Beautiful Disasters- Hawks x OC

Chapter 24

A plate of hot food was waiting for her on the living room coffee table when she stepped out of her bedroom. Thankfully, Mariko was feeling a lot better now that she wasn't soaked and covered in blood. Her hands still trembled slightly as they hung at her sides though.

Keigo was already sitting on the couch, his plate untouched and full of steaming food. He was waiting for her to show up to start eating.

"You didn't have to wait," she mumbled, sitting next to him and picking up her plate.

"I wanted to," he answered, picking up his chopsticks.

They ate quietly for a few minutes, and when Mariko was halfway done with her food, he broke the silence. "What happened out there?"

Mariko shifted uncomfortably. It took a moment for her to say anything, but she remembered the promise they'd made and knew she couldn't run from him anymore.

"The car almost hit me," she started.

Keigo flinched and sat up straight, "What? He asked, no one had mentioned that to him.

The brunette nodded. "Yeah, I heard the crash and when I turned around, the sedan was coming at me. I managed to roll out of the way just in time. I didn't really think about it much, but if I had been a second slower, I'd probably be dead."

The statement crashed over him like a ton of bricks. "One second... just one, and she would've died," the statement sounded impossible to him. He couldn't imagine it- a world where she wasn't his best friend, one where she wasn't part of his every day.

She couldn't imagine it either. One mistake and she would've been in a body bag and instead of talking to Keigo about how scared she'd gotten, he and Hayato would've been called to claim her corpse.

"Is that what's got you shaken up?" he asked.

"Part of it," she exhaled shakily, and he placed a hand on hers, assuring her that he was there, and she was safe now. "When I was dragging that woman out of the car. I was somewhere else for a moment. I was back in China, and the car was on fire and everything hurt so much. It was like I'd actually been hit again." She was shaking now, and although her eyes were dry, there was a fear and sadness in them that the blonde had never seen in her before. She knew what'd happened and so did he.

"You had a PTSD flashback," he said gently.

Mariko looked down at her hands, disappointed in herself. "I had one during an emergency situation where I was supposed to be acting like a first responder," she elaborated.

He stared at her for a moment and shook his head, "You did act like a first responder. Anyone else would've acted like a victim after almost getting hit by a car. You almost died and focused your attention on saving someone's life even though you felt like you were out of your mind." He pulled the brunette into a tight hug, "You did really well Chickee. I'm so proud of you," he told her.

Mariko nodded into his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his middle. "Thank you," she whispered.

After eating, it didn't take her long at all to fall asleep. It was more than understandable- she'd already had a long day at work, was almost killed, and had an emotional shock. To say the girl deserved a nap was an understatement.

Keigo picked her up bridal style and carried her to bed. He carefully tucked her in before returning to the living room to put away their leftovers. As he closed the boxes and packed everything away, his mind couldn't help but wander. He wondered about the accident Mariko told him about. A group of Japanese teenagers dying in a car accident in china would've been big news in Japan, so it was strange that he'd never heard of anything like that ever happening.

Sitting at the kitchen bar, he pulled out his phone and took to the internet. Car accident China, Japanese teenagers dead.

None of the search results were what he was looking for and he almost gave up when he stumbled upon a Facebook update from four years ago. A woman who was apparently a nurse in rural China was talking about a crazy emergency she'd had at work that day. A group of teenagers had burst into the E.R, many of them being badly injured saying their car had exploded. The weird thing was that some of the wounds were gunshot wounds and she was worried that they would be having a new gang in the area. The car accident part had been close to what he was looking for, but Mariko definitely wasn't the type to be associated with any gangs. He frowned and put his phone away again. Why was it that whenever he tried to find information about Mariko, nothing ever came up?