like okay sorry it’s just wrapping wounds and making wounds and wrapping your hands around his neck to keep him from using his own hands. painstakingly running your fingers over his ribs to make sure they’re all in one piece. he’s struggling to stifle a laugh. you’re feeling for a pulse. he sits shock still. you absently use your foot to kick his shin, lightly, and he bursts into such sudden laughter that it sounds like it hurts. one of the ribs was broken, so you imagine it has to. you tell him it can’t be that funny, and his face when he looks up at the red sky is so far beyond anything you could hope to understand that you want to kick him for real this time. his eyes are open but they’re empty, reflective, not glassy but not too far off, and you wave your hand in front of them, and he’s struggling to keep more of that laughter in his body this time. his shoulders shake with the force of it. you kind of can’t tell how much blood he’s lost. you would ask him, but why would he know.

he also for sure would not tell you, if he did.

he’s looking you right in the face to tell you that his ribs have been wrapped too tight. he’s looking you right in the eyes to tell you that he can’t really breathe, tashiro-kun, could you do me a favor?

you see yourself in his eyes, and he’s asking you to wrap them tighter.

tashiro blinks two times to see miyano staring at him with eyes like saucers, shirahama looming over him.

“what?”