Lightning Serenade

Chapter 2: Fields I

The next morning, Denki looked at his jacket in despair. Of all of the things that had happened the day before, the second worst thing was the string being removed from the hood of his jacket.

His parents hated when he pulled the strings out of his clothes. He was actually doing a good job of keeping the string in that jacket so far. Every time he almost pulled on it too hard, past the point of no return, he would reprimand himself, worried that he would accidentally pull it out the whole way and make his parents disappointed in him again.

Now, all he could think about was the way the worker just pulled the string out of his jacket on purpose. It looked kind of freeing, actually, and he made a mental note to do that one day. If his parents thought this place was going to be a good influence on him, they were sorely mistaken! He planned to laugh maniacally as he ripped the strings from all of his clothes! Who cared if his parents screamed in horror and agony! That's what they got for sending him to this place! Who cared if his sweatpants fell down with no drawstring to tighten them?! That wouldn't be the most embarrassing thing to happen to him that week, or probably that hour if he was being honest...

The tragic removal of the string was second only to the devastation he felt when his mother told him that he wasn't hearing his soulmates. Denki had never been a lucky kid, but to have two soulmates would have felt like all of his bad luck before was just to even the playing field for the good luck to come. He had always felt like there had to be some kind of balance, but maybe the balance wasn't for individuals. Maybe he would get all of the bad luck so that other people, like the smart and talented students in his class, could have endless good luck without having to fear that the bad luck would eventually come for them to even it out.

Denki hated thinking that way because it mixed his emotions all up. He was mad that he wasn't one of the lucky ones or that it wasn't balanced and even and fair. On the other hand, he kind of felt like an underdog hero, taking all of the bad luck so that others didn't have to worry about it. He just wished that the bad luck would take a break when it came to his soulmate of all things. Even the person who carried the worst luck in the world deserved a little bit of happiness, even if that means that a few of the luckiest people had accidentally stepped in gum on their way to work one morning to keep balance in the universe.

The technicians had gathered everyone from their rooms and lined them up at the med nurse's window. Denki looked at the little pills in the white cup he was handed. The med nurse explained quietly that there was a vitamin, a quirk-nullifying drug, and an antipsychotic to try to get the voices to go away. Denki shrugged, tipped the cup against his lips, and swallowed the pills whole, much to the surprise of the med nurse. He had been a med nurse for a few months, and the patients, even the young ones, usually had questions at the very least. It was also pretty common for patients to outright refuse them as well. Denki handed the cup back, and copying the patient who had gone before him, opened his mouth for the nurse to check that he had swallowed the pills, stepped out of line, and made his way into the group room where everyone else was heading.

He felt out of place in his borrowed clothes that the technician who had woken him up that morning had given him to change into after his shower. He didn't feel like himself at all as he wrapped his jacket around him tighter, thankful that they didn't take that away to wash at least. His fingers fidgeted with the ends of his sleeves after he reached up to fidget with the string and came up empty, stupidly grasping at the fabric on the chest of his jacket to find the ends of the string to pull on and run his fingers over only to remember that the string had been confiscated. His cheeks had darkened against his will as he redirected his hands down to his side and fiddled with the jacket sleeves instead, but thankfully no one seemed to have noticed his little internal conflict or embarrassment.