Inside Your Mind

106 - Shinsou

I wonder how I got by this week

Kaori Shinsou was back at her dorm room, but she wasn't allowed to go to her classes yet. And she hated it. She had spent the first day in her room and had soon given up on that. She just wanted to do something, no matter what. But she was told to rest and be careful with her leg for now.

All she was allowed to do was take a short walk around campus on which Uehara usually accompanied her. Or Hitoshi. Shouta was too busy, since he had to take over her work at the National Police Department for now. So since day two Kaori had taken her walk in the mornings and then sat down in the common room on the couch.

She was hellbent on studying and continuing her duties as a TA, at least. Uehara brought her papers to grade and Kaori had emailed all the students saying that they could find her on her couch for any questions. And the system was working relatively well. Sure, the common room of her dorm was probably not the ideal place for one on one appointments, but it was better than nothing.

And most of the time she was left to her own devices anyway. Sometimes someone sat down to chat with her, mostly people from her course or Uehara. Sometimes Hitoshi came over, together with Denki, and once he even brought Kage and Kiri over, until someone complained about having an allergy, so they had to leave. And as nice as that all was, it made Kaori feel even more useless, because she couldn't do shit on her own. It took her ages to get up and drag herself to the bathroom with her leg being messed up. She even had an old man walking stick.

She hated it more every day and her next appointment at the hospital was still three days away. If only she could go to her lectures. At least that would make it a bit easier to cope with the whole situation. Because the fact was that it would take her at least a few months to recover from this. And it was still unclear whether her leg would ever fully recover. She could be left with a limp for the rest of her life.

With a sigh she got up out of bed and grabbed her walking stick, as she limped over to her closet and got herself a set of clothes. Even getting dressed took longer with her leg not working properly. It wasn't even that bad, but it was still bad enough for her to feel completely useless.

Kaori shimmied out of her pajamas and put on her underwear and her blouse, before getting to work on the pair of slacks. Putting on pants of any sort was a complete chore lately and it took ages. And there it was. Uehara was already knocking on her door to take her for a walk. Kaori got up and pulled up her pants properly, closing the fly as she hopped over to the door on one leg.

"Morning, sunshine." Uehara greeted her. Kaori just grunted as she hopped back towards the bed, so she could put on her shoes. Uehara fucking knew how annoyed she was by this situation. Why did she have to be so overly positive?

"Come to take your dog for a walk?" Kaori muttered, as she put on her shoes and tied them. It felt so humiliating to need help like that.

"Well, I guess that's a pretty good analogy, since you're a bad bitch and all." Uehara just replied with a grin. Kaori gave her a dumbfounded look, before bursting out laughing and shaking her head.

"Jeez, fuck off, Uehara!" she said with a chuckle and got up from the bed. She sighed when she looked at Uehara.

"Well, let's go then, Hana." she muttered and walked over to her. They made their way out of the room and Kaori locked the door behind her.

"So what happened to your secret boyfriend? I'm not seeing any hickeys anymore, Kao-chan."

"Would you believe me, if I said he left me because I'm crippled now?" Kaori replied, trying to buy some time to come up with a good excuse. But honestly, with her not being able to walk around a lot or do much at all, it seemed like she wouldn't have to think a whole lot about it at all.