[ closed to hina ]

[yokubo]

After the Carnival Corpse, Eiji was in a daze. He was with it enough to know that he should probably stay in bed, but laying there and thinking of what had happened was way too much. More than that, he needed to be there for Hina-chan. Seeing Ankh like that must have felt like a nightmare.

So he used some extra bandages on his feet and headed toward the G-Block stairs. It turned out having no toenails hurt more than he'd imagined, but if by nothing other than pure determination he would reach her cell. He could worry about the return trip later.

By the time he was almost there, he could barely take it. Blood was seeping through the bandages, and he was having a hard time guising the grimace on his face. No one would mind if he sat down in the hall for a minute, would they?

Comments

[dreiwuensche]

She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear awkwardly. "I'm fine... You really don't need to worry."

[yokubo]

"If you're sure." Maybe she didn't want to talk to him. Had he made a mistake in coming? "But I know you go through a lot so I just... wanted to be here if you needed someone."

[dreiwuensche]

Maybe Eiji just wanted someone to talk to, and was playing up that it was for Hina's benefit? If that was so then she didn't want to point it out. So she smiled and took a seat beside him. "That's really nice of you. You can definitely stay if you want, I don't mind. There's not much to do around here, though..." She gestured to the rest of her drab cell.

[yokubo]

His primary concern was her, but in a lot of ways he wanted to talk about what had happened too. He just didn't feel okay about anything. All that had happened to Ankh was a big thing on his mind, and he was scared of just how much worse things could get. He wanted to protect his friends but he was failing again and again. He didn't have the power to do anything, and his conversation with Hidari had only made him feel that void of weakness even more.

"Hina-chan," he spoke up, almost like he hadn't heard what she had said, "do you ever feel like we should be doing more than we are now?"

[dreiwuensche]

She looked down at her lap. "...yeah," she said after a pause. "I wanted to go down to G-block and stop them from taking you and Ankh, but you were already gone by the time I got there. I feel so completely useless!"

[yokubo]

That snapped him out of his daze, at least in part.

"You really would have done that for us?" He felt conflicted. That was the kind of stuff they should be doing if they wanted to change things, but he couldn't stand the idea of her being hurt. "... thanks."

It was all he could think to say.

[dreiwuensche]

"Of course! You're my friend and Ankh is, well." She didn't want to say it in an exposed location like this.

She shook her head, though. "I didn't actually get to do anything."

[yokubo]

"You were brave enough to try, though. I don't know if a lot of people would have done that." Eiji seemed to settle into his thoughts for a moment before speaking again. "I'm not very good at coming up with plans on changing things. Every time I've tried before it hasn't worked."

[dreiwuensche]

Plans? Oh. Having a plan besides "Go down there and stop the guards somehow" would probably be useful. Hina twirled her hair in her finger in embarrassment.

"Maybe if we work together we can come up with something," she offered.

[yokubo]

"Like when we decided to hit Ankh on the head?" A smile was hard to hold back when thinking of all of that in hindsight. It was pretty funny.

[dreiwuensche]

She covered her mouth and giggled. "Maybe a little more well-thought-out than that."

[yokubo]

"He probably doesn't think it's as funny as we do, huh?" He laughed too. Sometimes small moments like this were the most important ones.

[dreiwuensche]

"He hasn't brought it up. I doubt he's still too upset about it." She hoped, anyway.

[yokubo]

"That's probably only because he finds new reasons to be mad at me so often that he forgot about the old ones." He chuckled to himself.

[dreiwuensche]

Hina sighed and shook her head, but she was still smiling slightly. "He does seem to be getting better, at least."

[yokubo]

"I'm glad things are starting to work out." It was especially assuring to hear her say it herself. "I'm really happy for both of you!"

[dreiwuensche]

She nodded firmly. "It probably would have turned out different if you weren't here, Eiji-san."

[yokubo]

"Oh, um... do you think so?" He wasn't totally sure what to think of that. He looked confused, then a bit flustered. "I really didn't do that much."

[dreiwuensche]

"Yeah! I haven't been able to be down in G-Block with him, so I'm glad he has a good friend like you with him."

[yokubo]

"Ah, well... you're welcome?" He looked down, not sure if that was the proper response or not. "It's just that I made a promise to you before, remember? I'm trying to do what I can to keep it."