Satonaka’s bravado should make him laugh, like always –but he was too distracted by the warmth that was gushing from her wound. It had already seeped right through her t-shirt, obscuring the bright orange Bruce Lee print on top. Iwai hollered to a nearby civilian to grab cloths, a blanket, anything to stem the flow. Shaking hands soon passed him a pile of tea towels and he quickly positioned a few over the wound and reapplied pressure. His brain and his limbs were engaged in an almost mechanistic rule following, because unfortunately or not, this was nothing new to him.
The only variable was Satonaka.
“Hey, you’re fine,” he insisted, keeping his voice even (it was hard, because his heart was in his throat). “The ambulance is on its way. Satonaka. Stay with me, I’m going to ask you a few things. Are you taking any meds? Do you have any medical conditions? What about drug allergies?”
Pausing in between each question, Iwai was relieved to see her respond with small shakes of the head. Satonaka’s breathing was shallow, her skin pale, and she was rapidly losing heat even with the heavy jacket draped over her. Time was a relative thing, and Iwai knew the ambulance was coming, but it felt like goddamn forever and he was running out of things to say that would keep Satonaka distracted and awake.
When it finally did, Iwai stared numbly as they took her and the assailant away. His fingers felt stiff, and it took him a while to realise that it was because they were caked with Satonaka’s blood. The cops detained him and the rest of the civilians involved for their individual accounts, and he answered their drab, routine questions with a composed clarity that surprised even himself.
It was another three hours before he finally found himself standing at the emergency department front desk. Maybe it was because of his bloodstained clothes, or the look on his face, because the girl at the desk took the initiative to ask him whether he needed help in a slightly timid voice. She was obviously a trainee.
“No,” he responded, sending her a weak smile. “Never mind, thank you.”
Satonaka’s parents and partner would’ve known by now, and they would be the first to see her when she was off the operation table. He was neither a relative nor a close friend –it would be a pain in everyone’s ass to insist.
Iwai turned, found an empty spot by the corner and dropped heavily into the seat. He felt a glare from a gaunt, elderly woman at the adjacent bench, a gawk from the snot-nosed child on her lap. Iwai bent low and folded his hands over his face, finally feeling the anxiety kick in –seizing his lungs and rib cage, filling his head with white noise, blinding him with pixellated after-images.
