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“Sorry I didn’t come visit sooner,” Takenaka says without preamble as he sits down heavily in the chair that’s already pulled closest to the hospital bed. He still has to pull its whole weight so he can move it a bit closer though, and does so until his knees are almost touching the bed frame. “Your family and other friends always seemed to be here, and they’re all so concerned about you - hearing all their thoughts at once was a nightmare the first time I tried to visit with them.”
Mob hums in acknowledgement, and looks up at Takenaka with one foggy half-lidded eye. The other eye, the left eye, is hidden beneath a swath of gauze that continues on to loop thickly around his forehead and through his choppy black hair. Takenaka swallows roughly at the sight of it and tries not to look directly at it for too long.
“I brought you some music to listen to while in here. On like, one of those weird old little mp3 players, cause I know your phone is one of those dinky cheap flip phones that can’t hold like, any songs.” He knows he’s beginning to ramble, but Takenaka can’t seem to stop himself. He looks away from the limp form in the bed so he can reach down and root around in his bag until he finds the mp3 player and headphones that he’d brought for Mob, “I knew I still had one lying around, and dug it out of the back of my closet for you, so you better appreciate it. I put a lot of good songs on it, some of my favorites, actually, so you better appreciate those too.” He turns the tiny device on, focusing on the way its little LED screen lights up neon.
Mob’s hand flops into the corner of his eye sight, “Takenaka…”
Takenaka looks back up at him, “Your voice sounds terrible.” He says flatly, but all the same, he reaches out and takes Mob’s hand.
Mob’s hand squeezes his weakly, “I’m sorry…”
“Sorry? For what?” Takenaka raises an eyebrow, while simultaneously trying to strangle the concern he’s feeling. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry for getting hit by a damn car, or I’ll hit you myself.”
Mob’s head twitches a bit from left to right; a very minute shake of his head, “I tried… I tried to confess to Tsubomi. I’m sorry.” He rasps, explaining, “I know you wanted to try and win her feelings too, but I went ahead and…” He trails off. Takenaka can hear as Mob’s thoughts become muffled and fall apart - the pain medicine and general head trauma certainly aren’t doing Mob any favors.
With a sigh, Takenaka sets the mp3 player down on the bed and completely encloses Mob’s hand in both of his, “You idiot. I don’t care about that. I don’t want to try and win her affections anymore. Tsubomi is more of a friend to me anyways. She and I gossip during tennis practice all the time.”
Mob blinks a bit rapidly, eye stuck on his hand which Takenaka holds, “O-oh… are you sure?” Takenaka can feel, can almost hear, Mob’s continued hesitance. Mob doesn’t want to hurt or upset him, and that in itself is kind of upsetting. Takenaka isn’t the one in the hospital bed. He thinks that Mob should be more concerned about himself for once.
“Stop being self-sacrificing for one second, okay. You already tried to confess, and I don’t care, so it’s all fine.” Takenaka says. Then, he pauses, and asks, “How did that confession go, by the way?”
Mob looks away. His hand is limp and Takenaka is beginning to feel a bit awkward at the skinship that he hadn’t thought twice about initiating a moment ago when Mob had reached out to him. Honestly, with Mob looking so small and pathetic and pale, it was hard to refuse him anything. Takenaka is just about to pull away when Mob’s hand tightens around one of his again.
“I don’t know.” Mob says, in a near whisper, “Got hit before I could…” His thoughts are speeding up, becoming slightly chaotic in a worrying way. Takenaka opens his mouth to intervene, but Mob isn’t done yet, “Everything was destroyed when I came back. Tsubomi and the flowers were gone…” Mob drags in a long, shaking breath, “I think… I think I failed to change again.”
There’s a single moment after Mob says that, in which abruptly all Takenaka can hear from Mob’s mind are the sounds of a younger Ritsu sobbing, of Hanazawa screaming, of Mob’s own ecstatic laughter played hauntingly over the sound of Mob pleading for forgiveness. He watches, shocked by the onslaught of sound, as a single tear rolls down Mob’s cheek.
Takenaka can’t take it.
He wrenches one hand away from Mob’s and reaches over his own arm to the mp3 player. The headphones aren’t plugged in yet, which makes things just a slight bit easier for him. He scrolls awkwardly with one hand until he finds a calming instrumental track - a type of music that he knows Mob likes and that he knows relaxes Mob, because Mob had thought once before about how his Master always plays classical music at their workplace - and hits play.
The soft sound of the music fills the room, and Mob looks over at the tiny mp3 player as the music derails his spiraling thoughts rather effectively. Takenaka breathes out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding as all the terrible memories in Mob’s head fade away, replaced by a stuttering hum as Mob follows the music in his thoughts.
Mob still looks sad though. He looks defeated. Takenaka knows that he’s absolutely terrible at advice - years of shutting out other people’s problems has left him bereft in the comforting category - but he supposes that it’s now or never. He doesn’t like seeing that sad defeated look on Mob’s face.
“Don’t… don’t beat yourself up over it.” He pats Mob's hand a bit, in reassurance. Patting other people’s hands or shoulders was something people did to comfort others, right? “I think you’ve changed plenty.” He doesn’t actually know what Mob means by change , and he doesn’t think Mob needs to, “You’re a… you’re a good guy as you are, Mob.” Takenaka cringes. He can taste the awkwardness dripping out of his mouth.
Mob doesn’t say anything in response though. He’s in such a state that his thoughts have already drifted muggily on, away from the upsetting topic they’d just been talking about. Takenaka sighs, grateful that that difficult conversation isn’t going to continue, though he does hope that Mob talks about his feelings with someone; hopefully someone more capable at helping.
