As it turned out, physical therapy was not easy.

Of course, no one had ever said it would be—in fact, everyone from the doctors and his psychologist to Reborn and Dino had stressed exactly the opposite. Gokudera hadn't given the difficulty any thought; after all, he'd had to face down more than one "extremely, painfully difficult" task in his life, how different could it possibly be?

He was learning that physical therapy was, as the baseball idiot would say, a whole new ballgame. It wasn't the same as Shamal's tutoring, or facing down the Kokuyo Gang, the crazy knife-fanatic Bel, or the Millefiore and Gamma. This wasn't the same as fighting the Simon Family, or anything else like that. Every time he faced a challenge like those, no matter how hard or stressful or seemingly impossible, he'd always come through for the Family and for the Tenth. But this…

Even a single step was exhausting, frustrating him to no end because he knew that he could run for miles and miles if only his legs would obey his demands. He hated the feeling of helplessness and weakness that the wheelchair brought, hated it with all his being, but he could barely stand without falling on his ass.

It wasn't even his legs that had been injured, no; that was what really got to him. It had been his back that had taken the damage, a mess of nerves and muscles that couldn't simply regenerate; hell, it was entirely likely that it would never heal.

Never leaving his side, Yamamoto had always been so kind to him, of course. He was strong, but gentle, always encouraging him to get up and move, and always there to catch him when his legs buckled and gave out. He was also endlessly patient; sometimes, Gokudera wished the idiot wasn't so tolerating. What he wouldn't give for Yamamoto to lose his cool, for the baseball idiot to shout at him, or even just break a little under the pressure. Gokudera knew he couldn't be pleasant to be around when he was cursing and losing his temper.

This was one of those times.

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Yeah, this one is pretty short, but don't worry, I'm not done yet. So, review!