Chapter Text
Qifrey did not remember waking up.
He was told, over and over again, the story of how he was found. On the edge of a river, drenched by the both the currents and the rain. A laceration to his right eye, infected, and dangerous if they did not remove it. He'd been afraid, like a wounded animal, the officer who'd found him described it as.
His earliest memory was in the hospital, surrounded by beeping machines and pain. He was permeated in it. He could hardly breathe because it felt so thick around him.
He remembered voices. Voices that felt pity for him.
"Who on earth just dumps a kid in a river?"
"Was he a victim of abuse?"
"Gosh, the poor thing…to lose an eye so young."
Shortly after he was assessed to be fully conscious, he was questioned by the police. How did you fall into the river? Where are your parents? Do you have parents? What is your name? How old are you? Who is the Prime Minister?
All he could say was "I don't know." And he didn't know. Everything before waking up in that hospital felt blurry and dreamlike. It wasn't like it was all gone. Qifrey could remember a time before, terrible as it seemed. It was all he could hold on to.
One day, he's in the hospital, lying in bed, eating the mushy meals the nurses gave him. A man rolls up to him in a wheelchair. He had long hair, and kind eyes.
"Hello there," he said. "I'm Mr. Beldaruit, and you are?"
"I call myself Qifrey," he said. "I made the name myself."
"You've been through a lot, haven't you?"
"I'm fine," he said. "What are you here for?"
He sighed. "For a long time, I haven't had a family. I put in an application to adopt, but the government hadn't gotten back to me, until now. I heard about a boy who needed help, so I came here to meet you. If you like me enough, I can take care of you."
"Oh," Qifrey said. "Okay."
Beldaruit smiled. It was that same pained smile all the nurses gave him, where they clearly felt bad for him. The pity made Qifrey feel like crap.
"Is that all? You're not happy?"
"I just want to get out of the hospital," he said. "It sucks here."
"I've spent my fair share of time in the hospital," he said. "It does 'suck', doesn't it?"
Qifrey smiled. This man didn't want to talk down to him, talk about how pitiful he was. He seemed like he actually wanted to connect with him.
"Here, I brought you something," Mr. Beldaruit said. "The nurses probably don't want you to have candy, but…"
He placed a Mars bar on Qifrey's lap. He unwrapped it, taking a bite.
"It's delicious!" He said, thought it probably sounded like gibberish with his full mouth. He laughed. His first real laugh in ages.
"I'm happy," he said. "Even if you don't come with me, I'm still happy to see you happy. Children are precious things, and they deserve to feel all the happiness in the world."
Every visit, Mr. Beldaruit brought him little gifts. A stuffed bear, more candy, even a video game console with Pokemon on it. Qifrey could only play for thirty minute chunks, because the light from the DS started to hurt his eye, but he was happy to have a distraction from the ever present fear of his past.
After a month of waiting around, Beldaruit finally signed the adoption papers, and Qifrey could come home with him. The hospital staff threw him a party to congratulate him on leaving and being adopted. Were they happy to finally be rid of him?
Qifrey entered Mr. Beldaruit's house — his new home. It didn't feel like home, but neither had the hospital, he just needed time to get used to it.
Mr. Beldaruit had a huge house, fit with an elevator since he couldn't use the stairs. On one of his visits, Qifrey had shyly asked why he had to use a wheelchair. He'd laughed, like he'd gotten the question before.
"My body wasn't born particularly right," he'd said. "I have bones that break too easily, a body that's barely holding itself together. This wheelchair makes it so that I'm able to move around. It makes up for what my body can't do."
Still, Qifrey liked to take the stairs. The very first time he was being shown around, he raced Beldaruit, lift vs stairs, who had laughed when he saw him win.
"Come," he said. "I'll show you to your room."
He led him to a bedroom that was sparsely decorated. It had a bookshelf full of books, however. Textbooks, graphic novels, classic children's books. Everything a kid might want to read. The bed was much bigger than what he'd had in the hospital, and there were even more stuffed animals here. He placed his gifted bear on top of the bed, sitting down so that he was at eye level with Beldaruit.
