Chapter Text
Paralysis didn’t happen like he would have expected it to. He didn’t just wake up one morning to find that he wasn’t able to use his legs. He didn’t sail off a cliff or walk out into traffic and crush them. Izuru had only been walking when he collapsed on the school's steps. He had been outside when it happened. Sure, he felt a bit more fatigued than usual on that particular day, but he thought that he was just feeling under the weather since he was just getting over a cold. His fingertips had been tingling quite a bit lately, perhaps from lack of circulation, and it was especially bad today for some reason, which was rather annoying. He chose to ignore his sluggish movements and just assumed that he would improve as the day progressed. He wasn't supposed to be outside the school. He wasn't supposed to show himself to the other students, but he did it anyway. Partially out of spite, but mostly out of childish rebellion. How was he too blame that his skin was so pale when he was hardly allowed outside? He was nearly translucent at this point. Besides, he wanted to know what it would feel like to blend in with the other students, to soak in their daily life a bit.
He hadn’t felt anything when his legs gave on the steps of the school. He fell on his face, papers went everywhere, and he tried to stand, but couldn’t. He dismissed it, as he was too rattled to pay it much mind, and tried to assess the damage. He was only able to when he touched his hand to his head and felt the dampness on his scalp. he pulled his hand away and immediately saw the red smeared all over his hand. That was enough to send him into a state of panic, as his blood was not a sight he was used to. He saw the blood dripping onto his schoolbooks and papers, and quickly went lightheaded. He didn’t remember much else, as lost consciousness and was left lying in a small pool of the thick red liquid.
He did remember the strain on his legs when he had tried to stand, and failing.
When he woke up, his room was all white. It wasn’t his room. He would never let his room stay painted such a ghastly color. It reminded him of an asylum or a mental hospital or something of the like. He was still in his school uniform, but something felt different. His uniform coat was nowhere to be found, and his white button-up was spotted with red, flaking blood. He vaguely remembered falling. It had felt like tripping on nothing. Nothing had caused it, or so he believed. Had he just fallen coming up the steps because he had tripped on one of the edges?
“-zuru.”
There was somebody in the room with him, sitting next to him and peering at him, slowly coming into focus.
“Izuru.”
Izuru squinted to see the man who was in the room with him. “Jin?”
“Can you hear me?” His guardian asked. There was a nurse standing beside him.
“Yes.”
Jin sighed, covering his face with one hand. “Oh thank God.”
“Where am I?”
“You’re in the school’s hospital.”
Izuru had been here before. Many times. Though it was mostly for checkups to make sure that the improvements and alterations on his brain were still fully functional.
“I fell.”
“Yes.”
“On the stairs.”
“I know. You hit your head pretty badly. You weren’t supposed to be out there.”
Izuru felt his forehead to see if anything was different. A thick gauze was wrapped around his head, and he winced in pain as he put pressure on his head wound. So it really had happened. It hadn't been a dream.
“Don’t press on it.”
“Sorry.”
Jin paused, and looked back at the nurse standing by him. He then placed his hand on Izuru’s bedside. “Izuru. Can you stand?”
Izuru’s brow furrowed. “Of course I can.”
“Then stand for me.”
Still slightly confused by the odd request, Izuru braced himself in the mattress to stand.
His legs wouldn’t respond. He felt the strain that he was putting on them, but he couldn’t move them. Izuru’s eyes widened in realization. He tried harder to get a response, but they still didn’t respond. He reached under his covers and tried to rouse them with his fists, pounding on his thighs harder and harder in hoping that something would come of it to get them to move. He tried again, short of breath and panting, but still couldn’t move more than a few centimeters. The strain he was putting on his legs hurt. When he could no longer take it, he collapsed back onto his pillow. A thin bead of sweat traced a line down his face.
Jin waited for Izuru’s breathing to slow, then spoke again. “Try it again.”
So Izuru did. It was the same result. Painful, fruitless efforts to stand, only feeling strain. He only managed to twitch his legs in certain directions but couldn’t get them to fully function. He grunted in frustration, not understanding what was happening.
“Izuru, stop.”
Izuru looked Jin in the eyes. “I can’t move.”
Jin didn’t answer.
“Jin, tell me what’s happening.”
“Izuru, try to get some rest.”
“Not until you tell me why it is I can’t stand!”
