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Pushing on one end of the card with his thumb Shouta is able to smoothly pick it up from the unnecessarily staticky table. 8 of clubs, he doesn’t have to glance at the rest of his cards to know it’s currently useless so he moves to the deck to draw his next card. Queen of diamonds, he places the card atop a king and continues, silently moving cards around and slowly building his foundation up.
It’s quiet in the room, the only sounds being the tapping of rain against the large window behind him and the distant sounds of the pediatric wing. The only sounds coming from within the room are the shuffling of cards as he passes time waiting for Eri to wake up. They’ve been here for just over a week, the girl under observation with Shouta keeping an eye out for any quirk accidents which haven’t happened in two days. If things keep going as they have been she’ll be released by the end of the week, released into Shouta’s care. With his “self-care” habits (because his friends claim it can’t even be called that) and the incredibly awkward interactions they’ve been having for days, he can’t imagine why anyone thought this placement was a good idea. He’ll care for the girl and he’ll have support, honestly too much of it, but it’s just not how he’d ever imagined his life going.
As per usual, he pushes those thoughts to the back of his mind and tries to focus on his game. 3 of hearts, to the foundation, 10 of clubs, on top of a Jack, 5 of spades, discard, 6 of diamonds, on the 7 of spades, and the 5 from discard on top of that. He once again loses himself in his game but not to the point where a soft, “It’s raining,” should’ve startled him.
He looks up to see bright red eyes looking past him and through the window. He could count on his hands how many times a child had startled him since his second year at UA and despite knowing her for just over a week, Eri has been responsible for three of those fingers. If he didn’t already know what kind of hell she had just come from that fact alone would make him worry especially because her quirk aids in no way.
However, thanks to years of training, he does not show his surprise, doesn’t even falter. “It is.”
His attention has been pulled from his game and he watches the girl fidget on her bed. She looks between him and her lap. “Why?”
“Why is it raining?” he clarifies, receiving a nod in confirmation. “It’s due to a process called the water cycle. The sun heats up water and it evaporates which means it turns into a gas. Water in a gaseous state is lighter than its liquid or solid forms so it rises into the atmosphere. The water molecules condense into clouds and when the clouds become too heavy, it rains.”
“Oh, okay,” the girl answers and, as always, the conversation abruptly halts taking any comfortability with it. He’s long since learned neither of them will say anything more once it gets like this so he turns his attention back to his game, drawing yet another card.
To his surprise, Eri asks her second question of the day which is usually her limit. “What are you doing?”
He looks at her to show he’s invested but not so long as to make her feel like she’s being judged or inspected. “I’m playing Solitaire.”
“Can I play too?”
“Solitaire means alone, it’s a one-person game.”
She leans back into her collection of pillows making herself look much smaller than a malnourished 6-year-old already is. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
He holds in his sigh knowing it would only make things worse. “It’s fine… we can play something else though.”
“No, it's fine.” Shouta ignores her obvious and unnecessary placating and slides a hand across the table collecting his half-finished game. The girl’s apple-red eyes widen and she gasps as if she’d just witnessed an unspeakable horror rather than such a simple action. “Stop, I don’t wanna play anymore.”
“I said I don’t mind.” He’s aiming for uncaring but even he can tell the words come out clipped and judging by how the six-year-old falls further into sad pillows provided by the hospital, she heard it too. With a heavy exhale he squares the deck and stands from the couch. He and Eri haven’t really talked in their time together but they also haven’t interacted much. When she wakes up a nurse brings in food within half an hour, she eats then they spend most of the day outside where she is content to just sit, staring at anything and everything there is to see. She’s okay with sitting in silence and he is too, prefers it even, especially when the alternative is scaring her with almost everything he says. He works with no-nonsense unders, attention-seeking limelighters, and hero wannabes every day, he doesn’t have the need for anything but gruff, however, now with how many of these exact situations he’s been in the past few days he wishes he had even half the social skills of any one of his friends. No matter how he wishes he could change the past it’s no use now so instead, he sits on the very far end of the hospital bed to give Eri as much space as possible. “Do you know any card games Eri?” She studies him for a few seconds before shaking her head cautiously. “That’s okay. Can I show you one?” Some tension leaves her body but she's still wary as she nods.
He shuffles the deck hand to hand thinking of a two-player game appropriate to play with a traumatized child that wouldn’t be affected by their unstable playing field.
He turns the deck to himself and quickly rifles through it taking out the face cards, it would be a long and much more confusing game with an entire deck. Then he finds a few cards adequate for explaining the rules. He pulls out the 4 of clubs and Ace of diamonds and sets the two down between them. Pointing to the four he starts, “There are two colors in a standard set of 52 cards, black and red. There are four suits,” he pulls out a random spade and heart to prove his statement, “but those aren’t important to this game. Do you know how to count to ten?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You can use all 52 cards for this game but we’re not using the face cards, just the numbers. All the numbers are the same except for one which is replaced with this,” he taps on the card he’d taken out before, “it’s an ace. It can have different meanings in different games but in Go Fish, it is a one. The goal of this game is to make pairs or sets of two. You have to get two cards with the same number and color, once you do you can take them out of your hand and place them on the board. Each pair you make equals one point but if you get both pairs for each number it’s three points.” As he’s talking he demonstrates what he’s saying knowing he’s never been good at explaining and that’s to people with at least some previous knowledge of the topic.
