fear. || { bnha }

thirty three.

a/n: a-another update? it's bc i love you guys, you're all great <3

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Valui froze as Tori entered the room. Something stopped her; rooted her feet to the ground and prevented her from moving; from allowing her vision to see around the doorway. A small part of her didn't want to — the thought of what she might see kept her in the hallway. Visions mixed with cruel memories — she saw Hitoshi fainted, then hooked up to all the machines she had once been attached to; she saw him in pain; weak; injured.

I don't want to see you like that.

...As if you had wanted to see me like that.

Tori looked over her shoulder when she noticed Valui hadn't followed her. She didn't speak, but instead gave the girl a soft look of confusion; a gentle question of why she hadn't moved yet; if something was wrong. Valui shook her head, squeezing one of her hands into a fist behind her back.

I need to get stronger.

With that thought in mind, Valui swallowed any apprehension she had — any fear toward what she might see — and stepped over the threshold into the room.

The first thing she saw was purple — it always was the first thing she noticed about him. Hitoshi was pacing back and forth across the room, one hand running itself obsessively through his hair, which only served to make it even wilder. There was a bandage on the side of his neck where Stain had cut him; on one of his arms were small pinpricks of red where IVs had probably been. He seemingly hadn't noticed them enter the room yet; his gaze was pointed down at the floor.

"Hitoshi?"

Her voice came out softer than she had intended for it to. Worry filled it — was he okay? From the small portions of his face she could see, he looked upset; distraught, even. Had something happened in the length of time they were apart? Despite the volume of her voice, it still got his attention. Hitoshi froze, his head snapping up in the direction his name wad spoken from. Their eyes met, and for a moment, nothing happened.

Then, he closed the distance between them and pulled her tightly to his chest.

"Oh, thank god," he breathed out, sounding like he had been holding his breath this entire time, "you're okay."

"Don't break her now, Toshi." Tori's voice reached Valui's ears over the sound of Hitoshi's softly shaking breath. She was teasing for the most part, though there was a degree of truth to it — Hitoshi was hugging her so hard she found it difficult to breathe; and while she wanted to hug back, she couldn't, as he had ended up pinning her arms to her sides. "You should rest, too."

"I'm fine, Mom."

"No you're not." It was weird how gentle her voice was; how it could sound parental and yet kind at the same time — it was weird to Valui, at least, who was used to anything but. She was used to harsh tones; to tones that implied she had no idea what she was talking about; to tones that told her to just listen to those that were better than her. "You're pale."

"I always am."

"Hitoshi."

"Fine, alright."

Yet there was still no malice. No anger; nothing short of a light, albeit somewhat worried, tone that filled Tori's voice. It left Valui confused, simply staring amidst them as Hitoshi let go of her and went back to the hospital bed. Distantly, she noticed how his gait was different — slower, more deliberate, as if he were afraid of tripping over something and falling. When he reached the bed, he dropped heavily down onto it, one of his arms moving up to cover his eyes in the crook of his elbow.