Visiting Hours|| G & Susumu

Susumu's left eye could not be saved.

Another interesting fact about getting impaled in the eye was that the fluid inside of it is impossible to replace.  It's the reason why the right thing to do in her situation would have been to hold something to the eye, bearing the pain caused by that, until she was collected by the ambulance.  Nobody at the arcade had managed to do that, though, and she had been unable to think clearly, let alone act to save her eye.  By the time she had reached the hospital it had deflated like a torn water balloon and they had needed to remove the eye and sever the nerves through surgery.  At least she had been very unconscious for that part.

Now she was comfortably in a room in the hospital, still groggy from the anesthesia and on pain killers and a weak sedative to keep her from breaking into hysterics.  Again.  She clearly remembered swiping at an orderly as they wheeled her in, demanding them to take them to her real doctor.  Of course that hadn't been what she'd said, since she had been delirious from pain, instead spouting off a series of garbled screams.  The doctors here were at least very, very understanding in that sense.

...but that was the problem.  The doctors here, at Tokyo Hospital, were not her little back-alley doctors who didn't ask questions or have the same space long enough for cops to come sniffing around.  Susumu knew it was only a matter of time now before police came to ask her what the hell had happened, why it had happened, and who she was.

And they probably had called her parents, too.

Fuck.

Still.  There was nothing she could do right now but lay in bed, half of her face covered in gauze and a needle connected to a steady drip of some kind of medical fluid--sue her for not knowing this stuff--and a little button that would administer pain medication to her upon pressing.  Within reason, sadly.  At least the room was nice and spacious, and didn't have any roommates unlike other rooms here.  The hospital had definitely contacted her parents because this must have been expensive as hell...and Amadeus wasn't listed as Susumu's emergency contact.

Susumu was about to close her eye and try to sleep off the remaining anesthesia in her system when she heard loud noises outside her room.

Cops?  No, they wouldn't come now, she's was high as a kite.

A hero?  Why?  For all they knew right now, Nick had attacked her at random.  Right?  Or had they found anything while she was out...?

Her parents?  God, she hoped not.  Not while she was like this.

Nick...?  Had he gotten away from the police?  Was he here for the other eye?  Her nose?  Her throat?  Her heart-rate on the little machine besides her began beating faster.  Fuck.  No.  There was no way.

But the one person she hadn't expected, even slightly, was the one who barged into the room--past a very exasperated nurse standing by the door--and ran up to her, pure panic in his expression.  G.  Her eye widened.  G.  G was here.  G had come to make sure she was okay.  He was scared for her.  He was here for her.  G, her G, was at her side...

...after what she had done to keep him away.

".....n-no..." she whispered, voice hoarse from the screaming before surgery and the drugs during it.  She shook her head as much as the bandages allowed, failing to back away from him on the bed.  But she didn't looked scared of him..  "....no, you c-c...can't be here...the police will be here...they'll see you...and you'll be arrested...they'll p-put you to...death...I c-can't...I can't run...I...why?  Why did you...here?"

She wasn't even able to form a full sentence.

Susumu's mind couldn't keep up with this, through the drugs and pain and confusion.  He was being so gentle with her.  Didn't he remember how they'd left off?  She'd run away from him--to protect him from killing himself rather than seeing her again--but here he was, holding her hand and petting her hair and telling her to calm down.  She shook her head again.  It didn't make sense.  He should be furious at her.  He should be dragging her to jail, to his death.  Right?

"...n..." she started again, but then...he apologized.

That was wrong.  G shouldn't be apologizing for this happening.

This was all her fault.

With a soft sound between a sigh and a mewl, Susumu leaned into his touch and closed her eye.  She looked older without her make-up on.  Not old, but there were imperfections she always tried to cover up with her artful use of concealer and blush.  Dark circles under her eye, dry lips, little scars here and there from her adolescence.  If she had more than half a mind she might have been embarrassed by how plain she looked right now.  How...normal.  Human.  But she barely thought of it.

