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The world was a beep, and then it was the clack of soles against hard floors, and then it was another beep.
Marinette knew she was lying on a bed. It wasn’t her bed. It was too low and thin, she could sense that the floor was too close and the sides too far away. Something was pushing against her left arm. She tried to open her eyes, but pressed them shut when the world became a flash of light so strong she felt like she was being shot in the head.
She felt like she had been shot in the head.
There were distant voices that she soon realised were just outside the door, and not distant at all. They were still unintelligible. She shifted her legs. They felt a little bruised but otherwise fine, even though she hated the realisation that there weren’t any pajama bottoms on them. She shifted her arms, and her right arm was stiff and her left arm would hardly move, because there wasn’t just something pushing against it — it was encased. She tightened her stomach and a thousand nails drove themselves into her skin, and she groaned softly into the empty air.
Beep. Beep. Beep. The stiffness in her right arm must be… there was a needle in it. She could tell even without looking at it. And there was a needle in the hand, too. It hurt, but in a vague way, nothing compared to the pain in her stomach and head and — she was starting to notice now — her other arm.
Her neck was stiff. Her head — didn’t feel shot after all, but she did have a headache and a bloom of pain on the left side.
… She was in a hospital.
… Why was she in a hospital?
Slowly, she tried to open her eyes again. Her eyelids fluttered, every part of her sensory system tried to fight against it because the light was so strong she could see it even through closed eyelids, but she needed to figure out what was going on.
The world was a beam directed straight at her eyes for a few seconds. She grimaced against it, but it didn’t stop being horrible to look at. The horribleness only sat down by a table and stopped shouting at her.
It was a hospital room. It was probably green, though it was hard to tell with the intense lamp overhead. It was… kind of sterile-smelling. The bed was plastic and metal underneath the mattress. She was wearing one of those hospital nightgowns, probably, but she could only guess based on the fact that she didn’t feel like there was a change in her clothes near the waist, because most of her body was underneath a hospital blanket.
She did have needles in her right hand and arm. Her left arm was in a cast. And… there was a hand on the cast.
“... Kagami?” she said weakly, in a half-daze, as she traced the line of the hand up its arm and towards its owner. It was Kagami, it could hardly be anybody else; her perfectly-and-impossibly-round helmet of hair was maybe a little matted and tousled, and her eyes were closed, but every part of the face was Kagami’s, every freckle and every groove in the lips was a hundred per cent hers.
Kagami must have been asleep, or at least trying to be, but she stirred at the mention of her name. Her eyes fluttered open, and once they were, they remained — not just open, but stark and intense and brilliant.
“Marinette,” she said, like it wasn’t already obvious.
Though… a lot of stuff really wasn’t obvious at all. Marinette was in… a hospital bed, she was hooked up to several tubes, she had a broken arm and a hurty head and an even hurtier stomach. She felt like a truck had landed on her, and the last thing she could remember was… was…
… waking up in the morning?
And Kagami was here but not her parents, and none of her other friends were here, and wasn’t she supposed to be at school now? Miss Bustier was going to give them a test, and — had she fallen down the stairs? Had she fallen off the balcony? Had she fallen off the top of Tour Montparnasse?
“Wh… what’s going on?” squeaked Marinette. She didn’t have enough of a voice to say it with a full throat.
“You are in the hospital,” said Kagami.
“Why am I… in the hospital?”
Kagami didn’t respond immediately. Her one hand was still resting on the cast: it lay like a half fist, like it was holding on to something, except there could only be air between her fingers and her palm. Her other arm swept across her eyes, maybe to sweep the tiredness out of them.
“Kagami…”
“Because you were injured,” said Kagami, stifling a yawn. “I apologise for my appearance.”
“S-slept?”
Kagami glanced over to the other side of the room. “It’s three in the morning,” she said.
A burst of horror screamed its way across Marinette’s mind. “... How long have I been here?”
“Two hours,” said Kagami, looking back at Marinette, and that — wasn’t too bad. Two hours… maybe she sleepwalked off the balcony.
“Of course,” Kagami went on, “you were in the intensive care unit for fourteen hours before that.”
“What?” Marinette said, almost sitting up — until every part of her body that would protest such a movement announced their displeasure at once. Her belly, her head, her neck, both her arms, they all screamed in unison and she moaned quietly and fell back.
