Cinderella: For one shining moment, everything is right in the muse's otherwise dark and miserable world, but when the spell is broken…

Once upon a time, on an island vexed by despair, Hinata Hajime was ill in his cottage, and Tsumiki Mikan had become his caretaker.

A simple fever, a bug; in fact, some may refer to it as a common cold, but still, in his ailing state, Hinata had become Tsumiki's patient. Hinata, of course, was tremendously bothered by this unlucky development. Tsumiki, on the other hand, witnessed her world growing as lovely as the flowers Koizumi and Saionji had brought to comfort the suffering.

Tsumiki had placed the flowers on the table with care, and the wild purple orchids permeated the hot air with island fragrance as Hinata passed the day bedridden.

The nurse blushed when she looked at the sleeping boy, and felt weak in her bandaged knees. The symptoms of lovesickness plagued her like all of the other conditions she suffered, that of which she could count on two hands and ten toes: generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, inferiority complex, megalophobia, dysphoria, agoraphobia, scopophobia, migraines, obsessive compulsive disorder, severe clumsiness that resulted in many daily achings and bruisings, speech impediment, forgetfulness, and - tap, tap, tap, went her fingers - compulsive ticks.

Tsumiki sat tapping her fingers on the desk as she watched Hinata, and the already strange uninhabited island around her had become much more strangely light and beautiful, for one blissful, shining fact: because he needed her. Hinata Hajime needed her, and that made her, Tsumiki Mikan, special.

The circumstance was unfathomable, and once again provoked weakness of the knees.

To possess such power...

Hinata grunted softly from the white linen sheets, and Tsumiki immediately rushed to his side. Examining him, there didn't seem to be anything amiss. Her patient was merely wandering in his sleep, traipsing about in a dream world, crossing deserts and oceans, orchestrating space and time travel while his earthly body remained in her dutiful charge.

She sighed happily, releasing the building worry that had stacked like concrete blocks in her chest. Her hands fell from her heart and shifted her apron, fidgeting, fidgeting again-

A ray of light caught her eye, and her nervousness scattered as she gazed out the cottage window at what appeared to be a perfect summer sun, artificial in its variegated color. Tsumiki's frail heart was still at odds with the fact that for once she was like a princess in a story, tending to her hero...

The other kids stopped by the cottage, but she waved them away, as she had waved away the girls after they dropped off the flowers. She waved them away as she did the buzz of anxiety in her ribs, as she did the insect wildlife, as she waved away stray hairs in front of her face that had been obscuring her view.

Tsumiki made herself comfortable in a chair by Hinata's bedside, reviewing a medical book Sonia had leant her from the library.

To be receiving gifts of friendship... Sonia's kindness was almost as unbelievable as this island was a paradise. And Tsumiki enjoyed the book as she rarely enjoyed anything in her normally sad and dark frame of mind where fear encircled her like sharks at snack time. But at Hinata's side she felt as strong as the diagrams of muscles she studied, and unbroken like the bones of carefully illustrated skeletons laid out before her on the pristine textbook pages.

A slight breeze brushed into the room, wafting the smell of citrus and honey, and ruffled Hinata's already messy hair.

Tsumiki smiled, and in that moment Hinata Hajime opened his eyes, returning her smile with one that filled her with warmth and colored her cheeks.

"Good morning, Tsumiki."

"H-Hinata-san! Good m-morning-wait, don't talk, you aren't well enough to speak! Oh no, I shouldn't have said anything, never mind me talking to you-!"

Hinata shuffled and sat up in bed, a motion that startled her not at the abruptness with which he sat, but because he was apparently well enough to sit.

"Actually, I feel pretty great," said Hinata, stretching and taking a deep breath as he bobbed in place, readjusting himself against the pillow. "Resting all day and drinking that soup you brought made a huge difference."

With these hopeful words from her patient, Tsumiki grew pallid and ill. She had done her job, yes-and a part of her felt proud of her nursing abilities, lest she ever felt proud of anything.

Yet, as was always the flipside of her occupation, she was now unneeded by the healthy boy who had previously been her dependent.

A gross feeling bubbled in her stomach, the feeling that always crept up when her patients were discharged from her aid, perverse thoughts that she wished they could stay unwell forever, so that they would need her, and revere her, and that she would be useful to them, especially here, with Hinata...

He reached out and hugged her, pulling her close so that their chins rested on each other's shoulders, and her eyes closed for just a second in what was supernaturally pure bliss-

But then he let go, and she felt her soul shatter as he said to her,

"Thank you so much, Tsumiki. You really are an amazing nurse. I'm all better now, thanks to you."

Such words Hinata said to her were not the words Tsumiki Mikan heard. The sentences broke apart in her head, echoing painfully with the onset of a migraine.

"-All... better... all... better... all-bet-eh, I don't need you anymore. Thanks, but I'm done here. Useless. I don't need you. You can leave now."

...And then many voices, rising up around Hinata's; some voices she could remember, some she couldn't...

"Go away!"

"Ugly girl!"

"Stupid!"

"You dumb slut!"

"Worthless piece of trash!"

"Get out of here, I can't look at you!"

"All better... all better... all better..."

Tsumiki's insides shook. Her throat caught and she couldn't swallow.

"Y-Y-Yeah-" the stutter worsened- "I-I'm g-glad, H-H-Hinata-s-san... y-you're all b-better... hehe..."

"Are you feeling alright, Tsumiki?" Hinata asked.

Instinctively, he raised a hand and put it to his nurse's forehead, fearing that caring for him had exposed her to sickness. She did feel warm, with her panic and the way she had begun to melt under his gaze, though he did not know these were the reasons.

"Hehe... I-I'm fine," said Tsumiki, closing her eyes and taking short shallow breaths as Hinata removed his hand. "F-fine. You're the patient here, Hinata-san! Please don't waste your energy on something like me!"

Hinata bit his lip. There were many things off with Tsumiki's response, most importantly that she did not seem fine at all, and his heart ached in the odd way it did when he watched her experience such distress throughout the day. He wanted to say something to help, but no words would come, and he settled with kindness as his chosen cure.

"Okay, Tsumiki. Well, I'm gonna get up and shower and then I think I'll go to the restaurant and get something to eat. Do you want to meet me there after?"

"No, I won't bother you anymore! I-I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! Sorry! I'm just going to g-give this book back to S-Sonia-san and... and leave you alone!"

Her eyes turned flat and morose and lost any internal light they may have held, and she ran out the cottage door and fell down the steps, losing one of her shoes. She hastily put it back on through a waterfall of tears and sprinted away, blood flowing from beneath one of her bandages as she had ripped open an old wound.

Faintly aware of Hinata calling after her in what she was sure were shouts to be gone, she could no longer sense any of the beauty of the island, as her magical world had vanished, and left her once again scared and alone.

NOTES

hello friends, this is a collection of one-shots and drabbles inspired by a magic anon lists' prompt post centered around Disney characters. i have no particular attachment to the Disney aspect of the challenge, i just really liked the prompts, but i am doing my best to have these be ~magical~ and reference the initial inspiration if i can. i have challenged myself here to not pick a single prompt or character for myself, and instead i have friends picking for me, and now you!

the post is here (+'s are dots):

if-youhaveghosts + tumblr + com / post / 90434923005 / disney-characters-magic-anon

the promps with a strikethrough are either completed or in progress, but the others are fair game. please put in my tumblr inbox a prompt with the DR/SDR2/DR0/etc character or ship you would like to be the muse, and maybe you'll see it here. ;)

next up: Fix-it-Felix, muse Souda

xo C