Yumiya felt stressed. The past hours she had winks of sleep. Her signature twintail slightly messy and eyes appearing to be caught up in the distance. It was normal. She is an operative from the dark side that specialized in lasting long hours of sleep due to her assassination commissions.
However, that boy, that teenager who seems to be close to her age was making her confused. Oh kami, it was
infuriating to not think about it. It was the million dollar question or maybe billions of yen's worth of a question.
Why? Why did he go that far?
Yumiya gritted her teeth. Her fingers unconsciously tapped against her thigh, and she barely noticed. Her posture was relaxed only because her body forced her to conserve energy, not because she wasn't bothered.
Her breathing remained slow, steady, trained. But inside, her thoughts spiraled out like a cracked lens.
She wasn't naïve. She'd killed. She'd lied. She knew what kind of world Academy City actually was behind the brochures and the science fairs. But the boy with spiky black hair, Touma, they said his name was acted like he hadn't read the same script. He stood there. Defiant. Now, his rightarm paid the price like it didn't matter.
"...Idiot," she muttered, not realising Heaven Canceller until she jumped back finally noticing his presence, "Ah, hello again sir." She bowed.
Heaven Canceller raised an eyebrow, unbothered by her startled response. His hands were tucked behind his back, lab coat slightly crumpled at the edges like it had been through as many long nights as she had.
"I was just passing by," he said, his tone even, slightly amused. "You don't need to salute me like I'm your superior officer."
Yumiya opened her mouth, then closed it. She cleared her throat instead and looked to the side. Her heartbeat betrayed none of her internal panic, but her cheeks prickled with frustration.
Not the kind that made her snap or yell, but the one that burrowed behind her ribcage and ticked like a stupid time bomb.
It wasn't the professional her standing here. It wasn't the sniper with perfect aim and a reputation to keep. No, this was Yumiya Rakko, the friendless girl, and she was really, really bad at this.
"Um..." she began, clutching the hem of her hoodie as her lips fumbled to form the words she'd practiced earlier.
("Thank you for your hard work, doctor. Also-no wait. That sounds too stiff." "Did he... say anything? About me? No. Too direct. I'll sound obsessed." "Is he going to be alright?")
"I, uh..." she fumbled, eyes flicking to the hallway behind the doctor and back again, "...wanted to ask about him. The boy."
Her words dropped like a misfired bullet. Awkward and misaligned. Why can't she have a normal conversation with the doctor like before!?
Heaven Canceller gave a tired exhale, but it wasn't a sigh of annoyance. More like the kind a teacher gives a student who's clearly overthinking the problem.
"Relax. I'm not going to bite," he said, voice dry yet warm, like a man used to dealing with patients that had more than just physical wounds. "If you're asking about the boy, Kamijou Touma... He's awake now."
Yumiya's eyes widened.
Not much, not comically so. But enough that someone observant, someone like Heaven Canceller, would notice the faint hitch in her brows and the sudden stiffness in her shoulders.
She blinked once. Twice. Then lowered her head just slightly like she was resetting herself. Damn it, she's doing it again!
"...I see," she said, quieter than intended. Her voice didn't tremble, but it lacked the icy sharpness she normally used when talking to anyone outside a mission. It felt like that layer of distance melted without her permission.
There it was again.
That damn ticking bomb behind her ribs.
He's awake.
Somehow that made everything harder.
"I'll, um... keep that in mind," she mumbled, shifting her weight, then froze, was that weird to say? Keep that in mind? Why didn't she just say 'thank you'? No, that'd be too formal again. Stupid. Stupid. She turned on her heel slightly, boots giving a faint scrape on the tile as she bowed halfway again.
Heaven Canceller gave a small chuckle as he watched her stumble through it all. "Try breathing next time you talk," he said, walking past her with a hand raised in a lazy wave. "He'll be around. Might do you both good to talk."
Yumiya didn't respond.
She just stood there. One hand balled into her hoodie pocket, the other stiff at her side. She didn't know if she was relieved or more stressed now. Her mind was already racing ahead. What would she say? What should she not say? Would he even remember her? Why would he even care?
She bit the inside of her cheek. What the hell was this? This wasn't battlefield anxiety. It was worse.
