From that day forward, the beach shores of Port Island Station became one of Miki's favorite places to frequent. It was far from the orphanage, so they didn't get to go every week, but every visit was a highlight of the girl's week. Of course, the boys loved it too, and Akihiko developed an impressive penchant for swimming during their trips there. Sometimes, like that first evening they went, they didn't leave until after the sun set, and by the time they got back Satoru was fuming in a panic over where they were.
They got a couple of swats for that. They were forced to do their faction's laundry - since their own uniforms needed to be washed after running around on the beach with them - as compensation for not coming home before dark, but Miki said that she wouldn't take it back for the world. Shinji, in jest, told her to speak for herself. Akihiko laughed.
They were young, and Satoru disapproved of their spending time at the beach without supervision. But no matter how many times he told them not to go, they still went from time to time. It was his scorn that kept them from wandering to the unfamiliar areas on Port Island, though; the only path they traveled from school was to the beach and to the train, and they stayed far from the malls, the main roads, the high school, and the slums. The beach was good enough. Miki started a collection of seashells to go along with her sticker scrapbook, and school carried on as normal as it could for a couple of 'orphan kids'.
Adjusting was difficult, but they did it. Some children befriended them and didn't care the least bit that they had no parents. Others took it as an incentive to tease them under the assumption that their lack of parents would make the school administration less eager to stand up for them. This was true, sometimes. Being orphans, they were seen as likely candidates for childhood trouble-makers, and sometimes they were blamed as the culprits when they were, in fact, the victims. Because of his demeanor, Shinji got the brunt of that treatment. But other times, it only meant that their teachers punished their offenders more harshly. Miki, especially, was a favorite of her teachers.
But nonetheless, the months slipped into years. Slowly, the trio became more adventurous in where they would travel, exploring new depths of Port Island as every day granted them more and more courage. ...Well, such was the case with the Sanadas, anyway. Shinji wasn't scared of going anywhere, which he frequently liked to show off. Both siblings always admired his fearlessness, the way he guided them through crowds and traffic, and made sure they avoided signs of danger to get to the places they were going to quickly and efficiently. He knew some backroads that neither of the Sanadas ever would have.
One of their favorite places was the Port Island Station. Why? Mostly because it was one of the few areas that didn't kick them out. Unless they were wearing their school uniforms - which, granted, was most of the time - they weren't allowed anywhere near Paulownia mall. The one time they tried going there on a Sunday, they were chased out in a record time faster than you could shake a stick at. The back of Port Island Station was a rundown area, one that they had been taught to avoid at all costs, but they found their own special alleyway that went mostly undisturbed by the sleazy frequents of the area. Most of all, what they loved to do was make use of a secret back door of the movie theater that the Port Island Station was known for. Time and time again, each time with more bravado and confidence than the last, they snuck in to watch movies and pick up the occasional bag of popcorn or cup of soda left behind by the other patrons.
That day had been no different than the many before it. It was late September.
Their first-ever venture into the movie theater had been earlier last month. It was Shinji who ended up coaxing them into doing it, spotting the back door to the building when they were skirting around the area after school, scouting out what to do. Though Akihiko and Miki were less inclined to do it, Shinji made it out to be a challenge, therefore automatically obliging Akihiko to it, and Miki was willing to so long as the two boys were. Remarkably, it had been a success. Since then, they committed it again, later that same week; then, they made it a point to do it two or three times a week from then on. So far, they hadn't received any retribution for it. They made sure not to bother anyone in the movie theater, and they never stole anything that wasn't deliberately left behind by the patrons. They watched movies - something that most of the kids in the orphanage had never seen before in their lives, until they were older and had jobs with which they could afford suitable clothes for public and the tickets necessary for entrance. No one caught the little trio. They slipped out the same exit they came in when the movie was over, and as it was usually nightfall by then, they started back for the train station so that they could make their way home.
On the 21st, this routine had been no different. A movie that had been especially popular with Akihiko and Shinji's classmates had just come out, and they wanted to see it - Miki was just as willing. That day, they found a whole box of Sugar-Tarts had been left behind after the movie, too, and upon Miki's request, Akihiko handed them over to her for her to feast on. Candy was almost completely alien to them, given its expensive price tag paired with its complete lack of nutritional value; the orphanage didn't have the money to afford wasting it on treats like that, and yet Miki still managed to have an insatiable sweet tooth. That was fine with the boys. Neither of them were as especially fond of sweets as she was.