"Thank you," he said. "For everything."
"I'm glad you like it," he said. "We also have something to discuss."
"Hm?"
"While it's summer now, school will start in September, and while your social worker thinks it would be best to homeschool you, I believe you need to be in a proper learning environment."
Qifrey couldn't remember going to school. It seemed that, with each passing day, his memories of his old life were going blank.
"And, I don't want to make this decision without your input," he said. "So, do you want to go to school?"
"Ok," he said.
"Really? No thinking about it at all?"
"I dunno," he said. "I think it would be nice."
"Alright then," Beldaruit said. "I'm sure you'll be a fine student."
Qifrey stood in front of the school gates, shaking. Beldaruit had helped him pick out an outfit, and then dropped him off.
"You'll do great. Just make sure to be kind."
Qifrey felt like a little fish in a big ocean, schools of fish in their predetermined friend groups swimming around him, avoiding him like he was hazardous.
"If you get scared, just tell the front office to call me. I'll come and pick you up."
Maybe he was still there, he could run back to the car. As he turned around to run away and never look back, someone slammed into him. Qifrey tumbled backwards, barely avoiding hitting his head.
"I'm sorry," said the boy who'd toppled him. He had a northern accent, rough around the edges. "I just don't wanna be late."
The boy, with dark hair and blue eyes, brushed himself off, and offered out a hand to Qifrey. "Are you new here? I've never seen you around before."
Qifrey didn't take his hand, pushing himself up.
Well, he couldn't turn back now. He faced the school, ignoring the boy.
"My name's Olruggio," he said.
"I'm Qifrey," he said, refusing to make eye contact with him.
"That's a cool name," he said. "Never heard it before."
The school bell rang.
"Crap!" Olruggio said. "Gonna be late on our first day, all because of me."
Qifrey pulle out the timetable the friendly woman who'd given him and Beldaruit a tour last week had given him. His homeroom was on the first floor, where all the primary school kids went. He followed Olruggio inside, while still trying to keep his distance.
Room 127. I have to find Room 127.
The halls were filled with children, and Qifrey found it hard to weave inbetween the clumps of students with unfamiliar faces and scary glares. They didn't know him, they already saw him as an outsider.
The hallway he was in had a broken light, flickering and occasionally leaving the hall in the dark. He knocked on the door.
No turning back now. Just make it through the first day, that's all Beldaruit wants you to do.
The teacher opened the door. She was a friendly looking older woman, who readily welcomed him in.
"What's your name, dear?" She asked.
"Qifrey," he said.
"Ah, you're the new one. Well, it's a pleasure to have you here. You'll find your seat marked with your name."
Qifrey stepped inside, and felt every single pair of eyes glued on him. He found his seat, right next to a tall, ashy blond boy.
"Hello," Qifrey said. "Nice to meet-"
"Are you emo?" He asked.
"Huh?"
"Why is your hair covering your eye like that? Are you emo or something?"
"N-no," he said.
"Alright class," the teacher said. "I'm going to have to ask someone to pass out these papers for me. Would anyone like to be a special helper?"
A few of the kids raised their hands. A young girl was selected, and she passed out the papers onto everyone's desk. He noticed that, despite being close by, she gave him his paper last.
The paper asked a few simple questions:
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What is your name?
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When is your birthday?
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What did you do over the summer?
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Any interesting facts about yourself?
Qifrey answered the first one pretty easily. He knew his name, he came up with it himself. The next one wasn't as easy. The police had found no records of his existence, and him not being able to remember anything about himself made it hard for them to find if any records did exist. So he decided to just make it a random day. He chose November 19th.
The third question was even harder to answer. He knew what he did this summer — he spent a month in the hospital not knowing who he was or where he'd come from. But he had a feeling that would be a bit of a downer answer. So he wrote I got adopted. People generally liked adoption stories, and it gave them the warm fuzzies or whatever.