He picks up the examples and shuffles the deck one more time. Cards sufficiently randomized, he separates out two smaller piles of seven cards each and slides a stack closer to Eri. “Those are your cards. They’re called your hand. You can pick them up and look at them but don’t show me, I’ll do the same with my cards.” He gives her the slight privacy of looking at his own cards which consist of four black—a 10, 2, Ace, and 5—and three red—two 4s, and a 6. He moves them around so they’re easier to keep track of and takes out the already-formed pair. He once again explains his movements as he sets down the red 4s, “I already have a pair so I’m putting them on the board. That’s one point for me.” He takes a breath to start to explain the actual gameplay but is stopped by a shaky hand removing two cards from their own hand and setting them down face up right next to his.
“Like this?” The girl asks.
“Just like that,” he agrees, earning more of her ease. “Now we will go back and forth asking if the other person has a specific card. I’ll go first; do you have a 10?” She nods. “Then you give the 10 to me.”
Eri holds her cards closer to her chest, “Why?”
“It’s to keep the cards moving, if we kept the same hand the game wouldn’t move anywhere. If you ask me for a card and I have it I will have to give it to you.” He pauses before asking, “Okay?” She nods, something she seems to prefer over words when possible, and gingerly holds out a card. “Good, this is a 10 but it’s a different color than mine so it doesn’t make a pair. I get to keep it but now it’s your turn.”
She pauses but eventually asks, “Do you have a 3?”
“No, go fish.” Light eyebrows scrunch in confusion. See, he’s no good at explaining. “Right. The extra cards—or the draw pile—are what give the game its name. They are like a lake and if one of us asks for a card the other person doesn’t have that person will say ‘go fish’. That means you have to take a card from the draw pile and add it to your hand.”
A small hand reaches for the pile, giving him a few looks as she does, and takes the top card, adding it to her hand. “If-,” she starts but quickly stops herself.
“You can ask a question.”
“If I made a um pair do I put it down?”
“Yes.” Once again she absentmindedly nods and pulls out another two cards, a pair of black 3s. “Good, you have two points now. Do you have a 5?”
“No… go fish?”
This time he nods and picks up a new card which is a black 7. The game continues, he gets the first pair from exchanging cards which leads him to explain another rule he forgot but otherwise the game goes smoothly, quietly but smoothly. They get to the end of the game and its neck and neck. Both he and Eri have three sets of four and two pairs equaling eleven points and they both have two cards left. He has a black and a red 10 while based on previous questions Eri has a 4 and an 8 plus one unknown she had just picked up. He only has one question he can ask, “Do you have a 10?” At this point, Eri is much more into the game and easily gives up her newest card, a red 10. He takes the new pair and puts it on his board. Seeing as she just gave up her 10s he’s left to draw for his extra turn. He pulls the top card off the draw pile and internally cringes, a black 10. If he cared about the game he’d be glad but in a game against a six-year-old who seemed to actually be having fun for the first time in god knows how long it’s just an inconvenience. No matter there are only two cards left in the draw pile so if he doesn’t put his final pair down the girl will very quickly learn. He sighs and puts down the black 10s. “I’m out of cards so the game is over.”
“But I still have two.” She gestures to her leftovers.
“This game ends whenever someone empties their hand.”
“Oh, okay.”
He directs their attention to her board, “Now we count the points.” With Eri's eyes on her collected sets, he uses his free hand to move around his cards to make it appear as if he made fewer sets of four. “You have three sets of four which are nine points and two pairs which are two. If you add those together you get,”
“Eleven.”
“Good. I have two sets of four which are six and four pairs which are four points. If you add those together you get,”
He pauses to let her answer, something he’d begun doing during their game and as a teacher, he’s not entirely surprised he fell back on teaching to interact with the girl, but instead of answering the easy question, she stares at his cards. “That’s not right.” She cautiously reaches over and scatters his set of four 5s and 2s. “You counted wrong. It’s four sets of four and two pairs. That’s… fourteen.”
This time he really does cringe, caught by a 6-year-old, he’d be a lot more disappointed in himself if it was a normal kid and not one who had learned to be observant for survival. “I guess you’re right, you’re a smart kid Eri.”
She tucks into herself but this time it’s not out of fear, it seems more like embarrassment. “Oh.” Through the hair covering her face he can see a tiny smile, almost imperceivable but the first one he’s ever seen from her, it melts something in his heart and he lets the corner of his own mouth lift. “Um, can we play again?”
“Sure.” He easily agrees, mostly glad she doesn’t seem to care about her loss although now he’s not quite sure she understands the concept of losing or winning games. Either way, he takes the win and collects the cards to start the cycle again. The day passed with dozens of rounds and different games, at one point Eri had even felt comfortable enough to sit side by side so she could learn to play solitaire which quickly became one of her favorites. By the end of it all, as he covers her in a soft blanket that wasn't provided by the hospital he thinks maybe they’ll be better off than he’d feared.