Life-and-Death

This day had now taken a sudden turn as Arata's unconscious body was driven away by the ambulance. It wasn't going to end for the three girls he knew who witnessed the event. They had to follow to see how things were going to turn out for him. Because this wasn't some simple trip to the doctor. There was a good chance his last conversation with Matsu was going to be the last one he'll ever have.

Speaking of Matsu, she was predictably freaking out as they rushed to the hospital. Erina was also visibly worrying over the situation. Only Hifumi was able to keep a cool head, but that was only on the surface. Inside, she was definitely more scared than either of them, but she was more concerned over what would happen if they let their emotions control them. Therefore, she had to be the one to maintain a sense of calmness for everybody.

"Okay Erina, we should contact everyone he knows about this." News like this needed to be made aware of. If anyone was available, then it was important to give them their chance to offer support. Also should things take a turn for the worst, then it was fair to allow everyone the opportunity to make their farewells. This was also necessary as they could get into contact with Arata's parents, who of course should be coming down here for their sake.

Meanwhile, Matsu sat down at one of the seats, her face frozen from the shock of the situation. The best any of them could do for now was wait until others arrived as there was nothing else they could do for the boy. Unsurprisingly, they didn't have to wait long for the first arrival. His mom.

"My son!" She came barging into the lobby at full force, nearly bursting through the glass before the automatic doors could open. "Arata Kashimura, where is he?" His mom asked the receptionist while gasping for air. Arata's father was notably absent, most likely unable to make it due to his job.

"Ma'am, please calm down." The receptionist attempted to explain that the doctors were working on him as they spoke. "I'll page for one of the nurses to take you somewhere for more details."

"I can't imagine being her right now." Hifumi commented. Sure, she was also scared out of her mind for his sake. But there was no way she could possibly understand the feeling of a parent who got the news of what happened to their son, as did happen to him.

She also took note of Matsu, who was holding up rather poorly in this situation. There was little hint of the cheerful attitude everyone had grown accustomed to. "Here, let's go hit the vending machines." Hifumi decided it best to aid in trying to get their minds off of the current circumstances. So some refreshments were the only idea she could come up with. "Erina, would you like anything?"

"I'm fine." She answered. "Go on ahead, I'll save our spots." The pair got up and left her alone in this lobby. Perhaps this wasn't the best thing to do from Hifumi's point-of-view as Erina had something in mind she wanted to do now.

It was time to do it as the nurse came out to get Arata's mom. Now, the information that was going to be discussed between those two was supposed to be confidential. However, Erina was really bad at not listening in on others secrets. Now, this was not to be disrespectful, she simply wanted to hear a status update about his situation.

So quietly, she slipped away and tailed the two women as they walked into a private room. To avoid being suspicious to anyone around, the girl did what she did best and used her stalking skills to act like she was supposed to be there.

"My son." Now without any worry, she was able to listen into their conversation. "Please tell me he'll be okay."

"The doctor will be arriving shortly." Considering that was the first response by the nurse, things were looking bad for the boy. "As of right now, I can tell you that he is still with us, so don't worry about that." It was difficult to keep a mother from fearing for her son's health. Erina certainly didn't envy that nurse in this situation.

"Oh, Arata." His mom dug her face into her hands as tears came out. "Please let this be a nightmare." While watching this rather personal moment, Erina nearly lost her cover as the doctor came from behind and opened up the door. Fortunately for her, he was in too much of a rush to notice her presence as he had much more important matter at hand.

"Mrs. Kashimura, I'll inform you quickly of your son's situation." From his tone, it seemed that time was of the essence in this matter. Now the odds were appearing to be getting worse for him the more they learned about what really happened to his body. "He didn't appear to have any outlining damage, so we had to do some quick scans to find potential internal injuries."

While he was knocked unconscious from the hit, which meant a concussion, there was another aspect of damage which took more notice from the doctors. There was a small tear in his femoral artery, so the boy was literally bleeding to death as they spoke. "Right now we're prepping for surgery, so there are a couple of things we need to work with you about."

It was nice that she was here to give consent as he was still a minor. Of course, given the emergency situation, they still would've performed had she been unable to come in time. However, the second point was much more vital. "May I know your blood type? Your son, he has the rare O blood. So we figured that his parents would be able to provide a donation given our limited supply."

"O…" His mom's fell into a deep despair upon remembering his blood type. "I… I'm sorry, but I'm blood type A." This led to them asking about his father, after all surely his boss would allow him an early release to come to his son's aid. "He's B. I'm sorry, but I don't understand, how does he have such a different blood type from his own parents?"

"I see what's going on here." The doctor believed this was due to his parents having the recessive gene of O for the both of them. This left the small chance that he would become O rather than A or B like them. Sadly, this bit of the genetic lottery was not a positive result for him. "We'll have to make due with what we have then."

"But, he'll be fine right?" His mom asked with hope. "I mean, you'll save my son, right?"

"I'll perform to the fullest of my abilities." He responded, then quickly moved out of the room to prepare for the surgery.

"You may return to the lobby if you'd like." The nurse informed his mom as she walked out to follow the doctor. Erina ducked her head down to remain undetected as she hung around to continue to listen in on the conversation between the health professional. "Are you sure we can operate under these circumstances? He's already lost a lot of blood."

"I don't have a choice." He responded. Now that he didn't need to maintain appearances, it was clear that even the surgeon had his doubt on the success of their emergency surgery. "As much as I can wish we had better equipment for this kind of situation, it doesn't matter right now." The man took a moment to breathe and collect himself. "His life is in my hands now. And I don't want it to end just because we didn't have enough resources."

With that, the pair left to get themselves ready to oversee the operation. Meanwhile, Erina was in utter disbelief about the poor outlook. Not only that, but she couldn't believe he had the same blood type as her all along. It made more sense now, why he was fine with letting her not donate blood to help out Yogi all that time ago. And it also made more sense as to why he beat himself up so much over letting things get so bad back then. All that time, he could've stepped up and did it himself, only delaying it because she blackmailed him to support her relationship to the ailing boy.

"I'm a terrible person." She said to herself, falling backwards onto the wall and sliding down into a sitting position. A similar situation had now popped up in front of her again. With their blood type being the same, she could offer to donate enough blood to ensure that the doctors could perform the surgery with less risk. Yet there she was, still sitting all alone. Her breathing became hard to manage as her body panicked over the idea of having a needle stuck into her. All to suck out her own blood, something that scared her more than anything in the world.

Tears fell down her cheeks as she struggled to will her body back up from the ground. Her fears shouldn't be stopped her now of all times. She was the only one that could help save his life. Why then… Why then couldn't her body listen to her and overcome that fear. It paralyzed her body just thinking about what she was going to have to go through. "I'm pathetic." Erina muttered to herself, as she found it impossible to fight against her body's urges.

"I don't think you're pathetic." A voice spoke to her. She quickly looked up to see who it was. That voice, there was no way they could be here to speak to her right in this moment.

"A-Arata!?"