Spray-Painted Truths (Denki Angst)

The First Wall

mentions of various hospital-relating things and bodily conditions

***

I thought I had the wrong room at first. There he was, sprawled out on the floor, and I could hardly recognize him at all. I nearly mumbled a halfhearted apology and went back out to the waiting room before it all hit me.

"Sir, the patient is not ready for visitors right now, please-"

The nurse's reprimands were drowned out as I stared at him. He didn't look like a kid anymore. I always gave him shit for it–how short he was, his immature face, the silly way he carried himself. But it just wasn't him anymore.

He was thin and lanky, looked a little longer but I couldn't tell when he was all curled up. It made my stomach churn. His hair was somewhat pale in comparison to what it used to be, now stretching just below the small hump of his chest. His chest–his arms, shoulders, as much as I could see seemed to strain against his skin. It looked like his bones were begging to burst out of his body. It took a bit more scrutiny to spot the zagging reddish scars that wrapped around his limbs and torso.

Lichtenberg figures; I heard the nurses gossiping in the hallway. It was bizarre, unlike any case they'd ever seen.

"Kaminari?" My voice sounded so soft I felt sick. I didn't realize I had even spoken until he tilted his head up like he was searching for something. My heart leapt up to my throat.

His eyes were deeply bloodshot as I saw him trying to search my face. They were shiny and watery and his pupils couldn't meet mine–it was like he could barely see at all. His face was just as bony as his body and everything about him just looked... hollow. Scared.

"Kaminari," I said, a little more firmly this time. I opened my mouth to speak again but I couldn't think of anything to say. A year of practically confirmed death and here he was sitting right in front of me. It was like all the vulnerability from the weeks after the crash came flooding back to me like a restless plague. "Please just fucking say something."

Something like grief flashed on his face before I watched his whole body shut down.

"Just take me back, please. Please. I can't." He rasped and curled up into himself. "I don't want to see this. I'll be good, please."

Every fiber of my being felt revolted by the situation. The guttural desperation in his voice, the writhing of his body, the sheer denial he expressed towards the environment as a whole. He couldn't seem to comprehend the fact he was safe and I honestly couldn't either. I felt like something was wrong with me. I'd gone over what I'd say to him so many times in my head, but now that he was here I couldn't do anything. I couldn't touch him, I couldn't hug him, I couldn't tell him he was safe and that it would all be okay. It was never in my nature to be that way, but I always thought I'd be able to make an exception if this ever came around.

I couldn't do anything but stare and listen to the drone of staff behind me. No one had come to remove me yet–maybe because they wanted to assess his responses, maybe because no one had the balls to try dragging Katsuki Bakugo away from his formerly deceased friend. My breath grew heavy and at some point I kneeled down to his level.

"Look at me."

"I can't."

"Please."

I felt stiff and uncomfortable, but I was just as desperate to get past this as he was. Every part of him I used to know felt broken. It was like someone cut up a puzzle and rearranged the pieces–I couldn't put him back together no matter how hard I tried. But I saw him shift when I begged. I saw something flash in his eyes, something familiar, something I had missed for months.

"I want you to be real," His voice cracked and wavered. "I want you to be real so badly."

"Just use your eyes, dumbass. I am." I just wanted to reach out to him. I wanted to grab his hand and drag him back to shore.

"But I can't see."

That made sense, but it was also a mortifying thing to hear him say. Had they blinded him? What the hell even happened? How could he 'die' in a car crash and turn up like this almost a year later? Regardless, I knew I had to be the one to break this wall down for the first time. I don't think Kirishima could stomach it. I don't think Sero or Mina could even be in the room right now.

"Fine. Just.. ask me something only I would know."

He was far more calm when he was thinking. I watched his breathing slow, his eyes soften, his fingers untense. It looked like he was somewhere far away, but not in the way it had before.

"Last year on our America trip, what did I ask you for?"

It was the easiest question he ever could've asked me.

"Money for a stupid crane machine at that one family diner in Chicago. You sucked ass so I won you that purple bear and you never shut up about it." The bear's name was Wiggles, actually. I picked it up from his room a few days after the funeral and it was still sitting on my windowsill. It used to end up in my bed every now and again–on occasion it still does.

"Wiggles," He said, completing my thoughts, and I swear I saw a smile tug at the corners of his mouth before reality came crashing down on him. I was who I said I was and now he knew it. All of this was true. He was curled up in a hospital room far away from all the gruesome torment he'd endured. Torment I still didn't know anything about.

I remember thinking it was all over. This nightmare was coming to an end, he was home, he would come back to us, and he would reintegrate with the rest of his family in the following weeks.

I wish I was right.

I wish it could've been over for him.

More than anything, I wish.