Hoge at the Hospital

Nyoro Hoge stood on the sidewalk outside of the legendary Koseikai Takeda Hospital. She was generally aware of its long history, as one of the city landmarks that have stood for 200 years. It had been a medical center, a refugee center, emergency housing, even a paramilitary fortress at various points in its life. It was especially feeling like a fortress to Hoge right at that moment.

She glared at the black bar sensor affixed above the automatic doors. Her arms were loaded with reference materials, writing paper, binders, and a Frankenstein of a teddy bear with a cheerful saying on its belly. This stopped her from using any of the alternate access doors. And, as always, the sensor ignored her entirely.

The sunlight prickled her skin. Hoge took deep, slow breaths. Any minute now, someone would either leave or arrive, and she'd be able to rush inside within their wake. Any minute. She shuffled her weight from one foot to the other, impatient and tense.

She wasn't the one hurt, of course. It was simply part of her many duties. As the representative of his class, it was only proper that Hoge visit Chris while he was in the hospital - even if it was entirely avoidable and definitely his fault, however it happened.

Rosethorn-sensei was uncharacteristically unspecific about the accident that had demanded his recovery. If it had been another attack, the student body would have been reminded of the new security measures, and the Hero Course students would have been specifically informed. Any one of them could have been targets as well. So either sensei did not know the particulars, which seemed unlikely, or they were particularly sensitive in Christopher's case.

If she were being totally honest with herself, it hooked her curiosity. But because she was Nyoro Hoge, she told herself that no one else would be as successful at visiting alone (as she was the only one burdened by her Quirk, Wasuremono, which so easily pushed attention away from her) and no one else but the Class Rep should have to cut into their busy lives just to catch a classmate up on the coursework he was missing.

Besides, could she do any less for her academic rival? Is there any joy in a victory gained because the opponent was carried off by giant grandma bloomers, or whatever occurred? It was as much her duty as the blade that sharpened the blade of his intellect that she catch him up on everything that's happening, as it would be her job just because of an assigned class role.

Hoge stretched her back, as much out of annoyance as out of soreness.

"Hey! I walked a long way, you know! Aren't hospitals supposed to be busy??"

No one responded to her whining, but she did feel a little better. And feeling better always firmed up her edges. Literally. Wasuremono retreated as Hoge blew off some steam.

At least standing in the sun meant she couldn't fall asleep in meditation practice. She tried to relax while fully upright and listen to the wind.

Some time later, she was startled back awake by the sound of hurrying footsteps. Still bleary-eyed and drowsy, she rushed at the closing doors and pushed past some brown-haired physician exiting the building. Just in time! Hoge donkey-kicked the door frame to free the hem of her skirt that got sealed between the sliding panels and marched over towards the reception-information desk.

A grim-faced woman in nursing scrubs idled over paperwork. Hoge, slightly sweaty from her vigil at the door, decided to skip some of the silliness that was the background radiation of her life.

She let the stack in her arms drop flat onto the desk with a booming slam.

The nurse, frazzled, looked up and around before settling on the bizarrely average girl standing in front(?) of her. She squinted and widened her eyes in turns, doing a facial dance familiar to Hoge as a certain type of stranger struggled to force their eyes to refocus.

"HELLO I AM NYORO HOGE I AM VISITING THE PATIENT CAIN CHRISTOPHER I BELIEVE I AM ON THE LIST," overemphasized Hoge. She scooped her belongings back into her arms and looked down her nose at the nurse, daring her to make a fuss.

"S-sure. Um. One moment please and I will look up the information. Do y-you have... identification...?"

Hoge stared at the nurse. The nurse stared at the middle distance. Then, in silence, she typed rapidly on the computer and gave Hoge the room number.

---

Christopher heard a door being fumbled open followed by quiet footsteps. He sat up in his bed, as much to test his recovery as it was to greet whoever was arriving. A girl's voice chided, "No smoking in a hospital," before his privacy curtain bubbled twice near the bottom hem. Was she knocking? With her feet?

"It's my quirk, girlie. And it's all under control, anyway. Hey, Chris. You've got a visitor, I'm pretty sure."

"Thank you, Smokin' Sexy." Christopher got a half-hearted grunt in response.

After an extended pause, the girl announced, "I'm coming in," and did so.

Hoge went directly to the side table and glided past a rolling surface that held his pecked-over lunch. She began arranging things to her liking, putting the oldest coursework at the top of the new stack closest to Christopher. She immediately began nagging.

"As you're well aware, you can't recover without excess Caloric intake. You need to be eating what the hospital provides, regardless of its quality."

She's wearing a Shiketsu uniform and is acting familiar. The only student I'm likely to repeatedly interact with and can't recall is Nyoro from the corner desk. This is them? They wear the girl's uniform?

"Sure. Haven't been hungry. These are notes and assignments?"

"Of course. I can't let you fall behind." Chris' ears perked up at this clue. What he wouldn't give for his binders at home and the private time to read them.

