JSWGAS Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Half a month later.

The environment of the Miyagi Prefecture Hospital was quite good. The corridors were clean and bright, and the wards were tidy and sanitary. Looking down from the window of ward 303 on the third floor, one could see the hospital’s small garden. Small birds perched on the branches, children in hospital gowns occasionally ran across the grass, and elderly people on the seats spoke to their grandchildren with smiles.

A quiet and slow-paced life – that was the normal state of the Miyagi Prefecture Hospital, but today it welcomed something different.

A boy with coffee-brown hair almost crashed up the stairs, his footsteps heavy and fast, his expression anxious, his lips dry, and his smiling eyes tightly strained. The nurse at the nurse station saw the boy rush past the desk and hurriedly got up to shout, “That boy! Don’t run in the hallway!”

The boy’s figure swept away like a gust of wind. After him, another child, slightly shorter with short spiky hair and about the same age, ran up the same stairs.

“Sorry!” he quickly apologized as he passed the nurse’s station, but his speed didn’t decrease under the nurse’s gaze, full of the subtext of ‘I know it’s wrong, but I have to do it.’ He and the coffee-haired boy disappeared in the same direction.

The nurse silently retracted her hand, which she had stretched out to stop them: “These kids nowadays…”

Oikawa sprinted to the ward door, but his hand stopped before opening it. After hesitating for two minutes, Iwaizumi caught up to him.

“Don’t cause trouble for others!” Iwaizumi frowned at him.

“But Koiwa, you ran here too.” Oikawa retorted with righteous indignation. Iwaizumi gritted his teeth and clenched his fist. “It’s all because of you!”

“How can you blame me for this?!” Oikawa angrily held up his phone screen to Iwaizumi’s eyes, letting him see the message that had thrown him into disarray.

“「I want to eat milk bread and Ponta, orange flavor…」” Iwaizumi squinted and read the information on the message. “A message from ‘Stupid Bird’? Who is this ‘Stupid Bird’?”

The angry expression on Oikawa Tōru’s face froze. “…Uh.”

Iwaizumi glared at him and guessed, “That’s what you call Taka in your contacts? Does he know?”

“How could he possibly know!” Oikawa Tōru replied. “The Great Oikawa has kept it perfectly hidden… He’ll never find out!” By the end, he was even getting smug.

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi interrupted his smugness, “I’m curious what you call me in your contacts.”

Oikawa Tōru, “…”

Iwaizumi, “Huh?! What? Why are you being so defensive, you jerk?!”

“Damn it! Don’t grab it, Koiwa! It hurts! – This is a hospital! Show some respect for the hospital?!”

“I am showing respect. How about I just beat you up and you can stay here for a while, huh?!”

As the two were arguing, the door to the ward in front of them suddenly opened.

A strange nurse saw the two people in their contorted poses and raised a polite but confused smile. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

In Oikawa Tōru’s quiet hiss, Iwaizumi released his hand from twisting his face. “No, sorry.”

Oikawa Tōru quietly complained about Iwaizumi’s many sins. But when he saw the nurse locking the ward door, he became visibly anxious. “…Um, excuse me, what about the person staying in here…?”

“Hmm? In here?”

The nurse saw him nod. “The patient in here passed away last night due to failed rescue efforts.” She said softly, smiling apologetically. “Are you family members of the patient?”

Oikawa, “Eh??! Passed away?!”

“Yes…” The nurse was startled by his sudden increase in volume, and her gaze became suspicious. “Is there a problem?”

Iwaizumi, “Idiot!… Sorry, we’re bothering you.”

The nurse walked away with a worried look, turning her head back every few steps. Iwaizumi knew it was all because of the troublemaker next to him; she probably thought they were weirdos… Thinking of this, he punched Oikawa.

“–That hurt?! Are you a gorilla, Koiwa?!”

“Shut up.” Iwaizumi ordered coldly, “Give me your phone.”

Oikawa Tōru: “…Are you going to secretly look at what I call you in my contacts?”

Iwaizumi: “…Who’s interested in what you call me?!”

Oikawa Tōru dared to be angry but didn’t dare to speak out, and obediently surrendered his phone. He sighed worriedly. “Could that text message have been Taka playing a prank on me? Or is it a ghost?”

Iwaizumi didn’t speak. He scrutinized the phone screen: “…Trash River.” He said, “Are you an eighty-year-old grandpa? Is your eyesight really that bad?”

“That’s a personal attack, Koiwa?!”

“Mistaking ward 303 for ward 302, what is that if not presbyopia?” Iwaizumi sneered, wanting to smash Oikawa’s head together with the phone.

“That’s too much?!”

He threw the phone back to Oikawa and took the lead, heading towards their real destination. Oikawa Tōru followed behind, but he wasn’t chattering as usual.

A quiet Oikawa Tōru was a spectacle no matter where or in what situation. Usually when he was like this, he was planning something bad. But this time, Iwaizumi didn’t question whether he was brewing up something bad in his heart—

“Are you nervous?” He said in an all-knowing tone.

“…”

Oikawa Tōru didn’t speak, as if his mouth had a sign hung on it saying ‘Not Home’.

Iwaizumi was a bit surprised by his rare behavior, which made him a little embarrassed and angry. “What are you looking at!” He finally spoke. “The Great Oikawa isn’t nervous! Speaking of which, why would I be nervous?”