“Izuru!” Izuru looked more closely. There were tears in Jin’s eyes. Which was strange, because normally this man showed very little emotion externally. Apparently this was a serious matter. “Please try to get some rest. We can talk it over later.”
How in the world did Jin expect him to rest? He couldn’t even move and nobody was telling him why. With this in mind, Izuru knew that arguing with Jin was damn near impossible if you wanted to win the argument. So soberly, he nodded and lay his head back down on his pillow.
“I’ll be back soon.”
He never came back “soon.” Jin never came back at all. Izuru could hear him talking to the nurse out in the hallway for a while, but their voices became softer and softer. Now he heard nothing, not even a muffled tone. He tried moving again several times, but the results were always the same. Was this why he had collapsed in front of the school? Because his legs simply failed to perform?
Had they stopped working?
No. That was impossible. They were his legs. They had held him upright for as long as he had been alive and carried him this far. They couldn’t just stop working. Izuru knew that denial was just a childish symptom of fear, but right now he didn’t much care. It didn’t stop his breath from becoming ragged with stress. He lay in his bed for several minutes, the looming dread crushing him.
This is stupid.
More slowly this time, Izuru sat back up, using his forearms as support. He tried moving his legs again. Much to his surprise, they responded, albeit a little slower than he was used to. He sighed in relief. It had just been a spell of anxiety. He was used to those. The stress of getting knocked senseless by a slab of concrete must have triggered a temporary illusion of paralysis. He was fine.
He got up from his bed, carefully sliding himself off of it. His feet, still wearing socks, touched the cold linoleum ground. His body felt heavy, heavier than was natural. His legs were shaking, but they were still able to support him. If this really was all in his head, this was normal. The shaking would probably wear off in a few hours, a few days at the most.
Now to just make it to the door.
Izuru walked with slow, tedious steps. It was more difficult than he had anticipated. He stumbled a little and his movements were difficult to control, but he began to get a better hang of it after a few steps. He was walking again.
There. Easy.
One foot in front of the other. Slowly, slowly, so as not to shock his endurance. He had to hold out both of his hands to steady himself, as he found balance to be a bit difficult. Keeping himself upright was surprisingly exhausting. Several trickles of sweat ran down his face, and he panted heavy breaths to compensate. He was almost to the door. Just a few more steps. Just a few more--
He hadn’t tripped. Or taken a wrong step. But his legs gave out.
Without so much as a warning, Izuru fell to his knees, crying out in surprise. He fell hard on the floor, catching himself with his arms. It still hurt, even though it wasn’t quite as rough as the first fall. It still took him by surprise.
He pulled himself back upright, torso first. His legs were sprawled underneath him, refusing to move once again. This couldn’t have been happening. Not to him.
“S-stop…” Izuru stammered to no one in particular. “Stop it.”
This wasn’t happening, right? It was just stress, right? His legs would start working again if he just kept dragging his limp body across the room by his arms, right? This was only a sham, wasn’t it?
Izuru groaned in discomfort, trying to carry the weight of his body on his arms. He would place his hands on a certain point on the floor and slide himself across it. First of all, it hurt. He usually had exceptionally good upper body strength, but he was already exhausted from earlier events. It was also more than a little humiliating, even if he was the only one in the room. He was at the door. All he needed to do was get back on his feet, open the door, find Jin and get the hell out of the school hospital.
It would have been made much easier if he were able to reach the aluminum door handle from where he was sprawled. He swatted at it again and again, his fingertips brushing it but never being able to quite grip it. He tried to force himself onto his knees, but he couldn’t.
“Khhh….gah….!”
When finally, he couldn’t take the strain anymore, he lay face down on the floor, head turned to the side.
I can’t move my legs.
I fell on the steps because my legs couldn’t support me.
I couldn’t move from my bed because my legs aren’t able to respond.
The reason that I fell and can’t move is that my legs can’t function.
They don’t work anymore.
Several nurses rushed into the room when they heard him scream.
--
“It’s called Guillain-Barre syndrome. It occurs when the immune system attacks parts of the nervous system and causes symptoms similar to polio. It’s one of the rarer viruses, but it isn’t unheard of.”
Several days of testing. Two CT scans and one MRI, blood work galore, and he was just now being told this. It had been a full week of impatience, frustration, not to mention utter boredom, and Izuru was positive that he was getting gravely behind in his studies while he was wasting his time in the hospital. They had even asked him to walk in some demoralizing exercise in which he had to move to one side of the room, pick up a book, and return it to it’s shelf without any leverage or support. It was made even more demoralizing since Izuru hadn’t been able to make it more than a couple of meters.
