Chapter Text
It was ten very long days before Shouta got the okay to visit Shirakumo again.
Shouta really had, in that tense time before the war, gone to talk to Kurogiri every damn day up until the war commenced, and he hadn’t realized how important it had become to his daily routine. Even before he had been hospitalized himself, he went. There was a time limit before, a pressure to get Kurogiri on their side. His talks, while rooted in a genuine desire to see his friend, felt almost that it all had a veneer of falsehood. More of a mission than a real attempt to connect. It was an overwhelming sense that he had been behaving illogically, talking to someone he knew was deeply comatose in the off chance that he could hear his words. The miracle is in the possibility, Gran Torino had said, but a more realistic scenario had played out in the end. Shouta had been instructed to read certain lines, key words, and never got a response.
There was no mission now, though. It was over, and Shirakumo is awake again. There’s no telling when things will be back to normal. Buildings have to be rebuilt and people need to recover, physically and mentally. Shouta himself had no qualms with getting right back to work, being the type of person who would rather focus on work than let himself ruminate, but that wouldn’t be right for all of the students who were still too shaken to function. He had spent a good thirty minutes consoling Kaminari the other day, who was in the hospital after painfully discovering a fracture in his left hand once the adrenaline wore off.
He has been spending a lot of time consoling people these days, now that he thinks about it. Not necessarily something he ever thought he could do, but apparently it’s a budding talent.
That steadily forming skill was useless on Shirakumo even on the best of days, though. He was beyond consoling in many ways. Shouta had seen his psychiatric doctor interact with him at some point, and even see seemed to understand that, much more focused on finding out even the most basic facts of what had happened in those fourteen years. Shouta wasn’t sure if Shirakumo was still protecting the people who hurt him or if it was too horrific to share at this point.
The room Shirakumo was in, now, was much less stressful to be in, at least. It was lit only by the window, allowing in the warm dim tones of the late evening. It was still more sterilized than what one might anticipate from a retreat or a nicer rehabilitation center, but it didn’t feel quite as overwhelming as the research wing that they were attempting to treat the other nomu in, as well as the now-arrested Spinner. There were two cheap chairs next to a more normal-looking bed in the center of the room that had been modified to accommodate his height.
They had discovered once they made it back that Shirakumo had experienced some mild atrophy in his legs from his time unconscious, which made it difficult to walk. Learning that gave Shouta a pang of guilt over how badly he had been pushed during the war. It was necessary at the time, but possibly hurting Shirakumo wasn’t something he enjoyed having to make mental justifications for.
Shirakumo looked to be dozing, currently, eyes not fully shut. He didn’t respond to the sound of Shouta’s uneven footsteps in the door, though there was a quick glance in his direction that Shouta would have missed if he weren’t staring so intently. Shirakumo was no longer in a straitjacket, as it had been determined that he was currently too weak to do pretty much anything at all, really, though it was still on the table if he began to resist. Shouta did hope he would get to the point that he would never need restraints again. There was no mission related to getting through to him now, but nobody was certain about anything when it came to his mental state.
Shirakumo was in a simple white shirt and pants now, not having his own clothes besides the suit that was still confiscated by the police… not that Shouta would ever want to see Shirakumo wear that outfit again or anything similar to it, either. The plain outfit made all of the scarring on his skin that much more visible, causing Shouta to have another rush of anger at the perpetrators.
He knew from the angle that Shirakumo was looking out at a nearby police buildings that currently housed the pathetic Kyudai Garaki, but Shouta was unsure if he was aware of that. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Skeptic had the coordinates for everyone. He could have told him anything.
Shouta thought of a few greetings, but they got lodged in his throat, now confronted with the reality that he is about to talk to Shirakumo- not Shirakumo with total amnesia, not Shirakumo that only responds to the name Kurogiri, not Shirakumo that is comatose. This was just Shirakumo.
Shouta moved from the door and around the bed to grab one of the chairs. The scraping of the chair against the floor made Shirakumo flinch and Shouta muttered an apology.
"You're out of the research wing." Shouta wasn't sure what he really meant to get across with that. "How are you feeling?"