"You...don't apologize...this w...was my mistakes," she finally spoke again, still hoarsely, "I d...did something really, really bad...and I g...got punished for it...hah...you couldn't have done anything...to stop it..."

Maybe if he'd been there, he could have stopped Nick.  But then again, were he there, then she wouldn't have gone to Nick in the first place.

"I said stop a--"  Susumu tried to speak stronger, force more of her voice from her throat, but all it did was cause her to cough.  It felt like she hadn't had anything to drink in days...thanks, anesthesia.  As it so happened G decided not to listen to her words and instead wrapped him up in her arms and held her a close as he could.  Her eye flew back open.  What was he doing?  Wasn't he mad at her?  Why was he holding her like this--like everything was back to...

Oh, God, he was crying.  He was crying into her shoulder, and she could hear it in the thickness of his voice, the tremble of his body.  Susumu's body tensed up, her hands caught between reaching out to pull him closer and to push him away.  Susumu was bad with crying.  When other people cried and it was her intention to make them do so, that was one thing.  But this was Gil.  Strong, wild, dangerous Gil.  And he was mumbling through tears as he held her like she would vanish.

But isn't this what I wanted?  For him to feel sorry for me, and pity me, so that he wouldn't hurt me anymore?  So he would forgive me?

No.  No, I didn't want this.  I didn't want him to be in pain.

His smile.  I wanted his smile.  But all I've done is hurt him.

Finally she made up her mind and brought her hands up to cling to the sides of his shirt and pull him in.  She was so very, very tired and everything was still foggy and awful, and despite all the terrible things that had happened in the last month, nothing made her feel better than being in G's arms.  Not drinking, not hurting people, not blackmailing that punk-ass eye-stealing bastard.  All the things she thought should have made her happy had only been hurting her as of late.  Badly.

"......I tol...d...you...this was not your fault..." she rasped, "So stop it.  Please.  I need to see you...smiling.  I've done n...nothing but hurt you lately...even though...I love you.  I really, really, r-really love you..."

Do I?

"...as much as I can.  Um...but...if you want to do some...thing?  I could use...water.  I feel like I'm s-swallowing sand when I...speak."

She took the cup of water offered to her and sipped it slowly, letting her body get used to it rather than gulping it down all at once.  Susumu still wasn't sure how much moving and drinking or eating she should be doing yet.  The doctors said to take it easy while the drugs in her system wore off.  But a glass of water couldn't hurt any more than talking with a desert in her mouth could.  "Thank you, G," she said with a little more ease.  Her voice still sounded rough, but it didn't hurt as much to speak anymore.  Once she'd finished the cup she set it on the edge of the bedside table, and tried to collect her thoughts as best she could.

Why was G here?

What was he thinking of doing right now?

Did he still hate her?

Did he still want to die?

Was this visit because he cared, or because she couldn't escape?

Was he going to turn her into the police?

But of all of those questions, another one boiled under her skin.  She averted her gaze from him to her hands, which she had set in her lap, fingers idly itching and scratching at one another as she thought of how to best phrase her words.  She tasted them on her teeth, and the bitterness just wouldn't go away no matter how she arranged them.  But in this moment, maybe she didn't need to make them prettier, or sweet.

"G...did we ever really...want one another, or was it just convenient to both of us to...stay together?"  She lowered her head so her hair shrouded her face just so.  "You knew nothing about me when you said you love me.  Hell...you still know barely anything about me at all.  You finally know the truth, though.  About who I am, and how I've hurt you.  But even before then, what did you really know about me...really?"

"And as for me...I was using you because you said you love me, because I've never had anyone say those words to me like you did.  Is that love?  Was it ever love?  Or was that just me needing somebody who wanted me...and you wanting somebody who needed you?"

Man, these drugs do a number on my mental filter.

