Aishiteru - A Story About What Would Happen if Ai Hoshino Survived

It happened in a flash. So quick it took Hoshino Aqua a moment to realize what was happening.

He stood just outside the door as Hoshino Ai stumbled back, blood leaking from a wound somewhere on her torso, painting the ground in dark splatters.

“Ai!”

He ran to her and grasped her dress. The white had been stained red. There was so much blood. The human body contained roughly 1.2-1.5 gallons of blood, and Ai was losing hers so fast!

“Ai! Ai!” Aqua called her name and tried to make her move, but she didn’t budge.

“You fan-betraying slut! You treated us fans like we didn’t exist!”

Standing just inside the entrance was a young man wielding a knife. He was shouting and looked vaguely familiar, but Aqua was too busy focusing on Ai to pay attention.

“I’m not pure, and I’m dishonest, and dirty,” Ai said, voice raspy with pain.

“You damn lair! You lured us in with your constant ‘I love you! I love you!’ crap! It was all lies!”

Ai, voice weak with pain and loss of blood, said, “I don’t have a good grasp of what it means to love someone… I told pretty lies that would please everyone… always hoping that one day, those would become the truth… I tried my best, worked hard, and lied with everything I had. To me, lies are love.” She looked up, eyes that normally shone like stars slowly dimming. “And in my own way, I thought I was expressing love. I don’t know if I was able to love you and the others… but I sang all those love songs while thinking that I wanted to…”

She raised her hand, covered in blood, shaking from exertion.

“Even now, I want to love you…”

The attacker stepped back.

“Liar. You don’t even remember me, do you?”

“You’re Ryouseke-kun, aren’t you?” His eyes widened. Ai’s face twisted. “Oh? Was I wrong?” She looked down. “I’m… not too good with names, you see? I was happy when I got that star sand from you as a present. I’ve still got it displayed in my living room.”

The man stumbled back. His horrified eyes widened as he grabbed his face, the blood-stained knife still in his hands. He screamed something incoherent, ran out of the entrance, disappearing, and that was the moment Hoshino Ai fell backward. Her back thumped against the door.

Aqua jolted.

“Ai!!!”

He ran over to her and knelt down, quickly assessing the wound. It was a stab wound to the abdominal aorta. Dammit! Dammit dammit dammit. That was the largest blood vessel in the body. She would bleed out before an ambulance could even get here if something wasn’t done.

“Well… I sure let my guard down. This is why we have door chains, I guess. They didn’t teach that at the orphanage,” Ai said. She sounded lucid. Her body was being pumped with adrenaline, which dulled her pain receptors to some degree.

“Don’t talk!” Aqua shouted. “You need to conserve your strength!”

“Aqua…”

“I said don’t talk!”

Before Hoshino Ai could say anything else, Aqua pulled her off the door and laid her on the floor. She was heavy. Or no. He was just weak. Curse his child body.

“Ruby! Ruby! I need scissors, medical tape, gauze, and a phone!”

“Momma? Aqua, what’s going on…?”

The door opened a creak.

“Don’t come in here yet! Get what I asked for first!”

“Aah?! R-right!”

Footsteps thumped behind the door. Aqua listened intently to the sound of Ruby’s feet getting more distance as he applied pressure to Ai’s stomach. This wasn’t going to stop the bleeding though.

“I… don’t think I’m gonna make it… Aqua…”

“Stop talking! You will! You’ll make it! You have to! I can’t… I can’t lose you!!”

“Aqua…?” Ai looked at him with dim, lidded eyes, then smiled. It was such a frail look. “Okay. I’m counting on you…”

Now that she said that, he couldn’t possibly let her die.

“I-I’ve got what you asked for, big broth--OH MY GOD! MOMMA?!”

“Ruby!” Aqua snapped quickly before his sister could become hysterical. “Give me the scissors! Now!”

“Uh… o-okay…”

Ruby could do nothing more than what he asked of her. He quickly took the scissors and cut around the area where Ai had been stabbed.

“Unwrap the gauze. Quickly!”

“Y-yes!”

The area around Ai’s wound became visible… sort of. There was so much blood that the wound was almost invisible. Aqua bit his lips as his eyes stung and something wet ran down his face. Could he really save her? No! He had to save her!

“I-I have the bandages…”

“Give them to me. And call 119.”

He couldn’t bother to disinfect the wound right now, so he pressed gause to it and got the bandages ready. She was lying down, which made it hard to wrap anything around her, but he somehow managed. His tiny arms actually came in handy for this. The bigger problem was wrapping it tight enough to prevent her from bleeding out. The knife had gone deep. She had internal bleeding. Even with this, she would still die if something wasn’t done.

“I-I have the ambulance on, but what do I say?!” asked a frantic Ruby.

“Put the phone to my face,” Aqua commanded. He felt oddly calm now. As the phone appeared next to his face, he heard someone talking on the other end, but quickly cut them off. “We have a stab victim here. She was stabbed in the abominal aorta. You need to be here within five minutes or she will die. Our address is…”

He quickly rattled off the address, then had Aqua end the call and come over to him. He directed her to help him apply pressure to Ai’s wound. He just didn’t weigh enough to properly staunch the flow of blood. She was crying hard but did what he told her.

Hoshino Ai was in bad shape. She had already fallen unconscious and her breathing was slowing. Her heartbeat would be slowing down too, to better converse blood. Aqua did everything he could to prevent her from dying. Time seemed so slow. Where was the ambulance? He wanted to look at a clock, but he didn’t dare take his eyes away from Hoshino Ai.

