A/N; Sorry if the end of that chapter felt a little rushed, I suddenly realised how long it had been since I'd last updated and wanted to update ASAP. I hope you liked it anyway! As always, any reviews etc are greatly appreciated. Alright, that's all from me. Happy reading! Also, I know i mentioned that this was gonna be in Rena's point of view but I changed my mind so it's Hiro's turn. Woohoo!


'This fucking SUCKS.'

Hiro slid further down into his chair, drumming his fingers anxiously on the arms. His eyes drifted over to the hospital bed for the hundredth time that hour. Just as last time, the wait for her to wake up was killing him. All the confidence that he shown the previous day had completely disappeared. He knew she was going to live right there, but the danger of sepsis and complications of surgery kind of overruled it. Still, he liked to imagine that he was taking things better than Tadashi was. Never in his life did he think this would be the case but for some reason his older brother had taken this news particularly bad. Tadashi hadn't slept in over a day and it was definitely taking his toll on him. Hiro had tried to force him to go home but Tadashi stubbornly refused to.

'Mhmm.' Speaking of the devil. Tadashi was slumped forwards in his chair, his head nodding. Every now and then he would fall asleep and this head would snap back up again quickly.

Hiro stared at him in bewilderment. He knew what Tadashi was like, but this was beyond anything that Hiro had expected. Sure, he knew that his older brother would spend the entire time shitting himself but it was very unlike for Tadashi to destroy himself. It may sound dramatic but Hiro had a nagging thought in the back of his mind that if Rena didn't wake up for a while Tadashi would end up in a hospital bed himself. It was weird, almost as though he blamed himself? Which was stupid considering that not even the doctors had any idea what had happened. They had suspected some kind of overdose and had taken blood samples which had been sent away for testing. Tadashi had taken this news particularly badly. Hiro was just glad that she was still alive.

Hiro sighed, sliding down so far that he was hanging off his chair. He dropped onto the floor and lent against the wall. His back ached from sitting in the tiny, uncomfortable chair all day. And when he said all day, he meant all day. It was early evening and Aunt Cass had left at lunch time. Iris and Robbie were swamped under the customers. Sunday lunch was one of the busiest shifts of the week and Hiro had insisted that she left to go help them. He knew that deep down, Cass appreciated the gesture. One of the main similarities between her and Rena was that they both buried themselves underneath work in order to distract themselves when anything bad happened. Seriously. Rena had completed three weeks worth of coursework in about two days when Tadashi had landed himself in hospital before summer. She didn't even need to do it, she just buried herself in it so she would have any excuse not to think about Tadashi in hospital. And Aunt Cass was exactly the same, she'd tie herself to the cafe even when she knew full well that she didn't want to be there. Hiro used to resent them for it but as he got older he grew to understand it. But Tadashi? When hit with trauma Tadashi would sink into it fully. Not normally to this degree though. Hiro knew full well that his brother was spiralling and he also knew full well that there was pretty much nothing that he could do to prevent it.

'Dashi? Oi! ... Dashi!' So much for trying to have a half-decent conversation to distract himself from the heart monitor and the IV line.

'Wha-?' tadashi mumbled. It only took Hiro practically screaming his name at him from across the tiny room.

'Two things. One, did you tell them in the end?'

'Tell who?'

Hiro shook his head. They'd discussed this loads and yet Tadashi seemed to be too sleep deprived to remember the fact that he still needed to let his best friends know that Rena was fighting for her life. Brilliant. 'Uhhh... Honey Lemon? Wasabi? Fred? Gogo? You know... your FRIENDS?'

'Oh! Oh yeah. Sorry, I was a bit out of it then.' Tadashi shook his head and sat up. He yawned and grabbed his phone from the chair next to him.

'You um.. gonna go to sleep anytime soon?'

Tadashi laughed and ran a hand through his hair, still looking at his phone screen. 'Don't worry about me, I'm fine.'

'Yeah. Says the guy screaming and vomiting on the bathroom floor.' Hiro muttered, staring at his trainers.

Tadashi sighed, his fabricated mask of happiness slipping away for just a second. 'That was over a day ago, I'm fine now. Also, says the one that had a panic attack in the waiting room.'

'No it wasn't! It lasted like... ten seconds anyway.'

'Mmm.'

'Doesn't count.'

'Sure it doesn't.'

'Shut up.'

'Gladly.' Tadashi yawned again and stretched out in his chair. Hiro saw out of the corner of his eye as he looked at Rena and his face fell. The oldest Hamada chewed absentmindedly on his thumbnail, stopping as soon as he realised that Hiro was watching him do it. Hiro cleared his throat awkwardly and averted his eyes back to the tiled floor. The tension was so thick he could pretty much taste it. Hiro felt tears welling in his eyes and swiped them away quickly before Tadashi could notice. Here he was. Again. For the second time within months. Sitting across from one of the only members of his family who was dying and he could do absolutely nothing but sit and wait for Rena to wake up. It was like some kind of vicious cycle. Would a few months pass and he'd sit here again? Ever since he could remember, things had always gone wrong for him. Would it be like this forever?

