Masheli's Writing Journal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
holissichi) wrote2012-06-15 07:52 am
holissichi) wrote2012-06-15 07:52 am
Entry tags:
(no subject)
Canon: KHR, Time-shifted AU
Summary: The bullies at Namimori have earned themselves a big problem.
Warnings: Violence! :D Sort of.
I checked my phone for the time. It was a minute to eleven in the evening, the only light coming from street and security lights. Meeting in front of the school had been the plan, and some quiet part of me hoped they would come. I noted bruises without much emotional investment- really not that bad, nothing that wouldn't heal in a day or two, and, most importantly, something that Mom wouldn't notice. It was bad enough that I had gone from merely the bottom of the class to ignoring every assignment and question given.
I looked up at the sound of footsteps- the gang of upperclassmen had arrived. There were five of them, and one of them did have my bag. "And here I would'a thought Sawada wouldn't care!" One of them laughed. "Ask for it back, Sawada." I looked up at him, stretching one hand out, palm up. One of them laughed, and I made a beckoning gesture. They knew I couldn't talk- they knew I hadn't talked for the last three months. "With your voice."
I rolled my eyes, stepping closer to grab for my bag. I needed it, and I knew Mom would be worried if I didn't have it. I never saw which one threw the first punch, but it sent me to the ground, air refusing to come into my lungs. The next blow was a kick- hard, and aimed at my head. I saw white, and after that I lost track of what was happening. It hurt- I knew they were beating me- but I didn't know how long it went on. The next thing I knew was the sight of my bag, blurry and weird but still pretty clearly my bag. I tried to reach out to it, but my arm didn't want to move. My entire body felt heavy, weird, and I rolled over.
My head was wet, and warm, and the lights were too bright. My stomach felt ugly, and I coughed. It made my chest hurt really bad, bad enough that breathing hurt. I couldn't even make noise- even if I could have grabbed my phone it would have been useless. My vision cleared for a second, letting me see the liquid I could feel getting cold on my face. It was red- dark red- blood. Probably my blood. Everything hurt, and my vision slid out of focus again.
Fear stabbed deeper than the pain. I had never been kicked around this bad, where even my hands and arms wouldn't move. My legs didn't feel much better, but I could move those, at least. The longer I stayed there, the harder breathing started to feel. I would have been gasping for air, if breathing didn't hurt so much. I closed my eyes- at least that made the light hurt less. My stomach felt like it had dropped, a cold, unhappy feeling wrapped around it. Scared.
I was scared. More scared than I ever had been. I was bleeding, I hurt more than I had in the entire rest of my life, and nobody knew where I was. My phone was useless- the most I could do was ring the home line, and even after that, after three months of not talking, I wouldn't be able to say anything. Hopelessness decided to make itself at home along with the fear. The blood puddle in front of my head didn't look small, and if I was bleeding from the head, that couldn't be any good.
The next thing I knew that wasn't just more of the pain, and fear, and hopelessness, that wasn't being sure I was going to die tonight in front of my school, was a voice. I knew that voice… I knew the person it belonged to, but thinking felt hard. I knew it was a guy, and trying to figure out who it was probably had me distracted from what he was saying. "Sawada! Are you awake?" I forced my eyes to open- part of me knew that voice belonged to someone I should listen to, someone who wasn't just one of the bullies, someone who probably didn't want to see me hurt. The light stabbed my eyes and head, and I closed them again, throat moving in a silent, painful yell of pain. "Move your arm."
I shook my head, or shook it as much as I could. I tried to move it, but it still didn't want to. Whoever he was grabbed my hand, holding it. "Squeeze." I tried, and a small sigh came from him as he squeezed back. "Did you feel that?" I squeezed his hand again- talking was hard, and nodding would only make my head hurt worse. "Don't move." Well, where was I going to go, Australia? Except now he was talking to someone else, and I was just happy to have the chance to rest.
"Don't sleep. Stay awake." I would have complained if I had a voice, or felt like I had one. He squeezed my hand in a pattern, and some part of me wanted to repeat it back. Maybe that's what he wanted. I tried, even if I was pretty sure it was clumsy. I just wanted to sleep. Everything would hurt less if I was asleep. I squeezed his hand again, tugging on it as hard as I could. For a minute, he pulled his hand loose from mine. I tried to go after his hand, but I couldn't see him. His hand hovered near my head, just barely touching my hair. He moved his hand just a little bit closer to my head. I went rigid with pain as he touched a spot on my head that made everything turn into blinding pain again. I opened my eyes after the pain faded, blinking against the light to make the image come into focus for a second.