There had only been half a soda left in the theater today. Shinji used his pocket knife - one he had found in the back alleys of Port Island, and carried with him everywhere since, making sure to keep it specially hidden when he took it to school - to cut off the contaminated end of the straw, and they passed it around to take sips as they wanted. However, it was diet. After one sip, Miki stuck her tongue out and refused more.
"What time is it?" The girl had asked while popping another tart into her mouth, the increasing heaviness of her eyelids betraying her impending fatigue. The movie had been a little later than they were used to; Akihiko knew that this probably didn't bode well for them when they finally reached the orphanage. Chichi is gonna be mad again when we get back. Shinji, meanwhile, provided a snap response to Miki's question. Rather than scale the staircase that led to the station, where a clock would provide him the time, he jumped from the top of a nearby trashcan onto the vending machine next to it, leaping up from there and grabbing the border fence of the upraised station entrance to prop himself up.
"It's a little after nine," He informed them, jumping back down onto the vending machine. The metal clanked loudly underneath his sudden weight. "Why? You sleepy?"
Miki yawned before she could respond. "Mm, well... a little."
Akihiko took her hand - something like second-nature for him, now - and kept her close to him as they walked. He looked around the immediate area, noting the many shifting crowds of teens in the area; a lot of them showed up around this time. "Hey, Shinji," He called up to the brunette, "when's the next train leaving for Iwatodai?"
He stuck his tongue out. "Come look for yourself!"
"Wha- but you can already see it from there!"
"Bet you can't get up here!" The brunette taunted.
"Oh yeah?" Shinji thought he couldn't get up there? Pah! "I'll show you that I-"
The rest of his words were drown out by an uproar of screams in the direction of the theater, from a mostly-female crowd that had gathered there. None of the little trio thought anything of it; the teens that often came to the theater were loud and obnoxious. Akihiko was just landing, finding his footing atop the vending machine, when he finally looked back. The screams hadn't silenced. But when he turned his head, rather than spotting anything, he was assaulted by an onpour of blinding light and the roar of an engine fast-approaching them. What in the world was that about? Cars didn't come through here!
"Move!" Shouts came toward them. "Get out of the way, that car is going to crash!"
His first instinct was to move, just as they advised him. All he and Shinji had to do was jump onto the upraised station plaza over the fence and they would be completely safe from whatever harm befell the others below.
But there was one problem.
Miki!
The young girl had been startled out of her fatigue by the uproar, but she, too, had been blinded into a panicked stupor when turning to face the oncoming vehicle. With the car horn blaring and veering in its attempts to dodge through them, she felt something impact and shove her body. For that instant, her world became nothing but noise, light, and screams.
She flopped unceremoniously onto the cement sidewalk. Her whole body trembling, she saw that the candy she had earlier clutched had fallen from her hands and scattered everywhere. ...Was she okay? In her daze, she couldn't tell if she had been hurt. Her eyes lifted, but her pupils were still dialating from being earlier blinded, and the darkness was an impermeable wall that blocked her vision. She... she didn't feel anything. The noise of the car had stopped. Now, there was a thunder of approaching footsteps.
The girl tried to sit up. Her eyes focused. ...The car had completely missed her.
"A... Akinii?"
Her timid voice heeded no reply.
"Some kid is trapped under there!"
Shinji had already jumped onto the hood of the car and back down to the dusty ground, heaving the weight of his whole body into the effort of moving the ruined vending machine away from the wreckage. Cans of soda and bottled water spilled out, littering the ground with his every frantic shove. "Shit! You dumbass, what were you thinking?"
"Did anyone get hit? Someone get the driver!"
"Call the police! Call the police!"
When the vending machine wouldn't budge, the brunette instead forced the entirety of his strength against the automobile, crying out with both the sheer effort he threw into the movement and the hysteria that began mounting within him. "Aki! Aki, if you can hear me, say something! The police will get here soon, but I need you to..." His voice wavered, tears burning at his eyes that he had always tried so hard to hide away, "say something..."
Miki flew to his side, huddling near him and crouching by the car, her eyes wide with shock. "Akinii! A-Akinii-chan, where are you? Where are you?"
From underneath the car came a pale, trembling hand.
"Aki, are you all right?" Shinji stood and tried once again to shove the car, his breath coming in great gasps, all in vain; there was nothing he, as an eight year old boy, could do. Teenagers and a few adults, too, were now bustling around the wreckage, crouching around the wheels of the car to see what had become of the accident's victim. Miki, instead, shot a hand forward and clutched at that outstretched palm, which felt so cold against her fingers.
"Akinii-chan, i-is that you? Are you awake?"