And the last one? He wasn't sure what to say. He barely knew himself. So, he went with the coolest fact about himself that he knew.
I'm missing an eye.
After a while, the teacher came to collect the papers. As she read over his, he saw her expression go from a warm smile to poorly disguised shock. She had to know already, Beldaruit said the teachers were informed ahead of time of his injury. Maybe she just hadn't expected him to say it as a fun fact.
"So, what's up with your hair?" The kid next to him asked. "Do you got some ugly scar or whatever?"
"Yeah, actually," Qifrey said. He lifted up his hair, revealing his eyepatch. The boy gasped.
"Eww," he said. "That's weird."
"What's wrong, Todd?" A girl asked.
"He's missing an eye!"
"I wanna see," the girl said. Again, Qifrey lifted up his hair, and she reacted with similar disgust.
"What's under the patch?" the boy — Todd — asked.
"No eye," Qifrey said.
"What's going on?" the teacher asked.
"Qifrey's showin' us his eye," the girl said.
"Qifrey, why are you doing that?" she asked.
"They asked," he said.
The teacher pursed her lips. She was so obviously annoyed with him, it made Qifrey want to shrivel up.
A few of the kids surrounded him, asking to see his eye underneath the patch. Qifrey buried his head in his hands, trying to hide from them.
"Leave me alone," he said, quietly so that no one would hear.
"Is he a cyclops or something?" a boy joked. They all laughed.
"That's not nice," the teacher said.
"I'm not a cyclops!" Qifrey said.
Leave me alone. Please, just leave me alone.
I don't want to be seen anymore.
He could always go to the office, call Beldaruit and get this all over with. Leave and never return.
They did a few ice breakers. Qifrey didn't really speak during those. He didn't have anything interesting to stay, so he just let whoever was next go.
When it was time for playtime, he watched as all his classmates went to the playstructure, no one daring to invite him to play. The playtime block was filled with fourth, fifth, and sixth years. Everyone around him was either too old, too young, or didn't like him already. He sat down at a bench, wishing he didn't exist.
Why am I like this?
They will always hate me.
"Qifrey?"
He looked up to see that boy from earlier. Olruggio. He sat down next to him on the bench.
"Why are you sitting next to me?"
"Cause I wanted to," he said. "You remember my name, right?"
"Yeah, its Olruggio," he said.
"Do you wanna be friends," he asked.
"No," he said.
"Huh?!" Olruggio acted shocked. "But how could you resist this smile?"
He smiled at him, batting his eyelashes like some sort of baby deer. Qifrey choked back a laugh.
"Is it true you're missing an eye?" Olruggio asked.
"If that's all you want to know, we can't be friends," Qifrey said.
"No, no, no. I just wanted to know," he said.
"Oh, okay," he said. "You can go play with your friends now, you don't have to pity me."
"I don't pity you," he said. "I wanna be your friend."
Qifrey ignored him, pulling out his DS and opening up Pokemon.
"Where did you get that?" Olruggio asked, leaning over his shoulder.
"My guardian gave it to me," he said. "When I was still in the hospital. I've almost beat the game."
"Can I see your team?" he asked.
"Sure," Qifrey said. He showed him the team he'd assembled. "This is my Garchomp, her name is Lucy. And my Empoleon, he doesn't have a name…"
He went off listing his favorite pokemon he'd caught, telling him their names. Eventually, he started to get a headache, and had to put it down.
"Why are you putting it away?" he asked.
"I have a headache," he said.
"It's prolly cuz you're holding the screen so close to your face," he said.
"But I can't see it otherwise!" he said. The bell rang, indicating it was lunch time.
"Maybe you need glasses," Olruggio said. "Want to sit next to each other at lunch?"
"I guess," Qifrey said, following him.
Do I need glasses? But I only have one eye!
Olruggio took his hand, leading him along the way, like he was afraid he would get lost.
They weren't friends. Barely acquaintances. But some part of him trusted Olruggio. He wanted to trust him. Even if he wasn't deserving of it.