Hibari.
The person sitting there with me when I was half-dead and blind with pain was Hibari. He probably saw something in the way I looked at him. I don't know what. "Assault is a violation of school rules," he told me. There was something- more, easier to get at if I had my eyes shut, so I closed them again. Was he… annoyed? Not at me, but- there was something that told me he was angry, really angry. Heads would probably roll in school tomorrow, if I cared about that. And… for some reason, I could almost swear he was worried. But it was a crazy, stupid idea. He probably only cared about the school rules. The next words out of his mouth would probably be some kind of question about why I was here so late. Staying on school grounds after everything was closed was also against school rules, right?
The idea that he could growl at me for being here was too much. Something else wet and warm cut through the drying blood. It was tears. I was crying. On top of everything else that could happen, I was crying. It was my own worthless, stupid, pathetic fault that I was like this, and now I was crying about it. I couldn't help it, couldn't make it stop. I was stupid and shameful- and maybe this way was better. Maybe I would die here. Hibari's hand grabbed mine again, squeezing tight. "You will live, Sawada. There is an ambulance on the way."
...No sharp bark that couldn't get answered, asking me why I was here? No reprimand, that being here after-hours was going to get me bitten to death? If it hadn't hurt so much I would have stared at Hibari in complete disbelief. I strained, trying to get my throat to work, and pain stabbed through my chest. At the same time, I let out a pathetic, airy noise, the first real noise I made in a quarter of a year. "Be silent. You aren't going to wait long." His thumb ran across the back of my hand, and I let out a small sigh. It was crazy to think about it, but he could have just left me here. He would have maybe even been right to do it. I had broken a rule.
But no, he was staying here. Telling me an ambulance was coming. Holding my hand. Flashing lights made me try to turn away, throat working silently again. They hurt, and the noise. After the paramedics grabbed me, everything started to blur. There was a lot of talking, and a lot of people, and at some point I got loaded up into the ambulance. Everything was too-bright, too-loud, and moving.
The next thing I knew was a hospital room, with things beeping around me. I had an IV in one arm, and everything was… fuzzy. Nothing hurt too bad, just kind of ached in a way I thought meant it would really hurt later. Mom was next to my bed. I would have really liked to reach out to her, but trying to lift my arms was really hard. She woke up after a couple minutes, started crying and holding my hand. That… hurt, in a deep way. Even now, I couldn't not be a disruption to people. I'd been trying so hard to not do much of anything, but somehow that just got worse.
That was the day I decided I wouldn't do anything more than sleep, eat, use the bathroom, and go to school. If I was a disruption in people's lives, I wanted to be nearly invisible. Maybe I would stop bugging people that way. Maybe, when I died, Mom would be so used to never really seeing me that she wouldn't miss me. Part of me cried out at that idea. Maybe it was the medicine I was on, or maybe getting beat upside the head made me dumb, or crazy, or hallucinate… but I could almost swear I saw the red-and-gold of Hibari's armband in the crack in the door. For a minute, things seemed sharp and clear again, dragging my brain back to how I had felt when Hibari had shown up.
Safe. Hibari didn't need to show up, didn't need to keep me awake with the nasty concussion I'd gotten. He didn't need to make sure I lived.
But he did. Even if it wasn't me he cared about, for one minute in my life I had been safe, had someone right there when I was hurt, or sad.
I had to tell myself it would never happen again. It was just the school he cared about, after all. He didn't care at all about a stupid, worthless failure like me. If anything, he was probably happy I wasn't at the school, causing more disturbances with school discipline. My teacher was probably happy I wasn't there to drag her class down- and from what the doctors said, wouldn't be there for months. Even Mom would probably be happy I was here, or part of her would be. At least here there was someone else taking care of me. I couldn't let anyone in, couldn't leave my little bubble. I was still a problem for any group I was in, still a disruption…
I couldn't die in here, but I could do the least I could to get by. I wouldn’t' talk to anyone, ask for anything. Everything would turn out better that way.