“There was an akuma attack. I had to take you there after you were hit.”
Marinette, lying flat on the mattress, tried to look Kagami in the face. But it was hard, because Kagami’s eyes were still stark and intense and brilliant. “Have you been here… the whole time?”
Kagami looked like she’d just been asked if she believed in vaccines. “Of course,” she said.
“What about —”
“Your parents were here until midnight, but they had to go home.”
“Oh.” That… made sense. In a way. After all, they had an apartment and bakery to worry about, so of course they needed to watch over it. Besides, they probably wouldn’t both have fit in the plastic chair Kagami was sitting on —
“— don’t you have to go home?”
There was just something about the way Kagami’s impassive expressions looked. They weren’t emotionless, like Marinette had initially imagined them to be. They weren’t bored or angry, either. There was emotion resting right underneath, it was just something you needed to look a little deeper for. She was listening attentively, answering with purpose, and her hand was separated from Marinette’s by the plaster of the cast but it was still resolutely there.
“I couldn’t go home,” she replied.
“Why not?”
“Somebody had to donate blood to you.”
Marinette felt a sting in her chest that had nothing to do with any physical injuries. “You… you gave blood to me?”
A tiny flash of a smile. “Naturally.”
“Don’t they have… blood at the hospital?”
Kagami frowned now, her eyebrows knitting, the mask of neutrality gone completely for a little while. “Why would I want anybody else’s blood inside you?”
Oh. That… made sense, even though it didn’t really. Whatever Kagami wanted was probably fine, and Marinette wasn’t very good at dissuading her, and besides the blood was probably already inside her now.
Blood types. That was a question Kagami had asked her once. But Marinette had never in a thousand years imagined it would become relevant, at least not in a medical sense.
“... What’s your blood type again?” she creaked.
Kagami breathed in through her nose. “I am type O. It means I’m independent, optimistic, strong-willed and intuitive, and I can make quick decisions.”
“What abo—”
“You are type AB, which means you are indecisive, self-centred, impatient, two-faced and irresponsible.” Again, the flat line of Kagami’s mouth and the stiffness of her eyes were clearly just plastered over a depth of emotion, and again it didn’t seem like anger, despite the words she was saying.
“Um… sorry,” murmured Marinette.
“Type AB also means you are charming, inventive, sensitive and adaptive.” Kagami’s tone didn’t change in the slightest. “But mostly it makes you irresponsible.”
Marinette blinked, trying to dig into the depths of Kagami’s eyes. “Um… did I do something bad with the akuma?”
“Yes,” said Kagami, with the finality of absolute conviction.
Indecisive. Charming. Inventive. Sensit— did that make sense? Did Kagami’s words make sense? Had Marinette hit her head so hard she was imagining half of this conversation? She sank a little deeper into the bed. Clearly, Marinette had done something bad, and Kagami had a good reason to be upset, and Marinette was paying for her mistake by being in hospital.
“Wait here.” Kagami’s hand put pressure on the cast for a moment, but then lifted away; Kagami herself got up and walked out the door, without even looking back.
Independent and strong-willed. That was Kagami, all right. She was also direct and occasionally rude, but everyone had their flaws, and Kagami was always fun to be around.
Marinette wracked her brains. But gently, so as not to upset her skull or activate any undue nerves. Even now, she couldn’t remember anything from between when she woke up and when she woke up again.
Or — she could remember one thing. She was at school, and she was sitting next to Alya, and then the… fire alarm went off? There was a loud noise, at least, and it felt like ringing.
But if she had been injured, and taken to the hospital, then that would mean…
“Hello!” said a sudden male voice from the doorway. Marinette turned her head to see a fifty-or-so years old man with mostly-grey hair, and round spectacles resting a little too low on his nose to be any use for him. Behind him stood Kagami.
“H-” started Marinette, but she quickly gave up when she realised she didn’t have enough confidence to project her voice that far.
“Glad to see you’re awake,” said the man, as he started to walk inside with feet that dragged audibly across the floor. “You were in pretty bad shape when we got you in, but your friend was very generous in donating blood to you.”
