When Eli entered the apartment, Hanayo didn't think a lot of it, other than the fact that she knew with her routine, she would be drunk.
But what was odd was that she was silent and although there was an obvious stumble in her step, she had a clear destination, and that was the cupboards in the kitchen.
She awkwardly fiddled with her hands in her chair, deciding whether or not to say anything as a rising anxiety pooled in her.
But thankfully for her, it was Eli who spoke first, "So, ah… Why was… Why was Umi just… Exiting? You know," She waved her hand over her shoulder, "Just now?"
"She just… Dropped in," She didn't dare move right now.
"Really? I mean… Y'don't sound too sure of y'self…" Eli slurred as she pulled out half a bottle of whisky.
"It's the truth," Whilst the tremble in her voice came from her being scared, Eli's mind took it the wrong way.
"Hanayo,"
She hated how that voice sounded. Cold, devoid and so different, yet so close to how Eli would normally talk to her in the day, in a more loving moment.
"I'm going to ask one… One more time," She took a deep drink from the bottle before turning and trudging her way in front of Hanayo's seat and getting far too close to her face for her comfort, "Why was Umi here?"
Hanayo recoiled at the smell of strong alcohol on her breath, but she also felt frustration. She was telling the truth and her loved one didn't believe her.
"I told you the truth!"
Eli was stunted for a moment, before she straightened up, "Did you just raise your voice at me?"
Hanayo flinched when she realised that was exactly what she had done, "S-sorry! I-I didn't mean to-"
"What have I fucking said about saying sorry?!" Her voice raised into an aggressive shout and she took the bottle by the neck and smashed it against the table, leaving the remnants of the end jagged and dripping.
Hanayo scrambled to grab her phone as Eli's back was turned, her heart pounding in her chest. Shoving it in her back pocket just in time to see Eli turn and advance on her again with the bottle in hand, she let out a quiet breath of relief.
"Once more… Umi was here. What… What did she talk about with you? See? I'm giving you another chance… Don't make me fucking regret it," She growled, brandishing the sharpened glass of the bottle below her chin.
"We just talked about your work and just small things like that! Please, please Eli-chan that was it!"
Tears threatened to spill as she worriedly clasped her hands together and couldn't hold back a sniffle, which, as if she had the senses of a fox, Eli caught onto.
"That's an awful lot of me in that conversation… Y'don't think?" Eli circled around the chair Hanayo was stuck in like a predator with its prey.
"She was p-probably just curious…?"
"You know… I don't believe you," She slurred, suddenly grasping a fistful of her hair, earning her a pained yelp, before she then threw her to the floor, "Why the fuck would Umi just, oh, I don't know, drop in?! Why, at this time of evening, why, when I'm not here?!"
She shouted down at her and Hanayo knew that Eli wanted her to get up, and she did so, out of fear of this getting worse.
"I-I don't know…" She repeated again, feeling as though she was about to burst into tears, but desperately, desperately not wanting to.
"Well you better know real fucking fast…" She advanced on her, "Because y'know, if you truly don't know a thing… Then you've got nothin'... Nothing to be scared of, huh?"
Hanayo shook her head and kept backing away until she was pressed up against the wall, but Eli gave her no reprieve, harshly gripping her by the shoulder
"Why do you have to make it so hard for me to trust you?! I can't leave you the fuck alone without you whoring yourself out to someone else?!"
Hanayo felt that pang of fear, but it was coupled with a small relief as the grip on her shoulder slackened.
But Eli's hand moved fast, almost too fast for someone inebriated, gripping her hair and slamming her head back into the wall.
She didn't process the cry of pain that left her, but Eli's voice brought her back to an unfortunate reality, "Do you think I like doing this to you?!"
She choked back a sob as Eli's hand pressed into her throat, "What? You're not gonna say anything?" She growled, "You need some fucking discipline."
Eli didn't seem to notice the grip Hanayo had on her arm, a silent beg for her to stop.
But when Eli let go, she stayed shaking and using the wall to meekly support herself as Eli took a step back, "Now you…" Eli pointed a finger towards her, "Come over here… And explain what the fuck Umi was doing here."
Hanayo tried her best to stay steady on her feet, and she opened her mouth to answer, but no words came out. What was she supposed to do? She was terrified, hurt and she knew this wouldn't be as simple as waiting for Eli to pass out.
Summoning up what little courage she had, Hanayo turned and made a beeline for the bathroom.
Eli couldn't react in time, in fact, she swayed a little bit, but Hanayo didn't see any more as she slammed the door shut and locked it.
After a few seconds, there was a thump on the door and she jumped, but the door remained secure. But more hits and slams came, getting rougher and rougher.
With trembling hands, she took out her phone, thankful it hadn't been damaged and that it hadn't fallen out of her pocket. Her mind wasn't thinking straight when she opened up her contacts, blindly fumbling through the list before she tapped on one, any one contact that she could see that wasn't Eli's.