I tried to ignore the part of me that nagged at the feeling of a hand wrapped around mine, contact I hadn't asked for, something unusual. I didn't want to think about that.
Summary: The bullies at Namimori have earned themselves a big problem.
Warnings: Violence! :D Sort of.
I checked my phone for the time. It was a minute to eleven in the evening, the only light coming from street and security lights. Meeting in front of the school had been the plan, and some quiet part of me hoped they would come. I noted bruises without much emotional investment- really not that bad, nothing that wouldn't heal in a day or two, and, most importantly, something that Mom wouldn't notice. It was bad enough that I had gone from merely the bottom of the class to ignoring every assignment and question given.
I looked up at the sound of footsteps- the gang of upperclassmen had arrived. There were five of them, and one of them did have my bag. "And here I would'a thought Sawada wouldn't care!" One of them laughed. "Ask for it back, Sawada." I looked up at him, stretching one hand out, palm up. One of them laughed, and I made a beckoning gesture. They knew I couldn't talk- they knew I hadn't talked for the last three months. "With your voice."
I rolled my eyes, stepping closer to grab for my bag. I needed it, and I knew Mom would be worried if I didn't have it. I never saw which one threw the first punch, but it sent me to the ground, air refusing to come into my lungs. The next blow was a kick- hard, and aimed at my head. I saw white, and after that I lost track of what was happening. It hurt- I knew they were beating me- but I didn't know how long it went on. The next thing I knew was the sight of my bag, blurry and weird but still pretty clearly my bag. I tried to reach out to it, but my arm didn't want to move. My entire body felt heavy, weird, and I rolled over.
My head was wet, and warm, and the lights were too bright. My stomach felt ugly, and I coughed. It made my chest hurt really bad, bad enough that breathing hurt. I couldn't even make noise- even if I could have grabbed my phone it would have been useless. My vision cleared for a second, letting me see the liquid I could feel getting cold on my face. It was red- dark red- blood. Probably my blood. Everything hurt, and my vision slid out of focus again.
Fear stabbed deeper than the pain. I had never been kicked around this bad, where even my hands and arms wouldn't move. My legs didn't feel much better, but I could move those, at least. The longer I stayed there, the harder breathing started to feel. I would have been gasping for air, if breathing didn't hurt so much. I closed my eyes- at least that made the light hurt less. My stomach felt like it had dropped, a cold, unhappy feeling wrapped around it. Scared.
I was scared. More scared than I ever had been. I was bleeding, I hurt more than I had in the entire rest of my life, and nobody knew where I was. My phone was useless- the most I could do was ring the home line, and even after that, after three months of not talking, I wouldn't be able to say anything. Hopelessness decided to make itself at home along with the fear. The blood puddle in front of my head didn't look small, and if I was bleeding from the head, that couldn't be any good.
The next thing I knew that wasn't just more of the pain, and fear, and hopelessness, that wasn't being sure I was going to die tonight in front of my school, was a voice. I knew that voice… I knew the person it belonged to, but thinking felt hard. I knew it was a guy, and trying to figure out who it was probably had me distracted from what he was saying. "Sawada! Are you awake?" I forced my eyes to open- part of me knew that voice belonged to someone I should listen to, someone who wasn't just one of the bullies, someone who probably didn't want to see me hurt. The light stabbed my eyes and head, and I closed them again, throat moving in a silent, painful yell of pain. "Move your arm."
I shook my head, or shook it as much as I could. I tried to move it, but it still didn't want to. Whoever he was grabbed my hand, holding it. "Squeeze." I tried, and a small sigh came from him as he squeezed back. "Did you feel that?" I squeezed his hand again- talking was hard, and nodding would only make my head hurt worse. "Don't move." Well, where was I going to go, Australia? Except now he was talking to someone else, and I was just happy to have the chance to rest.
"Don't sleep. Stay awake." I would have complained if I had a voice, or felt like I had one. He squeezed my hand in a pattern, and some part of me wanted to repeat it back. Maybe that's what he wanted. I tried, even if I was pretty sure it was clumsy. I just wanted to sleep. Everything would hurt less if I was asleep. I squeezed his hand again, tugging on it as hard as I could. For a minute, he pulled his hand loose from mine. I tried to go after his hand, but I couldn't see him. His hand hovered near my head, just barely touching my hair. He moved his hand just a little bit closer to my head. I went rigid with pain as he touched a spot on my head that made everything turn into blinding pain again. I opened my eyes after the pain faded, blinking against the light to make the image come into focus for a second.
