Haruna approached the place, and it really looked like a giant steel container, its metallic dark green walls being very tall, and looking much rusted at some places.
It was already dark, they wouldn't be seeing a thing without that flashlight on her head.
- I think I'm seeing a double door... - the leader said, pointing somewhere along the wall. - I can check first if you're all ok with that.
- Yeah, the less Tomo-chan moves with Mami like this, the better. - Rina replied - Just help me make a torch here, so we have one more light source.
The whole time Rina and Haruna spent talking and doing that, Tomomi was lost in another world. She only forced herself to stay conscious of Mami on her back and nothing else while her mind wandered away.
Never in her wildest dreams, or nightmares, had she ever thought they would find themselves in that kind of situation one day. That wasn't supposed to happen. If she didn't have her friends there with her, if that happened to her alone, she knew it would be the end of her. Without Mami or Haruna, or Rina, she would be gone long ago. Specially Mami. Honestly, with everything that had happened to them through that last week, she would have lost her mind if it wasn't for the guitarist.
That was the kind of relationship they had from the start. She felt better, safer and happier by Mami's side. She knew she wasn't the only one. The blonde had a way of making everyone feel better. The three of them trusted her in the ideas she had, in the impulses with which she acted out on and in her visible instinct of protecting them all. Mami was a lot like a mother in that sense, she would always act thinking of her friends' welfare on top of her own.
It was easy to get comfortable with that, spending all those years together and having that happening all the time in the simplest ways. Mami was a very individual person, she wasn't necessarily interested in all the things they were, but she would stop whatever she was doing to help or accompany any of them in whatever they wanted, if they asked her to. With time Tomomi learned that, and stopped calling her to do random things when she knew the blonde was doing something else that was important to her. Mami would drop it on the spot and go with her just because she asked, like this modern girl version of a samurai.
And the fact that she realized that and stopped dragging Mami around with her all the time just because she could, was something good for them. She wanted Mami to have time for her own things, that was important for them as friends, as band mates, as anything.
But still, it was very easy to get too comfortable with that feature of Mami's personality. And she got too comfortable again in face of everything that happened.
Come to think of it, Mami could've drowned because of her. Mami could've left her in the plane when she got hurt and couldn't get out, but she didn't, she went back to help her without even blinking. Mami carried her in open sea because she couldn't swim, and then when they found something to climb onto, she made Tomomi use it and stayed in the water, pushing her.
Mami carried Tomomi on her back and helped her walk when she was hurt, and got hurt herself because of it. Mami held her to sleep and talked to her even though being really tired, so she wouldn't be scared. And now Mami completely destroyed herself to save Tomomi's life.
The bassist never felt so angry with herself before. It wasn't that she didn't want Mami to do all those things. She obviously couldn't be more grateful, that was the reason she was still alive to begin with. It was the fact that she felt just so small and helpless in face of all of that. Mami had been protecting her all the way from the very moment they found themselves in that tragedy, and what had Tomomi done for her? She couldn't even take care of her right.