“And how long do I have?” asked Izuru without looking the doctor in the eyes. He already knew what his condition was called, what it’s cause was, how to treat it, all of that. He had been practicing medicine for a few months now, long enough to surpass this woman. But people seem to be more cooperative when you’ve convinced them that they’re the smarter of the two, so he pretended he didn’t know.
“It’s not going to kill you, it isn’t quite that critical,” she replied. “They didn’t tell me you were so morbid. But you will need immediate treatment as well as physical therapy. I wouldn’t recommend trying to walk on your own unless you want a repeat of how you hit your head.”
“Mmm.”
“Now listen, and this is important. You may have trouble breathing or experience rises in blood pressure now that you’re fully diagnosed. We can start blood treatment in a few days to relieve the symptoms, but in the meantime you need to rest. And I forbid you from moving one step from your bed unless you are instructed otherwise.”
“Mmm.”
“I know that it’s difficult,” she insured, acting like she understood which only made Izuru want to beat her to death even more. He would beat anyone to death in his current state. “We’re not sure how long your paralysis is going to last. But if you cooperate, I can assure you that you can be out of here in a matter of months.”
He didn’t even bother reacting. It seemed like too much work. So, wordlessly, the doctor got up and moved toward the door, taking her clipboard that Izuru was fairly sure all professionals in the medical or scientific field were required to carry in order to look smarter. That and the glasses. The woman probably only had the slightest prescription on those thin lenses. “He’s ready for you,” he heard her say.
Izuru tried to act like he didn’t notice Jin walking in and taking a seat where the doctor had been. Jin sat hunched forward, his breath scarce, like he was trying to work out what he wanted to say. He would start to say a word, but would stop before it could actually come out as a sound. “Izzy, look--”
“Stop calling me that,” Izuru growled coldly. He kept his eyes straight ahead.
Jin just sighed. “Izuru, I know that this is difficult. But you aren’t making it any easier.”
“Easier for me or easier for you?”
“For the both of us.”
Fucking liar.
“Izuru, please,” Jin pleaded. “Help me out here, you have--”
“I know what I have!” Izuru yelled, making firm eye contact. “I was in the goddamn room when they were talking to me, don’t you remember!? I have a virus similar to poliomyelitis that’s attacking my nervous system, it’s going to choke me to death if it doesn’t give me a stroke first, and I’m paralyzed in my lower body! Well!? Do you need any more clarification?”
“You need to rest. I can get you a book or something, but you need to rest until they can begin treatment.”
“I want to leave. I want to go home.” He was surprised to hear himself say this. Izuru usually hated the Academy. But he would love to be anywhere other than here, and the Academy was the only home he had ever known. “And don’t tell me that I need rest, because I’ve been resting for an entire week and it’s been driving me utterly insane. I need to continue my studies. The paralysis is only temporary, isn’t it? I’ll be back upright in a week. I recover quickly, I always do.”
“It’s not just going to go away.”
“A month, then.”
“Maybe not even after a month.” Jin said. “This isn’t just some result of an anxiety attack. Worst case scenario, the paralysis might never go away.”
“Fine. I can have surgery.” Izuru was used to surgery. He had it done at least once or twice a month, but only in his brain.
“I don’t think surgery is going to help.”
Izuru was getting tired of this. Why couldn’t Jin just admit that he was wrong? “So I’ll just never walk again, is that it?” He shot sarcastically.
“If this keeps up, then not properly, you won’t.” Jin had obviously sensed the sarcasm (He had taken care of Izuru for long enough to detect it), but chose to ignore it. “Even with physical therapy, they’re doubtful that it’ll get you fully up off the ground.”
Izuru grit his teeth in frustration. He would give just about anything to prove Jin wrong at this particular moment. He hated being wrong. Being right all the time was one of the few things he enjoyed that his life had to offer. He gripped his bedsheets, trying desperately to come up with something that would shut Jin up.
“You’re right in one regard, though,” Jin went on, holding his chin contemplatively. “The Academy can’t let you get behind in your studies. We’re already a week behind.”
Computer programming this week. Easy.
“So I’ll send for someone from student council to bring you necessary supplies for your research as well as classwork from your schooling schedule.”
