The hum of the engine was a low, vibrating growl that grated against my nerves. Every time the car hit a pebble in the asphalt, my leg twitched. I couldn't sit still. My palms were sweating, and my legs kept shaking. Each time we stopped at a signal or intersection, my irritation just flared more.
"Oi, brat, calm down," the old lady snapped from the driver's seat. She didn't look at me, her eyes fixed on the road, but her grip on the steering wheel was white-knuckled. "We're driving fast enough. Stop fidgeting."
"Shut up, hag!" I barked back, but the bite wasn't there. My voice sounded hollow, even to me.
"What was that? Ha? Listen to me, Katsuki." She sighed, a sound of uncharacteristic exhaustion that pissed me off more than her shouting ever did. "It's a miracle they're letting us see her so soon. The doctors were hesitant. So try to behave yourself for once. No shouting, no explosions, no being a damn brat. Just… be there for her."
"I know," I muttered, sinking into the passenger seat.
I know.
Three months. It had been three months since the USJ attack. Three months since the sky turned dark with villains and the air turned heavy with the scent of ozone and blood. And it had been a week since Riko had finally started breathing on her own without a machine doing the work for her.
about 3 days since she woke up from the coma.
I stared out the window at the passing blur of trees and concrete. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that purple-skinned monstrosity, the behemoth Nomu. I saw the way it moved, like a nightmare, and I saw Riko stepping in front of it. I saw her small frame silhouetted against a creature that was capable of killing All Might.
I was too fucking weak.
I was supposed to be the best. I was the one who was going to surpass everyone, the one who was going to be the Number One Hero. Yet, in that plaza, I was but a spectator. I watched her fight a monster because I wasn't fast enough. I wasn't strong enough. The image of her getting engulfed in the explosion, the sound of it, the way she looked, covered in burns, haunted me every second of my sleep.
I need to get stronger, I thought, my hand curling into a fist so tight my nails drew blood. Strong enough so that no one has to step in front of me again. Strong enough to protect her.
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The hospital smelled like bleach. My parents stayed in the lobby to talk to her father, leaving me to walk down the hall alone. I'd demanded it. I told them I didn't need a damn escort, but now, standing in front of Room 10426, I felt like a coward.
My heart was hammering against my ribs, a frantic, uneven rhythm. I reached for the door handle, then pulled my hand back. What was I supposed to say? 'Hey, sorry you almost died because I'm a loser'? Or 'Glad you're awake, now get up so we can train'? Everything felt wrong. Everything felt too small for the weight of the last three months.
Get a hold of yourself, Bakugo, I cursed mentally.
I took a deep breath, held it until my lungs burned, and pushed the door open.
The room was bathed in soft afternoon light. The rhythmic beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor was the only sound. And there she was.
Riko was sitting up, propped against a mountain of white pillows. Her head was wrapped in heavy gauze like a "bun" of bandages that looked far too large for her head. One of her eyes was covered by a smaller patch, the skin around it red and stitched. But she was holding a book. A volume of Tokyo Ghoul.
And she was smiling.
It was a small, private smile, the kind she gave when she was lost in a story. Seeing it felt like a physical blow to my chest. That smile was the one thing the Nomu hadn't managed to crush. I wanted to freeze time right there. I wanted to keep that smile safe, locked away where no villain or "League" could ever touch it again.
Her eye slowly drifted away from the manga. She blinked, her gaze landing on me as I stood frozen in the doorway.
The anger flared up in me then, not at her, but at the monster that had put those stitches in her face. I swore right then that I would find that hand-faced freak. I would carve double...no, triple the scars into his hide for every mark he left on her. I'd turn that fucker into ash.
I cleared my throat, trying to find my voice. I stepped closer, my boots clicking softly on the floor.
"Riko," I said, my voice cracking slightly. "You feelin goo-"
"Sorry," she interrupted, her voice soft and slightly raspy. She tilted her head, a look of genuine confusion crossing her face. "But Um… who are you?"
The world stopped. The beep of the monitor seemed to stretch into an infinite, high-pitched whine.
"…What?" I managed to choke out.
I waited for her to call out the joke. Yeah, after all, this was Riko we were talking about. She always liked to push my buttons. She was probably just getting back at me for something I said back at UA.
"Ha. Ha. Ha. Very funny," I said, forcing a smirk that felt like it weighed a ton. "Now cut it out. You've had your joke. And it was not a good one."
"Eh?" She looked down at her book, then back at me, her brow furrowing. "Seriously, dude… I really have no fucking clue who you are."
"Oi, Riko!" I shouted, the volume of my voice making her flinch. I didn't care. I couldn't care. My lungs felt like they were collapsing. "IT'S ME! DAMN IT, IT'S BAKUGO!"
