The coast guard promised they scoured the waters, but after hearing their tale of the crash, they were skeptical. Only after discovering that the plane had torn in two, sending them one way and Hiro and K in another, their hope of finding them became nil. And after having to wait out a vicious forty-eight hour storm, the likeness that they could've survived it made the experts call it quits three days later.

Hiro and K were pronounced dead.

A member of the coast guard had come to tell them that their plane had gone way off course, and that they'd actually crashed somewhere between Hawaii and Fiji. Miles upon miles of ocean stretched between those land masses. They were told that there was so much un-chartered territory out there that the odds of even finding them, was a miracle.

Somehow Shuichi wasn't ready to admit his friend's death. Even though he would go home and prepare for Hiro and K's funeral. With the deepest sorrow in his heart, Shuichi rested against Yuki and went home.

Only twice could a plane be heard in the sky, but not once did it come close enough to their island to see their smoke signal. After a few more days, no planes came by. It was obvious someone was looking for them but also evident they did not know where to look. Hiro tried not to think of his friends as dead, but rather lost. Still he felt the pain in his chest but it wasn't as bad as it was a week ago. That's right a whole week. He'd spent a whole fucking week on this deserted island!

Getting up he kicked a coconut down to the surf and cursed in frustration. "I want to go home!" Hiro cried.

K looked over at Hiro in a rage but he said nothing.

Hiro clenched and unclenched his fists; he looked over at K who was watching him silently. The man was finally starting to feel better; whatever caused him illness was leaving his system. His fever had only broken the other night, Hiro recalled. Hiro thought K was lucky that he hadn't contacted something more serious. But the second night K burning with fever and so stubborn that he tried to refuse water. Hiro practically shoved it down his throat, clamping K's jaw shut until he swallowed. It had been a nightmare; he'd never thought he'd live to see K so completely powerless. The man had mumbled in his sleep, 'Let me out' over and over. Hiro guessed it was his ordeal on the plane. Once K punched out and threatened to shoot him, but Hiro took it with a grain of salt. Thankfully this morning he was able to use the washroom on his own, it was so bad K couldn't even stand up without feeling waves of nausea. But at least all this allowed him to forget about his pain for a little while; he had no time while nursing K back to health.

It was too bad the rain water didn't last long. But Hiro found that setting the coconut shells filled with spring water next to the fire, close but not to close, would eventually boil. He had to set a lot of them out though in order to obtain a decent amount of drinking water. And they needed to be replaced so often that it was such a chore, but there wasn't anything better to do on this godforsaken island.

Calming down Hiro asked K, "Do you think you can eat something today?"

"I'll try," K grumbled unhappily and flopped back to lie down once again in the shade. "Ugh, the last few days have just sucked."

Hiro added another log to the fire which luckily did not get rained out since that storm hit. Instead it'd been sunny and hot; so hot that Hiro took off his shirt and had washed it earlier. Now it hung from a branch not to far away. "Just be glad the fever is gone and that whatever you had is leaving," Hiro said.

"You know I got taught plenty of survival skills, but I never thought I'd have to really use them. We have to be more careful from now on," K mentioned and closed his eyes from the brightness of the sky above.

"It's not your fault, we survived a fucking plane crash…you didn't have your head. And we should have considered sterilizing the water first. Maybe we should stick to rain water and dew in the morning. Or climb the coconut trees and drink coconut water," the redhead suggested.

Only a small 'hrmph' came from K, then Hiro thrust a coconut shell full of sterile water at him. He sat up and thanked him. They watched each other as they drank the deliciously hot water down their throats. Even on this hot and humid island, having something warm to put in your belly felt good.

"Maybe we should consider building a shelter," Hiro suggested as he sat once again and looked out over the water.

"The first rule in survival; build a shelter," K added sarcastically. "I was just hoping that we wouldn't be here long enough for that."

Hiro sighed, yeah he'd hoped for the same thing, but they weren't going to survive long enough if they didn't start taking precautions. "But are you up for that yet, maybe we should wait until tomorrow," the redhead advised.

Reaching up to shake sand out of his hair K said, "No let's get working on it now."

Hiro watched K drain his water and place the coconut shell on the beach. He frowned as the stubborn man stood wavering for a moment and slowly walked off to search for building supplies. What were they going to make a shelter out of? Hiro got up and followed K. When he caught up the taller man, they stood looking in the forest jungle like shoppers at a Hudson Bay window display at Christmas. Where to start?

"We need some rope," K said finally, "The vines should do." He watched Hiro take out the Swiss army knife. "No I can't let you do any cutting…your arm," he offered autocratically.

Hiro put his hands to his hips, "We'll you can't build it all on your own." He knew it K was going to take over the entire project and do what he does best, order him around. Then he spotted K watching him, "You can't shoot me out here," Hiro offered quietly, looking aside indignantly.

For the first time in days K laughed, "Now why would I want to do that? Ok help, but please take it easy."

The redhead nodded and they started collecting things to build their shelter. "Any idea what kind of shelter we are going to make," Hiro called a few yards away. He was busy collecting large leaves and ferns…K wouldn't let him cut vines and snap saplings.

