Chapter Text
Injuries were obviously painful, causing discomfort if the person who received it for a while until they healed. For Mumei, they were more of an annoyance than anything, as she already had quite a tolerance for pain. However, her body still had a downtime of weakness while she recovered. Her head also felt fuzzy as her body directed most energy to healing herself. Despite this, she could clearly remember what had happened to her.
She had been on a hike with animal and wasn’t really paying much attention to where she was going and stumbled a little over a protruding root from the ground. She tried extending her wings to help her regain her balance quicker but when she tumbled into a large rock quite roughly, breaking one of her wings while badly scratching up the other in the process. Animal had initially reacted quicker than Mumei could, rushing over and pulling the owl back onto the trail and barking to flag down others walking along it. All the while, Mumei was frozen in shock, eyes fixed on the greatly disturbing sight of her left wing bleeding. Mumei had glanced at her broken one but couldn’t bear to keep looking at it given how disfigured it now looked. After a trip to the hospital and getting her wings patched up, her and Animal were brought home by a kind nurse.
Mumei had made a quick meal before beelining for her bed when she got home, occasionally stumbling from the lack of aided balance her wings usually provided. She slept well, her body acting quick in shutting down to focus on her wounds.
And that brought her to now, where she had just woken up from her slumber and was greeted with the aching pain from her wings. Sitting up was a surprisingly painful task, especially when Mumei accidentally rolled over onto her back in her sleep. It took a whole five minutes of pained whines and hisses to sit herself up. Mumei hated this, hated the feeling of being weak and defenseless. A familiar jingle pulled her out of her thoughts, head spinning to look at the source of the sound, which was her phone. She was quick to grab it when she noticed Bae was calling her, immediately answering without realizing how much of a mess she looked like. Her mood was brightened a little when she not only saw Bae, but the rest of council too, and even IRyS waving at her.
“Yo!! Mumei! Did yo-“ Bae didn’t even get to finish what she was trying to say when Fauna’s drifting eyes suddenly focused on something that made her choke on her tea. The others jumped in surprise, looking over at the woman in slight concern when Fauna motioned to be handed the phone. There was a bit of fumbling with the camera before Mumei could finally see Fauna’s face better, though as happy as she was about it, she was able to see that Fauna only got more concerned by looking at her.
“Mumei, are those bandages on your wings??!?” Fauna finally asked in disbelief, getting surprised gasps from the other girls as they quickly rushed to look at the phone screen to try and see what Fauna saw.
“Huh?…oh! Yeah but don’t worry I just had a bit of a tumble…can’t believe it was enough to break a wing though…” She mumbled nonchalantly, seeming more annoyed than in pain, which she was, because she thought her body was tougher than that. At the mere mention and reminder of her injury, her wing twitched and she let out an annoyed hiss.
“YOU BROKE A WING??” Bae suddenly yelled in disbelief, snapping Mumei out of her thoughts before another wave of concern washed over all of them and the look on their faces worsened. Mumei felt a little bad making them worry but didn’t know what to say to make them feel better, instead just watching as her girlfriends looked at each other silently before turning back to the camera.
“We’ll be at your house in 10. Get yourself together before then.” Kronii spoke flatly, sounding a bit harsh but Mumei knew she was trying to mask the panic in her voice. Mumei didn’t have time to reply before the call was hurriedly hung up on the other end.
At that, Mumei was left in stunned silence, staring widely at the ended call screen until another notification brought her back to reality. Seeing that a few minutes had already passed, Mumei hopped off her bed and hurried trying to do her daily routine…now with her injured wings.
The first thing she noticed was the returning difficulty with balancing. Usually, her wings were the main factor in helping her center her balance and not topple over. But with them having to stay curled close to her back, she was stuck with using her walls and furniture to keep her upright. For the quick things like brushing her hair and brushing her teeth, she found no issue, the only difficulty being the fact she needed to lean against the counter the whole time. There was a short consideration of taking a quick shower, but she psychically cringed at the thought of water on her wings in their condition.
She found the most difficulty in trying to cook herself a quick snack for breakfast, specifically in reaching ingredients on the top of her shelves. Mumei didn’t consider herself short, in fact she was sure she was average height, but for some reasons humans liked to place cabinets a bit too high. Usually she used her wings to help put things up there and take them down, but of course now that wasn’t possible. Her first idea was to stand on a stool to give herself some more height, but the second she got a foot on top of it, her mind flooded with all the things that could go wrong and injure her further. So with that out of the question, Mumei was left with making due with the things she was able to reach without overexerting her body. Which she quickly realized included her small array of cereals, though she was sure she’d be less thankful about it later on in her recovery process.