She strained to hear anything over the shouts, over the footsteps and sirens. But when he did speak, it was so enunciated in her mind that she could hardly hear anything aside from it. "M... Miki?" She heard him cough, and though she couldn't see his face, she saw blood splotch the ground near his hand. He was breathing. Every breath rasped, and his whole body shook with every puff of air, but he was breathing. "Are y... you okay?"
Tears spilled off of her face, but she made no sound. He had... he had shoved her out of the way, hadn't he? He had done this for her. How could she cry? How could she let him know how upset, how terrified, she was? "I-I... I'm okay. The car didn't hit me."
She heard him laugh. He was laughing. That dummy...
"...Good. I... I'm glad."
The sirens roared closer. When they screeched to a halt, bathing the wreckage in flashes of red and white, she felt his grip weaken in her hand.
۞
That stupid fucker. That stupid fucker.
"The driver's fine. Hurry and get him on a stretcher! Get to the kid!"
People crowded around everywhere. Teens clogged the walkways, spectators to the accident for no reason other than to satisfy their morbid curiosity. They approached him and Miki, pestering them with inquiries. "Are you okay? What about that little girl? Who got hit?"
You don't care. Get the hell away from me.
Only minutes had passed since the impact. Some of the authorities were moving the car now. Shinji couldn't help boiling with anger; the driver had made it out of the wreck completely fine, save for some deep cuts, because the air bag had prevented his injury. He had been drunk. Now, because that asshole was so fucking hammered that he couldn't tell the sidewalk apart from the road, Aki might be dead.
He was unconscious now. Miki said he had been talking to her just before he fainted. Now, as the authorities lifted the automobile enough to slip his body out from underneath it, she was crying her eyes out. All he could do was hold her. He couldn't tell her that Aki would be okay - he didn't know that. When some of the teens gasped at seeing the young boy's body, Miki tried to turn her head to see him. Shinji grimaced and covered her eyes.
He couldn't see that well for all the dark and the flashing lights. But it looked like Aki's head had gotten the worst of it. The whole left side of his face was slick and red.
"Does anyone know this boy? He wasn't here by himself, was he?"
Miki broke herself away from the brunette to run toward the voice, firm and authoritive, quieting the many others. She stopped next to the officer and grabbed the sleeve of his uniform, netting his attention, and Shinji remained close behind.
"He's m-my brother," She stammered, timid, her lips resisting her speech.
The officer turned to her and set a hand on her shoulder. "Where are your parents?"
More tears flooded past her cheeks. "W-We-"
"We're cared for by Satoru at the Kawatani Orphanage," Shinji stepped in for her. That was the information they needed. The officer paused for a baffled moment, then turned and slipped a walkie-talkie off of his belt. "Yeah, the victim of the crash was a kid from the Kawatani Orphanage. ...Yeah? Would you connect me to them?" The brunette returned to Miki's side, wrapping his arms around her again. What if Aki did die? What would become of her? "I need someone named 'Satoru'..."
"Hey, you two." Shinji looked up. Miki did, too, albeit more delayed. "Come in the back. You know this boy, right? You can ride with him to the hospital."
۞
The ride there was silent. The medics bustled around Akihiko's stretcher, checking his vital signs as they went, but Miki and Shinji both failed to utter so much as a syllable the entire ride. They were kept facing away from the stretcher along the side of the ambulance, and however much Miki tried to look back at her brother, the brunette refused to let her. She eventually came to understand that it was probably for the best, and she rest her head on his shoulder, allowing her tears to soak through the thin layer of fabric that covered it.
When they arrived at the hospital - which didn't take long, as there was one located on Port Island, not far from the station - the paramedics ushered the children out after removing the stretcher from the ambulance. They all trotted inside, while several other employees wrapped up things inside the emergency vehicle, and a spare nurse was offered to the team to look after the two emotionally-shaken children.
Akihiko was sent into one of the emergency rooms. Shinji and Miki were given explicit orders to stay out of the room, to stay instead in the waiting room, where the nurse assigned to them was busy assessing them for injury.
"Nothing's wrong with us," The brunette insisted edgily. "You shouldn't be wasting your time worrying about us when you can help Aki."
"Neither of you was injured at all?" The woman was checking over Miki, who was was so blank and pale-faced that she obviously hadn't the energy to fight.
"No! I'm not the one who got hit by a fucking car!"
"Shinji!" Miki's voice made him jump a little. "She's just trying to help!"
His body constringed and he forced his gaze downward, shaking.
