BiTTER (Shokugeki no Souma Fanfic)

3. Injuries and Scars

Fumi woke up in the hospital, a few days later.

And from there, he wasn't too sure what happened. The doctors told him it was a side effect of the concussion, and it wouldn't matter to much.

He spent one day speaking only a word at a time. Another day he only heard muffled sounds. After that, he was fine and almost ready to be discharged.

He remembered eating.

He remembered the tasteless, stale dishes. They were warm and filling, but weren't delicious at all. He often wanted to go home, to knead dough or to stir fried rice in a pot.

Anything but the hospital's awful food that didn't taste like much.

(That was only the beginning.)

-

His dreams become more frequent.

It was that Patissiere lady again, but she was not smiling. This time, she cried. She held her eyes, fell to her knees, and sobbed.

In the dimly lit kitchen of her patisserie, alone, she mourned for herself.

The scar on her right wrist, disfigured and ugly, stood out from her pale skin. There was a seam across her vein, scabbed and red but healing.

She threw her cake onto the ground and threw her fist into her glass shelf of trophies, screaming.

-

Fumi wasn't too sure about her now.

Wasn't she an award-winning Patissiere? Why was she so broken? What happened to her that Fumi hadn't seen? (What did he not remember?)

"Fumi-pon, are you listening?"

He snapped out of his trance. The girls were here to visit him today.

They were all grown out of their gal phase, but their nicknames for him never outgrew. The one that had spoken to him was Rase-cchi, who used to have a fake tan (and now has a real one for being one great athlete or something).

"I'm listening," he said immediately, a jolt in his voice. He was definitely not listening.

"You look like you used to look when Butakko messed you up!" she laughed warm heartedly, "it's been a while, eh?"

Fumi pouted, "it's not fun getting head injuries all the time..." he murmured, "and, Koga-neesan has already apologized to me about a million times..."

"Oh, you call her neesan?! No fair, call me neesan too!"

"Me too! Me too!"

Fumi sighed. They always kick up a fuss when it's about him. When will he ever be able to live without being treated like a baby, he wonders...

Tamako stepped forward, ignoring the chaos before her, and placed a Tiffin carrier on his overbed table.