Work Text:
MALFUNCTION : Mal-Fungk-Shan
Failure to function in a normal or satisfactory manner.
-
Who am I?
Who.. am I?
Who.. am.. I..?
A young man ponders this question in thorough effort after waking up in an obnoxiously bright white and tiled room. His body feels like it’s on fire, but his eyes calmly look around. Laying on a bed, he clenches the white sheets as obnoxious hand sanitizer smells sour his senses and make him flinch. At the front door, (there’s another tucked in a corner, the man takes a note of that,) he sees a tall woman in a uniform stare at him momentarily, then call for a doctor. People rush in, poking and prodding and asking questions.
He can answer the normal questions. Any difficulties in breathing? No. Any sore parts of the body? Well, there’s his head, really hurts in the back. Any prescriptions or medical conditions? What?
However, when it comes to personal questions, there is nothing for him to say. Not out of reluctance or spite, but rather a genuine blankness. It is deduced very easily that he is a male in his twenties, and he somehow just.. understands English and can sloppily write it like a schoolboy. Yet, when asked about his lifestyle or his hobbies or even his own name, the man tilted his head in complete and utter confusion. Oh, that caused some panic, and there was a request to see a file from someone called “Announcer.” What a dumb name.
This irony is immediately squashed when a file is placed on the young man’s hospital bed. (The doctors tell him what the place is, but somehow he has faint knowledge of it.) Afterwards, they leave, as if abandoning an amnesiac in a hospital is a terrific idea. The young man rolls his eyes and decides to skim the file:
CONTESTANT #07
Name: Blocky
Age: 24
Gender: Male
Height: 5’3
Blood Type: O Negative
Interests and placements-
Oh. The descriptions underneath both were crossed out. The young man- he supposes he should call himself Blocky now- wonders why, but the doctors have already left, claiming that they need to make an announcement. Blocky lets his eyes linger on the picture carefully taped inside of the file.
A short, red haired man with brown eyes posing for a camera. He has a cocky expression on his face, and is wearing a red jersey jacket with a necklace over it. One hand is clicked into a peace sign pose, while the other is out of frame, possibly grabbing something? Blocky concludes that it’s meant to be him and feels.. impressed by whoever this persona is in the photo. It’s not like he can remember.
Setting the file down, Blocky slowly and carefully climbs out of bed, trying to not fall off. His legs buckle once he stands up, wobbling to and fro, before finally balancing after a couple of seconds. There’s not much that Blocky can properly process or remember right now, so being able to stand up is a positive. He huffs and marches over to the door in the corner of the room, interested in its secrets. Of course, with even more obnoxious lighting, and a toilet immediately in sight, Blocky recognizes this is a bathroom. Isn’t it odd, how some things you just.. know?
He sees the mirror over the sink and stumbles to it. Reflection flashed into his brain, Blocky likens that it is absolutely him in the file. Scarlet red hair, gaze the color of autumn, and a broad type of body. Of course, he’s taller, probably a year or so older, and his image is absolutely tarnished with eyebags and paler skin, but this is Blocky. His hair is absolutely disgusting, and as he runs his fingers through it to comb the spikes down, his head throbs with pain. The young man violently flinches and staggers back against the wall, heaving a couple of frantic breaths and clenching the light blue hospital gown on himself.
Just what was going on?
-
An hour or so later, Blocky impatiently calculates as he checks the clock, a girl around his age skips into the hospital room. She has long, green hair tied up into a ponytail with a leaf clip, and is sporting a black and green sweater with gloves underneath. Her eyes are bright and sunny, but have matching eyebags underneath. For some reason, Blocky finds her achingly familiar, but cannot place a name to it.
Holding a clipboard, she writes something down and smiles, “So.. Blocky, are you feeling any better?”
“Are you like.. a nurse or something? Because I have no idea who you are,” Blocky answers in a hushed voice uncharacteristic of his cockiness.
“Wh- No, no, no!” The woman abruptly says, “But- Ah, I guess the doctors weren’t lying after all. Is there.. anything about me you know?”
Faintly, as if from another universe, Blocky remembers a girl with pigtails and eager energy. Lightly chiding him for mistakes, always bouncing around and talking to people, the life of the party. He tries to focus more, tries to remember something, but all he gets is the sound of a high five in his mind before a splitting headache washes over him.