The nurse shook her head, her eyes sympathetic on the two of them. "I know you're scared," she sighed, standing back up from her crouched position next to Miki's seat. "But I promise, we're doing all we can for your friend. He's in good hands."
With nothing else to offer to them, the woman gave them directions to the cafeteria in the case that they were hungry, and left to return to her other duties.
Hungry. As if either of them had an appetite anymore.
Miki was uncharacteristically quiet, brooding, sitting stiffly in her chair with her eyes downcast. Shinji was almost a mirror image of this, withdrawing into himself in the face of crisis. He kept thinking... maybe he should have moved faster. He should have stopped Akihiko. But then Miki would have gotten hit, wouldn't she? No matter what happened, it would have been one of them. One of them was going to get hit.
But Miki needed Akihiko, and he needed her just as much.
They didn't need him.
It should have been him.
"Shinji! Where's- Miki, you're here too?" Somewhere in that long and excrutiating silence, the door swung open. Both children looked up. Satoru. He paused, and his face became shocked again. "No! You mean - it was Aki, wasn't it?"
Even though both children were still and silent, he knew he was right.
"Excuse me, nurse?" The man turned away from them to the counter, knocking loudly on the surface to draw their attention. He was given a few looks, some of them irritated. "I'm here for a boy named Akihiko Sanada? I heard he was brought to the emergency room, he was involved in an accident and brought here-"
"Sir, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to sit down-"
"I just want to know what his condition is. Is there anything I can do?"
"No, sir. I'm sorry. You'll have to wait for the doctor to ask for the patient's condition. I'll make sure to point him in your direction when he comes out."
"Ah... thanks," The man shook his head, running his fingers through the mess of black-brunette bangs across his forehead. He took a calming breath and looked back at the two children in the waiting room, his eyes both narrowing and yet growing soft at the sight of them. "I'll... be over there, with those kids."
Silence followed his footsteps. Neither Shinji nor Miki could find words to say. Miki's eyes were trained on the door that had swallowed up her brother, taking him away from her fretting eyes to a place where she could not follow, where she could not hold his hand and stand at his bedside just like she knew he would have done for her. Meanwhile Shinji pulled his feet up off the ground and hugged his legs against himself, his own indirect way of trying to hide himself from the world. He could feel Satoru's eyes on them. He knew that the adult was unhappy. They had been told time and time again that they shouldn't go out so late, they should avoid dangerous areas, and now this had happened. It was their own fault. It wouldn't have happened if they had listened to him...
But no such lecturing came. "How bad was it?"
Shinji shook his head, slow, trance-like. "The whole left side of his face..."
Miki looked down, her eyes beginning to puff with red.
Seeing her in his peripheral, the brunette clenched his teeth. "He'll... he'll be fine. We don't have anything to worry about. The nurse said so."
Satoru opened his mouth to inquire further, but one look at Miki made him realize why Shinji had refuted further elaboration. He, too, resumed the stagnating quiet, leaning back in his chair and shutting his eyes, propping his head up with a hand.
"...I thought something like this was going to happen. I just didn't want to be right."
The boy could hardly breathe for how tight his throat was. "...I'm sorry."
"Nah... it's all right, Shinji." The raven-haired male let a hand rest on the younger's shoulder, which brought the little one to stiffen considerably, his eyes becoming glassy; identifying this clear show of vulnerability - something so rare for Shinji - Satoru hesitated, then leaned himself over, wrapping his arms around the boy in a heartfelt gesture of comfort. It was funny, really, how he had to remind himself that the boy was only eight years old. Shinji wasn't the most mature child of his age, no, but he was damn close to it. He was evaluative, perceptive, he had some of the best self-preservation skills that Satoru had ever known to be in a kid, and he had such a genuine compassion for other people and living things. Animals, especially. Hah, come to think of it, there had been so many times that Shinji had come back inside from the outdoors with sick or injured bunnies, squirrels, birds, whatever he happened to come across, and asked for help nursing it back to health. Unfortunately, more often than not, he was forced to let the little animals go. The orphanage had no money for animal food nor the vet bills necessary to give them the medical attention they needed. But Shinji always did his best to help them - often enlisting the help of Akihiko and Miki, too - even if the end result was death, and he had to dig yet another tiny grave in the plains behind the orphanage for another life cut short.
Granted, Satoru had been just as much impressed sometimes to see that Shinji had successfully nursed back to health and tamed a few odd creatures. He had managed to hold onto a chipmunk for a month before it was killed in an unfortunate accident with the vacuum. That had been... a sad day. For the chipmunk, and the vacuum.
