Nurse's Visit

Lights begin to come back on upstairs. First there’s the humming, the waking world pulling a sunken consciousness back to the surface. Then, blinking eyes blearily struggling to see without watering. Staring up into blinding fluorescents, Mochi Uranus licks his lips, tasting the filmy coating of the waterproof bandages. Several of them, placed over where Takako had split his lip open. A gallows grin places strain on the skin trying not to split back open underneath.

“What are you smiling about?” a tired voice from the infirmary bed beside his. Mochi sniffs at the air and lets his head fall to the side. Kyoda Hiro, looking like death itself. They’d all been through some shit, but from what gossip Mochi had heard, Hiro’d been through the worst diarrhea dump of them all. The ones still breathing, anyways.

There’s not many people at school Mochi still gives a shit about. A short and sweet list. Hiro’s on it. Getting another checkup, probably. They’d never really spoken, even when they were Sophomores together. It’s frankly bullshit that Mochi managed to cruise through to Senior, and Hiro got held back. Doesn’t even have his real Quirk anymore – his blessing. Just an imitation. Mochi respects Hiro as much as he pities him.

With some effort, Mochi pulls his eyes back towards the ceiling. “You should see the other girl,” he brags. She hasn’t got a scratch on her, but imagining her face in the principal’s office makes him giddy.

“Damn. Beat up by a girl,” there’s barely enough energy in the voice to be mockery. “What was the fight over?”

“Sparring match.”

“Jeez.”

Silence falls between them. Not much to talk about. They could commiserate about being gimps, but fat lot of good that would do besides make them both feel more like discarded leftovers. The humming stops, and the nurse on duty finally appears over Mochi. He glares up at her.

“You’re finally awake,” Ms. Busujima stated the obvious like an idiot, in her too-cheery sing-song voice. “I placed a cast on your arm and leg. There were some fractures I had to mend, and it will take a while for the bone to-”

“Why bother?” he asks, gravely. At her taken aback look, Mochi avoids her eyes. “Not like the leg can get worse.”

“It can, actually,” she softly responds. Irritatingly patient.

Teeth bared, Mochi spits back at her, “Why not just amputate it if you’re too useless to make it work again?” Taking a step back, Ms. Busujima looks at Hiro, and then looks away. “At least it’d save me the effort of lugging them around. Dead fucking weight.” When Mochi was brought in by the rescue crews post-attack, they missed him at first. Wasn’t until later someone had found him pinned under some wreckage out of sight. Unconscious couldn’t call out. Purely shit luck that nobody spotted him. Purely shit luck that a wall fell on him in just the wrong way. Didn’t even get the glory of going down in combat. There was still hope in him when they got him into the infirmary, but no matter how much she tried their vaunted healer couldn’t put his broken halves back together.

So many had already been healed, and Ms. Busujima’s Quirk had run dry, needed to recharge. So the other one got to treat him, the fat pregnant lady. By the time the healer had recharged and gotten around to him, it was too late. Something about injuries setting if they don’t get healed soon enough. Becomes part of the body’s ‘new normal,’ the state they heal into. Truth is, he just wasn’t a priority to get rescued in time. To get treated in time.

Only one to really give Mochi priority is Imamu. A seat at the adult table, treated like a valued member of the group. Even gave Mochi his legs back, free of charge. Out of his own blessed pocket. Nobody at Shiketsu had done that.

“Don’t give me more excuses or platitudes,” he spits when Ms. Busujima tries to open her mouth again. “Thanks for the casts. Get out of my sight.”

Swallowing down her emotions, she ducks away with her tail between her legs like the slime she is. Mochi doesn’t look over at Hiro. Whether it’s approval or disapproval on his face, Mochi would find a way to think less of him for it. Mochi doesn’t want to think less of him.