Everything after that happened in a blur. The ambulance arrived and quickly got to work. They couldn’t move Hoshino Ai right away. They hooked her up to numerous IVs that would supply her body with the blood it lost, redid the bandages, and only then placed her on the stretcher and moved her out. Aqua and Ruby stayed with her the whole time, from the ambulance until she entered the emergency room.

Then they were locked out.

They could do nothing but wait.

The director and Miyako came by, but Aqua barely remembered what they said. He realized he was now experiencing shock. The adrenaline had worn off and his body was losing steam. He didn’t dare fall asleep, however. He couldn’t. He needed to know that Hoshino Ai was safe.

He was startled awake by the sound of a door opening. Blinking several times, he realized he had fallen asleep. A glance up revealed a doctor walking toward them. His hands were covered in blood. Aqua clenched his hands into fists as Ruby gasped and buried her face into Miyako’s skirt.

Director Saitou stood up. “H-how is she doctor…?”

“She’s… stable.”

Aqua felt like crying. She was alive. Hoshino Ai was still alive.

“However, it was a very close call. Had we been any later, I’m afraid she wouldn’t have made it.” He paused. Then he glanced down. “The staff who received the call said the voice sounded like it belonged to a child. Was that you?”

“Ah… yes. My name is Hoshino Aqua,” Aqua said, standing up. His legs wobbled from sitting for so long.

The doctor knelt before him. “You’re pretty brave. What you did back there saved that woman’s life.”

Something sharp stung his eyes. Aqua belatedly realized he was crying, though he tried to hold it in.

“Mmm.”

“Aqua…” Ruby placed a hand on his shoulder. “Good job.”

Miyako placed a hand on his head. “Yes, you did a great job.”

That was when Aqua began really crying.

***

Hoshino Ai’s condition was stabilized, but she had lost so much blood that she was comatose. The news had a field day reporting that Hoshino Ai had been attacked by a crazy stalker and was now hospitalized. Ruby also had a field day going on the internet and beginning flame wars with all the people who dared to say that Hoshino Ai deserved getting stabbed.

Aqua didn’t pay attention to the media. The only thing he cared about was Hoshino Ai waking up. He spent every waking moment in her room, leaving only when he needed to use the restroom and bathe. He did try once to stay in after not bathing for three days. Miyako had put the breaks on that very quick. She used logic, claiming that Hoshino Ai would not want to wake up to a smelly son.

Because he was paranoid about letting anyone get too close, Aqua tried hard to do everything he could for Hoshino Ai, even the stuff that was normally done by the staff. The nurses seemed to think it was cute and let him. He’d never been so grateful that he was a child.

Most days were boring and he had nothing to do but watch Hoshino Ai sleep. He thought a lot about what happened and how it made him feel. While he had consciously acknowledged Hoshino Ai as his mother, some part of him had never treated her as such. He had always maintained this distance between them due to his memories from his previous life. Her near death at the hands of that stalker made him finally realize how much she meant to him.

While people normally weren’t allowed to stay at the hospital, some strings had been pulled to allow Aqua and Ruby to stay. No one said anything, but he was sure rumors would be flying around soon enough.

Aqua woke up to the feeling of soft hands running through his hair. He blinked his eyes open, then slowly sat up. The dark room only had a small night lamp and Tokyo’s city lights to illuminate it, so he could just barely make out the figure lying weakly in bed, eyes shining like stars.

“Aqua… did I wake you? I’m sorry,” Hoshino Ai smiled at him.

“M… Mooooom!!”

Aqua’s body moved before his mind could process it. He buried his face in Hoshino Ai’s chest as he cried. The tears blurred his vision, stained her medical gown, and the sound of his inconsollable bawling made Ruby wake up.

“Aqua… what the hell are you crying about now? You need to be quiet or momma will… momm will…”

Ruby trailed off as she stared at Hoshino Ai. The woman offered her the same smile she did Aqua.

“Hello, Ruby…”

“M-Momma!!”

Hosino Ai pulled Ruby and Aqua close, even though she was weak from blood loss and confined to a bed. She held them tight as they soaked her clothes in their tears.

“I can’t believe I’m really alive. Aqua… you saved me, just like you said you would.”

“O-of course,” Aqua mumbled, voice muffled by her chest. “You’re… you’re my mom. I wasn’t gonna let you die…”

It didn’t matter to Aqua if he had been reincarnated anymore. His previous feelings felt so far away, so fleeting. Hoshino Ai was his mother, and he was her son. He realized that now. He loved this woman not as a fan would an idol, but as a son would a mom.

“Mmm. You kept your promise. You’re a very good boy.”

Aqua choked back the extra flood of tears, or tried. He didn’t do a good job. Hoshino Ai gently pat his head as he bawled against her.

Moments passed and both Aqua and Ruby’s tears soon settled into the occasional sniffle. It wasn’t long before silence settled over them, though it was broken by Hoshino Ai.

“I have something very important to tell you both. Aqua. Ruby.”

Hosino Ai pulled them even closer, until she had buried her nose in their hair.

“愛してる.”

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I bet y'all are wondering what the hell this fanfic is doing on Patreon. I wanted to give this story a place for people to easily read it for free. I wrote this to cope with Ai's death, which hit me much worse than I thought. It's been a a few months since I wrote it, so me posting on here might seem a little strange, but it didn't ocurr to me to share on my Patreon until, like, just now. So yeah. Here you go. I hope you enjoy the story.

As of right now, I have no intentions of continuing to write this, due to a combination of time constraints. Writing takes up time and I'm already working 12-14 hours every day. However, I might make this a bi-monthly thing if I get a lot of patrons. I'll set a goal of 1,000 patrons. If I get 1,000 patrons, I'll continue this story and write two chapters a month like the Oshi no Ko's manga schedule.