The little platinum girl, set apart from both males by her lonesome, forced herself to remain strong, being the little trooper she always was. The fact that Miki was faring so much better than himself was enough to both embarrass Shinji and reinforce his need to maintain a composed front, and so all three of them stayed still and quiet until finally, someone emerged long overdue from within Akihiko's room. The doctor hadn't even stripped off all of his medical equipment, yet; he had obviously departed at the first opportunity.
All three lone residents of the waiting room trained their eyes on this man. He walked to the counter, where he exchanged a few quiet words with the nurse, and then turned to them for the long-awaited update. "You're all acquainted with the patient, correct? Akihiko Sanada? We just finished wrapping up the procedures, so he isn't all that lively at the moment - I'm afraid you'll have to wait a little longer to see him. But I can tell you that he is in stable condition, and I think he'll come out of this looking as good as new."
"That's great news! So... nothing permanent, right?"
"Not as far as I can tell." The man approached the cluster, beckoning the only adult among them. "I'd like to speak specifics with you if I can. You are the boy's primary caretaker, correct? A representative from Kawatani, I heard."
"Yeah." Satoru rose to his feet with a small groan. "Agh, I'm getting too old for this stuff. These kids are wearing me thin, yeah?" He smiled and looked back at the two children. "I'll be back soon, okay? Try not to miss me too much. It sounds like Aki will be all right."
Only then did Miki eventually falter and burst into tears.
"A-Ah! Hey, that's supposed to be a good thing!"
Shinji slipped out of his chair to move into Miki's, holding her snugly against him in a gesture of consolation, just as Satoru had done for him. "I'll take care of her." For that singular heartfelt moment, he nodded after the only man who had become something mimicking a father to him during his orphaned and estranged life. "Tell us about Aki when you get back."
۞
Her crying didn't let up once Satoru left. However many glances were cast in their direction, Shinji met them all with indignance; what right did they have to complain? Did they almost lose a loved one? No. They could shove their complaints up their asses. He, meanwhile, just did his best to console her with his presence.
He wasn't sure he did all that great, honestly. Shinji liked to think he was better at talking to girls than Akihiko was, but when it came to Miki, he was at an unfair disadvantage.
He wasn't even completely sure that she was upset about the news - just that it had finally permitted her the release of turmoil and upset that she had been fostering all this time. When she started to calm enough to speak, it turned out that this assumption was right. "Why? Why did he let himself get hurt?" she demanded between gut-wrenching sobs. "Didn't he know that it would hurt me so much worse to see him like this...? To leave me thinking that, maybe, he might... die, because he wanted to protect me...?"
"No," Shinji met her eyes seriously. "He was only thinking about keeping you safe."
"Aki needs someone to look after him as much as I do!"
The intensity of her outburst stung him a little. She could see the surprise there and turned away from him, shaking her head, the tiny curled ponytails swaying along with it. "I know. I would be helpless without you or nii-chan. But then, if that's true, shouldn't you try that much harder to keep yourselves safe, too? So you can always be there for me?"
...Shinji had never thought about it, to be honest.
She smiled a bitter smile. "...I know, you must think I'm selfish, huh."
"No. You're right." In all his time with the Sanadas, he hadn't ever consciously thought about it. Miki was right, in that as much as she needed to be looked after, so did Akihiko. He was reckless, he got into things he shouldn't; everything was a competition, and he was always trying to bite off more than he could chew. Growing up with Shinji, he had become more courageous over the years and learned to stand up for himself, but at the cost of making him even more rash than he had been in the first place. ...Aki had wanted to 'be like him', huh? Well, look where it got you. You idiot...
"He looks up to you a lot, Shinji. It's always, 'Shinji did this', or 'Shinji did that'... 'Shinji's not scared of anything'..." Her hands stretched at the fabric of her dress. That day had been a Sunday - it was Monday, now, as midnight had long since passed, but that was aside the point - and she had dressed in her favorite outfit, the only one specifically suited to her. It was a shade somewhere between lavender and periwinkle, accented with whites. Satoru had bought it for her, but Akihiko was the one who had put in the extra work with chores and stayed in the kitchen after dinner to clean dishes and pay it off. "I... I know this must seem like a strange thing to ask, but... if you could do anything for me, Shinji..."
He prompted her when she hesitated. "Yeah?"
"If something ever happens to me... will you make sure he doesn't get hurt?"
The very thought of it made Shinji sick to his stomach. But he knew, if it ever came down to it, Shinji would lay down his life for Akihiko... just as readily as he would for Miki.
"...Yeah. I will, I promise."