A/N: Last of the flashback! Thank you to EminaRukiax, Fiammie, Sorariru, booklover1209, and Orangetabby101 for the reviews!

Sunday

Akashi didn't know exactly when he fell asleep—Nijimura's chills had kept snapping him awake throughout the night, and he'd at one point decided to just stay up—but when a sliver of light peeked through from under his arms, and he'd realized that he was resting his head on them, atop Nijimura-san's bed, he found that it was morning.

He shifted slightly, tilting his head to peek over his arms, a ray of sunlight grazing his vision, making him squint. He rested for a few moments, when suddenly he felt something warm press onto his hair. He turned his head to find Nijimura-san quietly patting his head, fingers gently threading through his red hair. Nijimura's eyes were half-open as he peered at Akashi, who raised his head, feeling more awake.

"Nijimura-san," Akashi said.

The fog of his breathing against the respirator was soft, and Nijimura's eyes seemed sharper and more focused. He was still pale, and was sweating slightly, but his chest wasn't rising and falling as raggedly as the previous night. He looked at Akashi with contentment in his eyes, and ruffled Akashi's hair lightly, as if to say 'Good morning.'

Akashi just looked at him, feeling relief over seeing him awake and moving voluntarily. He didn't move from Nijimura's patting hand when he said, "Good morning."

Nijimura-san ruffled his hair again and then set his hand to his side, and Akashi vaguely thought of doing what Himuro did when he held onto Nijimura's hand, but he didn't know why he would think of doing that now, so he dismissed the idea. He realized that across him, both Daiki and Himuro were missing, and that the jacket he'd made into a pillow for Daiki was sprawled behind his back. Akashi wasn't quite sure of what he felt about it, so he simply smiled as he pulled it from his back and folded it on his lap.

"Nijimura-senpai!"

From the doorway, Daiki had appeared, Ryouta's head poking over his shoulder. When they saw Nijimura-san turn his head to look at them, their faces lit up, and they all but sprinted to the bed, nearly stumbling over each other.

"How are you, senpai?"

"Are you feeling okay?"

"Does anything hurt?"

"Are you hungry?"

"Calm down," Akashi snapped at them, sighing. On the bed, Nijimura sighed under his respirator. "Give him some space."

"I'll—go get the doctor," Daiki offered, shoving a plastic bag towards Akashi. "Here. Breakfast."

Akashi blinked at him, taking the bag. "Thank you."

Daiki gave a nod and turned to leave, quietly closing the door behind him. On the other side of the bed, Ryouta kneeled on the ground and laid his arms on the bed, exhaling into them as he looked up at Nijimura-san with visible relief. He pulled on a smile, and Nijimura brought his hand over Ryouta's head, ruffling his hair like he did to Akashi. Ryouta chuckled, looking brighter, and Akashi found himself smiling.

Daiki returned shortly with a doctor and a nurse in tow, and the three of them stepped out into the waiting area as Akashi ate the breakfast Daiki brought. Himuro appeared then, Atsushi eating behind him, and greeted them.

"Good morning," Himuro said. "Why are you outside?"

"Nijimura-san woke up," Akashi explained, and Himuro lit up. "The doctor is checking on him right now."

"Right," Himuro smiled. "That's good. How is he?"

"Better," Daiki spoke. He accepted a snack that Atsushi offered him. "At least the medication's working. I think."

Himuro gave a nod, and then yawned softly. After a few moments, the door cracked open, and they all stood as the doctor and nurse walked out.

"Hello," the doctor said, regarding their group.

"How is he?" Daiki asked.

"His fever's gone down," the doctor remarked. "And his breathing is better, so we took him off of the respirator. It wouldn't have been good to keep him on it for too long anyway."

"Is he going to be alright?" Ryouta asked, brow furrowed in worry.

The doctor smiled. "Of course. We've got him on good medication, and your friend is strong. Though he's just very fatigued, so he needs a lot of rest. If he'd gone on like that any longer, he might be worse off right now."

The others looked downcast, making the doctor flail. "But that isn't what happened!" he flapped. "Like I said yesterday, it was lucky he was brought to the hospital before he got any worse, so he's been saved from the worst of it."

Himuro gave a small smile. "Thank you, doctor."

"Just doing my job," the doctor grinned. "In any case, he still has to remain confined for at least a week. He may be responding well to the medication, but he's still not well enough to leave any time soon."

Akashi nodded. "I understand."

