Akihiko is pretty sure his heart stops cold for a moment. Is he hearing things?! There’s no way–
He whirls around so fast that he almost loses his footing. He has to catch himself against a nearby table and ends up knocking whatever had been on it to the floor. The crash of metal on tile barely registers. The noise that spasms its way out of his throat is absolutely pathetic.
Shinji’s eyes are open.
He looks tired, more utterly exhausted than Akihiko can ever remember seeing him, but his eyes are open. The oxygen mask is held loosely in his left hand, carelessly pulled aside just so Shinji could make that jab at him.
It’s so much like him that Akihiko nearly chokes.
Akihiko practically dives across the room, the distance between him and Shinji vanishing in two leaping strides. He clasps Shinji’s face between his palms and his skin is dry and cool and slightly rough with stubble and he’s solid and he stays instead of dissolving like a shadow. He blinks up at Akihiko, slow and bleary.
There’s some kind of commotion coming from the vicinity of the door, but Akihiko has absolutely no attention to spare for it until a hand lands on his shoulder and tries to draw him back, away from Shinji.
“Hey–” The voice is vaguely recognizable. It doesn’t matter. He tries to shrug away the hand. “Hey! Don’t make me call security!”
“You don’t need to call security, Ogata-kun.” This voice is a little more familiar. Shinji’s gaze has slid past him to peer at the speaker with a tired kind of befuddlement, and that’s mostly what gets Akihiko to turn around. He leaves one hand resting against Shinji’s cheek.
The second voice belongs to the nurse he’d exchanged pleasantries with earlier– the one who Akihiko has seen at least once on every single one of the last thirteen days.
Nakai, he remembers suddenly. He feels terrible for having forgotten to start with, after everything that Nakai-san has done for Shinji.
“He–” Akihiko’s voice cracks like a little boy’s. “He’s–”
“He’s awake,” Nakai-san agrees. “I understand that you must be feeling a lot right now, Sanada-kun, and I know you’re concerned about Aragaki-kun, but we’re going to need you to leave the room for the moment.”
“I can’t–”
“You have to,” Nakai-san cuts him off, his tone still kind, but unyielding as a brick wall. “We have to follow certain procedures now that he’s regained consciousness, and part of that means no non-personnel in the room.”
“But–” Akihiko digs in his heels almost on instinct when Nakai-san takes hold of his shoulder to try once again and pull him away from Shinji’s side.
“I told Ogata we didn’t need to call security. Don’t make a liar out of me, Sanada-kun.” Nakai-san’s tone has gone from unyielding to impenetrable. Chastised, Akihiko finally allows himself to be piloted into the hallway. He keeps his eyes on Shinji until the moment the door closes and cuts off his line of sight.
Left with nothing else to do but wait, Akihiko manages to coax his shaky legs into carrying him over to some nearby benches. He crumples onto the thin cushion, the motion heavy and clumsy. Just like on the night Shinji had spent on the operating table, Akihiko wishes he could pace off his nerves, but he has even less confidence in the ability of his legs to keep him upright.
He needs to– he needs to do something. He’ll go crazy if he doesn’t.
It takes him another ten minutes of harried inaction before he scrapes the wreckage of his thoughts together enough for it to occur to him to reach into his pocket for his phone. Yes– alright– first things first, he needs to contact someone. Everyone else should be at the tail end of their tests, and Mitsuru is almost certainly finished with hers, even considering her careful refusal to rush. She’s the first one he ought to call.
Unfortunately, his hands are as unsteady as his legs had been. After the third time he drops the phone, Akihiko resorts to setting the damn thing on the seat beside him, putting it on speaker once he’s finally managed to awkwardly dial Mitsuru’s number. She picks up midway through the second ring.
“Akihiko?” Mitsuru’s voice fizzes with static. Akihiko thinks, not for the first time, that he should invest in a new phone. “Are you at the hospital already?”
He really does try to answer, but all that comes out is a weak choking noise. He’s never felt so pitiful in his life.
“Talk to me.” A new note of panic tilts her words into a higher pitch. “What happened?”
He swallows and finally finds a bit of his voice. “Mitsuru,” he begins. “H-he…”
In hindsight, Akihiko can’t blame her for immediately assuming the worst after that performance.
“...Don’t tell me. Please– Akihiko, don’t you dare tell me that he’s–”
“N-no–!” Akihiko quickly cuts her off. The last thing he wants is for her to think– God. He can’t even finish the thought in the privacy of his own head. With a shaky breath, he continues. “No, that’s n-not it. He…he woke up, Mitsuru.”
For a moment, there’s nothing but silence on the other end, and Akihiko worries that the call cut out.
“...He did…?” Mitsuru’s voice trembles in a way that Akihiko’s never heard from her before, terrified and hopeful.
“Yeah.” The word comes out as a helpless little laugh. “He did. I got to talk to him for a second, but– heh– but the nurses chased me out of the room.”
There’s a soft thud on the other end of the line. Akihiko pictures Mitsuru leaning against the nearest wall or desk, as weak in the knees as he is.
“Oh– Oh, thank god…” she breathes. “I– I’ll make sure–”
She pauses, taking a moment to compose herself. Akihiko wishes he could see her; wishes he could be there, that he could be the thing she leans on to keep herself on her feet. All he can do from here is wait patiently for her to continue. “Testing is almost finished,” she says after a long, steadying breath. “Once everyone is out, I– we’ll be right over.”
“Okay.”
“And Akihiko?”
“Yeah?”
“...Thank you for calling me. I’ll see you soon.” Even under the static buzz, he can hear the watery edge to her voice.
She really doesn’t need to thank him for something like that, but Akihiko doesn’t get a chance to say so before the call ends and he’s left with nothing but the dial tone. Akihiko slowly flips his phone closed.
It’s only then that the lid on his emotions bursts open. Shinji’s alive. Shinji’s awake. The rest of the team is coming by to see him. Tears well up again, scalding hot against the backs of his eyes.
This time, he lets them fall. Akihiko collapses, folding over his knees and dropping his face into his palm as the first sob quakes through him.