'Can't I just kill him?' Her dark side is giving a plausible idea. She is panicking about a problem so why can't she just shoot her problems to kingdom come? Rakko mulled over the thought and shook it off.
'Bad idea, Kakine would be mad if I killed for no reason aside from personal reasons. Plus, it wouldn't benefit him or School at all.'
An image of a blonde man with a lean build formed in the girl's head before moving on.
Yumiya paced.
Not like a soldier on patrol or a panther on the hunt. No, her boots scuffed lightly with each turn as she looped in front of the hospital room door, head down, muttering just under her breath.
"Okay. Okay. Just say something normal. Like, 'Hey, glad you're not dead'-- no, that's awful, what the hell.."
Another pivot. A nurse carrying a clipboard passed by and blinked at her. Yumiya ignored it.
She had faced armed combatants, malfunctioning AIM fields, unstable Child Errors. But this... this felt worse.
She inhaled through her nose, exhaled slowly, then tried again. "Hi. I'm Yumiya. We met before you bled out and lost your arm. No, wait, I can't start with the arm..."
She looped again. This time slower. Her legs moved on instinct. Her fingers twitched at her sides like they wanted to grip a sniper rifle that wasn't there.
Two boys in hospital gowns shuffled past. One of them looked at her like she was a ghost caught in a loop. While the other was talking about hot maids and his sister.
Yumiya stopped.
Then started pacing again.
"Okay... what about something like, 'You really are a reckless idiot.'" She paused. That one actually had potential. Honest. Direct. A little mean, but not too mean. "Yeah. That's... passable."
But then her brain had to ruin it.
*What if he doesn't remember her? What if he does and regrets it? What if he talks like it was nothing? What if he asks her name and she just forgets how to speak Japanese like an idiot?!*
Yumiya growled under her breath. She ran both hands down her face, dragging her skin downward like that would physically squeeze the anxiety out.
"I am not this bad at talking," she hissed.
Lies. She absolutely was.
This was the same girl who could negotiate under duress, impersonate civilians, maintain cover identities across borders, crumbling now in front of one boy's hospital room.
Her boots froze in place.
She turned to the door, expression stiff, unreadable. Then turned away again. Then turned back. Her fingers hovered in the air, like reaching for the handle might trigger an alarm.
"...Tch."
It wasn't courage that pushed her forward.
It was frustration. At herself. At him. At this stupid flutter in her chest that had nothing to do with combat and everything to do with the person who jumped into a battle he didn't belong in.
She raised her fist toward the door and stopped, trembling just slightly.
Behind her, another nurse whispered to an intern, "I think she's been walking back and forth for ten minutes now."
"Is she Kamijou's girlfriend?" One commented as she drank from a can of soda.
"Rui, didn't you say that last time with another girl?"
"Yeah, and I was wrong but maybe I'm right in this case! Plus, the girl looks really reserved. Touma is definitely getting them apples."
Yumiya ignored them.
"Alright," she muttered under her breath. "On three."
"One..."
She clenched her fist tighter.
"Two..."
'Don't mess this up. Don't freeze. Don't let your voice crack. Don't be weird.'
"...Thre-"
The door clicked open before she touched it.
Her breath caught.
And from inside, a familiar voice, slightly hoarse, but undeniably casual, called out with something so painfully normal it threw her off:
"Uh... if you're pacing outside like a horror movie ghost, can you just come in already?"
Yumiya froze. Her heart? Not so much. It slammed against her ribs like she'd just taken a direct shot to the vest. There he was, facing her with a sheepishly awkward smile. While here she was still frozen.
She stepped inside.
Not gracefully. Not like someone who had rehearsed a dozen versions of her entrance. Yumiya Rakko, the so-called professional, entered like someone who just forgot how legs worked. Her boots scraped the tile again as she stepped over the threshold, arms stiff at her sides, face unreadable only because she had locked it that way.
Kamijou Touma sat upright on the bed, propped against a pair of pillows. His black hair was still messy, flattened awkwardly against the bandage wrapping his head.
His hospital gown looked like it barely fit him, like he had been forced into it last minute. The left sleeve was too long, the right... nonexistent.
