PAPER FLOWERS ( k. bakugou )

chapter 38

‘ moonshine, sunshine and iceboy ’

━━━━━

One thing good about hospitals, Kaede notes, is that your friends bring you fruits. Baskets of them. Every single day. Baskets full of grapes, cantaloupes, watermelons, apples (you can see her eyes lighting up at this point), oranges and bananas.

They told her she would earn their trust and she did, they were just the ones spending money in buying these fruits, and stuff toys (Kaede raised an eyebrow at the first time they brought her one, but they said it was necessary so she had something to cuddle with, and while saying these facts, she saw the adoring look on Uraraka's face. It was obvious the brunette wanted the stuffed white bear more than her, so she told the girl she could have it, and cue the hugs. Tsuyu, who was always with Uraraka whenever she visited, seemed to balance everything out. If it weren't for the frog girl, she's pretty sure Uraraka and her would never make up. The brunette has a habit of burying everything with smiles and it's Tsuyu who unearths those truths, tell it right to her face. And Kaede is grateful for her— their presence).

Three weeks pass and all of them are actually doing a little better, and of course she's starting to get incensed at the clean white paint, immaculate tiles and aquamarine bedsheets changed every day, at Iida's behest that it was going to infect the wound (short and narrow, but definitely as deep as a ravine).

So she adores it when Kouda and Sero come, and takes her to the hospital gardens, not as flowery as she would expect, but it's a breath of fresh air from all the stark whiteness. The peonies in the flowerbeds are perhaps the most beautiful flowers she'd seen in her life.

Iida and Izuku don't take her around the gardens even when they promise to. The action is buried with piles atop piles of constant worrying over her physical condition.  Whenever they visit they're either busy spending the rest of their visits worrying how her healing is slower than expected and maybe the poison will act up again, or maybe they should get a quirk specialist to figure out how her quirk (Kaede smiles through it all, not telling them of the quirklessness tainting her bones) is affecting the poison or promising her that they'll try not to go into fits of rambling again and walk her around the gardens or take her to the hospital canteen.

Kaede's stopped complaining after day six. There's something worse than their incessant worries and it's the one-on-one redundant interviews regarding her personal life that she's mostly hesitant to answer.

Better days are when she smiles, throws shame away, put her hand on Izuku's [surprisingly] fluffy green hair.

Cue the blushing and her, overwhelmed by her charmed persona, pulling him into a hug and she'd mouth at Uraraka that she won't steal Izuku from him and Uraraka floating on air, with Tsuyu's side comments and Sero and Kouda chuckling.

Those are great days, but if Kaede's forced to pick a favourite— like strapped to a bomb forced— she'd say that days with the new addition to the short list of her friends is the best. Days spent with the girl whose smiles light up the world and brighter than the sun itself.

"I'm so glad you didn't kiss anyone while you had total control."

Akihisa Yuko.

Kaede raises an eyebrow— Yuko's the type of person who always makes her want to raise an eyebrow, "Oh really?" Among all of her friends, she may or may not also be closest to Yuko. They did 'share' a body for years.

"Oh really," Yuko repeats while Sero grins and covers Honoka's ears— the girl's eating watermelons and it's an adorable sight— and Kouda looks left and right as if he's not hearing anything.