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Pallid pink. To stand in this room was to be smothered. Breathing in would only cause your senses to be stuffed up with a sense of dread and filled with pepto-bismol vomit pink. Every second spent within was spent inching closer and closer to walls that wanted to eat you whole and spit you out, absorb you and make you whole and dull and pink. Pink stuffed bunnies had been placed on the bed in what felt like an alien attempt to make the space feel more welcoming, but beady black eyes darting out from the sea of blush did nothing to provide comfort. Save for the unsettling eyes, the bunnies nearly blended into the sheets, only a few shades lighter than the wallpaper.
The desk was not pink. It was even more boring, just your average ripped-from-any-school standard fare desk and chair. It was messy, horribly so, but not even enough to be considered especially notable. Nothing here was quite right. Upon the desk lay scattered medical texts- some recent, some old, and all heinously boring to read.
The haircut of the woman pouring over them was certainly “not quite right” either, and neither was her posture. Perhaps she was the only thing in this whole room that fit into it, simply because her strange aura immediately made it known that she would definitely not fit in anywhere else but here. Her skin was the one thing that was more pallid and sick-looking than the walls surrounding her, paleness that sat in stark contrast to sunken purple eyebags. Mikan Tsumiki, with all of her medical knowledge, clearly could not be ripped from her obsessive studies long enough to apply any of it to her own lifestyle.
Her fingers turned over another page filled with words beyond her years, concepts that even her brightest of peers would keel over at the sight of. Tonight’s irony was straining her eyes, bloodshot reading about the intricacies of cornea surgeries.
Mikan Tsumiki had teeny spidery hands that could easily belong to a witch or a surgeon. They delicately handled the textbook, mutedly fixated on the knowledge before her. With her entire life’s purpose within her hands, the healer studied on with a sense of duty. She knew this was her purpose, the only reason she had to be here in this room, orbiting her in a spin of candyfloss to remind her of a childhood comfort that never was actually there.
Shiny plastique bunny eyes stared lifelessly, numb to the next page. Mikan was, too. She no longer felt much of a need to wince at the sight of graphic eye injuries. Not in private anyhow- perhaps she’d squawk a bit in a classroom, acting out in a desperate hope to receive some comfort from somebody. In a world filled with punctured eyeballs and corneal abrasions, surely someone would want to hold the nurse responsible for making well of all the carnage. She would bear the horror of handling their guts and grime for the promise of just maybe being liked.
Buzz. Buzz.
Soft, tired eyes struggled to make their way past the walls of information to the obvious culprit of her distraction: Her phone. Until recently, the sound of a notification would have been quite unfamiliar to Mikan. A few months ago she would have jumped out of her seat.
Without daring to close the book that gave her purpose, she grabbed it. And though she would not respond now and typically never did, she could not help but crack a smile at what it revealed.
From: Chiaki
:D Hi Mikan! I know you’re studying stuff tonight- just like you always do. You’re really smart!
I’d still love to play Trauma Center with you if you’d like. There is even a way to play it in two player!
It's ok if you don’t have time to respond again. I just wanted to say hi. :3
That girl was perhaps the only one who checked on the girl that was always checking on everyone else. Chiaki Nanami, ultimate gamer and ultimate in-real-life angel to the respect-deprived Mikan.
Mikan sat her book down, and her phone sat on top of one another on the desk before her. Like many nights, the young woman found herself staring at the wallpaper again, though her typical downward spiral of thought decided to coil a different way for once.
Maybe the walls were not such a sickly pink, after all. Perhaps they merely needed to be dusted off.