“Student council?”
“All of the members are ahead of their classes as is required. It shouldn’t be a problem for them to miss school to help out.”
The student council. Of course. That whole pathetic squadron of hall monitors was like a second set of children to Jin. All of them referred to him by his first name and had his personal contact number in their phones. Student council was easy to deal with most of the time. Most of the members he was on good terms with, but some of the members were quite bossy despite having to respect his status. Especially the student body president Murasame. He was always nagging Izuru that he wasn’t pulling his weight as he should be as the Ultimate Hope and should take his duties as the bearer of the title AND being a student representative more seriously. It wasn’t like it put Izuru under stress, it was just rather irritating.
“I’ll call one of the members now.” Jin got up to leave, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. “Don’t leave your room.” And with that, he was gone.
Izuru lay his head down on his pillow, staring up at the ceiling. Every so often he tried moving his feet under the covers just to see if he could get a response.
He could almost see it. Three years of work was about to go tumbling into the abyss. Three years he had been alive, or so it felt like. Three years since he woke up in a hospital bed at the Academy. Three years he had acted as Hope’s Peak’s protege, and it was all about to disappear. He would never walk again, the school board would label him as ineffective and throw him out along with all of their other failed experiments. Half of his responsibilities towards his learning involved using his body, which was now indefinitely out of commission. It wouldn’t matter if he was still able to function intellectually. If he wasn’t able to perform just how the school board wanted him to, he would be cast aside. That was what he was the most afraid of. If it wasn’t an issue, he wouldn’t have cared as long as he could carry on his duties.
He had been twitching all week long without having to do any work. There were no televisions playing informative videos, no computers to use or to take apart and rebuild, hardly any books on building skills or containing new information that he could use. Izuru was so used to studying, day in and day out, that his body and mind couldn’t quite function properly without having information always at the ready. Study, practice, perfect. That repetitive cycle was the only life he had ever known. And furthermore, it was his duty to carry it out day after day. He existed to impress, and he had done a rather good job of doing so throughout the few years he had been alive, considering he was still around. The praise he received from school officials and researchers was good. He recognized that. The praise didn’t quite make him happy, he still struggled with that concept, but it did keep him going. It motivated him, since it seemed to please Jin enough when he did. Being talented was his purpose. And depriving him of that purpose may as well just be killing him. Just as this...defect was threatening to do. His fingers were constantly twitching, aching for something to do.
Perhaps this was his penance for trying to escape.
It would only have been for a day. Just one day, blending in with the other students. Maybe taking the bus and going into town. He was always told that the city was nice in the fall, what with the cold air in the bright sunlight and the colored leaves making the sky look even more blue. Even someone as focused on success as he would grow curious about the feeling of being apart of the outside world. He would be able to benefit from it. He would take it in and remember it all.
It didn’t end up happening.
--
Out of all the worthless-looking fiction stacked high on the bookshelf in his room (thank God it wasn’t a shared room, then he really would have died), he was able to dig out one nonfiction with the help of one of the nurses. It was a thick novel on Nazi Germany, and although Izuru had wanted something a bit more pleasant to read, he decided to plow through it nonetheless. He was wasting his time in this silly phase of withdrawal. He had studied the Third Reich three times already, so he already knew most of the information the book had to offer. He was barely able to suppress his craving for something of the unknown.
He was about 100 pages in when a nurse slid open the door to his room with a clatter. “Kamukura-kun, there’s someone here to see you.”
“Send them in,” he said without looking up from his book. It was probably the student council representative that Jin had sent for. It was about damn time.
He waited for a moment, and a brunette boy poked his head into the room through the doorframe. He had the most peculiar strand of hair sticking up from his head, pointed and bent to the side like a wire. His golden looking eyes swept over him meekly, as if the boy were afraid of something. Izuru had seen the boy a few times before, but it was a member that was surprisingly scarce to the student council. He could not recall the name for the life of him.
“U-um…” the boy started. “Did I come at a bad time?”
“Not particularly. I presume you’re from student council?”
“Yeah, th-that’s me.” The boy held up a large stack of books balanced underneath a thick compilation of papers and a laptop computer. “I’m dropping off your quota for today. It seems like kind of a tall order.”
“I can have it done by the end of today,” Izuru dismissed. “I appreciate you dropping it off.”
