Chapter Text
When Midousuji woke, their whole face ached—a dull throb that intensified to a painful thrumming the longer they lay there, unmoving. Unmoving? That couldn’t be right. Why weren’t they getting up? They moved to lift themselves, but nothing happened. Correction, then—why couldn’t they get up? They stared at the ceiling furtively, eyes only slightly open. Maybe they were still asleep. Maybe this was just another night terror. It wasn’t like they were rare.
“Midousuji…Akira?” At the sound of the voice, they tried to shift their eyes to the side, looking over to where the timid voice had come from. Pain shot through their skull like a lightning bolt, and they groaned softly. Even doing that hurt. “Please, don’t try to move. You’ve been in a very serious accident. We’ve contacted your immediate family and they should be here shortly.”
Accident? They closed their eyes—wincing slightly when even that hurt, and tried to remember. When had there been an accident? They tried to remember and they couldn’t. Everything ached, and they couldn’t move, and they were apparently in a hospital. Everything felt murky, and all they could remember was bright lights, and awful scraping sounds. What had they been doing today? Before? Bicycling, of course. They stayed afterschool a bit, practicing. It was fall, with the chill of winter closing in, so it had gotten dark quickly, but Midousuji had figured it was no big deal.
And then…What? What had happened? They were riding—pedaling and practicing and polishing because they would be perfect, they were perfect, they would crush all the zaku at the upcoming Inter-High—then, bright lights. Incredibly bright lights. Scraping, creaking noises…pain. Their body hitting and falling back like a rag doll against the road…bright lights again. Headlights. Had they hit a car…? A car accident?
A weak groan escaped Midousuji’s throat again, and they cracked their eyes open, this time turning their whole head to the side. It still hurt, but much less than trying to move their eyes without turning their head. As already suspected, they were in a hospital. The ER, obviously, considering they were met with the blue of a privacy curtain. If they focused past the sound of their own blood thudding in their ears, they could hear beeping machines and nurses and doctors rushing around and talking or shouting. On their near-numb arms they could feel all sorts of tubes. It felt disgusting.
They felt like they were still waking up, but incredibly slowly. They moved to push their long tongue past their lips, meaning to wet them a bit…or perhaps make a face about the current gross situation. But immediately, they noticed something was wrong. Midousuji didn’t notice they were screaming until the nurse asked them to ‘please stop, Mr. Midousuji’…but even once they realized it, it was hard to stem the screeching. This was wrong. This was horrific. This had to be a nightmare.
They stopped screaming, but they felt like they were going to puke…their throat tightened and they felt themself gag. It was their teeth. Three of them.
Their teeth were gone.
After three nurses had managed to calm Midousuji down, a doctor had come in and talked to them briefly. He had said he was sorry about Midousuji’s injuries, but he sounded too clinical to be sincere. A broken leg, four fractured ribs, lacerations and scrapes to their arms, a left orbital fracture (which explained why their eye hurt so, so much), and a fair amount of bruising. But that wasn’t the worst. No, it wasn’t anywhere near the worst. Instead, the doctor had delivered the worst news as if it was child’s play compared to Midousuji’s other injuries. But it wasn’t. It was a nightmare.
Both central incisors and their right lateral incisor—gone. Nothing else mattered—the doctor had already informed them that their leg should heal up fine, as well as their eye. But teeth…teeth didn’t grow back. They stared at the ceiling of the ER. Once their aunt showed up, Midousuji was to be moved to an actual room. They were still too young to sign their own papers. A room would at least be quieter.
“Akira! Thank goodness you’re alright.” Ah. Their aunt. They blinked slowly, trying to ignore the pain in their left eye. They had to speak. They had to speak, with their mouth like this, with their teeth like this…
“Yeah,” they croaked out weakly, mouth barely opening.
“The doctor said your injuries were serious enough that you’ll have to stay for a few days, but everything should heal fine…and thank god you’re alive! The doctor says your injuries could have been much worse!” She moved forward, but stopped short of their hospital bed. She was going to hug them, they realized, but she decided to hold off. Probably for the better...they weren’t much in the mood for physical affection.
“Well, Akira, after they get you settled in your room I’ll see if I can bring Yuki to visit. She’s worried sick about you, you know.” She patted their arm awkwardly and began to walk away. Midousuji didn’t bother to tell her that they didn’t want Yuki seeing them like this. They didn’t want anyone seeing them like this.
Midousuji was used to hospital rooms. In fact, they would almost say they were fond of them. Hospital rooms were warm, and the light streamed in from the windows thinly, but in just the right way somehow. It was even easy to ignore the sounds of heart monitors and the other miscellanea if one was accustomed to doing so—which they very much were.
But it wasn’t the same. Of course it wasn’t the same. They sat in their bed, staring out the window. They wanted to scratch their skin off—they wanted to dig their tongue into the open wound in their mouth, the empty space where there had been something precious—they wanted to rip themselves open. It wasn’t the same at all as the hospital room from back then. The doctors had put a plaster cast on their broken leg already (their shin bones had snapped, pushed too hard against the frame of their bike, too fragile to take the strain of the crash). Apparently, they had probably gotten most of their injuries from falling back after being hit.
Except for their face. They grimaced, facing the window, but immediately went back to their neutral expression when they felt their upper lip slide against empty space. Just wonderful for them to have hit the hood of the car face-first. Just fantastic that they had dislodged their teeth into the sleek black metal. They felt bile rising in their throat again. They wanted to be outside. Everything felt heavy, and off-center, and incorrect. Their leg was much too weighty, and their breaths were accompanied with sharp pangs whenever they tried to breathe any more than a shallow gasp. Their upper lip sat against nothing.
They moved their arms a bit, wriggling their thin fingers under bandages to pick at the road rash that was already scabbing, relishing in the disgusting flaking and pulling of their skin. A distraction. It would at least last until a nurse noticed and reprimanded them. Their aunt had promised to return with their mp3, but she had yet to return. They doubted they’d get many visitors. The light streaming through the window in thin golden beams was beginning to dim, and as they opened their mouth to click their teeth impatiently (before stopping in their tracks and trying again to quell the tightness in their throat) they realized they’d need much more of a distraction than picking at scabs.