Nothing but hurt.  Since when had she done nothing but hurt.  She laid off Miku, she'd apologized for her actions.  She'd even helped him get more information on the person who had been stalking his daughter...even though that person turned out to be Kasey, and all of that nonsense had been a giant, annoying misunderstanding.  Stupid girl.  Those feelings hadn't faded completely, at least.  Still, Susumu's eye narrowed and she stared down at her hands again.  Everything he said, even though he was trying to say it gently and honestly, just cut into her like knives.  He was only in love with half of her. 

But that half wasn't entirely lies.

"You're so...wrong about me, it's not even funny.  You haven't figured anything out.  The 'me' you fell in love with, the 'me' who isn't 'truly evil'--whatever the hell that means--and the 'me' that is Big Sister are all the same person, but with only one difference: you.  When I'm around you, I'm different than when I'm alone.  I try harder to be kind.  I try harder to be good.  Not because of my own...self, but because you're there, and I want you to be happy.  Trust me, I wanted to run the fuck away from that mechanical thing, especially when it was swinging at my face!  But you were there, and you wanted to help people, so I did.  And whenever you were distressed in the chat...asides from that...time...I tried my best to help.  I turned down the Miku job because of you.  I let you leave the chat because I love you.  Fuck, the reason I kept you there in the first place was because without you...I knew I would make bad choices.  Worse choices.  And...hell, I was right.  It's insane, but you're..."

Susumu pulled her legs up to her chest, the blankets bunching around her as she moved, and hid her face behind her arms as they crossed atop her knees.  She looked so small like this, but it made everything dark again.  Not being able to see his face, his expression...it was just like at the fair, when she'd told him she loved him.  When she had accepted his feelings, and dared to take the next step with him.

Had it been a mistake?

"I can't stop being Big Sister.  Because she is me, and I am her, and as much as I faked it for this long I can't be your girlfriend with one hand and your enemy with the other.  So...the options I see it are that we end it, which I fucking can't stand, because look at what happens when you're not with me.  I wind up getting in fights with pricks pretending to be heroes."  She gave a weak little laugh.  "Asshole.  Anyway.  The next option is...we go back to how things were.  Don't ask questions, don't get answers, I play the perfect girlfriend and you pretend that I'm really working at an electronics firm, and eventually we kill one another because that just isn't going to fucking work.  Not looking good, right?"

You were my biggest mistake.

Susumu raised her head just enough so her single eye could see over her arms and look at his expression.  That honesty he had given her about his father, and killing those who reminded him of him, hurt to hear.  Not because some part of her enjoyed it, though.  For the first time that rush of joy at seeing his pain didn't happen.  It was strange.

"......third option is.....I...."

But I can't live without you.

".....I change.  I can't stop being Big Sister.  But.  Big Sister can become something else.  More neutral, less criminal.  I will probably never be a vigilante, or anything even close to resembling one, but I can be, y'know, Switzerland.  I can try to make sure what I'm doing isn't going to get people killed. I can disconnect from the people who want to hurt me, and...for those that will try to kill me if I leave, I will do the best I can to sway things away from what will hurt people.  Otou-sama may be psychotic, but...his goal is to help us with Quirks be accepted.  It's just a really fucked up way of doing it.  I don't think he'd stop, but at least he cares enough to listen to me, and maybe he'd...lighten up.  A little."

"Don't think this is coming out of left field," she added, like an after-thought, averting her eye again, "I...I wanted to change, a while back.  I did.  Seriously.  After I made everything so horrible because of that Miku case, I wanted to fix everything.  But I...I saw you with Sophie, and I...I couldn't bear the thought of losing you to her......I panicked.  I couldn't lose what little power I had.  I wanted to find her and kill her.  Frankly, I...came pretty close, given that I had Meiko track her name and where she works.  Fucking U.A slut.  But.  I just...I had to do what I was...so that I didn't feel like everything I had was going to be taken from me."

"...I guess...we're a lot more alike than expected, huh..."

Wrapping herself up in as small a ball as possible, Susumu tried to figure out if anything she had said made any sort of sense.  It was difficult, given how her mind was still so hazy, but everything she'd spoken felt more truthful than anything she'd said to G before.  She was better around him.  Honest, nicer, trying if nothing else...