“It wasn’t generosity, sir,” said Kagami. She came up to sit by the bed again, and placed her hand back on the cast. “It was necessary.”
The doctor rolled his eyes, not in an exaggerated way, but it was still noticeable. “Miss Tsurugi, you may be a universal donor, but your friend here is a universal recipient. We could have given her any blood we have in store and it would have helped her just the same.”
“Unacceptable. The only blood that should be inside Marinette is mine.”
Marinette let her head fall sideways and turn to Kagami. Something was going on. Something wasn’t making sense, even though Kagami was still a hundred per cent Kagami right now.
A new memory broke through the throbbing haze, the mild but insistent pain that Marinette was realising was a constant thing right now. An image of the school, and then a giant akuma, and Kagami was there…
“Well, Miss Dupain-Cheng, you can rest assured that the majority of blood inside you is still yours. We also patched up the wound on your stomach and your shattered arm, and we’ve patched up some other scrapes here and there. You came well out of it this time, and you can expect a full recovery, but we’ll need to keep you around for a while. And you’ll be bedridden for a while.” The doctor tapped the end of the bed with a finger. “How are you feeling?”
“Hurty,” said Marinette. “Aghnmng.”
“That sounds about right,” said the doctor. “If the pain gets too bad, just pull that string over your right shoulder, or get someone else to do it. A nurse will come in and give you something for the pain. Same if you need the bathroom, though we’ve got a tube in you to deal with urination.” Marinette clenched every muscle in her lower body at once. “Other than that, you should get plenty of rest and drink lots of water, and please don’t move your left arm too much or try to do any sit ups, or you might break something. Alright?”
“Y’s.”
“Good!” said the doctor, and put his hands in his coat pockets. “I’ll see you again later, then, Miss Dupain-Cheng.”
The doctor popped his lips, then spun on his heels and walked back outside the door. Marinette kind of wanted to call after him and ask him what had happened — but she wouldn’t have the breath to do so. And besides, Kagami was sitting right there.
Watching her, very intently. And starkly. And brilliantly.
Something about that didn’t make sense.
“... Kagami…”
“Yes?” Kagami blinked once.
About a billion questions announced themselves. But Marinette needed to be selective. “What… happened?”
“Your friend Ivan was akumatised.”
— and just the name ‘Ivan’ set memories running again. They were in the courtyard, Ivan got angry at Kim again, and when he became Stoneheart he broke through the upper balcony and part of the wall, and —
— Marinette remembered the pain now. She had pushed Kagami out of the way of a falling piece of wall, but she couldn’t get away herself, and —
— well, after that, she probably wasn’t conscious to remember anything else.
“... then you decided to push me out of the way, because you are such an AB and don’t consider anyone else’s f—”
“I remember now,” mumbled Marinette.
“... Good,” said Kagami, clearly stopping herself from saying anything further about how Marinette’s blood type defined her personality.
Marinette smiled, though she couldn’t possibly imagine the smile was particularly wide or reassuring. “Thank you,” she said.
Kagami’s eyebrows shot up. “What for?”
“Giving me blood.”
“You needed blood. I was the only one who could give it to you.”
“Didn’t the doctor say —”
“Only I should be allowed to give you blood.”
Marinette stopped smiling. She was definitely missing something, but she didn’t have the mental capacity to figure out the right questions to ask about it. She looked up at the ceiling; the light was a lot less harsh now. “Thank you either way,” she said.
She was starting to realise that her ribs hurt too. They didn’t feel broken, but she had definitely taken a bruising there. A small spike of pain suddenly shot through her stomach again, but it wasn’t bad enough that she needed to make noise over it; she just grimaced.
“Ladybug didn’t show up to fight Stoneheart,” said Kagami. Her hand on the cast pulled a little bit. “When I see her next, I am going to give her a piece of my mind.”
“I see…” Marinette could hardly be surprised about Ladybug’s absence.
“Cat Noir and Rena Rouge defeated him, though.”
“Good.”
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Sleep… Marinette didn’t feel tired. She had presumably slept since she was anaesthetised. Maybe she’d fallen asleep before that, too, given how little she remembered. It was three in the morning, and she felt shockingly awake. And she was stuck in bed.
She looked at Kagami again. Kagami was watching her back, still stark and intent and brilliant. Maybe a bit groggy, too.