"Alright then, I'll be attending to other patients," the doctor said. "I'll be visiting regularly to check on his condition, but if anything does come up, there's a call button by the bed. A nurse will come by if you press that. Nijimura-kun will likely be sleeping a lot, but do watch over him as much as you can."

They nodded, and the doctor waved as he left. They filed back into the room to find Nijimura free from the respirator and asleep, and if it weren't for the beeping heart monitor to one side and the IV drip connected to his hand, he would have looked like a random teen that just dropped onto the bed to take a nap.

"He must be really tired," Himuro said. "That idiot."

The others nodded. "Damn right," Aomine agreed.

"I—heard that…"

They jerked in surprise, seeing Nijimura move to rest the side of his head on the pillow. His eyes fluttered half-open, and he gave a huff, weakly pulling up his arm to reach out to the bedside table.

Akashi moved without thinking, grabbing the glass of water on the table and pressing it into Nijimura's hand. He pushed on a button to get the bed to incline his back higher, and kept a hand hovering over Nijimura's as he helped him drink.

Nijimura downed the whole glass in a few gulps, and gave a sigh, flaccidly releasing the glass as Akashi pulled it away for a refill. He finished the whole second glass more steadily, and then breathed out again. He looked at Akashi, eyes still lidded with tiredness, and sleepily asked, "How long have I been here?"

"Over a day," Akashi answered, raising an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Gotta get back—to work," he said, shutting his eyes for a moment.

Akashi stared at him, feeling a surge of irritation for his senior. "No," he said tersely. "We're taking care of your work for now. Focus on recovering."

Nijimura gave him a sharp look, muted slightly by his heavy eyelids. The austerity of Akashi's eyes brought him short, and he grunted, shifting slightly.

Akashi put a firm hand on his shoulder, keeping Nijimura from sitting up as he pushed a button to lower the upper half of the bed almost flat. "You're still weak. Rest."

Nijimura groggily glared at him, but his eyelids gave up the fight against falling, and he fell back to sleep. Akashi sighed and pulled his hand back, grabbing the edge of Nijimura-san's blanket and pulling it higher over him.

"It's just gonna get harder to keep him there the more he recovers, huh?" Daiki spoke, sitting back against a chair beside the hospital bed.

"Undoubtedly," Akashi said, watching to make sure that Nijimura-san was sleeping soundly. "I'll come up with a countermeasure against that, somehow."

Fortunately, Nijimura-san practically slept throughout the rest of the day, just barely waking up to eat dinner that night. He once again voiced his stubborn will to leave hospitalization and get back to his duties, but luckily, Tetsuya and Satsuki had brought over Nijimura-san's younger siblings for a visit, and he was completely defeated by their near-crying faces.

"Shuu-nii," his younger sister whimpered, her little hands holding onto Nijimura's in a tight grip. "Please don't die. Don't leave us."

Beside her, a younger brother Nijimura, a little older than his sister with the same steely eyes, made an obvious effort of not crying, biting his trembling lower lip and standing rigid at her side. "Nii-san," the little boy spoke. "I—I won't ask for extra melon bread anymore. Or—or the cheesy croquettes. So you don't have to work to buy those anymore. Just don't die."

"Don't leave us like papa!" the younger sister wailed, burying her head into the bed, sniffling.

Nijimura was crushed right there, and he held his sister's hands tighter. "I'm not leaving," he said, his voice the kindest Akashi and the rest have ever heard from him. "And I'm not going to die."

His sister looked up at him then, large eyes full of worry and sparkling with tears. "Really?"

Nijimura smiled. "Really." He looked at his brother, who was clenching his fists at his sides. "I'll get better real soon and get you those croquettes you love, Shin. Let's all eat them together." His brother looked up at him, and his tears spilled over, and both Nijimura-san's siblings launched themselves at his bed while their cries and worries tumbled out of them like waves. Akashi and the others in the room sighed in relief as they gave the siblings their space, feeling triumph over the night's struggles against Nijimura-san trying to leave, and feeling a warmth bloom in their chests at seeing Nijimura's tender smile and gentle hug. The feeling only grew when they came back to check on them, and found that the Nijimura siblings had fallen asleep tangled together on the hospital bed, Nijimura-san holding them close with the most serene sleeping face he's had since getting hospitalized.

Akashi had praised Tetsuya and Satsuki for their work, and gave the younger Nijimuras grateful pats on the head for sternly telling their older brother to stay hospitalized until he's better, to which he almost grudgingly agreed to on the morning that the kids returned home.

