Case 34

Miracle

"How are you uh... Feeling?"

"..."

"How have you been eating? I want you to be honest with me on this one."

"Mmh."

"B-34?"

Baseball shifts on his seat, turning his face around from time to time. Fan sighs, picking his pen up to write on his clipboard. "Where am I?" Baseball raises an eyebrow, and he leans forward a bit. Fan looks at him sadly, feeling awful. The poor thing could barely talk. His voice was hoarse and rough, his back had been stained with mold that seemed to have started growing. Fan wanted to help him and clean it off, but he knows how Test Tube would react. He looks back down to his clipboard and fixes his glasses. "You're in the check-up room." Baseball's expression doesn't change, and he simply lays back against the chair.

Fan nervously clicked his pen repeatedly, shaking his leg along with it, hoping to release the awkward atmosphere that was between them. Baseball huffs. "How's Nickel?" He bleated, clearly annoyed with the situation. Fan hesitates to answer for a bit. He has to admit though, he's scared of Test Tube. He doesn't want to act on anything out of whim that he knows will anger the green vial. But it's only right to tell him about Nickel's status. "He's doing fine. He woke up not too long ago today, he might be able to come back to the room later!" Fan tries to sound positive and happy, which seemed to lighten Baseball's mood a bit. His face softened and he leaned back onto the seat. Fan smiles, happy to see one of the subjects feel at ease.

He clicks his pen, writing down a few notes before continuing. "Will you tell me about how you're feeling? Even if it's subtle or just a bit, it's fine. I won't push you if you truly don't want to talk about it." Baseball's face shifts back to how it was again. Sad, annoyed, Fan couldn't really tell. "I just want you to know that you can tell me anything you can't seem to tell anyone else, and that includes the other subjects or even Nickel himself." Baseball's face goes into shock, and Fan just chuckles. "Sorry, I'm just not fond of the whole subject name thing. I rather refer to you guys by your actual names. But that's a secret between you and me, alright?" Baseball nods, fixing his position on the chair.

Fan gives him a few moments of silence to try and regain his thoughts since he seemed like he wanted to say something. Baseball then looks at Fan straight in the eyes. Well, almost. "You wanna know how I truly feel?" He blurts out, a small frown forming on his face. "Oh, sure." Fan moves closer to the round object, and Baseball flinches. When he realizes Fan does nothing, he continues. "I feel miserable. I fucking hate this place. I'm blind, I have mold on my back, there's always a feeling of being unexpectedly killed or tortured!" Fan is glad he turned on the recorder one Baseball started to explain, or else he would have never been able to keep up with his angry pace.

"And you know what else?!"

Fan looks up at Baseball.

"My only friend doesn't even remember who I am anymore! We had so many memories together and he had his own personal memories, and you selfish pricks just had to take that away from him!"

Baseball seethed with anger as he stood up, stomping up close to Fan as he breathed heavily. Fan gulped, getting nervous. He shakily wrote down on his clipboard and his breath was also shaky. "Well uh... How much does N-34 mean to you?" Fan could feel Baseball's breathing on his face, and the round object calmed down slowly, plopping himself back onto the chair like nothing happened. "He... He was one of my first friends. Sure he's an asshole sometimes but no one really helped him try to change. I was one of the few who actually tried. And even after many failed attempts, I still tried harder. Because I..." Baseball purses his lips into a straight line and clears his throat.

"B-Because I care about him. I deeply care for him in ways you can't imagine. And seeing someone I care so dearly for lose all his memories of me, me also being one of his only friends, and see him slowly start to forget me and everything we had is just... It's painful. I tried so hard to try to remind him of certain things, like memorable moments we had to try to get his memory working, but none of it worked. And it stings to see that I can't do anything for him to remember me." Fan was way too caught up in the moment of writing and listening that he didn't notice the tears that fell from Baseball's eyes. He coughed as he gently sobbed, curling his legs up on the chair and put them close to his body. The tears stung real bad against his scar, but he didn't care.