235 Chapter three, 2017, old and new: 5 (2/2)
Then a man, no three men, in white and grey leaned over him. They grabbed, and it hurt again.
***
'Hospital? This has to be a hospital.' Yukio saw lamps in the ceiling move backwards, and it took him a while before he understood that he was rolled through a corridor on a stretcher.
It had stopped hurting. He tried to move his head, but it was stuck, and he couldn't see sideways at all. Some kind of metal towered above him, and from it cables and tubes flowed down onto his body like some kind of frozen waterfall.
Unlike before the world wasn't flashing. It was all white, and the only noise was subdued voices speaking something that sounded like Japanese, but there were all these strangely foreign sounding words he couldn't understand. They weren't English; Yukio would have caught at least something from it after Urufu's gruelling lessons and their walking talking sessions throughout summer and autumn.
'Kyoko, where are you?' ”Kyoko,” he said, but her name came out wrong, and it hurt just trying to talk.
”Please be silent. You're hurt and shouldn't speak right now.”
'Who are you? Ah, a nurse? A doctor?'
Yukio felt tired, and he groggily wondered why as he must have just woken up. The ceiling continued to move backwards and he slid back into sleep.
***
”He's awake. Thank all gods!”
'Huh, what?'
This time Yukio could move his head, and his eyes found Urufu sitting on a chair by his side.
He felt dizzy, and his stomach didn't agree with him at all. A sudden wave of unease forced him to turn and he threw up.
”Shit! Nurse!”
The sound of a door opening made him turn back again, and Yukio saw a woman entering. Then he was covered in blankets, and someone cleaned up beside him.
”We'll need a fresh set of bedding.”
”I'm on it.”
”Bring a seat as well. He needs a shower.”
”OK,” the second of two female voices said before it vanished out the door.
”I need you to go outside.”
”Of course,” Urufu answered, and Yukio saw him leave the room as well.
”Young man, you have a concussion and probably a few fractures. Please be as still as possible,” the nurse who remained in the room said.
”Where's Kyoko?” Sure, he was groggy and felt like crap, but that was nothing compared to not knowing what had happened to her.
”Who?” came an answer he should have guessed from the beginning.
Yukio began from the start. ”There were two of us. My girlfriend, she should be here somewhere waiting for me.” Because that was what he hoped. He suspected the nurse didn't know, but at least he had to chance the question anyway.
The look he got in return had his stomach in uproar all again. ”She was your girlfriend? I'm so sorry.”