maybe | hitoshi shinsou x reader

~chapter 14~

Hearing Karage's tinny voice through the phone fills you with a wave of relief. Shinsou relaxes incrementally when you put the phone on speaker, though you wouldn't know he was listening at all if not for the silently attentive tilt of his head.

Karage promises be there in fifteen minutes, maybe less, and you nod before you remember to answer verbally. Yakitako begins to say something in the background, but her voice is cut off when the call ends.

Now all that's left is to sit and wait.

You and Shinsou sit on the cracked pavement in front of a laundromat that somehow managed to escape total destruction, waiting. Watching. Scanning the streets—now flooded with people reconvening, praying, mourning—for nothing in particular. Familiar faces, maybe. You don't see any, and it helps unspool some of the tight dread lodged in your chest.

Eventually a man in a finely-pressed suit wades out of the crowd toward you, notepad and pen in one hand, a flashy badge in the other. Detective. Shinsou takes one look at him, lifting his head just barely, and pulls the blanket still wrapped around his shoulders over his head, effectively blocking out the world. The detective looks over at you questioningly, and you respond with the blankest face you can manage, weighed down by a near-death experience and a new appreciation for your own mortality. This unsettles him, which wasn't quite your intention, but it makes the interview move along faster, so you don't apologize.

It's really repetitive; where were you, and when, and who with, and why were you out, and what did you see, asked over and over in different ways to make sure you've got your story straight, or something. The detective doesn't try asking Shinsou anything, which is for the best.

After the detective leaves and silence—bar the white noise of police interviews and ambulance sirens—fills the air between you again, you look at Shinsou. The blanket is still pulled over his head and he's curled up, hugging his knees to his chest. From what you can see of his hands they're white-knuckled. You don't say anything, but you wonder.

You wonder about earlier. About how he froze up, and why, and what happened, and how you can punch who or whatever did it.

You don't know why you care so much—you've known Shinsou for a day and a half at most, and he's not said a kind word to you once yet—but you can't stop the heat of protective anger that curls in your gut. It's easier to devote what little energy you have left to this anger, anyway. Easier than confronting the tangled knot of feelings that sits in the pit of your stomach, beside the anger, that makes you feel queasy. So you let it happen.

Sometime in between the time it takes Karage to pull up in his puttering, blue sedan and the detective's departure, when your eyes graze over the ruined scraps of what were once buildings, and idea pulls at you.

It's stupid for sure, probably not very helpful at all, but what have you got to lose, really?

The vague details of an article you once read float through your mind—something about finding stuff to ground you during a panic attack, something to smell or touch or taste that can pull you back to reality.

You scan the nearby rubble, trying to pick out something just right and—there, perfect. Shifting, you lean over just far enough to pick up a rock. It's decent-sized, fitting nicely in the palm of your hand, with a smooth surface that's warm to the touch, heated by the sun.

"Hey, Shinsou," you say in a near-whisper, unwilling to totally shatter the silence just yet. No response. But you expected that; it was more of a warning than anything else. Then you poke him, lightly, on the shoulder. At that, he stirs, and when his head pokes out from under the blanket he's wearing a frown and stray locks of purple hair are plastered to his forehead with sweat.