The bandages where his arm should be were fresh. Neat. Clean.
But there was no arm.
Just an empty sleeve, limp and folded over the side.
He didn't look like he wanted pity. Just company.
"Hi," he said again, raising his left hand slightly. "Or uh... sorry if that was rude. I just... heard you mumbling a lot. Figured either you were working up the courage to stab me or, I dunno, deliver a bad lunch tray."
Yumiya opened her mouth. Closed it.
Then opened it again.
"...You're awake," she said, her voice almost too quiet to register. The tone was off. Not because she didn't mean it, but because her brain still hadn't synced with her mouth.
Touma blinked. "Yup. Kind of hard to stay asleep when your dreams keep ending with explosions and your shoulder feels like someone unplugged a controller mid-game."
She blinked.
He was joking.
'Why the hell was he joking about it?'
Yumiya's brows twitched faintly, but she held still. She couldn't do this the way she wanted to.
Couldn't interrogate him for answers or scream like she wanted to when she first saw that blood pool spreading under his body.
She was bad at this. Emotions. Empathy. This sort of... soft thing.
So she defaulted to what came naturally.
"You shouldn't have done that."
Touma tilted his head.
"...The saving you part?" he asked, like he wasn't entirely sure if she was blaming him for her guilt or his injuries.
"Any of it," she snapped, the edge finally showing.
Her lips pressed into a thin line. She didn't shout, but her tone was flat. Blunt. Like a suppressed gunshot. Her hands curled into fists at her sides before she shoved them into her pockets to hide the tremble.
The girl that School hired to shoot without blinking was failing to steady herself in front of the boy who bled out for someone he didn't know. Curse this outside business matters.
"...I'm not someone you should've saved," she muttered.
Touma stared for a moment.
And then scratched his cheek with his remaining hand, gaze drifting toward the ceiling.
"Well," he said, "too late now."
Yumiya snapped her head up.
"That's not a good reason!" she said, voice finally lifting. "That's not how normal people think!"
"I'm not really good at the normal thing either," Touma replied, shrugging with one shoulder. "Guess that makes two of us."
She didn't laugh. Didn't even smirk.
But the corners of her mouth twitched.
Just a little.
Silence stretched between them. Not awkward. Not yet comfortable. Just... full of things neither had said yet.
Kamijou finally nodded toward the chair beside the bed. "You can sit if you want. I mean, unless you're planning to interrogate me standing. I'd respect that, honestly."
Yumiya didn't respond immediately.
Her body moved before her brain caught up.
She pulled the chair back, sat down carefully, and kept her posture stiff. Her twintails brushed against the fabric of her hoodie as she lowered her gaze.
"...You didn't even know my name," she said.
Touma blinked.
"Still don't."
"...It's Rakko. Yumiya Rakko."
He nodded slowly. "Yumiya, huh. I'll try to remember that before I forget everything again."
Yumiya's expression darkened for a second, panic almost flashing but he raised a hand quickly.
"Joking. Just joking. Bad joke. Sorry."
She didn't reply.
Instead, she looked at his bandages again.
Then at his face.
Then away. The nurses outside were still whispering behind the door of the hallway.
"I told you! Look! They're talking now."
"You said kiss. That sounds like talking."
"Whatever, they're definitely something. This is Academy City romantic tension counts as an experiment."
"Yeah, yeah. But I doubt any progress will be made. It looks as if they've yet to know eachother, Rui."
Kamijou tilted his head.
"...Did you hear something?"
Yumiya's ears turned red. "No." she lied.
She heard all of it. But she wasn't going to let him know that.
Not yet. While she's at it, the sniper took some mental notes to silence the eavesdroppers on a later date possibly.
Kamijou leaned back against the pillow, a tired smile on his lips. "Well, anyway... thanks for dropping by for this poor Kamijou. It's weird waking up without knowing who's still around."
Yumiya's fingers curled again.
And then, quietly, she said, "...I'm still here."
It wasn't a confession or anything. But it wasn't nothing either.
It was progress.
A/N: Okay, slightly shorter chapter. But just by a little bit. Jk! This was slightly longer and I intend to not do this every time! It gets hard to find details if I do! Now, I need everyone to be real with me. How was my writing?