“Gh, no, absolutely nothing,” Blocky grits his teeth as he rubs his forehead.
The leaf themed girl frowns, writing more as she adds, “Do you remember anything from your past?”
Immediately, Blocky replies “Yeah, a little,” because there is no reason to lie here.
“I see.. well then, I’ll err.. reintroduce myself! The name’s Leafy!”
“That’s nice Leafy, but what’s that clipboard for? You psychoanalyzing me?”
Leafy nervously laughs, putting one hand on her hip and tapping her fingers, “No, not at all, I was just getting my own assessment on your diagnosis!”
..Diagnosis? For what?
As if reading his mind, Leafy continues, “You see, those trusty doctors said you have retrograde amnesia! You can remember new info, but most of your past is just- Woosh!- Gone in a blink. Makes sense, of course, you took a pretty hard fall back there.”
Guess that explains why his head constantly hurts.
“..Hey, Leafy?”
“What’s up?”
“Were we friends?”
Leafy pauses, messing with her hair in pensive thought, “..Y-Yeah, of course, why do you ask?”
“Just curious.”
-
Blocky begins to meet a bunch of people in his tiny little hospital room. A flame dyed athlete who spent 10 minutes staring at his phone only to suddenly apologize for an accident Blocky doesn’t know the context of. A girl with fish earrings who smiled and laughed for him and showed a tape of him hosting a show. (Younger, cooler, clearly in his prime. The tape is labeled as ten years old.) A guy with a blue cap and another in a maroon trenchcoat who says they go way back and are the bestest of friends.
He doesn’t recognize a single one. There are flashes of memories, of course. The doctors praise Blocky for such “quick recovery,” even though he feels like he has gained absolutely nothing. It has been a week now, and if he has to tolerate another day in this hospital room, he might just go insane from the bleak isolation and headaches induced by burning flashes of his life.
Pranking. That’s what he does, according to “Taco” and “Firey.” Pranks that have.. killed and hurt others? ..Maybe it’s a miracle he can’t remember them.
He is interrupted by the sudden click of the front door, gaze looking up to lock with yet another stranger. This one, a guy his age, has quite the unique look. Tan, messy hair with bangs attempting to cover one eye. It’s clearly failing though, because underneath the hair he can see a scarred eye with a gray iris. (Something about that makes Blocky feel bad, but he doesn’t know why.) He’s wearing overalls over a sweater, and on his arms and neck are light layers of bandages. The man’s posture is a bit hunched, and he clearly trembles with each step. Fear.
Why would a scaredy cat want to see him? It’s not like Blocky has a good impression of himself so far.
The man’s eyes lighten up when he sees Blocky watching him, and he quickly strides over to him, abandoning all his previous cowardice as he presses Blocky’s lips against his in a kiss. It’s loud, sudden, and confusing. Blocky just sits there, takes it, as he feels both disgust and a fluttering feeling in his stomach at the same time.
What the fuck?
When the other pulls away, he wobbly smiles at Blocky, “I-It’s great to see you’re ok, Blocky. I was.. so scared, d-don’t try that again,” he says with a unique voice, as if he has spent his entire life not knowing how to speak and is now slurring through.
Blocky clicks his tongue, looking at his hospital gown as if it’s suddenly the most amazing thing in the entire world, “..Who are you?”
When he’s said it before; to Leafy, to Firey, to Taco, to Pen and Eraser, he felt nothing. To Blocky, they are all absolutely strangers, no matter how many stories they tell or what the tapes and files say. There is no regret. Yet, when he tells it to this.. guy that’s honestly a bit cute, (better than how Blocky looks in the mirror right now,) and sees his gaze dull in disappointment, Blocky feels shame. Why? It’s not as if a kiss would magically restore his memory.
“Ah- Uhm- I-I’m Woody,” the guy averts his gaze, “I figured you d-don’t remember me, or if you do, i-it’s in a negative way, I just..
Wanted to see if it works, y’know? S-Sorry.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Blocky states, “Others have been trying to jog my memory, but as you can tell it’s clearly not successful.”
Woody blinks, then sits down on the hospital bed next to him, “Tell me what you know.”
Blocky could easily refuse, shoo him away. Yet there is something about this Woody that makes Blocky chuckle a little. What he knows and what he remembers are two very different things. He knows that he ran a pranking show. He learned that he is not a good person. There’s something about a reality show that his visitors mentioned.
