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When Takumi wakes up, he has no idea where he is.
He sees plain beige walls and a white ceiling. Trying to turn his head to look around doesn’t net him much success; he can barely move.
His entire body feels weirdly numb, and like he’s been packed in cotton.
“Good morning.”
The voice is startling in both its suddenness and its familiarity.
A chair creaks quietly, and a face appears at the edge of Takumi’s vision – a face he hasn’t seen in months. And not in years if he was talking about seeing each other in person instead of over a screen.
The face’s owner looks older, more tired, but still no less handsome than in the summer Takumi first met him.
‘Ryousuke-san?’ he wants to address the man, but he finds that he can’t. Only now does he realise that there’s something obstructing his throat. It’s uncomfortable.
“Do you remember what happened?” Ryousuke asks.
Takumi gently shakes his head no. Even this very small movement, mostly restricted by the neck brace, makes him feel dizzy and a bit nauseous.
“Try not to move. From now on, just blink once for ‘yes,’ twice for ‘no.’ Alright?”
Takumi blinks once.
Ryousuke gives him a brief smile before his features turn serious again.
“You’re in the hospital. You had an accident,” he says, the words as calm and simple as they are damning.
An accident?
Takumi tries to remember – anything at all, any details that could tell him how he got here.
But no.
He can’t even pinpoint the final moments that he does remember. If he had an accident, it must have been during a race or during practice, right? Or did it happen outside of his job – getting run over while on the way to getting groceries, or-
“It happened during a trial run. I’ve been told it was a driveshaft malfunction.”
Takumi would like to ask him if everyone else is alright; whether anyone besides him is also in the hospital.
He finds himself growing increasingly frustrated with the fact that he can’t speak. He’s itching to tear that tube out himself, if he has to.
Probably noticing his agitated state, Ryousuke gently shakes his head.
“I’m sorry, we can’t remove that yet.”
Takumi supposes it is so, and it’s not like he can move his arms much. He experimentally tries to move his fingers, but he can’t really feel if he’s successful, nor can he lift his head to check. He supposes he’d be in a lot of pain if it weren’t for the numbness. He wonders whether he’d actually prefer that.
“I’m concerned about the swelling in your pharynx. Your throat,” Ryousuke clarifies after receiving a quizzical look. “When we can be sure that there are no obstructions to your breathing, the tube can come out.”
Takumi huffs out through his nose, but he wouldn’t argue with Ryousuke on this even if he’d been able to speak. He always respected the older man’s words, and now that he’s an actual doctor, too…
Wait.
Shouldn’t Ryousuke be in Japan still? Did he come all this way just to visit – and if yes, where were the others? His teammates, his manager, all the people who’d surely visit him in hospital, especially if he landed himself there because of an accident at work.
Did they visit, and he simply forgot about it? Or maybe he was asleep?
For how long has he been asleep, anyway?
Takumi hates that his memories hold no answers for him. He looks up at the white ceiling, trying to fight the fog in his mind – only to notice something strange.
The IV bag above his bed is labelled in Japanese.
He… is he not in England anymore?
“I’m sure you have questions,” Ryousuke says.
And Takumi does. Everything feels so… wrong. He’s not sure whether that’s just because his entire body seems to be wrapped in bandages, or if it’s the drugs that must be running through his system. He can’t make sense of it all. If he’s back in Japan, does that mean his dad had him brought here? For how long has he been unconscious?
“I’m afraid it will take a little while longer for you to be able to ask them. But don’t worry: I’m sure you’ll make a full recovery.”
Takumi looks at Ryousuke, at the placating smile on his tired face. In this moment, he feels like a stranger.
“You’re in the best possible hands.”
Takumi frowns at him. All of his questions are urgent – he wants to know now. He was in an accident, for heaven’s sake! Can’t Ryousuke just tell him more than what little information he offered?
For example, why is Takumi back in Japan?
Maybe, if he had paper and a pencil to write his questions down-
But his arms still won’t move; not one bit.
Where until now Takumi has been feeling mostly confused, he now starts to grow more and more agitated. Tell me, he tries to transmit to Ryousuke only with his eyes, tell me what’s going on.
Ryousuke sighs.
“Calm down,” he says, almost sounding like he’s disappointed in Takumi. “I told you it’s going to be fine. You’ll just have to be patient.”
And shaking his head, he adds more quietly, “We’ll both have to be.”
He gets up from his chair and adjusts something that Takumi can’t turn his head enough to see.
An odd metallic taste spreads in the back of his throat.
“Rest now,” Ryousuke says, “We’ll try again next time.”
Takumi meets his eyes and recoils at the look in them, the almost feverish determination he’s never seen on Ryousuke before. It’s an expression that would look more at home with his brother; but with that said, even on Keisuke it would be disturbing. For all his passion, Takumi can’t remember Keisuke ever looking this obsessed.
Takumi has never felt scared of Ryousuke before. But now he gets the sense that he really, really doesn’t want to be here. He…
...
When Takumi wakes up, he has no idea where he is.