From the limited view of Shirakumo's face in the darkened room, he could see his eyelashes flicker slightly, but he didn't get a response.
Shouta knew, of course, exactly what had transpired to get him moved from the research wing to the psychiatric ward. Shirakumo previously couldn't object to the overwhelming lights, noise, screens, and medical staff that cycled in and out as they prodded and tested and injected him with various concoctions to see if anything could get the mist to disappear. Once Shirakumo was awake, however, he had many objections. He made those objections known, mostly physically.
Without the constant police presence hovering their every move, though, the team in charge of him were able to go with what they believed was right, and that was removing him from that environment. The aftermath of the war had put the nomu restoration project on the back burner regardless, so those concerns were mitigated by how spread thin the hospital currently is. The psychiatric wing hadn’t been fully absorbed by trauma treatment simply because of the lack of needed technology in those rooms, so there had been space for him.
It all worked out well for everyone. Shirakumo was calmer the moment he was wheeled in and has spent most of his time resting. Not quite stable, but coping better.
Now, though, Shouta was faced with the challenge of coming up with things to talk about that wouldn’t cause any more stress, which is what had led to warp gate backfiring in the first place. Most of the things he had talked about before were stressful topics, at least for him. He wasn’t even sure if high school memories were able to be discussed.
“Do you want to talk?” Shouta landed on after a minute or so. “About anything.”
Shouta watched intently as Shirakumo opened eyes a bit wider, looked down, and then up again, before mumbling out something that wasn’t comprehensible.
Shouta pulled the chair up closer- more gently, now that he knew how loud they are- and leaned his body forward onto the bed with his arms crossed. “I didn’t understand that.”
Shirakumo met his gaze and stared for a few moments before moving the arm further from Shouta up in one slow movement, loosely pointing out the window. “Out…”
Shouta looked back over his shoulder outside of the window, trying to see what Shirakumo was pointing at. It didn’t seem that anything had changed, so he looked back over to Shirakumo, whose hand was now resting on his stomach.
“Is there something out there?”
A slight head shake.
“I… I…” Shirakumo was still switching between personal pronouns, as if he couldn’t decide which one he liked better now. “I want out.”
That made more sense. Shouta let the words hang in the air for a moment as he decided how he wanted to respond. There was no chance Shirakumo would be leaving the hospital any time soon, or any kind of care facility, unless he made some miraculous recovery. That much was doubtful at this point, at least based on the limited information he had gleaned from his care team.
“Once you’re feeling better, you can.” Of course, the question of his legal status of a villain remains a hot button topic, but considering the state of Japan right now, he doubted any sort of prosecution would be interested in tackling that when there are much more clear-cut offenders awaiting trial. For now, he decided to remain optimistic, for once that being the more reasonable option. “You will. I’m sure of it.”
Shirakumo’s expression shifted in a way that almost looked annoyed, but Shouta couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t sure about anything when it comes to Shirakumo, now. His heart may be the same, but everything on the surface has been altered past the point of recognizability. Some were more confident than others that the memory of who Shirakumo was would ever be replicated in this stranger in front of them. Not that it necessarily mattered to Shouta- Shirakumo’s heart remaining intact was most important. It was what had saved Shouta back then, after all.
“For the time being, I’ll visit you as much as I can. Okay?” That wouldn’t be difficult for now. Shouta had only been cleared with heavy provisions to be near the battlefield, but he hadn’t been formally discharged. The blue hospital gown remains for the time being. “Our hospital stays will be less boring this way.”
Not so boring for Shouta as much as it was a constant storm of stress, now feeling like he was on a video call and talking almost all hours of the day. Visiting Shirakumo and trying to talk to him most likely won’t be any less stressful, but there was a kind of hope and ache at the prospect that made the thought of talking for another hour less exhausting.
Shirakumo began to cry again, but he didn’t respond to any of Shouta’s attempts to get him to talk about why. He didn’t press for very long, though, and opted to talk about Sushi. They had time, now, to get Shirakumo to talk again at his own pace.