"We can overview the lectures by your preference, or I can assist you in completing the assignments more directly," Hoge continued. Her eyes very obviously went over the several IV lines plugged into his inner elbow, and the extent of his injuries visible from the bedside. Chris felt gross, like a display at the butcher's. And her tone was so sharp and flat. So maybe not that close, then. Maybe not a classmate in 1-D at all.

"No need. I already memorized everything for this trimester, and my writing hand is fine. What's with the bear?"

Hoge briefly blurred at the edges, then sharpened back to crystal clarity. Chris's eyes widened. Uh oh. An obfuscation quirk. If she can go invisible, like that quirk user he was forced to drop in the fight, then....

"It's... a gift. I'm just delivering it. From you-know-who." She glanced sideways at him, like peeking out of a mask.

"Inigo's going to go broke, giving gifts out so often."

"He won't. And between you and me and stinky in the other bed, WHO SHOULD NOT BE EAVESDROPPING ON CHILDREN," Chris could hear Ryusei on the other side of the curtain shifting around and loudly sniffing his patient gown, "I don't think he buys these."

Hoge sat in a nearby chair and grabbed a notebook from one of the split stacks on Chris' side table. She opened it to a page with colorful writing and diagrams. A label tab stuck off the page at the top.

"I'm going to test you. I need to be able to say to Rosethorn-sensei that I did my due diligence." Okay, so definitely either a classmate or someone who owed Rosethorn an annoying favor. She loved giving out annoying tasks to better her charges, after all.

Chris sighed. "Go ahead."

A rapid fire exchange proceeded, where Hoge would prompt him on trivia — which Christopher could answer even before she finished speaking (and he did so a couple times just to prove a point) — or mathematical principles, which gave him a little pause while he worked on the mental math.

"You could be better at those. How do you think it looks for me, if you struggle so much? Anyone else could get away with it, but everyone already knows about our relationship."

Christopher blushed at that and scrutinized the girl's expression. She said it so casually. She couldn't have actually meant it like that, could she? He wouldn't have used the Quirk of someone important to him, someone he couldn't afford to forget.
You've used Inigo's quirk to get out of tight spots several times. Isn't he an important friend?
Even still, he wouldn't risk a girl he had a... a relationship with.
Even if it was the best card you could play? Even if it was the best advantage you could have over Desolator?

Hoge lifted only her eyes from the notebook she was writing in. Her large, dark eyes caught his and seemed to look right through him.

You trust your system of notes. You trust yourself to improvise over the gaps.
And I didn't plan on dropping the Quirk from getting shot.
And Rosethorn gave you a look when you asked who sat at the desk. Like it was someone you definitely should have known.

Only a second had passed. Christopher's mind was racing to lay down track for his train of thought but he hadn't yet derailed or stalled out. He could still cover for himself, recontextualize the pause.

"Do you think you could have done the calculations any faster? With no paper?"
Hoge sat up primly and closed her notebook with an audible clap. She spun her writing pen between and around her fingers, and stacked it on the notebook in her lap.

"Try me."
"What's the sine of seven pi over twelve?"
"To be precise, it's equivalent to the square root of two plus the square root of six when the sum is divided by four. To round it to a simplified decimal, it's zero-point-nine-six-five-nine-two-five-eight-three."
"Convert twelve from base-ten to base-two."
"One-one-zero-zero."

Christopher could hear his temporary roommate dragging his IV stand to the bathroom.

"An aeronautical engineer uses the dynamic pressure formula to measure a fluid moving at v and another time to measure the same fluid moving at 1.5v. What is the ratio of the dynamic pressure of the faster fluid to the dynamic pressure of the sl-"
"Nine fourths. Chris, this isn't any fun. These are all verbatim from the books."

She moved the chair closer. She put a hand on his knee.

"And we're alone. So we can be more honest."

What the fuuuuck? Oh, you screwed up bad. Christopher felt sick to his stomach. He didn't know what to say or do. So he stalled for time.

"About what?"
"You know. Don't you?"

He stared at the privacy curtain. Come on, old man. Come out and save me from this! Old habits kicked in. His mouth formed words to keep his cover, to protect his secret.

"Maybe. But this doesn't seem like the best place."
"I can be very quiet."
If I could just get to my notes, I could fix this!
"I-I'm feeling pretty tired actually, so-" Take a leap! Lose the scent! Fix this! "-it will have to wait for now... Nyoro-chan."

A long silence. Maybe even two entire seconds. He couldn't look! He glanced over just in time to see her nod her head, clearly satisfied. His muscles relaxed and Christopher realized his lip was starting to sweat. He hadn't even realized how rigid his shoulders had gotten.

"Okay. Just one more thing, and then I'll let you get some rest."
Hoge carefully took her notebook in both hands and opened it to the page she was writing in before. She smiled in a complicated way and tilted her head as she turned the notebook around. Christopher froze in place when he read the only words on that page.

"Cain-san. Why don't you remember me?"