"It's called a lean-to, it should keep the wind off our backs, and keep out the rain," K said somewhere in the dense thicket, unable to see Hiro.

It took a few hours to even collect half of the supplies they needed for their shelter. The young trees proved to be extremely laborious, being so stringy and rubbery inside. K swatted away annoying flies as he worked the two meter long, fist-thick trees back and forth, causing the tree to tear. Often he used the knife to cut through the last stubborn part of the sapling. But he knew that flint when broken into shards would make great cutting tools. He found some to help work at the trees. It was painful work, more so since he was still weak from illness. But he couldn't give up. It'd been a whole week and no one had come yet, even though he felt a bit nervous not being out on the beach and in the open. But what choice did they have? They couldn't spend every waking hour on the beach hoping for rescue and not doing something to protect themselves.

K already felt bad enough, putting Hiro through his getting sick. It humbled K a little bit; he'd had no choice but to rely on someone else. It was almost a little embarrassing at first, when Hiro revealed some of the details of his ordeal. The man had seen him at his absolute worst. But then again they'd both seen the worst of things when the plane crashed. Right now it was either give up and die or fight for survival.

After he had about five saplings cut, K leaned over the catch his breath. It was going to take more than one day to make this lean-to, he resolved. It was amazing some of the things you remembered about surviving the wilderness when the need arose. K had learnt it in the military, a mandatory prerequisite if you wanted to graduate. But it was so long ago, that he'd forgotten many things. Hopefully memories would come back as they came across new dilemmas. Taking a break K went to look for Hiro, he spotted him dropping a pile of leaves as big as frying pans in a pile under the shade.

For a moment K realized how damn lucky he was not to be here alone. Only, that made a wave of guilt swirl in his stomach. It was selfish to think that, Hiro should be home and not stranded at all, he thought. But then, he might've died on the water. K sighed, it was useless to think about the what ifs at all. They were here and there was nothing to do but wait for help.

"How's it going?" K asked, dragging five long saplings under his arm.

Hiro watched K and looked pleased, "You got all that already? Great." He stood up to brush the sand off his knees, "Its going alright I guess, but shouldn't we find a good spot to build this shelter?"

Dropping the load of trees K rubbed his chin in thought, "Good point, it should be dry and not near possible flooding streams."

"And level," Hiro added.

"Yes"

"Let's take a break and look around," the redhead suggested.

K nodded, "Sure, cutting these saplings down is killer. Besides we should find two trees that we can attach the shelter to."

"We need more water as well," Hiro said ruefully.

Indeed trying to survive was enough to occupy one's mind from the more tragic thoughts. It kept them busy and made them forget about illness and wounds. So they went to get water, learning quickly to watch out for snakes and other possible dangerous elements. Although it was proving to be much harder to find a decent spot for a shelter and they spent a good deal of time combing the area. But eventually a spot looked alright; it was level and it wasn't to close to jungle brush. That way the likeness of snakes wouldn't be as much of a threat and it had shade, something that was very important.

Upon finding their place to build, Hiro and K continued to gather items to build a shelter. Collecting vine wasn't so hard and K found when he cut the vine in half, water dribbled out. It was clear and not foggy, which was a good sign that the water was drinkable. But he was nervous about drinking anything now; they had to be very careful what they experimented with. Then again he didn't have much to lose at this point so he tasted it; he remembered hearing that some vines produced water, so he gave it a shot.

It tasted sweet, he concluded and hollered, "Hiro come look at this!"

A few moments later Hiro all covered in sweat and wiping sand grit off his face, came to look. "What is it?" he asked, giving K a worried look.

"Water in the vines," K exclaimed and held out one end of cut vegetation, it leaked water.

Hiro's eyes softened, "Ah yea vines have water in them, drinkable in fact as long as it's clear."

"Exactly and it is," the blond said and held out the vine to Hiro, "Go on taste it."

The guitarist took hold of the vine, holding it up and letting the water drip into his mouth. It was good, he thought he could camp out here all day and just let the tap flow. Hiro wasn't so worried about plant water because they were natural purifiers on their own.

K watched, momentarily fixed on Hiro as he drank. He noticed how he'd closed his eyes and sighed at the taste of the sweet water. It was like for the first time he noticed how good looking Hiro was. And now his face was tanned, the bridge of his nose slightly burnt. His eyes scanned over Hiro's sweaty chest, which was also receiving a nice tan…K squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm just going to collect more vines," he said in a rush and left Hiro.

Hiro looked after K inquisitively but he shrugged and went to continue his job of collecting leaves for the roof.

By the end of the day they had at least half of the supplies they would need for a shelter. There were ten strong sapling trees for a frame and tons of leaves for shingling. The vines would be used to lash the frame together. It would still allow them to build a fire inside of it, small and with lots of ventilation for the smoke.

Exhausted, they both sat hard on the ground next to their beach fire once more. Today they heard no planes, saw no boats, only endless miles of ocean before them. They drank water and ate coconut and divulged in one cigarette each. And once again they stared up at the stars in the dead calm of night. They had nothing and no one, but each other.