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“Oh, you’re finally awake! Your hair’s sooo much longer than I remember, angel. What did those silly doctors do to you this time ‘round?”
Distantly, he recognises that voice. He’s sure he’s heard it somewhere; high pitched, whiny, and viciously unpleasant. But that information only teeters at the edge of his hazy, sleep-riddled mind, and the mysterious intruder remains anonymous.
Suddenly, her figure comes into view, blocking the bright overhead lights and casting a dark, heavy shadow upon him. The halo of light that outlines her shadow is almost heavenly, but all semblance of holiness is broken when she opens her mouth again, a wide grin splitting her face in half.
“ Helloooo? Earth to Hajime?”
She snaps her fingers in his face a few times and he winces, the sound explosive and grating on his newly sensitive ears. Though her expression and tone are cheery, he can sense her starting to get impatient.
Hajime . A name he’s heard uttered many times during the past few months.
Most of the time, the surgeons had directed it towards him with barely-hidden contempt or annoyance. Usually, it was after the voice that puppeteered his vessel begged to call home or to see his parents one last time.
And usually, the surgeons would all give the same, bored answer. Not one of them pitied the teenager who signed his body away enough to give into his demands.
Suddenly, he comes to a startling realisation:
He had not heard the voice he shared a body with since he had woken up.
It was strange, now that the thoughts inside his head belonged to him and him only. Though he still felt “Hajime” ‘s presence in the back of his mind, he felt quite uneasy at the thought of being left alone with the intruder next to his hospital bed.
He turned to look at the strange woman towering above him. So far, her attitude towards him has been different than any of the doctors or businessmen’s in the facility, though he highly it’s because she’s not meant to be here. The ends of her long blonde pigtails tickle at his arms, and the unpleasant sensation sends shivers down his spine.
Vaguely, he remembers she had asked him a question. He opens his mouth to answer her, but finds he cannot speak. His insides feel heavy in his skin, and his tongue is like leather against his teeth.
She hums disappointedly at his lack of an answer, her impatience more obvious by the second, and looks down at the document she had been holding in her right hand. Through his blurry vision, he could make out a small picture of a boy with short, spiky brown hair.
It was the same boy he’d seen reflected on surgical tools and in doctors glasses countless times, though he had never truly been allowed to look at his reflection.
The blonde haired woman looks deeply into his eyes, pondering, and traces a line along the scar on his forehead with her free hand. “It says here they’re naming you after the founder of Hope’s Peak,” she said, hand making its way down to the roots of his hair and combing gently. “Isn’t that lovely, baby? For once in your life, you’ll be something important.”
Those words, for a reason unknown, make his heart ache. He chooses to ignore the pain; These feelings were no longer his.
They belonged to a boy. A dead, talentless boy that the world will forget easily.
Suddenly, the woman’s hand on his scalp twists and yanks, pulling backwards until his neck is bared fully towards her. He opens his mouth to yell out, but the sound never comes.
"Your hair is all tangled up," she whined, tugging roughly to get the knots loose. "Did they not think 'humanity's hope' needed to be presentable? How awful of a school as prestigious as Hope's Peak to neglect its most expensive science mistake."
She grabbed his chin by the index and thumb, turning his head from one side to the other, inspecting him for flaws like a piece of merchandise. An ugly urge rose in him to bite her fingers, to get away from her touch by any means possible, but he tamped it down as soon as it came. Injuring or offending a potential affiliate of the Academy came with consequences, and he did not want to risk getting the higher-ups angry again.
He most definitely did not want the higher-ups angry, but the voice in his head was screaming danger danger danger the longer the bottomless pit of her blue eyes bore into his.
The noise of footsteps and loud yelling from down the hall startled him from his trance. Faintly, he could make out talk of an “intruder” and “break-in”. “Oops, darling. Looks like our playtime’s over, now.”
"But it’s okay, honey," she cooed and kissed him on the forehead, "when I bail you out of this place, I'll make sure we put that handsome face of yours to good use."
Finally, finally , she gets up and makes her way to the door, taking the document with her. Instinctively, he knew that the last time he’d ever see “Hajime” was through his short glimpse of his picture earlier. An emotion he couldn’t place welled up in his chest at the realisation.
She threw him one last look over her shoulder, winking at him, and as suddenly as she came, she was out the door.
The clicking of her heels resonated in the halls, strikingly rhythmic against the backdrop of frantic screams from the scientists he knew would interrogate him soon. When he could no longer hear her, all tension seemed to fade from his shoulders.
( Yet, for some reason, a small part of him ー buried under the fear and the discomfort ー misses her touch. )