The excited yappings and clacking against the floorboards from Animal getting louder as it ran into the kitchen made her feel a bit better about having to be holed up at home for a few weeks, since it would give her more quality time with Animal. Mumei knew it was mainly here for its breakfast as well, so she quickly picked up its bowl and put together Animal’s usual breakfast, apologizing for the sloppy work when she set the bowl back down on the designated spot she marked for it. Of course, Animal didn’t really mind it as she still started chowing down, tail wagging at mach speed as it did. She watched animal eat for a few moments before remembering she also needed to eat something herself. With a pang of hunger rushing her, she grabbed herself a bowl and a randomly selected box of cereal, quickly yoinking the milk from the fridge and putting together a bowl of cereal. Getting something I’m her stomach after not eating anything for a few hours was like a sigh of relief, the first bite encouraged her to hurry up with eating the rest to quickly satisfy her remaining hunger.
Ping Pong
Mumei’s head perked up, eyes darting towards her door, seeing an array of differently colored hair through the door’s small window. Animal had already ran to the door at the sound of the doorbell, so deciding to join her, Mumei let out a sigh and stood up, stretching a little before depositing her empty bowl into the sink and hurrying over to the door to answer it. As she expected, the second the door opened, she was encased in hugs by Fauna, Bae, and IRyS, with Kronii and Sana standing back, worried about overwhelming the owl. Initially, Mumei froze at the feeling of hands around her wings, but thankfully whoever had their hands wrapped around her back noticed immediately and moved them down to her waist, allowing the owl to relax and hug back. Eventually the affection started getting a bit overwhelming, making Mumei start squirming in their grasp.
“Guys I think that’s enough, you’re practically suffocating her.” Kronii spoke up for the owl, an amused smile on her face when the three quickly jumped off Mumei.
“Sorry! I’m just really happy to see you’re okay!” Fauna babbled, face flushed red in embarrassment, a small nod from Bae and IRyS insinuating they felt the same.
“I’m sorry for worrying you all, I totally forgot to let you all know what happened.” Mumei replied sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head before stepping to the side, motioning for the others to come inside.
“You have no reason to apologize, it wasn’t your fault.” Sana reasoned as the group walked inside, following Mumei into the living room after she shut the front door. They all took a seat on the couch, their impromptu seating arrangement ending up as Mumei in the middle, Bae and Fauna on either side of her, IRyS and Sana sitting next to each of them, and finally Kronii was seated on the floor, assuring the others that she didn’t mind it.
“Sana was right, you know, getting hurt by accident isn’t your fault.” IRyS reiterated, the others making noises in agreement. The additional reassurance was necessary for Mumei, the others knew that well, the owl was one for getting overly anxious over things she forgot to do or didn’t think was important to do at the time. Despite Mumei’s occasional doubts, the others never minded it, in fact, they were all more than happy to ease their girlfriend’s worries.
“Plus just knowing you’re okay is all that’s really important to us.” Bae happily added, tail idly thrashing about at the lazy pets to her ear Mumei had subconsciously started giving her.
“Exactly! We just want to know you’re okay. Because if you’re okay, we’re okay.” Fauna chimed in happily, her hands idly braiding small parts of the owl’s hair while resting her head against her shoulder, mindful to be weary of her horns. The rest all gave their owl little assurances, each one making Mumei melt more and more from the sheer amount of love and affection she was receiving.
“Ohhh….” Mumei whined, face burning up as she got more flustered. “You are all so sappy…it’s cute but GOSH!!” Mumei laughed. “How did I even get so lucky to be loved by such great girlfriends..?” She asked, rhetorically, of course, but she noticed IRyS grin and sit up after clearing her throat.
“Oh Mumei, it wasn’t luck.” IRyS started, the others (besides Sana, who was beaming at the nephilim with Mumei) already rolling their eyes as they knew what was coming.
“It was fate.” IRyS finished in as dramatic of a tone she could muster, a proud smirk on her face before it broke at the others groaning, though seemingly in amusement.
“You’re so damn corny.” Kronii spoke with a grimace, watching IRyS gasp and clench the spot on her shirt above her heart dramatically.
“You’re just mean! I’m sure Mumei absolutely loved it, didn’t you, Mumei?” IRyS exclaimed, glancing over at the owl expectantly.
“I did, I loved it…just as much as I love all of you.” Mumei answered in the most genuine voice she had, making the others pause in surprise.
Well except for a certain blue haired woman.
“You’re all so cheesy. Why do I love you all so much?” Kronii groaned sarcastically, erupting a laugh from the others.
“Now now Kronii, you have no right to be angry about it, remember the pickup line you said to me when you first asked me out?” Fauna questioned, causing all eyes to go to the now surprised and flustered face of Ouro Kronii.
“I- IT WAS ALMOST A CENTURY AGO FAUNA!” Kronii exclaimed in disbelief, groaning as she tried to hide her face in embarrassment, the others starting to laugh again.
As Fauna quickly tried to reassure Kronii she was just joking, Mumei simply watched with a content smile.
Maybe the next few weeks wouldn’t be so bad, as long as she had the others with her.
[TO BE CONTINUED]