Chapter Text
It was at least a week before anyone was allowed to see Eiji.
Not that it had stopped Ankh, of course. Every time the hospital tried to kick him out, he snuck his way back in. Finally, they relented, deciding he was much less trouble when actually underfoot. He sent Hina short texts to update her on Eiji's condition—when he was in surgery, when they took him off ventilation, when they reduced his medication... It was hard for her to understand, especially because Ankh himself didn't understand things like lowering Eiji's body temperature to preserve his brain cells or artificially inducing a coma.
But it didn't mean that the rest of the world stopped. Shoko was discharged from her hospital stay quickly, and both she and Hina resumed class. Goto returned to Cous Coussier to fill in for Eiji's shifts, and Chiyoko asked every day about his progress. Then finally, Ankh sent a message that Eiji was awake and okay to have visitors, and suddenly everyone started reworking their schedules around him so they could drop in.
But Hina always managed to find other responsibilities that put it off—she had to catch up on schoolwork, she had to clean up her apartment, she had to replace her broken furniture. It lasted until Shoko said that she wanted to visit after school and Chiyoko gave her a meal to bring to him. She had the funny feeling she was being set up, but she couldn't find any way to prove it.
Her knuckles were white as she clutched her schoolbag, making her way down the hall. Ankh hadn't said anything about Eiji's condition, though both Chiyoko and Goto had said he looked well. Shoko was giving her a skeptical glance from her side, but she tried to ignore it and gather her frayed nerves.
Then, from the open door, she heard Eiji complain, "Ankh, give it back!"
Ankh scoffed. "You owe me ice cream, you know. This will work in the meantime."
"Ankh..." Eiji sighed.
Shoko stared for a moment, thrown off by the scene. She had seen Eiji floating lifelessly in the tank. She had heard Ankh's frantic shouts for Hina to stop. She had watched Eiji fly off in a daze, completely dependent on the candroid to guide him, then collapse in Hina's arms, coughing up his lungs. And yet here he was now, complaining in front of Ankh like nothing was wrong.
Hina, on the other hand, felt a sense of relief. Eiji had his energy back and was well enough to argue. And Ankh felt comfortable enough about his health to pick on him. He was fine.
She knocked on the door, and they froze. Eiji looked over and turned a faint pink while Ankh settled on a neutral expression.
"Hina!" Eiji gasped. "And Shoko—come in!"
He did look a lot better than she had feared. He was mostly sitting up in bed, though a pillow was still braced against his stomach for comfort. A bandage was still around his head, covering the cut on his temple, but the bruises on his face were turning yellow and beginning to fade, while the rest of his color was slowly returning to his face. The only other visible injuries were his arms—broken and protected with short arm casts in black. But he was awake and had life back in him. He was alive.
"I hope we're not interrupting anything," Hina teased as she sat in a nearby chair.
"Oh, no," Eiji insisted. "I was just eating lunch."
He shot a pointed glare at Ankh, who had a small bowl of fruit salad—the entire reason behind the argument. But he turned back to Hina and asked, "How are you? I haven't heard anything since I woke up."
A stab of guilt hit Hina—though Eiji hadn't meant it, his concern came almost like an accusation, one that was painfully true. She'd been running away from the uncomfortable again. She should have faced her fears and visited him much earlier.
"I'm doing better," she admitted. "I'm back at school."
Eiji waited for her to continue, hoping to hear more. But when she didn't add anything else, he answered, "Oh. That's really good, though." Trying to cover his disappointment, he looked over at Shoko and added, "How about you? I heard you were here for a bit..."
"Only a day," she answered. "None of my injuries were serious, and I've been taking care of the pain with ice and medicine."
"Try getting some compresses," he advised. "They always work for me."
She laughed. "We'll see."
Smiling, he added, "Ankh told me how you fought as Birth. It sounds like you did a great job."
"Thanks," she replied, but now her smile was a little forced. "But I was really just the only one at the time who could do it. I'm glad I could help, but I think it's best if I leave the monsters to you guys."
"Finally someone with some sense," Ankh said, coming over to pick at what was left on Eiji's tray. He noticed the bento box sticking out of Hina's bag and grabbed it. "What's this?"
"Ankh!" she cried, suddenly sympathetic to Eiji's earlier complaints. "Chiyoko made that for Eiji!"
He opened the lid and scowled at the sight of bright yellow arroz con pollo. Without a thought for the mess he'd make, he shoved it at Eiji, spilling some of the rice on him.
"Ankh!" Eiji shouted, struggling to pick up the grains, while Hina and Shoko jumped up to help him.
"You can have it," Ankh replied, his voice sour.
"This is ridiculous," Eiji muttered as he put the bento on his tray.