Iwaizumi calmly exposed his paper-thin disguise, “Ever since that day,” he said, pausing and frowning. He hesitated for a long time before continuing, “The day the Hawk’s family had that accident, you’ve been acting strange.”

The more he spoke, the more fluent he became, “You keep forgetting to bring your lunch, you buy curry rice balls instead of milk bread, you answer questions in Chinese class with a math textbook, and you get punished by the teacher to stand outside, and you’re even absentminded when receiving the ball.” He thought for a moment and added, “And you couldn’t even dodge the ball I spiked at you.”

“…Forget about the stuff before that, but that time you spiked the ball at me, you did that on purpose?!”

“What nonsense are you talking about.” Iwaizumi said calmly, “You can only blame yourself for being distracted.”

Iwaizumi knew that he couldn’t go out that night. But Oikawa Tōru’s house was right next to the Kokonoe’s, even separated by only one wall. Even though he said annoying things like, ‘With Stupid Hawk gone, the school hunk title this year belongs to the Great Oikawa!’, he probably cared about this matter more than anyone thought.

Oikawa Tōru tried to passively resist the question with silence. But no matter how much he slowed down, the distance between ward 303 and ward 302 wasn’t that great.

The distance kept getting shorter, and he went from ‘If I walk quickly to the ward, Koiwa won’t keep asking’ to completely opposite feelings like ‘Why did we get here so quickly’. He realized dejectedly that Iwaizumi was right; he was nervous, at least he couldn’t fool Iwaizumi.

A few seconds passed, and the two finally stopped in front of ward 303. Iwaizumi turned his head, his eyes full of silent disdain, ‘You really are hopeless’. Oikawa Tōru pretended he didn’t understand. Seeing his expression, Iwaizumi sighed helplessly, then resignedly pulled open the door. He was the one who rushed over here, and he was the one who hesitated at the door for so long. Iwaizumi displayed his usual reliability, dropping a sentence like, “If you’re not coming in, I’m closing the door,” and then walked in.

Iwaizumi was too lazy to care about the troublesome guy behind him. Although he so sharply pointed out Oikawa’s feelings, his own feelings were actually not that different from his; the only difference was that Iwaizumi wouldn’t shrink back at the last moment.

–Even so.

When Iwaizumi saw his friend, who had become a little unfamiliar, he suddenly felt like he was in another world.

But objectively speaking, it was just the emotions in his own heart acting up that made him feel unfamiliar.

Before the ward door was pushed open, he was standing at the window, looking out. Hearing the noise, he turned around from the window sill with one hand, looking at Iwaizumi and Oikawa Tōru, who was following behind him, with some surprise.

Iwaizumi only heard his mother say a few words about the situation at the time. It was said that Oikawa was the same; adults always didn’t want them to know things that were too unpleasant. So, after the two actually saw Kokonoe Taka, they realized that it looked more shocking than they had imagined.

A small, discordant color appeared on that familiar, handsome face, with bruises from the corner of his left eye to his cheekbone that hadn’t faded yet, almost injuring his eye by half a centimeter; the collar of the hospital gown wasn’t high, so a fist-sized, light-colored bruise was revealed; then there was the stiff movement of his legs when he turned around, followed by the ridiculous sight of his right hand being bandaged up like a rice dumpling.

Iwaizumi, “…”

Oikawa, “…”

The two were speechless for a moment.

Kokonoe Taka said in surprise: “A-Ichi? And Toru?” He couldn’t help but glance at the person behind him a few times, “I didn’t think you’d come.”

Oikawa Tōru immediately retorted: “Ha! Are you underestimating the Great Oikawa?!”

Kokonoe Taka innocently stretched out his hand, “Then where are the things I asked you to bring?” He shook it twice. “Milk bread and orange-flavored Ponta, you should at least bring some gifts to visit a patient, Toru?”

Oikawa Tōru stared at the outstretched left hand. It was clear that the hospital’s hospital gown couldn’t satisfy a teenager in the middle of his growth spurt. So Kokonoe’s sleeves were a little short, and where he used to wear a sports wristband, a scar across the wrist bone was exposed.

He hadn’t spoken for too long. Kokonoe Taka suddenly looked down at his outstretched hand and withdrew it, pretending to be innocent. He said mournfully, “Forget about Toru, I didn’t expect you anyway…” He turned to Iwaizumi, making a hopeful wish, “Reliable A-Ichi must have brought it for me, right?”

Iwaizumi, “…Unfortunately.” He took a deep breath, his finger pointing firmly at Oikawa. “This guy dragged me over here as soon as he received your message; he must have forgotten everything.”

Kokonoe Taka looked sad, “So?”

“…So I didn’t bring anything either.”

Kokonoe Taka shrugged, “So I can’t count on either of you in the end?”

The joking words created a relaxed atmosphere, but no one answered in the ward for a while. Kokonoe Taka couldn’t help but carefully look at the expressions of his two friends, and his scalp tingled instantly—

Oikawa Tōru already had tears in his eyes, looking like he was about to burst into tears; Iwaizumi wasn’t much better, with his eyes red like a rabbit. Kokonoe Taka was at a loss for a moment. He supported himself under the focused gazes of the two for less than a minute, then gave up and relaxed his shoulders.

“Okay,” he raised his left hand helplessly, “I’m back.”