She backed up as far away from the door as she could as the phone dialed and a gradual sense of dread built up along with the dull, pulsing pain in the back of her skull.
After a few rings, the person she had called picked up.
"Hanayo-chan? It's late, what is it?"
Kotori's gentle, but tired voice spoke, but Hanayo didn't have much time to dwell on it as panic seeped into her voice.
"P-please help…!"
"Huh? Hanayo-chan, what's happening?"
"I-I can't-"
Just as she was about to try her hardest to explain, the door splintered and the hinges gave way and the remnants slammed to the ground.
"You ran away from me. Now… Now things get worse."
In her terror, Hanayo dropped her phone, rendering it useless and cutting the call off with a resounding shatter.
Kotori didn't know how to respond at first, as her mind mulled over the call in her head. It was short, confusing and most definitely worrying, but what could she do?
Snapping herself out of a rut in her thoughts quickly, Kotori rose out of her chair and took her phone with her, hastily grabbing her coat and leaving the apartment, nearly forgetting to lock up behind her.
Bundling up in the coat was far more fiddly than she had imagined, but she managed it eventually at the brisk pace she walked at, and eventually, she brought out her phone, hesitating for a moment.
Was she overreacting?
No, no, this wasn't the time to doubt herself. She let out a shaky sigh before holding down the emergency call button on her phone and hurrying through the streets with the device pressed up to her ear.
She swallowed as she heard the responder pick up, "999, what's your emergency?"
"I… My friend, sh-she just gave me an extremely worrying call, she was asking for help and then… I heard the voice of her, ah… Partner, with what sounded like a threat and then the call just… Ended."
"What kind of threat was it?"
"Sh-she, ah… A violent one. Her partner is someone I suspect has an alcohol problem…"
"Alright, what's the address of your friend?"
She recited the address diligently, feeling herself shudder, whether it was from the cold or the situation she didn't know.
"I'll be sending a unit to investigate. Don't worry, they'll make sure she's okay, alright?"
Kotori realised the responder probably didn't realise that she was on her way to the address, but she would probably be told to stay home whilst the authorities handled this, something she would have disregarded anyway, so she earnestly thanked the woman on the other end of the line before hanging up and pushing onwards through the lamplit streets.
Despite the fact she could see her breath misting in front of her, and feel the biting cold at her bare skin, it was all numbed in comparison to what her mind thought her beloved Hanayo was going through.
The dispatch of two police cars arrived at the scene before Kotori did, but that didn't deter her from going to enter the building after them.
She trudged up the steps, feeling more and more anxious every time her feet landed. Whilst Kotori wasn't hugely religious or spiritual, she recited a silent prayer to whoever might be listening that Hanayo would be okay.
When she arrived at the door, she saw it hadn't been forced open; probably a product of Eli's drunkenness, as she imagined her had forgotten to lock the door, but a policeman was stationed outside the door, and upon seeing her approach, he stopped her.
"Are you a resident in this building?"
"No, I… I'm the one who called the police."
The man sighed and looked down, "I can't let you inside."
"Please, look, just, tell me if she's okay," She nearly begged.
"Well-"
"Get the fuck off me!" Came a slurred and aggressive shout and Kotori flinched. Never had she imagined such a venomous tone and such an angry statement come out of Eli's mouth.
"As I said, I can't let you in," The man said, unaffected by Eli's sudden yell, "But an ambulance is on its way."
Her blood ran cold and a shudder of fear and panic shot through her, "What… What condition is she in…?"
"She needs urgent medical attention in hospital. The full extent of her injuries are unknown."
Kotori shook her head quickly, begging that this wasn't actually happening and covering her mouth as tears threatened to spill.
Just then, blue lights flashed outside and shortly after, two paramedics rushed through and the policeman made sure Kotori was out of their way.
At the angle she had been brought out of the way with, she could see inside, but regretted it when she glanced inside.
Whilst she couldn't see Eli, she could see what she had done.
The bathroom door was clean off its hinges and she could see part of the inside, seeing the chaos.
Various products were strewn around the tiled floor and the bathroom mirror was shattered with flecks of blood around the main break in it. To her horror, there was an alarming amount of red present, and the bottle shank lay on the floor as well, remnants shattered, but various parts that had come off, presumably from a drop on the floor, and were smeared and still dripping, except not with liquor.
She couldn't bring herself to look at the scene any longer, only dreading what laid in the rest of the room.
Just as she backed away from the apartment further, Eli was being wrestled out of it and down the stairs.
A flash of recognition hit Eli when she saw Kotori, but it didn't appear to make her happy, if anything, it appeared to make her worse, "Oh, so is everyone here to fucking mysteriously see my girlfriend?!"