“Well, it’s not like I have anything better to do,” the boy laughed uneasily. “And uh, it’s the least I can do, y’know, with what happened…”
Izuru shot a small glare at the boy (not too severe, just to remind him not to broach the subject) and went back to reading, assuming that he would just leave. He didn’t. He stood lingering almost a minute after he had set the supplies down on the bedside table. Izuru flicked his eyes back at the brown haired boy, making him visibly flinch.
“Why are you still here?”
“Oh, s-sorry, I should probably get going.” The boy turned to leave, but stopped mid-step, turning back halfway. “Let me know if you need anything else, ok? Like any help or anything?”
“Mmm.”
Izuru was thankful to hear the door closing as the boy left. Alone with his studies at last. He let out a slow breath. A distraction. Perfect. This was the most relaxed he had felt all week, ironically, with much work to be done.
--
The next day, the boy came in while Izuru was sleeping. He wasn’t active at all during the day since he still couldn’t walk or therefore exercise aside from treatment, so sleeping through the night was problematic since he still had energy to spare. Izuru had more or less fallen into a messy sleep schedule of just sleeping when he was tired and could no longer keep his eyes open, regardless of the time of day. He assumed that the boy had tried to be as quiet as possible in dropping off his research quota for the day, since he woke up with his supplies already neatly stacked on his bedside table and his work from the day before already gone. He only assumed that it was the same boy, since he had fallen asleep roughly around the same time he had come the day before.
Oh well. At least he wasn’t being obtrusive.
--
“Hey. You’re awake today.” The brown haired boy strode into Izuru’s hospital room at his usual time the next day. “Have you finished the work I gave you yesterday?”
Izuru swept his hair out of his eyes, still filling out the paperwork in his lap. “I’m just finishing. It shouldn’t take more than about fifteen minutes.”
The boy fidgeted awkwardly. “Do you mind if I stay until you’ve finished? I need to drop off your finished work with Matsuda to track your progress or else I’ll get in trouble with Murasame-senpai.”
“I don’t care.”
He hadn’t meant to sound rude. According to his observations of social gestures, when someone didn’t care it meant that they did not have a preference to the options they have been given. He did not have a preference as to whether or not the boy stayed. He could stay if he liked or he could leave. But Izuru sensed that he had done something wrong, again , when he saw the boy’s face fall.
“Oh. Ok.”
He took a seat in the only place he could find, right next to Izuru’s bed. It was awkward, but it was only fifteen minutes. He may as well try and talk to him a little to make up for the miscommunication. He really didn’t want to, but he had always been taught that you can only compensate for mistakes by correcting them.
“What position are you on student council?” Izuru asked.
“Oh,” the boy said. “I’m nobody. I was only elected last minute since a male representative for my grade had to transfer out and they needed a member. They were pretty desperate.”
“You can’t be nobody if you were elected,” Izuru deliberately flattered, talking as he wrote. “What do you do?”
“Well, I mean, if you wanna get technical I’m pretty much just an errand boy. I don’t think Kirigiri-sensei pays much mind to me.”
He didn’t refer to Jin by his given name. Interesting.
“I-In fact, just delivering stuff to you is my only actual job at the moment,” the boy went on. “The other reps won’t really let me handle any of the other stuff. The... important stuff.”
“That sounds to me like you’re letting yourself be undermined.”
“No, I don’t really deserve it. I think they’re right in setting restrictions. I’m just happy to be helping out student council in whatever way I can.” It was a well worded lie. He wanted to mean it, but he didn’t. This boy’s mindset was pathetic. “I’m Hinata, by the way. Hajime Hinata. I'm a first year. I already know you, you’re Kamukura.”
Hajime Hinata. Hajime meaning “beginning,” and Hinata, which can either be written as “sunflower” or “facing the sun.” It seemed a bit too cheerful a name for this awkward, self-deprecating boy. But it suited his appearance nonetheless. Izuru found it strangely pleasing whenever someone’s name matched up well with their appearance. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Izuru said.
“Thanks. You too. I-I’m really sorry I’m having trouble talking.”
“You’re doing fine.”
“I was just…” Hinata started. “I was just a little nervous. In meeting you, I mean.”
Oh god.
Oh no.
He was one of these.
He wasn’t like the other members of student council who were used to Izuru’s presence and shared unspoken respect with him. Not at all. Hinata was just another ordinary.