Ankh, however, sprawled himself across a chair, his bad mood evident. He pulled out his phone and started to scroll through it, trying to look uninterested, but it was clear that he was actually upset. Hina suddenly wondered how much he'd eaten in the past few days, if he hadn't left Eiji's side. Obviously, he was taking some of Eiji's meals, but he was a picky eater to begin with—was it enough?
"I'll ask Chiyoko to pack something for you too next time," she offered.
Ankh looked over at her, a hint of vulnerability in his wide, surprised eyes. Self-conscious, he pulled up his protective barriers and looked back at his phone, only answering, "Yeah."
The awkwardness was tangible—a thick silence choking the air. Fed up with it, Shoko broke the tension by insisting, "Hina, you should show them your drawings."
Hope lit up on Eiji's face. "You started designing again?"
"It's just a bit," she admitted, blushing as she took out her sketchbook. "And most of it is based on my dream..."
On each page, the roughly drawn models had been filled in with approximations of her friends, each dressed in a detailed outfit based on what she'd seen—Chiyoko in the fringed orange and turquoise party dress; Goto in a sculpted brown and blue coat and pants over a tank top, meant more for art than function; Shingo's practical vest and shirt with steel blue pants; Satonaka in the sundress; Hina herself in the oceanic gown.
"You definitely didn't lose any of your talent," Eiji insisted. "I'm really, really glad to see you're not giving up on your dream."
Hina had to smile now. Maybe he was right—the design ideas had come instinctively, and it was harder on her to suppress the images than envision them.
As Eiji started to turn to the next page, she looked up at Ankh and said, "I'd like you to see these ones."
Suspicion all over his face, he got up and walked next to Eiji, not sure what to expect. But the next few pages revealed a set of dramatic, red formalwear for men—the scarlet frock coat Ankh had worn; a reinterpretation of a jerkin in oxblood; and a dress shirt the color of cardinal feathers, paired with a black, military-style tunic coat. His face softened, but from a wild sense of confusion—why? After everything that happened between them, why this?
Eiji was oblivious to the context and, by extension, Ankh's inner turmoil. A bright grin spread across his face as he turned each page, fading only when he reached an unfinished sketch marked with several notes. It was an emerald bodice with lines pointing to it, asking, "jewels? sequins?" in Hina's handwriting. Connected to the bodice was a layered skirt that ended just above the model's knee, colored in shades of green and blue. Another note to the side read, "tissue weight," with a list of materials to try and effects the layering might make.
"What's this?" he asked.
"A new design for my green dress," she said. When he still looked confused, she explained, "It was never meant to get as wet as it did. A lot of the color is fading. I wanted to save what I could, but then the skirt ripped when we escaped..."
"Oh," he answered sadly, looking down in shame. "I'm sorry."
She shook her head, insisting, "It's not your fault," hearing the pump of her blood in her ears .
Eiji didn't notice, admitting, "To tell the truth, I don't remember a lot of what happened after. I didn't even know why I was in the hospital—Ankh had to fill me in when I woke up."
Hina peered over at Ankh, but he refused to make eye contact. That didn't tell her anything about how much he'd said. But it also didn't tell her if Eiji was telling the full truth either.
She tried to reach for her sketchbook at the same time he tried to give it back to her. One or both of them fumbled, and the next thing they knew, their hands were touching and hearts pounding. Hina's face burned bright red while Eiji held perfectly still, his eyes wide and almost frightened. How much did he really remember of what happened that night?
A dark look crossed Ankh's face, even as Eiji pulled his hand back quickly. A cruel, jealous impulse struck him, and before either of them had the chance to stop him, he grabbed Eiji's face and kissed him.
It lasted longer than it should have, or maybe they'd lost track of time because of the others' eyes on them. Shoko looked deeply uncomfortable and desperate to escape. But Hina had a vague expression of hurt on her face, and as Ankh backed away from Eiji, he couldn't seem to relish it as he usually would. The wound had cut deep, and he realized at last that he had no idea who he had been jealous of.
"We should probably go," Shoko decided, taking Hina by the shoulders and guiding her out of the room. "Take care, Hino."
Eiji didn't reply, too stunned to do anything. Hina watched him as she walked out, looking over from him to Ankh, who had retreated to his chair with the flinching gait of someone who knew he'd crossed a line.
There was nothing else to say, and Eiji was left with a familiar tightness in his chest and the silence of his Medals, but not aimed at the person it had been before.
He did everything he could to avoid looking at Ankh. If it had just been Hina, it would have been bad enough, but how could he confide in either of them about the Medals now?
He couldn't. He couldn't ask this of them, or throw off their tenuous relationships with him any more than he already had. It had to be his burden to bear, no matter how much harder it had just become.