“... Kagami?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me more about blood types.”
It was just a simple question. AB, O, whatever the others were, it sounded like something that mattered to Kagami. It also sounded like Kagami would have a lot to say about it, which would mean that Marinette could be entertained for a while.
Predictably, Kagami sat up a little tighter, the way she did when she was about to launch into a tirade. “In Japan, A and O are the most common blood types, while O and AB are less common. However, A and B are boring blood types and I have no interest in them.”
She paused for a moment. Marinette felt like she was being asked to weigh in. “I see,” she said.
“Each blood type is connected with various personality traits and behaviours, both positive and negative. Type O people are self-determined and know what they want, but they often turn up late and can be somewhat carefree.” Marinette blinked; those last two didn’t seem to describe Kagami at all. “Type AB people are thoughtless and ignorant and put themselves in danger for other people, which is incredibly inconsiderate and rude of them.”
“Sorry…”
“Type AB people are also mysterious and interesting, despite being horrible people.”
Marinette didn’t say anything. She just tried to look as apologetic as possible.
“You can also determine compatibility between people based on their blood types. It’s a little bit like your horoscopes, but more accurate, because blood types are scientific and zodiac signs are a cosmic coincidence. For example, AB and O go well together as friends, as long as they can get past their initial hurdles.”
Kagami yawned suddenly. Marinette took the opportunity to say, “That’s good. I’m glad.” She wasn’t sure if Kagami was describing a general thing right now, or if this was also specific to their situation, but she was genuinely glad to have Kagami.
Still, there was that something in Kagami’s demeanour that made Marinette feel like she was missing something. An edge under the words that — it wasn’t a sharp edge, but it was like a frame, or a border, something that outlined everything that was going on. If only she could figure out what it was…
“AB and O also go well together romantically,” Kagami went on.
“Is Adrien type AB?”
Kagami gave Marinette a hurt, affronted look. “No. Not at all.”
“Oh…”
“AB and O — oh, I see. You weren’t saying — I understand.” The affront vanished, and was replaced with something more calm. “No, I don’t go well together with Adrien. He is probably Type B. Type AB and O go well together, however, because AB’s mysterious nature intrigues O’s curiosity. O is passionate, while AB is outgoing and sensitive. I believe they are the most suitable romantic partners.”
There. A flash of the frame. A glint in Kagami’s powerful eyes. “Um…”
“O will also support AB when AB is going through difficult times.”
“... Kagami… are you flirting with me?”
“Yes.”
“You… think we’d go well together?”
Kagami looked like she’d been asked if she believed the Earth was flat. “I know it for a fact,” she said — and then she yawned again, her mouth only half closing for the t in ‘fact’.
“I… um, okay,” said Marinette. She was less surprised than she thought she’d be, but this still hadn’t been on her bingo card for the day. “That’s —”
“You don’t have to answer now,” said Kagami. “Youhh —” she yawned yet again — “hhyou should focus on getting better first.”
“Kagami… did you sleep?”
Kagami yawned again. She must have been trying really hard to hide how tired she really was for a while — was this the self-determined and strong-willed O nature coming through? “I haven’t slept,” she replied.
“You have to sleep. Put your chair closer — you can rest your head on the bed.”
“Is — is that okay?”
Marinette glanced at the door. There were no doctors outside. “I don’t know if the doctors think so, but it’s fine with me. You’ve been up all day, you need to rest.”
A soft light bloomed on Kagami’s face. It didn’t manifest in a smile, but her gratefulness was obvious. “Thank you,” she said in a half-whisper, and pulled her chair closer. It only took a moment between her leaning her head on the bed and her breaths becoming deep and heavy.
AB and O. Marinette wasn’t really sure if she believed in anything Kagami had said about blood types. But she believed in Kagami.
She tried lifting her right arm, the one connected to tubes. The tubes weren’t short enough to restrict moving the arm, but the needles stung a little bit when she tried. She shifted it little by little, almost inching it across her chest, until the hand landed on Kagami’s head. The hair was soft, but a little sweaty. She stroked it with a thumb.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Marinette could stay awake for Kagami. Kagami deserved it. For being strong-willed and decisive. And just a little bit AB — mysterious and sensitive.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep…