Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans...or Wheel of Fortune. But I do own a TV Remote.
Dedication: Becky, because we're gonna burninate the author of Touching Spirit Bear. (The kid gets mauled by a bear in chapter eight, and he has to crap later on but can't move and it's nasty and then he gets hungry and eats his puke. Yeeeaaah...don't read it.)
Dull beeping from nearby droned on, filling my ears. It was really annoying, and it wasn't helping my severe headache at all. I pulled the pillow out from underneath me, slamming it on top of my head to drown out the noise. After a moment, I realized something was odd. 'Why do I have a pillow? Shouldn't I be on the...' Memories of the fight with Fang flowed back into my head, and I shot up in the bed I was on. "Kori!"
I looked around the room, frantically. I was in a hospital. To my right, was a wall with a small window in it, the light of the half-moon the only visible thing in the dark landscape? To my left, there was a monitor, and a few feet away, a bed. I could hear the quiet breathing of whoever it was behind the curtain which blocked them from view.
The door handle began to jiggle, and my eyes shot towards the door. It opened, and a short lady who looked in her twenties walked in, holding a clipboard in her gloved hands. "Oh, you are awake! Your friend was waiting for you to wake up, but I had advised her to go to sleep. You might as well get some rest, too. It is 4AM."
"My friend? Who?" I questioned.
"The red-headed one, Ms.Anders," she replied, pointing toward the bed across the room. "She's here, too. Don't wake her up, though. She was up until at least two. She needs her rest." The nurse scribbled down something on her clipboard, and turned on her heels, walking out the door. As it closed lightly behind her, I climbed off the bed, and limped over toward Kori's, my legs still tired and sore. I pulled the curtain aside, and looked at her. A cast was placed on her left arm and was held in a sling. Her right had been bandaged up to stop the bleeding. It was horrifying to know that this was my entire fault in the first place. If I had listened to Raven's advice and did a better job of avoiding Kitten, then the fight would have never happened.
"Kori?" I tapped her elbow with my right hand, which was bandaged due to the cut I got when I knocked the tap off the sink. She groaned lightly in her sleep, and her eyes slowly opened.
"Richard!" she exclaimed, stretching up and throwing her arms around me. "You are all right! The doctors were afraid you might have received damage to your brain..." She giggled lightly at this, and I rubbed the back of my head, feeling a bandage wrapped around it that traveled up to my forehead and back.
"Yeah, I'm fine. And I think I'm all right in the head, too. You ok?"
"I am feeling much better than I did before, although I must wear this for a little while." She frowned and lifted up her broken left arm, obviously displeased. "Although, I guessed it's better than a broken nose." She smiled a bit and let out a small laugh. I brought a hand up to my bandaged nose and grimaced. I probably looked like a giant bruise.
"I don't think I'll be going to school for a while."
"Why not? They said we are to go home tonight, and Fang has been suspended, so once we go back, we will not be attacked."
"I probably look like a piñata that someone tried to tape back together."
"Richard, you look fine. Much more than that, even..." she muttered. I blushed lightly, and when she noticed that I was staring at her, she did too. "I said that out loud, didn't I?"
"Yup." She turned away to hide her red face, but I put a hand on her cheek and turned her head back to face me. "But, don't worry. I think you're very fine, too." She looked at me confused, and I smirked. It was a lot easier to admit something when using American slang...
"Can't they just buy a vowel already?"
"Don't tell me you're watching that." My eyes shot over to the door and saw Raven standing there, Tara and Garfield behind her.
"Maybe..."
"Friends!" Kori exclaimed, hugging them. Raven groaned while the other two just stood there.
"Ok, hug's over," Raven said annoyed, pushing Kori off. The three of them walked into the room, the girls sitting on the beds, Garfield on a plastic chair.
"So, I guess the rumor that Richard's paralyzed isn't true?" Tara asked, placing some flowers on a small table between the beds. There was a small tag on it that a bunch of people had signed, including Raven, Garfield, Tara, Victor, Barbara, and Wally.
"Or the one about Kori's arm being torn off?" Garfield questioned.
"No," I replied. "What other things are people saying?"
"Well, there's those, one saying you guys faked it to get out of school, one saying that you guys were trying to kill yourselves, and one saying you're dead," Raven answered. 'Weird people... ' I thought. 'Very weird people... '
Kori stepped out of the front door of her large house, a light blue sweatshirt over her uniform to keep her warm in the cool November weather. She walked down the stairs to the sidewalk and came next to me. "Are you ready to go?"
"I've been ready for about 5 minutes," I replied, taking her right arm and leading her down the street. We walked through the town towards the school, taking the long way for once. Normally we would walk across lawns, cut through Raven's house, and jump Ms. Rouge's fence, but today, due to our...injuries, we couldn't.
When we reached the school, a lot of people were staring at us. It was creepy. When we got into homeroom, a girl with short pink hair in pigtails came up to me. I think her name started with a "J"… "Nice nose."
"Shut up." I sat in my seat between Garfield and Kori, dropping my head onto the desk. The bell rang soon after and the announcements began. The only thing somewhat interesting was the announcement the 22nd was a half-day. After the announcements, Ms. Rouge began to take attendance.
"Richard Gray—pick up your head, Richard. And take off your hood in school."
"No." Ms. Rouge gave an annoyed groan and walked over to me, flipping the hood of my head. I grunted and she whacked my head. "Aaaargh!" I put my hands on my head, my temple burning in pain. "Why the hell did you do that!"
"I got your head up, didn't I?" Ms. Rouge retorted. I glared at her angrily.
"You don't whack somebody in the head if they it smashed into the ground two days ago!" I growled, lifting up the hair on my forehead. Below it was the bandage that wrapped around my head. Ms. Rouge winced and walked away. I pulled my jacket hood back over my head and slumped down into my chair. Everyone was staring again.