But he went on regardless. “Y-you’ve probably heard this from a lot of people--
Oh yes. More times than he cared to assign a number to. Just another ordinary person who always fawned over Izuru because they loved him so much. They admired his talent so much. He had always felt this way about anyone who complimented him, but he wasn’t sure why it offended him as much as it did. Allowing his talents to grow and improve them as much as possible was his life’s purpose, and he felt that it was his duty to pursue that purpose. But for some reason, it always bothered him when he received flowery praise directly, namely that of undaunted admiration.
“--but, I mean, I just think you’re really amazing. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to be so talented in every field, but you make it look so easy. I actually got to go to the benefit concert that the school hosted for the officials, and your showcase was incredible.”
That benefit concert was only an excuse for everyone who had invested financial assistance into Kibougamine to be shown that it was still worth their money. Nobody dared bring it up. Most of them were on the edge, and their donations had grown a lot less generous.
“I look up to you so much, like, I can’t even say, and it’s such an honor to finally be able to meet you.”
Izuru’s handwriting began to grow hasty and scribbled. He would get a talking-to about it later, but he didn’t care. “Is it, now.”
“Yeah, it really is.”
“I’m done.” Izuru said flatly.
“Great!” Hinata jumped up from his chair, snatching the thick workbook that Izuru had completed. “I’ll take this down to the psychology department right awa--” he stopped as he flipped to the last page. “Um, Kamukura-kun, the last page is blank.”
“I said I’m done.” Izuru stated again.
“No, you’re not. You have to finish this or I can't--”
“I’M DONE.” Izuru raised his finger towards the door. “I’ve finished the assignment. There is no reason for you to be here. Get out. Now.”
Hinata lurched backward, then just looked at the floor. Izuru knew Hinata wouldn’t question him. Anyone who admired him this much wouldn't dare. “O-ok. Sorry.” He rushed out of the room, Izuru’s work in hand. Upon his leave came the satisfying shut of the hospital room’s door.
Izuru flopped his head down on his pillow. He wondered if he had offended Hinata in any way. He probably wasn’t aware that he had done anything wrong, let alone meant to. Izuru didn’t really give a damn about his intentions. He was irritated. Ordinary people like Hinata were always irritating. They were boring. No substance whatsoever. How were people like him even accepted into Hope’s Peak Academy?
Maybe...no. Probably not. He was let into Student Council, after all. But judging from his demeanor, it could still be possible.
He decided not to busy his mind with the matter and rest with what little time he had left. After all, his least favorite part of the day was coming up. The time of day that he actually had to move.
--
Hinata lingered outside of the hospital room for a moment. His pacing would turn it to minutes. He needed to go back and talk to Kamukura, but he couldn’t. He was nowhere near mentally prepared. Hell, it took him ten minutes every day to muster the nerve to go into that room to drop off his things. He had been rather relieved that one day that Kamukura had been asleep, as there were no mistakes to be made. He was just able to slip in and deliver the quota, no interaction necessary, no harm done. But on the days Kamukura was awake, he couldn’t do anything right at all. And now he had done something horribly wrong.
He didn’t know what had made Kamukura so angry. It showed in his bright red eyes that Hinata had offended him in some way. He just wasn’t quite sure how. He needed to go back and apologize. Or ask what he did wrong for future reference. Either way, he couldn’t return to the student council room with them finding out about sending an incomplete workbook to the psychology department. It wouldn’t be any use lying about it. They always found out about every little error, and his higher ups always found ways to use it against him without fail. They looked for it, too. Always. All because of his rank as a student. Though all things considered, he couldn’t really blame them at all.
But even with all that in mind, Hinata really didn’t want to go back and have to face Kamukura again. He didn’t know how to make up for his mistakes if he didn’t know what they were. And moreover, Kamukura’s demeanor was terrifying. His eyes seemed to pierce holes in Hinata’s chest the moment his voice gave a hint of hostility. He also knew that he couldn’t argue with him.
Hinata sighed, finally giving into his anxiety. So he would get yelled at by Murasame, big deal. And he still had the whole school day ahead of him to get chewed out. Fine. This was his penance. His punishment for making an ignorant mistake and offending Kamukura.
Offending the (debatably) most important person in this school.
Yeah, he hecked up. Big time.
