Work Text:
Hakuri smells blood in the bathroom.
At the first whiff, he makes an instinctual swipe with the back of his hand under his nose, expecting it to come away feeling wet and shining red. When he lowers his palm though, the expanse of skin is pristine. No blood marrs the surface, and Hakuri stares at it in confusion for a long moment.
He knows the smell of blood. He'd recognize it anywhere—he's kind of the foremost expert in random nosebleeds around here, so it's all up in his nose all the time. Plus his whole family issues, but he tries not to think too hard about that stuff when he's going about his day. The point is he knows the smell of blood, knows he's not hallucinating that scent, and therefore someone else has to be bleeding.
Someone else has to be bleeding.
His socked feet slip against the bathroom tile and he scrambles down the hall, a single-person stampede in the direction of where he left Chihiro prior. Skirting through the doorway, he scampers across the room and kneels on the couch, nearly shoving Chihiro backwards as he grapples him by the shoulders. He gives the boy a solid shaking.
"Are you bleeding?" Hakuri shouts at him. Chihiro's brows furrow, the faintest hint of a frown pulling at the corners of his mouth.
"No," Chihiro says. "What's wrong, Hakuri?"
Hakuri sinks in relief, teetering forward to rest his forehead against Chihiro's shoulder. He's almost ashamed how much relief cools the simmer of panic in his gut, but the issue of the blood smell is still present and so he'll have to examine that later.
"There was- I smelled blood, so I thought maybe- but it's not you, you're fine." Hakuri lifts his head and meets Chihiro's gaze. "But there's blood. The smell, I mean—I didn't see any. Well, I wasn't looking or anything, but-"
"Hakuri." Chihiro interrupts him with a stern look. Hakuri allows him the silence to think while he tries not to spiral over the possibilities of who could be bleeding in the bathroom, and then he remembers their missing friend.
Iori had gone to grab some snacks before him. She made no mention of using the bathroom, but she still could have anyway, right?
"Iori," Hakuri says it at the same time Chihiro does, and that's all the confirmation he needs to jump up off the couch and turn around the get ready to bolt out the door.
And he almost runs straight into Iori.
"Woah!" The girl takes two wobbling steps backwards, clutching a handful of plastic snack bags in her arms, and darts a concerned look from Hakuri to Chihiro. "Um, did something happen?"
"Iori! Are you dying?" Hakuri reaches out the grab her by the shoulders too, but the girl sidesteps him, grimacing.
"Don't squash the food. And no, why would I be dying?"
"Are you bleeding?" Chihiro asks next.
Iori's jaw drops open, and her face progresses from pink to tomato-coloured in a manner of milliseconds. Brighter than any faux-vegetable in the produce aisle.
"How did you know my- wait," she begins to say, then her face scrunches up in profound confusion.
"So you are bleeding? Why'd you hide it from us! You could be dying!" Hakuri is waving his arms around in frantic motions, the blaze of panic bursting alive inside him again.
"Why would I be dying? It's not that bad! And you-" She points and accusatory finger at Chihiro, offense molded into the scrunch of her brow. "-you can't just say that to a girl! Not in front of others!"
Now Hakuri is thoroughly confused, and as he turns back to Chihiro the boy seems to share the sentiment, judging by his nervous slouch.
"Blood loss is very serious, Iori. If someone hurt you-"
"YOU'RE BOTH IDIOTS!" Iori shrieks, cutting Chihiro off. Her hands have flown upwards, the bags scattering to the floor in front of her. Hakuri feels a little guilty about making her drop them.
"Please, use common sense. I am not hurt and I am not dying. I just…" She struggles to finish the sentence, embarrassment holding her words hostage. "I guess I didn't wrap it well enough in the bathroom. Sorry."
"Wrap what? You said you weren't injured." Hakuri feels like he lost the thread and the thread has now turned into sixteen pieces of multi-coloured string he's being asked to identify even though he's never seen them before in his entire life.
"I am also confused," Chihiro mutters.
Iori blinks at them. Hakuri glances back at Chihiro again, his hands hovering in front of him, hands hanging limp—a part of him wants to help pick up the snacks but he's so damn confused his body is frozen.
"Do you guys seriously not know what I'm talking about?"
The boys share another look of confusion, and if Chihiro is sending Hakuri any telepathic hypotheses he is not picking on them.
"No?" Hakuri says.
Iori's lips purse in a concerned manner. "My… I'm talking about my pad. Y'know?" She raises a hand and spins it in a motion that implies the context is obvious.
If the way Chihiro's looking at him is any indication, he too has zero idea what the supposed obvious context is.
"You've gotta be kidding me." The girl groans in exasperation. "For my period," she says, hissing the last part in a whisper-shout.
"Periods make you bleed?" Hakuri shouts the question before he can think better of it.
Hakuri knows what a period is. It's that, uh, thing that happens like once a month that he overheard a girl talk about one time and she didn't seem to like it very much. He never went through traditional schooling, so he never learned much more about it, but he feels like that description sums the whole period thing up, and given how Iori doesn't seem to enjoy talking about it either, he had—until a few seconds ago—assumed he was right.
Let the record show, Hakuri has never claimed to be smart before, and he certainly won't start now.
But what does she mean there's bleeding? What the hell kind of biological torture is that?
Iori pins him with a rightfully shocked glare. "You don't know?"
"Why would I assume you bleed?" Hakuri gawks at her. Iori tilts her head in the way a dog might when given an unknown command, as if she has no idea how to proceed with this knowledge,
Chihiro is suspiciously silent. Lucky bastard, of course he's taking the opportunity to let Hakuri absorb all the heat on this.
Iori, smarter and wiser than both of them, shoots her killing stare at Chihiro in the next moment. "No way, not you too."
Chihiro, also smarter and wiser than Hakuri, does not ask a stupid follow-up question, but he does break their eye contact to point a sheepish gaze at the wall.
"Oh my god," Iori says under her breath, bringing her hands up to rub at her face. "We're not doing this right now. I can't."
Hakuri accepts defeat that he's never going to know—he's afraid of what he'll learn if he looks it up online now—and opts to crouch down and start picking up the scattered snack bags. He bundles them into his arms and performs a walk of shame over to the couch, head hanging low. Iori, to her credit, does not laugh in mockery at him or Chihiro, but her judgement is palpable as she shadows him to take a seat at the opposite end as Chihiro, leaving Hakuri to sit between them.
"So… you're not dying," Chihiro finally says, as though seeking clarification still.
Iori leans forward over Hakuri to flick him in the middle of the forehead.