She stared at me, her one visible eye wide with surprise, maybe even a little bit of fear. But there was no spark. No recognition. No "Shut up, Katsuki." Just the empty stare of a stranger looking at a loud, angry kid in a hospital room.
"I… I'm sorry," she whispered.
The realisation hit me like a physical explosion in my gut. She wasn't playing. She really didn't know me. Not the years we'd spent together, not the training, not the USJ. It was all gone.
"No," I hissed. "You can't do this. Not right now. Not after everything!"
I lunged forward, acting on pure, desperate instinct. I needed to ground her, to make her remember. I reached out to grab her hand, to feel the warmth of someone I knew was still there.
The air in the room felt like it was thickening, turning into lead in my lungs. My brain was screaming, rejecting the blank look in her eyes. I lunged forward, acting on a desperate, frantic need to ground her, to make her see me.
"No," I hissed, reaching out. "You can't do this. Not right now. Not after everything!"
I reached to grab her arms, my fingers clawing for the familiar weight of her wrists, but she recoiled with a sharp, stinging terror that hit me harder than any physical blow. She pulled back, and I held on tighter, gripped by a primal fear that if I let go, she'd be lost in that fog forever. She yanked away with a strength born of pure panic, and my hand started to slip.
I reached out again, my fingers grasping, trying to find purchase, trying to find her hand, but my hand found nothing. My fingers closed on empty air, slipping off where her wrist should have been.
The sensation was a foul, hollow wrongness. That emptiness....that lack of weight....slapped the reality back into me.
The behemoth.
How could I have forgotten? For a split second, my mind had tried to protect itself by deleting the memory of that monster's jaws. It had bitten her. It had taken more than just her memories. The reality crashed down on me, suffocating and cruel: I was reaching for a hand that wasn't there anymore.
I looked at her face. She was trembling, hyperventilating, her one good eye blown wide with a fear I'd never seen directed at me. She wasn't looking at a friend. She was looking at a monster. She was looking at me like I was a villain she needed to be saved from.
I realised then: I hadn't just almost lost Riko. I had lost her completely.
The rest of the afternoon was a jagged blur of noise that I couldn't process.
I remember her father marching into the room, his face pale with a father's alarm. I remember my mother's hand, dragging me out while Riko sobbed into her father's embrace, hiding from me. I remember the look she gave me through the closing door, those confused, hurt eyes that pierced right through my ego and left it bleeding on the hospital floor.
Outside in the hallway, I sat on a plastic chair that felt like a block of ice. I heard the muffled voices of the adults, a low drone of tragedy. I heard her father explaining the medical jargon to my mom, Retrograde amnesia. Stress-induced trauma that the healing quirks brought to her mind. Damage, it did to her mind while it stitched itself back together. clinical words to describe the fact that the girl I knew had been replaced by a stranger.
My mother was sobbing. My father was holding her, murmuring comforts that meant nothing. I just sat there, staring at my open, empty palms. A numbness started at my fingertips and moved upward, consuming me. It was a cold, stagnant rot. This wasn't a wound that would heal with a bandage; it was a permanent hole in my chest, a reminder of the exact moment I failed to be a hero.
"Bakugo, right?"
I looked up. A doctor was standing over me. He had a strange, cat-like face...a mutation quirk. His eyes were full of a soft sympathy that I absolutely loathed. I didn't want kindness. I wanted to be screamed at. I wanted someone to blame me so I had a reason to explode.
"I'm a neuro specialist," he said, taking the seat next to me despite my silence. "Listen. It's important to understand that what happened to your friend... it affects her as much as it does you. Probably more."
I didn't say a damn word. I just stared at the scuffs on my boots.
"The human brain is a complicated thing," the doctor continued, his voice steady. "We think we lose things, but they're often just… hidden. Locked away in a Pandora's box. What I'm trying to say is, your friend isn't 'gone.' She is very much real, and as the person who holds those memories for her, you're the key. It will take time, patience, and maybe a bit of a miracle for her to find herself again."
He placed a hand on my shoulder. For once, I didn't have the energy to shake it off.
"Help her," he said softly. "Help her the way she helped you."
I looked at the closed door of Room 10426. My throat felt like I'd swallowed a handful of glass. I thought about her laugh, her stupid confidence, and the way she used to look at me without an ounce of fear.
"I… I will, doc," I whispered, my voice sounding like it belonged to someone else. "Thank you for the—"
I stood up. My legs felt like they were made of lead, but as I walked toward the exit, the numbness began to burn away, replaced by a cold, sharp determination.
"Don't mention it, kid, and please call me Bob Gege April1st dez nuts" the doctor called back.
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HA Gotcha... tis CHAP not canon TIS APRIL FOOLS SPEACIAL.
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Yeah, I'm miserable like that.