When Koutarou woke up a few hours later he will still pretty dizzy from the anesthesia and I took him a while to make out the faces of his parents and his best friend. His head hurt a bit and he felt a stinging pain somewhere at the side of his body.

"Where's..." he slowly began, trying to focus on the words coming out of his mouth without much thinking.

"We are all here, darling" his mother said and took his hand in hers. "It's okay. Everything went fine. No complications during your OP."

He only blinked at her in confusion and closed his eyes again, still drained from the surgery. Right, the surgery...

"Where's Keiji..."

Koutarou was fairly sure it was his best friend who was groaning then, mumbling something about how "far gone" he already was, but the teen didn't listen. Didn't care.

He wanted Keiji by his side. See him smile and intertwine their fingers with each other.

"I'm gonna ask a nurse if it's possible to get him here" his father finally muttered after no one else had made a single move. Koutarou smiled faintly at that, before slowly dazing off again due to his exhaustion.

When he woke up for the second time this evening there was a hand clasping at his own, but this time it wasn't his mothers.

"Hey" Keiji softly greeted him with that barely noticeable smile of his. Koutarou knew it was there, though. He always did.

"Hey..." he replied and didn't let go of the boy's hand again for the rest of the night.