Work Text:
When one is mortally wounded but somehow still clinging to life, every day feels cold on the skin no matter how brightly the sun shines.
So it is with her, and with him as well, though he does not show it on his face. They are broken, and rebuilding the walls of their bodies is a long, arduous process. It is not fair that it should be cold as well.
He can walk better than she can, as her legs are sleeping like stones and refuse to be woken. So he goes to see her every day, dragging himself down the hallway to the room — three doors to the left of his own — morning and night, to sit by her bedside and talk with her about nothing in particular.
The first day he came, he took a good look at her, smiled, and said "You look like the world fell on you."
"It did," she replied with a wry smile of her own, then gestured to the chair next to her bedside. Komui sits there whenever he can come, but he had learned quickly not to come at ten or at seven, because that is when Allen comes, and there is no place for him when Allen is there.
One day he comes and she is sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at her feet as though holding a silent conversation with them. They are rosy with blood and her toes are moving slowly like sea-creatures, tilting ponderously back and forth through the air.
He pretends not to see anything and carries on as usual, but wears a secret smile the entire time.
A handful of mornings later, Lenalee comes to see him.
Even mortal wounds can sometimes heal.
X