In some way, that had to be love.

...it's my kind of love, if nothing else.

Crap.  Crap crap crap fuuuuuuuuuck.

Susumu clenched the sheets between her fingers, drawing in slow breaths.  She wasn't scared of her mother in the traditional sense.  Rather, it had been almost a year since she'd seen the woman in person.  Most of their interactions were through phone calls, texts, and the occasional picture that she would alter to avoid certain...things that her parents did not know about her.  Yet.  Now there was no way to hide those things.  As the doorknob to the hospital room turned she raised her eye to see the person entering.  The first to come in was the nurse, who gave a small bow to the person behind her.  "Right this way."

Then entered the next woman.  An elegant, well-dressed business type somewhere in her thirties, with long black hair and green eyes that would have been a perfect match to her daughter's own--save the number of them.  She was wearing a formal pencil-skirt suit and jewelry in gold and emerald green that shone against her pale skin.

Chiba Miho, a seamstress extraordinaire, and Susumu's mother.

Her gaze fell upon Susumu and her eyes widened, mouth forming an 'o' in shock as she rushed past the nurse to her daughter's bedside.  

"Your HAIR!  Su-chan, what in the world have you done to your hair?!"  

Oh. Right.

Miho placed her hands in her daughter's hair, brushing the messy green muss through her long nails, before her touch came to rest on Susumu's cheeks, cupping her face to tilt it up towards her own.  "Oh, Su-chan, my poor little girl!  Look at you!  I can't believe anyone would do this to you!  Did the surgeon say it would scar?  Was any part of the eye salvaged?"

Susumu averted her gaze from her mother's own.  "...no.  It's gone."

"The hell it is!  I'm not going to stand for my daughter walking around with one eye like..."  Miho stopped to draw in a shaking breath, "...my poor, poor baby.  Oh, I couldn't believe the doctors when they called me.  I came as fast as possible!  But...I still can't believe it.  And the doctor couldn't even save your eye, after what that surgery cost?!  I'm going to be speaking with the hospital about this whole horrible mess..."

"Mom.  Stop."  Susumu spoke curtly, bringing her own hand to sit atop her mother's.  She pulled it down from her face and put on the smile she had grown accustomed to wearing when she was upset.  "He did all he could, okay?  They said it had deflated.  Completely.  I can just get an eye-patch or something that covers it, and then it wi--"

"An eye-patch?!  Su-chan, do you know how garish those look?  Where are you even getting these ridiculous ideas?"  Miho stepped around the bed to where G had been sitting moments ago, sitting down with as much motion as the tight pencil skirt allowed, and leaned into her daughter.  "When did you even cut your hair?  And this color!  You look like a delinquent, or some American punk!  What happened to your pretty black hair?  You had it in the picture you sent just a while ago."

Yeah, it was a wig.  To avoid this discussion.  Susumu kept smiling.

"I just felt like a change, that's was all.  I like it."

"A change is a different shade of lipstick, not whatever disaster this is.  As soon as you're out of here I'm taking you to the salon and we'll have your hair dyed back to black, and then we'll get a glass eye that matches yours.  You'll look good as new, Su-chan.  My poor baby."  Miho sided and tilted her head back in exasperation.  "You're not a little girl anymore, Su-chan, you need to look professional and upstanding, or some U.A punk is going to think you're a delinquent and attack you."

Susumu bit her tongue between her teeth hard enough that the tip went numb for a little bit.  Again.  Again, again, again, it was like talking to a wall.  Sure, her mother would pay for anything Susumu's heart desired, but when it came to something she liked or cared about or even loved...

"Don't worry, though, dear.  Your father and I will take care of the news.  We'll make sure U.A expels that student, pronto, and then you can get right back to your online classes.  Everything will be right as rain."

"...yeah, mom.  Classes.  Would you be able to bring me my laptop, so I don't miss anything important while I'm in here?"

"Of course, Su-chan!  Anything to make you happy."

Liar.