What Blocky remembers is his childhood. Sitting in a classroom- because it’s detention time- and being lectured about how he’s “not putting effort into academics” for the hundredth time. Learning how to hide his report cards before his mom could find them. Spending his winters in hotels because the house had no heating. His only escape? A group of friends he made along the way, whose names and faces escape him now. Being aged twelve, and playing the knife game with a machete until his grip slips and the knife falls on his-
Blocky laughs, an edge finally returning to the soft uncertainty of his amnesiac voice, “I’m not sure why I’m telling you this, Woody. We must be close though if you were so eager to pucker up.”
Woody covers his face in embarrassment, tinted pink from being flustered, “D-Don’t worry about that..! I don’t know what I was thinking!”
“Still.. you’re the only one who’s pressed me about this,” the red haired one admitted, “Everyone else just asks for questions instead of the real deal.”
“..Sometimes the truth is ugly, but i-it’s better to know it than to live in ignorance.”
It’s as if a click suddenly registers in Blocky’s head. He slowly rubs his forehead, blankly staring at Woody while processing the pointer. It was clearly harmless, yet something about it..
“Hey, where’d you learn that?”
This time it’s Woody’s turn to softly chuckle as he says, “You.”
-
The next day, Blocky is released from the hospital, not even bothering with the wheelchair charade as he strolls out. It’s a miracle, all the visiting strangers around him say, his sudden acceleration in remembering old information. The doctors, a bit more familiar to him in the cold atmosphere, say that when you’re exposed to certain things or people, it can help or hinder your memory.
He remembers some things better now. Starting a prank show at the start of Battle for Dream Island, the show he competed on for 10 years. Forcing himself to give up when his inspiration had vanished. A green haired child who spoke in third person being extremely fond of him. A girl with a basketball uniform smiling at him as she worked on building stuff. Summers and winters and falls and springs he had no memory of had been returning bit by bit, but it seemed as if Woody was the true solution to restoring his memory.
That’s why it was incredibly convenient when Blocky discovered that on the beachside of Goiky he lived with Woody. With no luggage to bring, Blocky knocked on the door and watched as the other practically slammed the door open, breaths heaving in his chest before looking up and inviting him in with a warm smile. It seems that in the hallways there’s a lot of photos of the two of them together.
“How come I live with you?” Blocky asks later that day.
“I have nightmares and you try to stab yourself in your sleep, it’s a compromise,” Woody casually says as if it’s the status quo.
..
“You’re a lot more confident than I expected,” Blocky admits.
“I learned the best from you.”
“I seem to be a big factor in your life.”
Woody snickers, but faintly under his breath he whispers, “You have no idea.”
-
There are good memories, but as the weeks pass after his discharge, Blocky realizes that there are also bad memories.
Woody smiles, holding the camera close to Blocky’s face as he starts his usual routine: “Hey guys, for a prank: attach an anchor to Gelatin and drop him off a cliff onto a waterbed! Listen, it’s gonna be HILARIOUS, just watch.”
A green haired guy walks over with a bright grin, crossing his arms over a cooking apron as he says, “Hey Blocky, heard from Flower that you wanted to meet with me, what’s up?”
“Not much, water you doing?” Blocky snarks with a bad pun as he ties an anchor to Gelatin’s leg and sends him flying off the cliff.
“Wh- AUGHHHHHHHH!”
Gelatin flailed his arms around as he fell to his demise, but, in comical cartoon fashion, he landed on the water bed and was sent flying up to the top of the cliff. However, instead of landing on his feet, the anchor had hooked onto the edge, forcing Gelatin to suspend in mid air upside down. He huffed and started swinging around.
“HAHAHAHAH! You see, guys?! This is one of my best pranks yet,” Blocky said smugly to the camera, and Woody nodded in agreement despite his own refusal to not do pranks.
Suddenly, Firey marched over with a dangerous and wild look on his face. Shit, Blocky thought, if he had known he was around, he would have used Bubble for his prank instead. Gelatin and Firey had been close friends ever since BFDIA!
“What the hell do you think you’re doing,” Firey sneered in his nasally voice, “You think you’re real funny, huh?”
“Duh,” Blocky answered while Woody watched tensely.