During English, Kitten wasn't there, which was good and bad. Good, because she couldn't screw my life up any more. Bad, because no one could pass notes too Kori, but she was too busy getting her cast signed, anyway.
During History, I resorted to talking to Barbara, since we sit next to each other, due to alphabetical order. "So, what happened exactly?" I sighed.
"I'd…rather not talk about it…" Barbara raised an eyebrow at me.
"Why not? It couldn't be that bad if all you did was break your nose…" I lifted the hair from my forehead again, revealing the bandage. "What did you do?"
"According to Kori, I got whacked in the back of the head, and my forehead smacked into the ground. I think I cracked my skull a bit or something. They had to check me for brain damage—don't say anything. The bandage is stopping my head from bleeding on you." Barbara shuddered and turned away, muttering an "ouch".
By the time lunch came, I officially declared this the second worst day this year, the worst being two days ago. Almost getting kissed by Kitten and dying is worse than getting laughed at for a bandaged nose.
"Richard, you must eat something."
"I'm not hungry, Kor." Kori frowned at me and placed a hand on my shoulder.
"Are you feeling well? Is something bothering you?"
"I'm fine." I began to trace little circles on the table with my finger. Kori moved her tray of food, which was now just the few remaining crumbs, over towards me slightly.
"Richard, if you do not eat—"
"I'm not hungry."
"Something is troubling you."
"I said I'm fine!" I growled and sunk down into my seat. Kori turned away from me, sadness in her eyes. "Sorry. I'm just…not in a good mood today."
"I do not blame you. I am also not in the best of moods."
"Why not?" It was weird to hear Kori say she was in a bad mood. I wasn't even sure if it was possible.
"I…" The bell rang, cutting her off. She sighed and walked over to the garbage can, throwing out her tray. She began to walk out the room, and down the hall. I quickly snatched her arm, and pulled her aside.
"Come on," I told her, pulling her aside. We walked over to the exit behind the gym, and Kori constantly asked me where we were going. I pushed open the doors and walked into the large field behind the school. I spotted a tree near the edge of the field, and leaded us over to it. "Tell me what's wrong."
"Richard, we must go to class," Kori stammered. I just sat down, pulling her with me.
"This is more important. Why aren't you happy? You're always happy." I put a hand on her left shoulder, and she shuddered. That was the bad arm. She pushed me away and stood up, shivering a bit from the cold.
"I'm going to go to class…" She took one step, but froze as I wrapped by arms around her. I could feel her shivering stop from the warmth. She began to try to break out of my arms, but I wouldn't let her go. A strong gust of freezing wind blew through the air, and she stopped, turning around and burying herself into my jacket for warmth. I sat back down by the tree and wrapped the jacket around us to keep warm.
"So, what happened?" Kori looked down at the ground, and then up at me. For a moment she just stared, but then she began to raise her hand up to my forehead, lifting up the hair that hid my bandage.
"There…is this rumor. It is why the fight started. They said you were…fighting over Kitten, because she…kissed you," she answered. I winced at the thought of that.
"Well, it's somewhat right. Kitten was trying to kiss me, but Fang showed up and thought I was trying to kiss her—which I'd never even consider doing—and he got all mad at me for it," I explained. "Besides, it's your job to kiss me, apparently." Kori blushed and looked away, out at the gray sky.
"People seem to like to see your displeasure when I kiss you," she muttered. I began to twirl a strand of her long hair absentmindedly. She didn't seem to notice.
"It doesn't bother me," I replied.
"It bothers you when Kitten tries to."
"Yeah, well, I don't like Kitten." Kori smiled and leaned her head on my shoulder.
"Does that mean you like me?" she questioned.
"Maybe," I answered. She snorted and lifted up her head, looking at me.
"Is that a yes or a no?"
"It's a maybe, Kori. I'll tell you, but…not now. Someday." She frowned and leaned over, kissing my cheek. I blushed slightly.
"Maybe I can persuade you to tell me," she mused. I rolled my eyes.
"Good luck with that." Kori sighed and punched me in the shoulder. I laughed and pulled her over closer toward me, her head leaning on me again. We sat there for a little while quietly as the sky got darker. Soon, it began to rain. "We should go back inside."
"Agreed." The two of us got up, Kori wearing my jacket, and ran over towards the school. Water splashed up and soaked our jeans as we ran through the forming puddles. Our shoes felt heavy as mud caught on to them from the wet ground. Before we even reached the door, it was pouring. I heard a shriek from behind me, and turned around seeing Kori on the ground. She slipped.
"Come on," I commanded as I pulled her up. She wiped mud off her skirt as we ran the rest of the distance toward the door. When we got there, I tore it open and ran inside, shivering. Kori handed my jacket back, and I quickly put it on and warmed up. I pulled out my cell phone and looked at the clock. "It's 12:07. The bell's gonna ring in six minutes. Let's sit in here until it does. It'll be weird for us to be walking around until then."
"It'll look stranger if we walk around soaked," Kori reasoned.
"Let's go get dry clothes from the locker rooms before the period ends." The two of us then walked into the building, parting ways when Kori went into the girl's locker room. When I reached the guy's locker room, I got a quick glance at myself in the mirror. My hair had gotten messed up, revealing the bandage. I quickly fixed it, hiding the sign of my injury from sight. 'Nobody needs to see that.'
Pretty long chapter. 2,300-something words. I have Word, now, so it's a lot easier to write this. Notepad is not fun. You can't use italics, and it doesn't spell check. And I make typos a lot, so spell check helps me when I write. And Word's Word Count Tool helps me see if the chapters are decent lengths.
I'm not exactly a medical genius, so...try not to be too critical on the injuries xD