The rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor fills the hospital room, steady and relentless. Shinjiro Aragaki lies motionless, the sterile sheets tucked neatly around his broad frame. The bruises have faded, but the pale cast of his skin remains, a constant reminder of how close things came.

You sit at his bedside, fingers curled loosely around his rough, calloused hand. It’s strange, seeing him like this — so still. Shinjiro was always one to be disappearing off somewhere. Always restless, always guarding himself behind that gruff exterior. But now, there’s nothing but the slow rise and fall of his chest, the hum of the machines keeping time.

The doctors said he was lucky. Lucky to survive. Lucky the damage wasn’t worse. You hated the word. Lucky didn’t feel like the right way to describe what happened. Not when every day since then has felt like walking through a haze, waiting for him to wake up.

“I, uh… I brought you something,” you murmur, voice barely above a whisper. From your bag, you pull out a worn paperback, its edges curled from countless reads. Something he mentioned he liked to read, when he felt too cold to be able to sleep. The corners of the cover are stained with old coffee rings, the spine cracked down the middle. He always complained about how predictable the ending was, but you knew he loved it anyway.

You flip it open, the pages rustling softly. “Figured I could read to you for a bit. Not like you can stop me.”

The joke falls flat, swallowed by the steady beeping. But still, you read. The words flow, even as your eyes flicker toward him between sentences, hoping — waiting — for some kind of sign. A twitch of his fingers. A flutter of his eyelids. Anything.

But there’s nothing. Just Shinjiro, lost in whatever space the coma has trapped him in.