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Brulee dislikes medical rooms, and it’s only natural for a five-year-old child. It is so for any conscious person to be honest.
The sweet caramel smell she is used to feeling everywhere across the Whole Cake Island is oppressed with disinfectants, the bed is annoyingly hard no matter how hard she tries to make it more comfortable, and every drop from the drip resonates in her poor head, resembling a hammer knocking. The heavy silence makes the colorful, yet pretty empty, medical ward an awful place to spend one's time in. Her face is itching, but the nurse has banned Brulee from scratching her skin under bandages, which is making her crazy. Can’t she just rub it? It won’t even leave a mark, they won’t notice at all! Though they did the last time—
Brulee detests medical rooms, hates them with all the power of her tiny heart.
The doctor says it’s not gonna last long; she’ll be discharged in a few days, right after the swelling is gone, and they are sure that shock and stress will leave no side effects on her. Her wounds will need some more time to heal, but at least she won’t be locked alone anymore. Isn’t that pleasant progress? She’ll finally get to embrace her sweet little twin sister, go check on Katakuri to make sure he doesn’t blame himself for what was obviously her carelessness, and visit Cracker or Brother Peros, who both are loud and snooty, yet never fail to cheer her up and distract from dismal thoughts. Well, that’s the way it used to be, at least.
“We’ll keep the bandaging for a week and then see how it goes," the doctor says. Brulee thoughtlessly reaches to her chin; the bandage feels rough and bumpy under her fingers. “And I need to warn you that there’s still a high chance your wounds won’t go away completely. May turn to scars, and that— can affect the way your siblings treat you. But worry not, it’s unlikely you will be all alone. After all, you have such a huge family. You’ll find someone to play with.”
When the door closes after him, Brulee grabs her legs, presses her knees against her chest, and stares at the pink sheet with some candy prints. Affect the way they treat her? Her family is not like this. They love her regardless, why would they turn their backs on her? It makes no sense, doesn’t it?
Doesn’t it?
The drip counts seconds, and Brulee sighs helplessly.
She doesn’t cry, why would she? The doctor is clearly wrong. She is being discharged in several days, and after that, she’s going to play with her brothers and sisters again, and they are not going to tease or mock her for her scars. They won’t even give a shit. Yes, that’s it. They won’t give a shit.
She wishes to have at least one tiny mirror in the room to see what she really looks like now. Not like it matters, though. Her siblings won’t turn away from her.
They never will.
She covers her head with a blanket, waking up in the dark of the night, and whispers to herself that it was just a nightmare, it wasn’t true.
She finally believes herself after the first lights of dawn touch the opposite wall.
Brulee studies every inch of the hateful ward. She knows all the places where old paint cracks on the windowsill, checks the insides of an unsurprisingly empty, heart-shaped nightstand, and remembers the flower print of wallpapers so well she can draw it without looking. She also finds a barely noticeable doodle, carved on the leg of a tiny cookie-styled stool. A cat with five paws. No signature present, so Brulee doesn’t hold herself from imagining one of her older siblings carving the cat.
She closes her eyes, lets her dreams carry her, and practically feels Broye’s tight hug on her shoulders. Imagines Katakuri leaning on the windowsill and grinning while looking at the sweet city behind the thick layer of caramel glass. Imagines Cracker criticizing the cookie stool loudly, saying one should be a total dork to design such a tasteless furniture piece, that definitely offends the feelings of normal stools. Amande is also there, sitting quietly in the corner, exhausted after sword training and yearning to flee to her quadruplet sisters. Brulee even imagines Oven and Perospero there arguing about some foolish nonsense.
They all look so diverse, yet so lovely.
Brulee waves off a lonely tear and falls so deep into her fantasies that she barely notices a timid knock and the grinding of the door opening.
A purple head sticks to the room and looks around.
“Clear, no doctors,” Cracker reports to the corridor, and immediately falls, pushed by Katakuri. Oven and Daifuku, arguing for the right to go first and shoving each other, are following them closely.
“Hey! Didn’t you try to eat less to fit through the doorway?”
Cracker’s crying is lost in the chore of voices. Brulee doesn’t believe her eyes and runs to unexpected guests, feeling burning tears getting the best of her. She is not imagining it, is she? They are really here, right?
“We are bigger, ‘cause we’re older, you fool,” says Perospero and sticks his tongue out, flicking Cracker’s forehead.
Brulee reaches out to her brothers, praying for her hands to stop shaking. She can’t help fearing her siblings will disappear the second she touches them, forcing her to admit nothing she’s seeing is actually true. She won’t survive that. Yet she reaches out to them anyway. Every next desperate step is easier to make than the previous one, and Brulee misses a mere second to hug Katakuri when Broye shows up from behind the boys’ backs and embraces her older sister first, pouring the top of her head and bandages on her face with huge tears.
“I was so— so— worri-i-ied!”
Brulee buries her nose in her sister’s shirt, squeezing her most dear friend, returning the warm embrace she is given. Yes, she was too. She was also worried.
“Ew, quit the drama.” Perospero snorts, and that is the rare moment Cracker actually agrees with him.
They make faces, imitate crying, and parody some deliberately dramatic embraces, making Daifuku chuckle, and get scolded by Oven for an inappropriate lack of empathy. Oven gets scolded back, because really, is he nuts, talking like that to his older brother?! Brulee feels happy from this clumsy reminder of how boys never change.
“Hey, sister, how are you?” Katakuri asks, putting his heavy hand on Brulee’s shoulder and turning her to face him with a force he most probably wasn’t going to apply.
“I’m fine!” she answers, raising her head to see his worried face.
Broye’s look is uncertain, Katakuri’s—puzzled even—but it only makes Brulee beam, showing uneven teeth behind the bandages. What she says is completely true. A minute ago, she was alone, and quiet, and desperate to stay in a dream world, and now she is laughing at her grumpy brothers and hugging her dearest twin sister.
She is as fine as she ever can be.
Broye braids Brulee’s hair and makes two small and uneven, yet still cute ponytails; Katakuri gives her a yummy doughnut she happily bites into; and Daifuku tells her a mysterious fairy tale about desires and genies, and the adventures she quickly loses track of. In half an hour, Brulee lays by Broye’s side, completely tired and overwhelmed, and beams like an idiot, trying to hide the silly smile and teardrops at the corners of her eyes from her siblings.
She is not crying, stop imagining things.
She is not.