Firey rolled his eyes, “Look, we’re friends,” and Blocky bites back a laugh because Firey wants everyone to like him, so of course he’d say that, “But I thought you were better than this now.”
“Relllaaxxx, Firey, even if Gelatin had died, Four would’ve recovered him!”
“I’m a bit annoyed but, well, no harm done,” Gelatin supplies from his position by the anchor.
He must be in a more terrible mood than usual, (probably had a disagreement with Leafy again,) because Firey sarcastically snarls, “Oh sure, we can just recover you as well!”
Before Blocky can ask what Firey means he growls and pushes Blocky right off the cliff. Well, Blocky smirks and declares as he’s falling, the water bed will save me. Even if I die, I WILL just be recovered.
What he didn’t realize was that the anchor attached to Gelatin had popped the water bed underneath the cliffside.
The prankster hits the sandy ground underneath with a sickening crack at the back of his head as he coughs out a gasp of air, twitching and yelling in pain. Static infects his vision, and it feels like his life is flashing before his eyes as faces and names and places and episodes he competed in fly away in the wind. How high was that fall.. at least a story or two tall?
At the top of the cliff, three figures are frantically talking.
“WHAT’D YOU DO THAT FOR!” Woody screams as he shakes Firey back and forward, the camera now completely abandoned on the ground.
“I-I DIDN’T MEAN TO! I thought the water bed wasn’t popped,” Firey screams back fearfully.
Gelatin, who has now climbed onto the cliff and detached the anchor from himself, says “Guys! Stop fighting! Let’s just ask Four if he’s dead.”
A blue haired alien in a Hawaiian vacation shirt teleports next to him, “Yeah?”
“Recover Blocky.”
Four holds their hands out and concentrates blue energy into the form of the prankster, but it suddenly statics out and fades, “He’s not dead.”
“OH THANK GOD, I DIDN’T MURDER HIM!” Firey cheers, but when all four look over the summer cliffside, they see that Blocky is completely unconscious.
“..Not yet,” Woody declares with a bitter expression.
Blocky doesn’t want to remember the bad memories.
-
“I remember that I loved you,” Blocky says.
It’s evening time, dark out as stars glitter the night. Blocky and Woody are laying on the grass, away from the shore now. Despite everything, the two enjoy watching nature together. Woody, who has abandoned the overalls for shorts underneath his sweater, looks at Blocky curiously.
“Loved?”
Blocky, realizing the mistake, shakes his head, “N-No, love would be the right word, it's just.. y’know..”
“Complicated,” Woody blankly mumbles.
“Yeah,” Blocky awkwardly states, and suddenly the world feels a lot larger than it was before.
The silence between them grows larger and larger, tension tighter than a knot on a shoe. Both want to untie it, but feel as if every conversation topic will make it worse. Maybe just using scissors and breaking the shoelace would work?
“I.. also remember how I hurt you.”
“T-That wasn’t you,” Woody defensively starts, subconsciously tracing the scar over his eye with his fingers, “It was Teardrop? Remember-“
“And how’d you end up near Teardrop,” Blocky sighs.
..
“I would’ve ended up walking over to her anyways, it’s not like I magically acquired a crush.”
“..I’m sorry,” Blocky whispers, his voice has by now returned to its rough and confident tone, but it cracks under the nervousness.
Woody turns to face Blocky, grass shuffling to accommodate, “There’s n-no reason to apologize for bringing up something you just remembered.”
That makes the redhead feel better, but he says “Even with my memories, some of which I’ll never get back, I can’t quite figure out what we are. Friends, lovers, enemies-“
“Enemies? I don’t hate you, h-honest to god.”
“To the internet, we started as enemies.”
Woody laughed, “If we were, it was completely one sided,” and he leaned in closer this time.
Blocky pauses for a second, seeing the stars reflect in Woody’s teasing face, “I guess so.. but what are we?”
“W-Whatever you w-want to be,” Woody says, unable to hide his stutter as grabs the other person’s cheek.
“I.. am aware now of how blissfully ignorant I was of your attempts to say you love me,” Blocky softly smiles, remembering a letter in a mailbox, and he holds the non scarred part of Woody’s face, “So how about we stop playing games and figure this out later?”
When they kiss a second time, it’s as if everything is right in the world. Blocky might not be a good person or remember everything right now, but it doesn’t matter. Woody matters.