They found that they didn't have to worry about Nijimura trying to get out of the hospital soon after, because they were otherwise faced with other concerns: his fever shot back up, and his body struggled against the fatigue that had piled up against it. He had intermittent chills and coughing fits and flashes of ragged breathing, and more or less slept terribly for the next three days, waking up only a few times, and just very briefly. It wore out the others more than the work they had to do—the worry was eating at them, and they hated seeing their senpai in pain. They barely slept during the times they watched over him, and they were growing increasingly more tired the longer Nijimura-san stayed hospitalized.

Over those three days, Akashi had busied himself with compiling the notes for the classes Nijimura was missing, and Ryouta and Daiki fell into the swing of being waiters at the nearby restaurant with ease. Tetsuya and Shintarou constantly fought over the time slots to take for their jobs, but overall did well on them. Akashi, Himuro, and Atsushi took turns watching over Nijimura-san, whose sickness had faded gradually, though he'd slept continuously for hours upon hours because of his fatigue, and while they wanted him to rest, they wanted to see him awake (there was a growing dread that maybe, just maybe, Nijimura-san wouldn't wake up. They only had the beeping of the heart rate monitor and the gentle rise and fall of his chest to reassure them, but it didn't dissuade their worry).

On the afternoon of Wednesday, Akashi received a message from Atsushi that Nijimura-san was awake and sitting up and trying to leave (and please come quick I'm running out of snacks). Akashi dropped everything he was doing and excused himself from practice—one of the very few times he ever did—and rushed back to Tokyo. It took him over an hour to get there, and he ran into Satsuki upon entering. She fidgetted as they walked together, and Akashi raised an eyebrow when he noticed a rather curious mess of highschoolers trying to hide behind the shadow of the halls. He'd be lying if he said he didn't expect something like that to happen, and he was going to ignore it when an idea occurred to him—if Nijimura-san was growing more awake from his long bouts of sleep, then he'd undoubtedly try to leave hospitalization. And as much as Akashi wanted to see him standing, he had to stay. At least for a week.

He rounded the corner and found Atsushi, Shintarou, Tetsuya, and Daiki waiting outside. Satsuki started scolding Daiki over leaving her, and Akashi glanced at the door before asking, "Atsushi, what did the doctor say?"

"He said we'll have to wait outside first while they do a check-up."

"Were you able to talk to him?" Shintarou said.

"Just a little. It's like you said, Aka-chin. He started talking about going to work so I had to give him some of my snacks to stall him until the doctor came."

"Good call on that," Daiki smirked.

"You might have had to wrestle him if the doctors were any longer," Satsuki chuckled.

"Yes, that would have been very likely."

Akashi gave a sigh and pondered over the strategy with which to keep Nijimura-san from escaping. His siblings were an option, but they might just be more open about their older brother getting up from the hospital bed than Akashi, and may end up encouraging him to leave even more. Akashi's commanding glare and persuasion never seemed to work that well with him either. Maybe sedation—

The sound of the door opening interrupted his thoughts as the doctor stepped out. "Ah, Akashi-kun, hello," he spoke, smiling. "I see you and your friends are here to visit again."

"Good afternoon, doctor," Akashi spoke. "How did the check-up go?"

"He's getting better, but he needs more rest. He was in a pretty dangerous spot when he first came in."

Akashi nodded. He knew that all too well.

"Can we go in the room now?" Daiki blurted, impatient.

The doctor gave a light chuckle. "Yes, go ahead. He's still awake, but the medication we just gave him should start making him feel a bit sleepy. Don't take too long, and don't tire him out."

"Of course," Akashi gave a small smile.

The doctor nodded at them and turned to leave, and the group filed into the room to find Nijimura-san pulling himself up and fiddling with his IV drip.

"What are you doing," Shintarou barked, exasperated.

"I'm getting out of here," Nijimura-san said simply.

"No," Akashi snapped, resisting the urge to groan. "You still need to recover."

"I can recover at home," Nijimura answered back. "And at work."

"Your work was what got you here!" Daiki fought.

Nijimura scowled. "I'm fine now, I've had enough rest."

"No," Akashi repeated, stepping to block Nijimura from getting out of his bed. "The doctor clearly said that you need more rest or else your sickness will come back."

"Why don't we eat?" Atsushi offered.

