Keigo had fallen into a short coma after the war. The doctors said his body was stable, but inside, he drifted.

And in that drifting haze, he dreamed.

He opened his eyes to the sterile white of a hospital room, his feathers heavy against the sheets. But something was different. Someone was there.

You.

His childhood friend—the one who had always been at his side when you were kids. The one who ran with him through the broken streets, who held his hand when he was too scared to admit his fears. The one who patched him up when he scraped his knees, and who made him laugh when all he wanted to do was cry.

The one who died right after his debut.

You shouldn’t have been there. He remembered the funeral. He remembered standing there with his wings trembling, unable to cry because the world was watching Hawks, not Keigo. He remembered how hollow it felt to lose you right when everything was supposed to begin.

And yet, in his dream, you sat on the edge of his bed. No words, no sound—just that familiar presence. Just you.

It was like the universe was letting him go back, for one stolen moment, to when he wasn’t “Japan’s Winged Hero.” To when he was just a boy who had a best friend who believed in him.

The monitors in the real hospital kept their steady rhythm, his body unmoving. But in his mind, all he saw was you—alive, smiling faintly, as if time had folded back on itself.

He didn’t speak. He couldn’t. Because even in a dream, the weight of knowing you were gone pressed against his chest.

And still, for as long as the coma held him, he let himself believe.