--
Physical therapy was absolutely humiliating. Izuru should have been happy that once a day they were letting him walk, but it made him feel lower than the dust he was grinding down with his feet. It only reminded him how heavily reliant he was on other people because of his condition. It was exhausting too, both physically and mentally. Every day, the same exercises. Izuru would brace himself against a set of parallel bars, his physical therapist leading him back and forth across the room. It was unbearably painful starting out. His legs were weak, and at this point weren’t used to having Izuru’s full weight being put on them. His walking always followed a pattern: a few short steps, stumble, a few more short steps, stumble, fall. It was thoroughly degrading. On top of all of this, there was at least one person looking down on him. Watching him sweat and pant and try to walk like any fully functional human being. The most talented person at this school, maybe in Japan, or even the world, horrifically failing.
Poor child. Poor boy. The Ultimate Hope who can’t even walk ten feet.
Izuru could almost smell the pity emanating off of the people watching. Izuru hated pity.
He met with Jin and one of the doctors every couple of days to track his progress. So far it had been little to none, but Izuru didn’t worry. It had still been a relatively short time since he was diagnosed, so he knew that they would go easy on him.
Therapy went on for over an hour. Well, it was only supposed to run for an hour tops, but every day that he had to do physical therapy it ran for over an hour because the therapist either forgot or he didn’t care. It was even worse because time seemed to slow whenever he was in that room. But eventually, thank goodness, he was transported back to his room in his wheelchair, still panting and slick with perspiration. He needed help getting back into his bed, but he didn’t care. He was thankful to be lying down again. Eventually his breathing returned to normal, but he fell into a sort of rift where he was too tired to stay awake but too wound up to fall asleep. So he would curl himself up underneath the covers and wait until he had winded down enough to sleep.
On this particular day, right after being brought back when he was even more spent than usual, Hinata peeked his head into the room. “Kamukura-kun?”
“Mmm.”
“Can I come in?”
“Mmhm.”
Izuru wasn’t thrilled to see Hinata. It had been quite awkward ever since Hinata had slipped up in praising Izuru and was sent out of the room in a stern manner. Izuru knew that he was being childish for letting the resentment persist, but he felt it was necessary. Hinata was merely a messenger. It wasn’t as if they had to bond over this mess.
“Did you finish your work from yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Yes,” Izuru said louder, eyes still closed.
He heard the sound of papers being shuffled around. “You’re all red in the face. Did something happen?”
“Physical therapy,” he mumbled.
“Gotcha. I’m...really sorry.”
“For what?”
“For...this. I mean, what you’re...nevermind.”
Izuru was too tired to call him out. He was too tired to do anything but turn up his eyelids to see Hinata. And he noticed something.
“A-all I’m saying is is that it can’t be easy...I mean, heck, it wouldn’t be easy for me, that’s for sure.”
“Hinata-san.”
“I mean, I’m probably overstepping my bounds saying all this, and I’m really sorry--”
“Hinata-san.”
Hinata looked over at Izuru when he finally heard him. “What?”
“What is that on your face?”
He paused. “On my…” Hinata touched his fingers to the spot on his cheek. “Oh. Yeah. Uh. It’s not that big of a deal. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
There was a giant purple bruise scarring Hinata’s left cheek. It looked quite painful, like someone or something had outright struck him on the side of the face. “Did something happen?”
“No. It’s not important. I was just being incompetent, and another student council member caught me.”
“A council member did that to you?” Izuru asked.
“Nah, it’s ok. I was being careless. Um...it was about the quota that you didn’t end up finishing. I turned it into the psychology department thinking that just one page didn’t matter that much, that nobody would find out about it. But they always do anyway, so I dunno why I figured I could get away with it.”
Izuru listened, quickly processing what Hinata was saying. “You were assaulted because I didn’t finish my work for that day?”
“No, no,” Hinata waved his hands in front of his face. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Izuru raised an eyebrow. How was this not his fault?
“I shouldn’t have made you angry,” Hinata went on. “I’m not sure what I did, but I’m the one who started all this. I shouldn’t have agitated you.”
This boy struck Izuru as very strange. The polar opposite from the people he was used to meeting. He was boring, just like everyone else, but he was different. He was always looking for excuses about how everything was his fault to save trouble for others, instead of the other way around. He must have been the scapegoat that everyone else looked for.
“I’ve actually been meaning to apologize,” said the boy. “I’m really not sure what I said to you to make you angry, but I’m really sorry. I promise you it’ll never happen again.”