"Yeah, why the hell not," Daiki said, quickly switching gears. "You've gotta be hungry, right, senpai?"

Nijimura made to argue, but his stomach betrayed him, rumbling. He frowned.

"Here, have some water," Satsuki spoke, handing Nijimura-san a glass of water.

He seemed to have realized his thirst and downed the whole glass, mumbling his thanks as Atsushi pulled out a snack and held it towards him. He grudgingly accepted the offering and finished the whole bar in a minute, and Atsushi was shooting panicked looks at Akashi as his snack reserve was slowly dwindling down.

"I'll—go get some more food," Tetsuya proposed, walking towards the door.

"Good idea," Daiki remarked. "Go to where Kise is!"

Tetsuya nodded. "I'll be right back."

"Remember to bring some of those cheesy croquettes!" Daiki called.

"I'm going with Tetsu-kun!" Satsuki followed, bounding towards Tetsuya. Akashi noticed her freeze in her tracks momentarily, and then make an obvious effort of trying to sneak out without drawing suspicion, when there was a soft thud and Himuro's voice suddenly sounding.

"Watch out there, Satsuki," they heard him say. "You heading out?"

"Ah, Muro-chin's here," Atsushi commented, looking brighter at the prospect of more food.

"Hey, Midorima, your team's here," Himuro called.

From outside the door, they could hear simultaneous groans and tumbles of defeat. Shintarou staggered to the side to gape at the doorway, hissing "What?" as they heard Tetsuya sigh. Another voice greeted Shintarou (calling him "Shin-chan"), and Shintarou deflated.

"I…suppose I should excuse myself," he sighed.

Akashi supposed that he had no better options at the moment. "No, wait," he said. "Your team, is it? Then Seirin's with them?"

Present time

The tables had been cleared away and Kagami fully satisfied—after gorging down inhuman amounts of food—when Kuroko and Midorima finished telling their week's struggles. The group comprised of Seirin, Shuutoku, and Kaijo took a moment to digest the story, and they all found themselves somewhat brought short at the parts where the Generation of Miracles were working together.

"I know you told us everything and all," Kasamatsu said. "But I can't quite picture the bits where you rainbow lot were taking care of Nijimura. Especially Akashi."

"I actually feel the same," Ootsubo commented. "But we saw them at it a while ago."

"I couldn't believe my eyes," Takao remarked.

"I suppose it seemed off to you all," Kuroko said, a small, sentimental smile on his lips. "But it actually feels similar to our time back in middle school."

"Really?" Kasamatsu asked, raising his eyebrows. "Hm. He was your captain." He pondered over the idea, and then shuddered. "Wow. He was your captain. The captain of the Generation of Miracles."

The others seemed to get on his train of thought, and they all paused to process it.

"Holy crap, I can't imagine how it might have been," Miyaji blurt. "To have been in charge of those brats when they first got in the team."

"No kidding," Moriyama grimaced. "All five of them."

There was another pause as everyone seemed to get thrown into a pit of imaginary despair.

"What's so hard to imagine," Midorima scoffed. "He was our captain since he was a second year, and—"

"No, see, that's the point," Hyuga pushed. "He wasn't even in third year and he was already captain of Teiko's basketball team. Captain of the Generation of Miracles."

"And?" Midorima raised an eyebrow, not quite getting what they were all becoming so bewildered over.

"It's just—how?" Ootsubo grumbled, brows furrowed at Midorima. "I have a hard enough time with you."

"What—"

"And we've got Kise," Moriyama pointed out.

"Touou also has Aomine," Hyuga added.

"He was Akashi's captain," Takao breathed, and it was a reminder that brought them all into silence.

They let the statements slowly settle into their thought-processing, eyes wide, looking completely baffled at the position that was once Nijimura's.

"That's it. I've decided," Kasamatsu announced. "I have to meet this guy. I need to know how he did it."

"Same here," Ootsubo said. "We didn't properly meet earlier, so I'll definitely come back."

"Why," Midorima slumped. Kuroko gave him a pat on the shoulder.

"I have a feeling I'll be coming back there soon, anyway," Kagami sighed. "So what the hell."

"Tomorrow then," Kasamatsu stated.

"Tomorrow," Ootsubo nodded. And the two captains shook on it, determined.

A/N: It's canon that Nijimura has two younger siblings, but it was never mentioned how old they were so I just made it up (along with their names). So his younger brother would be in elementary, and his younger sister at around nursery or like first grade.

More people popping up in the next chapter!