Skin & Bones (bnha au)

2

I walked through the hospital ward, swaying in my hand a bag ready-to-eat meals.
I stopped outside a white door, listening intensely hearing the soft hum of my own voice. I knew the nurses had allowed her a small cd player but this was the first time I'd heard her listening to my band, punk rock wasn't really her favourite genre.
My eyes teared up and a small smile spread across my face.

Suddenly I was brought back to a different time in a different area of the hospital, where I was laying in bed, unmoving, barely alive. My mom's voice barely a whisper over the silence of death. 'Touya? Oh my sweet baby, my kind son, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.' Then her voice changed, louder yet somehow further away, as though she was talking to someone else. 'What are doing here? Look what you've done! Look at him! This is your fault, yours and mine! How dare you make him feel this way! You monster!'
A second voice muttered something I couldn't quite hear.
My mother's hysteria rose. 'No! Don't you dare blame this on him! You're the reason he was unhappy, you beat him bloody and told him you loved him, then you abandoned him like nothing! You are no father!'
A final voice spoke up, soft and soothing but patronising to the point it made me grind my teeth.
'Come on miss, time to go back to your room.'

Why would I remember that now when I was actually feeling happy?
I closed my eyes and counted to ten while simultaneously playing with one of the metal bottle caps on my battle jacket. It was a coke lid from one of the glass bottles, Natsuo had put it on for me years ago.
She was expecting me so I didn't bother knocking. I just looked at the the nurse who was waiting outside, she nodded with a smile and I opened the door.

"Hey Mom."

"There's my little rockstar. You're late. I was starting to think you weren't coming."
She pointed to the clock high up on the wall, three minutes late.

"Sorry."

She was sitting on the bed looking though some old book,oving to pat the space beside her so I knew where to sit.

I sat down and she leaned against me like I used to do to her.
"Fuyumi gave me one of your old scrapbooks."
She placed it on my knee with a proud smile.

I stared down at the page she was looking at.
It was one of our many family outings to the hospital, probably the worst one. The burn ward looked different than what I remembered but it was two years before I was admitted and I was blind for most of the time I was there so my memory was slightly off.
It was the incident that got mom locked up here.
The large bandage that covered half of Shoto's face had been drawn over, a wonky, poorly drawn eye.
I knew I hadn't done that, and Fuyumi wouldn't either, then I saw the pen open beside me on the bed.
I felt a little nauseous as I closed it over, although I'm not fully sure why.
Forgiveness was slow but there was something about her sleepy ignorance that just made me want to scream.

There was a tense silence.

"I have food!"
I shakily held up the bag, my head still slightly fuzzy.
All part of the healing process, I told myself.
Atleast that's what my therapist said.

.

"I'm listening to your music."
She pointed out between mouthfuls, I knew she didn't like hospital food and it seemed like she'd lost a lot of weight so it was comforting to see her eat.

"Do you like it?"

She paused for a moment, as the song ended, I watched as she rewinded it.
I hadn't even noticed she was doing that.
"I like this song."

It was softer than most of the ones I wrote, my friend Twice wrote it for his little sister. He's the drummer so we let him carry the whole song.
"Yeah I like it to. Twice wrote it, you remember Twice, right?"