It took him way too long to realise that he was spiralling. He closed his eyes briefly and gulped in a huge lungful of air, the slight acidity of the hospital air making him cringe. It stank of antiseptic and general hospital cleanliness. AKA, his least favourite smell ever. He needed air. He stood so abruptly that Tadashi jumped and glanced at him with worry.

'You okay?' Tadashi asked suspiciously. Maybe he noticed the look on his face or his eyes that weren't quite dry.

Hiro ignored him and grabbed his hoodie that was hung on the back of his chair. He shrugged it on and sighed, running a hand through his hair again. 'Yeah. I'm fine. Just... just need some air.'

Tadashi nodded, still looking concerned though. 'Do you want me to come with?'

Hiro glanced at Rena. He hated the idea of her awaking to an empty room. 'No, it's alright. I won't be long.'

'Okay, as long as you're sure.'

'I am.'

With a final glance at his sister, he stepped out into the corridor and walked swiftly down the bustling hallway. His shoes squeaked on the too-clean floor and he winced at the horrible noise. Still, it was better than the sounds of the machines that reminded him that Rena was dying. No, not dying. Just almost dead. She was still alive. Wait, no. Was she dying? He punched the button for the elevator and sighed as he stepped in. These thoughts were exactly the kind of thing that he was trying to run away from!

He turned to the right outside the main doors and walked briskly towards the play park. There was nobody around, which he was glad of. He didn't want people thinking he was really weird for hanging around in a park on his own when he wasn't a little kid. Not that he would have been bothered, but still. he kicked the gate open angrily and it clanged shut behind him. After about ten seconds of internal debate, he plonked himself down on one of the swings, making sure that the horrible old building was behind him. His fingers curled around the chains, already beginning to get cold in the early November evening. He shut his eyes and kicked off, soaring into the air and not caring that he looked stupid or that he was most definitely too old to be playing in the park. The cold air was refreshing on his face and he found a genuine smile creeping across his face. Right there and then, it was easy to forget about everything that had happened. Not just in the past day or so but for a long time. Hiro could pretend that he was a tiny child again, before anything bad had ever happened to him.

Then the swing slowed down and his feet hit the gravel. He opened his eyes again and lent against the rusty metal of the chains. His hands found their way back to his pockets and he rammed them deep inside in an attempt to warm them up slightly. He knew he had to go inside soon: Tadashi would be waiting for him. Maybe Rena would be as well, although he didn't linger on that happy thought for too long. As terrible as he felt, he tried not to think about Rena too much. The mere thought that she was even in hospital in the first place was enough to make his stomach twist nastily. He couldn't decide if it was worse when Tadashi was in hospital or not. At least when he was here a few months back they knew what was wrong with him. He exhaled through his nose and, for the hundredth time that day, tried to come up with something that could have happened to her. In his mind, it had to be some kind of poison. Not only because her symptoms matched those of poison victims, but also because only poison would be able to bring Rena down. Seriously, she was a lot tougher than she gave herself credit for. Or she was just too stubborn for her own good, whichever. She was hardly ever ill, and when she was she simply just pretended that she wasn't. Like the time when she had the flu and had refused to acknowledge it until she was so ill that she literally couldn't move. Tadashi had forced her to stay at home instead of go to school and she was fuming about it, even if she couldn't even manage to walk to school. Hiro remembered the way in which she'd slurred her words and didn't seem to remember...well, anything. He hadn't yet admitted to Tadashi that she'd caught him sneaking in Friday night, mainly because he didn't want to admit that he'd been botfighting again. Besides, it was no problem! He was fine, it was just a one time thing. That wasn't the point anyway. Tadashi hadn't expressed to him his guilt about not recognising that Rena needed help but he didn't need to. Hiro couldn't quite explain how but he knew that Tadashi was kicking himself for not helping her before she'd collapsed. He felt the same himself, he should have said something as soon as she'd vomited right in front of him. If he hadn't had been so self-obsessed and wrapped up in his own problems then maybe he would have been able to spare a second to help out his sister when she needed him. This whole situation made him want to stand up and run back home so he could sit in his bed and cry about it.

A shiver suddenly ran down his spine, spooking him so much that he almost fell off the swing. He half jumped, half fell from the swing and whirled around to face the hospital. A horrible nagging feeling in the back of his mind told him that he was being watched, and his mind went into overdrive as he spotted a figure walking back towards the hospital. From where he was stood, all he could see was that the person was tall and, judging by the length of their shaggy blonde hair, a man. Hiro narrowed his eyes; he recognised that guy from somewhere. He had no idea where, but he had a bad feeling about it. For some unexplained reason, the guy practically radiated bad vibes. Hiro had no idea how he knew this but he suddenly felt a lot more unsafe, despite the fact that he was literally walking away from the raven-haired teen. Hiro waited until he was out of sight and then bolted towards the doors as fast as his legs could carry him, not stopping until he was safely in the elevator. He clutched at the stitch in his side, thankful that it was empty so nobody could see his pathetic panting. He lifted his head and blew his fringe out of his eyes so he could look at his reflection. He looked pretty crazy, his eyes were wide and fearful and his face was almost shockingly pale. Well, it was nice to know that there was yet another thing he could add to his growing list of anxieties. He placed a freezing cold hand to his chest and breathed out through his nose, trying to convince himself that everything would turn out alright.