Takenaka leans a bit more of his weight against the side of the bed, and tries to just let the soothing music wash over him as well. But, in the newfound silence, and without headphones to trap the music in and keep other sounds out, the other thoughts swimming in the hospital become more clearly heard to Takenaka. He tries not to show any kind of indication on his face of what he’s hearing, and lasts for at least three solid minutes. But down the hall someone is mentally crying out, screaming, and Takenaka doesn’t know how he hadn’t noticed before.
He winces when someone a floor down with a broken leg lets out a string of colorful swearing from their mind. Somehow, despite praying to every power that may be, it’s the thing Mob is aware enough to notice.
“What’s wrong…?”
Takenaka shrugs. His hands are getting very, very sweaty. He tries to ignore another distant scream by rubbing his fingers over the back of Mob’s knuckles, over the scrapes there. “Nothing.”
Mob stares at him. In the background, the mp3 player switches to another song in the playlist, this one a bit slower, a bit softer.
Takenaka does his best, he really does, but his hands twitch with the urge to cover his ears as he hears a grieving mother halfway across the building begin to internally collapse. He shuts his eyes, tightly, desperate to go back to how he’d been earlier, back to when he’d been rambling to fill the room with sound so he could ignore the things he can hear.
Voice soft with horrified realization, Mob says, “Being here is hurting you.”
“It’s fine.” Takenaka immediately shoots back, as Mob’s thoughts fill with inky blue guilt, “It’s fine. I mean. I came to visit you of my own free will. I can deal.”
Slowly, ever so slowly, Mob pulls his hand free from Takenaka’s and grabs the headphones that lay beside him, “Plug these into the…” He motions to the mp3 player. Somehow, there’s nothing in Mob’s thoughts indicating what his sudden plan is.
Takenaka, confused, does so. The music cuts off the moment the headphones are plugged in, and instantly that silence is filled to the brim with all the terrible thoughts the hospital holds.
On the bed though, Mob is shifting, inching himself to the side rather than the center. It looks like it is taking a herculean amount of effort. Takenaka, bemused, simply watches as he holds the headphones limply.
When Mob is finished relocating himself, he pats the vacant spot on the bed. “Lie down. So you’re close, and we can share the headphones, and then your other ear will be near my head, and that’ll block out everything else.”
Takenaka splutters and almost physically leans back, but he manages to hold himself still at the last second. It’s a creative solution, he has to hand that to Mob, but he doesn’t know how to feel about lying down in a hospital bed so close to him. “That bed is- that’s just for you though. You’ve been bleeding in that bed, Mob.”
Mob turns his head to squint at the pillow. The spotless white pillow, “No I haven’t…”
“A-and anyways! I can just, go home. I can just leave.” Takenaka continues. He shoves the mp3 player and headphones in Mob’s direction with a snap of a motion. “Glad you’re doing better. This was a fun visit. You can just- you can keep this no need to worry about returning it to me or anything. It’s a gift. Happy ‘You Got Hit by a Car and Lived’ Day.”
Mob doesn’t take the held out mp3 player. He looks up at Takenaka and waits patiently for Takenaka to finish rambling. When Takenaka does finish, Mob says, “I can’t make you stay, but I just…” He sinks into the pillow beneath his head, and his thoughts finish his sentence for him, ‘Thought you looked tired. You said before you have trouble sleeping. Thought this would help. And, also, then I wouldn’t be alone again.’
Damn Mob. Damn him. Damn him and his bruised face and all around pathetic image and his self-sacrificing tendencies. Takenaka can feel his already flimsy resolve cracking and weakening.
And there it goes, snapped in half easily with little to no effort on Mob’s part at all, because Takenaka is just a big ol’ softy when it comes to Mob and everyone knows it.
He throws his hands up in the air the moment his resolve breaks, “Gah! Fine. Fine.” Then Takenaka kicks off his shoes and clambers up into the hospital bed quickly, not giving himself any time to overthink or to try and stop himself. Mob blinks, looking surprised. He clearly hadn’t expected Takenaka to actually agree. But then the surprise fades and Mob is smiling a small little happy smile - the first Takenaka had seen on his face since the start of the visit - and damn him it's not fair.
“If I don’t have the best nap of my life right now,” Takenaka grumbles, settling down with his shoulder pressed to Mob’s. He hands Mob one of the headphones and sticks the other in his own ear, “Then I’m suing you.”
“I don’t have enough money for a lawyer. Please don’t.” Mob says, amused, but his eye is already drooping shut again. He’s clearly very tired as well. He nestles a bit into Takenaka's side without reservation, getting comfortable. It must be the pain medicine making Mob act so openly, Takenaka tells himself.
“Yea, then I better have a good nap.” Takenaka crosses his arms and shuts his eyes, feeling stiff, well aware of how red his face probably is.
"Mmm," Mob mumbles against Takenaka's shoulder, "Thank you..." he says, unconnected to what they'd just been saying. Takenaka isn't sure what Mob is saying thank you for, there are many things he could be saying it for.
"You're welcome, Mob." Takenaka says quietly back.
The soft instrumental music is still playing from the mp3 player. Now, instead of terrible hospital sounds, Takenaka has the music in one ear, and Mob’s soft mental humming in his other ear. He’s also got Mob on his one side, a heavy warm weight pressed against him that breathes with life.
With all that, the stiff feeling doesn't last for very long. Takenaka still makes sure to hold himself carefully though, not wanting to jostle or hurt Mob in any way.
He can hear, in his mind, the exact moment that Mob’s humming begins to fade as he falls into a deep sleep.
Takenaka has no problem gratefully following along.