Izuru paused. He was reluctant, but he thought it fair to overlook the mistake since Hinata still didn’t know what he had done. “I accept your apology. I’m sorry that you were attacked.”
“No, it’s not--”
“Part of it is. Part of it is my fault. I apologize for being stubborn.”
“Uh...it’s ok. Really.”
Izuru poised himself so that he was leaning up against the pillow on his bed. “You said you had my quota for today.”
“Yup. I set it on your bedside table.”
“Thank you. I’ll start on it a little later.”
“Not feeling up to it right now?”
“Not really.”
Hinata sat down in the chair next to the hospital bed and began thumbing through Izuru’s completed work. “Kamukura-kun?”
“Yes?”
“If...if you don’t mind my asking, what did I say that made you angry exactly? Just so I don’t make that mistake again.”
“It isn’t important,” Izuru dismissed. “I shouldn’t have been short with you.”
“I’d still like to know.”
Izuru sighed. “Well, to put it plainly….I don’t much care for it when people try to flatter or praise me excessively.”
Hinata looked up from the stack of papers. “When they praise you?”
“I know that my purpose at this academy is to exercise and improve my talents to the best of my ability. I know that praise is good, it means that I’m doing well in my studies. If it comes from someone from the government, it means that they’re going to keep funding this school. And that in turn means Jin will be pleased with me.”
“Who’s Jin?”
“Headmaster Kirigiri.”
“R-right! Sorry.”
“But it’s when people try to praise me personally that gets to me. When they have no business with the Academy in doing so. Just because they hold a personal admiration for me. They praise my talents and accomplishments, tell me how much they admire me, but I feel as if they’re looking right through me. Like their admiration is empty. It all feels wrong.” He tilted his head back. “Like they see the Ultimate Hope but don’t see me.”
Hinata bit his lower lip. “Like, you’re worried that people you meet are only seeing you for your talents? And they can't look beyond them?”
“You could put it that way.”
“That...doesn’t really make much sense to me. I would give just about anything to be praised at this point. For any ability.”
“You made it into this school, did you not?” Izuru asked. “You must have been praised for something.”
“No...not really….”
“What is the talent that got you into this school? I haven’t been able to figure it out yet.”
Hinata’s pupils dilated, he looked to the left, and tugged at the hem of his dress shirt. He was about to lie. “I...it...it’s kind of...I mean, I’d rather not say, really. I’m not exactly proud of it.”
Izuru could respect that. Though he was suspicious. “Fair enough.” He lay his head back a little and shut his eyes. They felt quite sore and needed to rest.
“How’s hospital life treating you?” the brunette boy asked. “Besides physical therapy, I mean.”
“It’s not so bad,” Izuru responded. “It’s unbelievably dull, but bearable. I’ve only just begun blood treatment, but it’s not all that different than what I’m used to.” He placed a hand on his thigh. “It’s not as if I can leave anytime soon, so I may as well make the most of it.”
“At least the staff seems nice.”
“They’re alright, I suppose.”
“What about the food?”
Izuru crinkled his nose. “It leaves much to be desired. The breakfasts taste like the faculty rounded up the dead mice around the school and deep fried them.”
Hinata laughed. Izuru didn’t know why. He was merely stating a fact. Why should it be so funny? “Wow, that sounds pretty bad. I wonder if it’s worse than the school lunches.”
“I can guarantee that.” Izuru yawned and closed his eyes again.
“Are you trying to sleep?” Hinata asked. “I can leave if I’m bothering you.”
Izuru shook his head. “I don’t mind. In truth, I often sleep better when I’m listening to something. This hospital is as quiet as the grave, so I’ve developed a rather askew sleep schedule.”
Hinata shifted in his seat. “....Well, in that case I can keep you company, if you want.”
“Do as you like.”
Hinata did precisely that.
It was empty conversation, all of it. Mostly small talk, just for the sake of making the most of each other’s company. Izuru found it rather pleasant, to be perfectly honest. He still struggled with social cues and recognizing what was appropriate to bring up and what was not. But he rather liked being in the company of someone that didn’t constantly nag him or praise him. Just a normal conversation. Is this what those felt like?
After a while, Izuru felt as though he was nodding off enough to sleep. Hinata left him be and took his leave quietly, bidding him goodbye. Only a few minutes after he left, Izuru quickly fell asleep.