Chapter Text
The second Sanemi opened his eyes, he was certain he’d awoken to a nightmare, because the most passive-aggressive person he knew was staring down at him. He groaned. The third year girl with the butterfly in her hair was a pain to deal with, even when she wasn’t pissed.
“Kochou,” he grumbled.
“Call me Kanae.” She smiled, and weirdly enough, it didn’t have undertones of homicidal intent.
Wait, what? The world came a bit more into focus, revealing that while the young woman hovering above him had a familiar face similar to Kochou Shinobu’s, she was wearing two different butterfly pins in her long hair, which was hanging directly in Sanemi’s face.
He reached up to smack away the offending strands, only for a fiery pain to light up his entire arm. He looked down at his right side, where his entire arm was mummified in white bandages. He attempted to push himself up, only for his ribs to scream bloody murder. His elbow gave out, sending him back to the thin mattress.
“Oh, I wouldn’t try to move, if I were you.”
Sanemi groaned, feeling each of his body’s aches and pains keenly.
“Couldn’t have told me that first?” His irritation was already coming back in the form of a throbbing sensation at his right temple. Or maybe that was an open head wound, he wasn’t sure.
“Ah,” said the woman in an airy tone, still smiling. “Well, probably.”
Sanemi was beginning to suspect this woman was a complete ditz. This was coming from a man that was at nowhere near full processing capacity, still halfway knocked out.
“What the hell happened?”
“You’re in the school nurse’s office. Well, it’s my office now, starting today, I suppose.”
Sanemi narrowed his eyes, and attempted to give as menacing a glare as he possibly could while completely reclined. Somehow, he felt that the effect was lost on the airhead.
“I asked what happened.”
“Oh, that. You were hit by a car.”
Yeah, that tracked. His right arm felt as if the skin had been ripped off, likely from hitting the asphalt. The bruises on his torso were probably in the shape of someone’s grill. After a moment’s thought, he remembered the circumstances leading up to the accident.
“Fuck, I don’t have time for this,” he muttered to himself. “When I see that Agatsuma brat, I’ll make him solve equations until his eyes bleed.”
“Oh my,” she said, a hand pressed to her cheek. Despite her words, the woman didn’t seem overly concerned.
“How did I even get here?” He propped himself up again, much more gingerly and with his teeth gritted against the pain.
“This nice young man carried you all the way on his back. Isn’t that just amazing?”
Kanae gestured across the room to where a yellow-haired boy was attempting to slink towards the door. Upon being pointed out, he froze, and made direct eye contact with Sanemi. This was one of his many, many mistakes.
“Agatsuma,” he growled, the sound rasping familiarly across his vocal cords. The boy made a dismayed noise, pure terror on his face. It did Sanemi’s heart good, knowing he could still inspire fear while incapacitated.
“I-I’m s-so glad to f-finally see you awake, sir, but I really, really, really should be getting to class, so I’ll just-“
In the entire time he’d been speaking, the boy was surreptitiously reaching for the door. Unfortunately, his escape plan was foiled when the door slammed open, making a cacophonous noise. Through the frame came a boy who had to duck to fit, all one hundred and ninety centimeters of Shinazugawa Genya.
“I came as soon as I heard. Is Sanemi okay?”
“Why don’t you ask me?”
Genya turned, relief clear in his face. Sanemi felt a little bit of his tension ease up at the sight, knowing that his little brother was concerned for him. However, what little warm fuzzy feelings he had disappeared when Genya opened his mouth.
“We have to get you to the hospital.”
“Fuck no.”
“Sanemi,” said Genya, sounding as exasperated as if he was talking to an unruly child, a comparison that did not improve Sanemi’s mood.
“I’m fine, I don’t need to go to the damn hospital. I just need to know who hit me with their fucking car.” His eyes flicked over to the boy who was once again inching towards the door. It seemed an impossible task, considering almost all of Genya’s bulk was still blocking it. “Agatsuma.”
The boy’s spine went ramrod-straight in an instant, caught in his escape. Odd, because Sanemi could’ve sworn Agatsuma didn’t have any sort of backbone at all.
“Y-y-yes sir!”
“What did you see? Did it look expensive?”
“ That’s what you’re worried about?” Genya’s incredulous expression pushed its way back into his line of sight.