Hibari.
The person sitting there with me when I was half-dead and blind with pain was Hibari. He probably saw something in the way I looked at him. I don't know what. "Assault is a violation of school rules," he told me. There was something- more, easier to get at if I had my eyes shut, so I closed them again. Was he… annoyed? Not at me, but- there was something that told me he was angry, really angry. Heads would probably roll in school tomorrow, if I cared about that. And… for some reason, I could almost swear he was worried. But it was a crazy, stupid idea. He probably only cared about the school rules. The next words out of his mouth would probably be some kind of question about why I was here so late. Staying on school grounds after everything was closed was also against school rules, right?
The idea that he could growl at me for being here was too much. Something else wet and warm cut through the drying blood. It was tears. I was crying. On top of everything else that could happen, I was crying. It was my own worthless, stupid, pathetic fault that I was like this, and now I was crying about it. I couldn't help it, couldn't make it stop. I was stupid and shameful- and maybe this way was better. Maybe I would die here. Hibari's hand grabbed mine again, squeezing tight. "You will live, Sawada. There is an ambulance on the way."
...No sharp bark that couldn't get answered, asking me why I was here? No reprimand, that being here after-hours was going to get me bitten to death? If it hadn't hurt so much I would have stared at Hibari in complete disbelief. I strained, trying to get my throat to work, and pain stabbed through my chest. At the same time, I let out a pathetic, airy noise, the first real noise I made in a quarter of a year. "Be silent. You aren't going to wait long." His thumb ran across the back of my hand, and I let out a small sigh. It was crazy to think about it, but he could have just left me here. He would have maybe even been right to do it. I had broken a rule.
But no, he was staying here. Telling me an ambulance was coming. Holding my hand. Flashing lights made me try to turn away, throat working silently again. They hurt, and the noise. After the paramedics grabbed me, everything started to blur. There was a lot of talking, and a lot of people, and at some point I got loaded up into the ambulance. Everything was too-bright, too-loud, and moving.
The next thing I knew was a hospital room, with things beeping around me. I had an IV in one arm, and everything was… fuzzy. Nothing hurt too bad, just kind of ached in a way I thought meant it would really hurt later. Mom was next to my bed. I would have really liked to reach out to her, but trying to lift my arms was really hard. She woke up after a couple minutes, started crying and holding my hand. That… hurt, in a deep way. Even now, I couldn't not be a disruption to people. I'd been trying so hard to not do much of anything, but somehow that just got worse.
That was the day I decided I wouldn't do anything more than sleep, eat, use the bathroom, and go to school. If I was a disruption in people's lives, I wanted to be nearly invisible. Maybe I would stop bugging people that way. Maybe, when I died, Mom would be so used to never really seeing me that she wouldn't miss me. Part of me cried out at that idea. Maybe it was the medicine I was on, or maybe getting beat upside the head made me dumb, or crazy, or hallucinate… but I could almost swear I saw the red-and-gold of Hibari's armband in the crack in the door. For a minute, things seemed sharp and clear again, dragging my brain back to how I had felt when Hibari had shown up.
Safe. Hibari didn't need to show up, didn't need to keep me awake with the nasty concussion I'd gotten. He didn't need to make sure I lived.
But he did. Even if it wasn't me he cared about, for one minute in my life I had been safe, had someone right there when I was hurt, or sad.
I had to tell myself it would never happen again. It was just the school he cared about, after all. He didn't care at all about a stupid, worthless failure like me. If anything, he was probably happy I wasn't at the school, causing more disturbances with school discipline. My teacher was probably happy I wasn't there to drag her class down- and from what the doctors said, wouldn't be there for months. Even Mom would probably be happy I was here, or part of her would be. At least here there was someone else taking care of me. I couldn't let anyone in, couldn't leave my little bubble. I was still a problem for any group I was in, still a disruption…
I couldn't die in here, but I could do the least I could to get by. I wouldn’t' talk to anyone, ask for anything. Everything would turn out better that way.
I tried to ignore the part of me that nagged at the feeling of a hand wrapped around mine, contact I hadn't asked for, something unusual. I didn't want to think about that.