WILDFLOWER [Ryunosuke Tanaka x OC]

Chapter 28 - The Sleepover Part II

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 Ryu stood in the middle of the street, sweaty and confused and alone.

How had he gotten here?

In the fog and misting rain, he gasped for air, his chest rising and falling out of exertion, which made him think that he ran the whole way to Kano's, but he didn't have the mental capacity to check for his bike to prove himself otherwise. In his hand, his cellphone waited with her name on the screen, one touch away from calling her. But he hesitated.

The ambulance in her driveway made his blood run cold.

Something was wrong, and he knew that. They fell asleep together at the kitchen table at Ryu's, studying for their first test of the new semester as it rained gently outside; he hadn't heard her phone ring, but when he woke, Kano was gone. At first, Ryu thought she was just in the bathroom or something, but after a cursory glance around the apartment, he realized she really left. She called a few minutes later, her voice torn to bits between sobs, and she couldn't even make it through a whole sentence to say what happened. Ryu's heart jumped to the worst conclusion possible, and he just went.

Every thud of his sneakers on the slick pavement woke him up a little more, reminded him of the steady beat in his chest, the fear forcing his blood to run cold. With every second that passed, he worried more.

The front door to Kano's house opened—yanking him back to the present—and out came a parade of paramedics, a stretcher rolling between them. He couldn't bear to look at the person on the gurney. Ryu was too afraid it was Kano.

The paramedics pulled up their hoods and continued down the short driveway and into the waiting ambulance. Squinting through the mist, Kano's Aunt Nagisa trailed behind, climbing in after them, too. He'd never seen her face so serious before, not even at the spring interhigh qualifiers when the girls fell out of the bracket.

As the ambulance lights flickered on, Ryu clenched his dripping fists, everything in his heart saying, "That's Kano, that's Kano, that's Kano!" But his mind knew he was jumping to conclusions, fabricating answers without real questions.

But at the end of the procession of people filing out of the Abe household's front door, Kano appeared in the doorway, unscathed. She wore one of his sweatshirts, the same one she'd 'borrowed' from him earlier in the evening. Her hand covered her mouth, as if physically holding the tears back, forcing them to stay inside; black rivulets of mascara and eyeliner betrayed her, the evidence of her emotions all over her face. But... she looked okay.

Ryu watched the ambulance tear away into the night, shooting down the road and off toward the hospital; the tail lights left red streaks on the pavement like a trail of bloody breadcrumbs. When he looked back at the house, Kano was sobbing, her hands now covering her face to hide the pain.

Ryu followed his feet, which seemed to know what to do. "Babe?" he yelled, almost as if to verify that it was really her standing on the porch.

Kano's head popped up from her hands, tears streaming down her cheeks, and it took a moment before the realization settled into her wide eyes. "Ryu," she breathed, her pained expression softening. Barefoot, she ran toward him, and the two of them collided in the driveway.

The first thing Ryu noticed was Kano's shaking hands. She gripped the back of his neck for dear life, burying her face into the crook of his shoulder. Now her tears fell freely, hot as they seeped into his already-soaked t-shirt. "I-I'm so sorry that I-I-I left without telling you," she sobbed, the despair clear in her voice, "I should've told you o-o-or woke you or something—"