“Of course, I’m not a fucking idiot. Remember when I got hit by a Lexus? The hush money I got to not take that shit to court covered our rent for an entire year.”
“You took a bribe ?”
“How do you think I bought the tv?”
“I can’t believe you,” said Genya, scrubbing a hand over his eyes.
“Wait a minute,” interjected Agatsuma. “Are you saying this isn’t the first time you’ve been hit by a car?”
“It’s not even the second,” said Genya, with a degree of resignation.
“Three times?”
Sanemi felt that level of incredulity was uncalled for, all things considered. This town just had a lot of shitty drivers, that was all. Kanae, or whatever her name was, looked at him with wonder in her large, shining eyes.
“Is that how you got all those scars?”
Sanemi felt his eye twitch. But he had to hand it to her, the woman had the balls to ask straight out. Most rubberneckers just sent him painfully obvious stares, gawking at his gnarled face and arms.
“Some of them,” he said, a suitably vague and badass response. Genya, of course, had to undermine it.
“The rest comes from the house fire, the mugging, the incident with the deep fryer, the New Year’s party-“
“Genya,” he warned. This was getting to be hazardous for Sanemi’s blood pressure, which was steadily rising.
“Falling out of a moving truck, falling down the stairs with an open switchblade, falling off the roof during a thunderstorm-“
“Sounds like an unstable lifestyle,” said Kanae, though whether she was making a joke or not was an infuriating mystery.
“Getting a cat out of a tree, climbing a barbed wire fence, having an extremely sharp icicle drop on him, running with scissors, stepping on a six inch long nail, punching through a plate glass window, laying down on top of a lightbulb-“
“Just how bad is your luck?” Agatsuma looked utterly horrified.
“Interrupting archery practice, feeding a feral dog, kicking a concrete art installation, tripping over a bucket of broken glass, putting a lit firecracker in his pocket, impaling his leg trying to hop a metal fence-“
“Genya, why the fuck are you telling them this?”
“She’s a medical professional, she should know her patient’s history,” said Genya, matter of fact. Sanemi loved his brother, but fuck could he act like an idiot if given the right setup.
“She’s a school nurse, not a fucking doctor,” growled Sanemi. Genya gasped, his face turning redder in direct proportion to how scandalized he was.
“Sanemi,” he hissed, clearly embarrassed. He whirled to face Kanae, his hunched and bowed form nearly half his actual size. “I’m so sorry, Miss Kochou. My brother is still out of sorts from the accident, he doesn’t mean anything he says.”
Sanemi was about to object loudly and at length, when Kanae smiled. Sanemi knew that wouldn’t help the flush on Genya’s face. His brother had a hard time dealing with sincere, optimistic people, if his interactions with the Kamado boy were any indication. Yet, when faced with Kanae’s expression, he found he could relate to his brother’s flustered state. The nurse’s smile unfolded like a flower coming into bloom, soft and radiant. It was disarming, unsettlingly so.
“It’s alright, but I have to say I’m a bit disappointed.” Her smile didn’t falter, and she instead turned its full force on Sanemi. “You see, I thought maybe you got those scars being a spy.”
“A spy,” repeated Sanemi, hoping against hope he’d misheard, and unfortunately very certain he hadn’t. Any and all effects of Nurse Kochou’s smile were abruptly flushed out of his system. She raised an elegant index finger, and tilted her head, smiling all the while.
“Yes! Like James Bond, or Cutie Honey.”
Sanemi’s jaw clenched, exerting a bite force on par with a fully grown mastiff. Very distinctly, he both heard and felt something in his skull pop.
“Since when in the hell is Cutie Honey anything like James Bond?”
He hauled himself upright, and heaved his way out of bed one limb at a time. He staggered his way a few feet across the room with no discernable destination.
“Sanemi, you should sit down,” said Genya who reached out to steady him only to be shrugged off.
“It’s first period already, and they don’t pay me to sit in bed,” he growled.
“Sir, th-there’s blood c-coming out of your no-“
“Shut it, Agatsuma! You’re in no shape to be missing class either. The way it is now, you’ll be having remedial classes with me until the day you graduate!”
Had this room always spun on an axis? Had someone turned off the lights? Why was everything tilting? These questions seemed important, but not quite important enough to hold his attention.
“Sanem-“
Sanemi’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he was out cold by the time he hit the ground. He really should’ve stayed home that day.