Eli pulled at her restraints again, but it did little good as she was eventually led down the stairs.
Kotori was shocked, to say the very least. She knew that a drunk abuser had to be aggressive, but she never imagined what it could do to a close friend, to make them seem so cold, so uncaring and so vicious towards the people that loved them. And now she was seeing firsthand what it could do to a person.
"Seeing as you know the victim here, I'm certain that the paramedics won't mind if you want to ride in the ambulance as long as you don't interfere with anything they may do."
Kotori vaguely registered the words, but she nodded regardless, "Do you know what hospital she'll be going to?"
"Most likely the Nishikino hospital."
Kotori tried her best to hold herself together, she knew the last thing that the police needed was a hysterical woman causing a scene late at night in an apartment complex when they had a domestic abuse victim to take care of.
She rubbed at her eyes and decided it would be best to stay silent.
She wasn't prepared when Hanayo was taken out of the apartment. Whilst she couldn't see a lot of her, she knew she was unconscious, saw the respirator and that there was a worrying amount of bruising that she could see for the split second she dared to look.
She tried her best to avoid any direct gazes as she followed them out the building, trying her best not to stumble down the stairs.
After a brief talk with one of the medics who could afford to be pulled to the side, he allowed her to stay in the back. Whilst she wasn't entirely sure if she could emotionally handle it, she steeled herself and agreed.
It was all so surreal to Kotori, almost like a bad dream, as she got into the back of the ambulance alongside the stretcher.
It was horrible. She barely noticed the ambulance ride as she was too busy, focused on her friend and even reaching over to carefully take her hand, as if she were a doll that could break any second.
She remained unconscious for the rest of the trip all whilst Kotori couldn't stop herself from crying. She felt like she just wanted to wake up and for this all the be a dream.
But one thought remained as the back of the ambulance opened.
Eli certainly didn't deserve Hanayo.
Maki received a call on her phone exactly when she didn't want to. It was late and she was exactly where she wanted to be for a change. Snuggled up in bed with Rin after the two had decided to have an early night. She thought she deserved it.
She rolled onto her side and blindly grasped around for her phone which had since woken Rin as well.
"Mm, Maki-chan, turn it off…"
When Maki finally was able to see the caller ID properly, she groaned.
"I have to take it, it's the hospital…" She complained, sliding out of bed and dragging her feet into the kitchen, sensing that she would have to get some coffee to make it through whatever was about to come through the phone at her.
She yawned before answering the call, leaning on the counter as the coffee maker worked away diligently, "Nishikino speaking…"
"Nishikino-san, you're needed at the hospital," Came the voice of one of the senior nurses.
"Are you absolutely sure no one else can handle it? What about Tomoyashi-san?"
"He's currently delivering a baby."
"Oh, people do still have babies in this God forsaken country," Maki remarked dryly before she swiped up her coffee cup, "Yeah, yeah, I'll be there," She begrudgingly hung up and took a lengthy drink, seeing Rin appear in the doorway to the bedroom.
"You have to go?"
"Yeah. I'm sorry… I know this was supposed to be just me and you time," She sent her a tired, but apologetic smile before moving past her to get dressed, finish her coffee and head off.
"It's fine Maki-chan. We'll have to do this another time, nya…"
"I'm sorry," Maki apologised again, "I'll be back as soon as I've sorted out the patient, okay?"
Rin smiled tiredly, "I'm gonna go back to sleep… Good luck Maki-chan."
"Yeah. I'll see you later," She smiled back and watched Rin go back to bed, leaning down to kiss her forehead, something she didn't usually do, but she didn't say a word more as she headed out the door.
Immediately after she entered the hospital, two nurses went to Maki's side, one handing her a clipboard.
"Here are the patient's injuries as far as we can tell from just a simple body examination."
"Mmn," Maki grunted as some kind of vague recognition of what was in front of her, except…
"Nishikino-san, you do know you're holding it upside down?"
"I woke up about half an hour ago and yet I still came in for this. Cut me some slack," She grumbled, flipping the clipboard so she could read it properly.
She read over the injuries with a frown, "Christ… Do we know what happened?"
"From the emergency call that was received, domestic abuse."
Maki had to stop herself from freezing on the spot, but she shook her head; she had a job to do. Besides, what were the chances?
"Right… What room?"
"Just on the right."
Maki didn't bother to look at anything else as she went straight in, but she was stunned the moment she saw Kotori in the chair beside the patient's bed, stopping just past the doorway.
Kotori just then looked up, eyes reddened and swollen and tear tracks down her cheeks, a small flicker of pity flashing in her eyes as she recognised the doctor in front of her as her close friend of many years, knowing she would just about react as badly as she had done.
Maki then turned her head towards the bed and she remembered what she had seen in that nightmare a few days ago.
Author's note: ya'll think this chapter's bad? more to come c':