Natsuki did not manage to get out of bed and onto her feet for a good few days and it took a few hours to get used to walking again. And now here she was at school, taking her time to change out of her shoes into the school plimsolls, even though she knew she was very late. She tried to raise her arm to put the shoes into the locker but found that her stab wound and broken ribs were restricting movement while her other arm was in a sling to allow her collarbone to heal (even though she did not use it when riding her Ducati).
It took a couple of tries but Natsuki managed to put them in and close it. But by this point she was utterly fed up of it all and seething at the fact that such a small action had reduced her to a panting weakling. She rested her heated forehead against the cool locker surfaces. She still could not believe that she was stupid enough to fall into one of the most obvious traps, after all these years of so-called 'experience'. She angrily slammed a fist into the locker before her. But as the pain rocked through her injured body, she revelled in it as it managed to dull a small amount of the self-loathing that was currently eating away at her core and threatening to make her nauseous.
The sound of plimsoled feet pattering on the polished school floor was heard and gradually got louder, prompting Natsuki to decide that she would prepare a glare to scare away the unsuspecting student about to pass her. But to both the student's and Natsuki's surprise, they recognised each other.
Textbooks clattered onto the floor as Mai's arms went slack in shock at the state her friend was in. the normally pale girl was even paler than Mai had thought possible, with her long navy hair brushed back and held out of the way by a bandage wrapped around her forehead and the skin visible outside of the girl's long sleeve hoodie and school skirt was either covered in bandages or new scars with one arm in a sling. But the two most striking parts of Natsuki's haggard image were: firstly, the fact that only one emerald eye was visible, the other having been hidden behind a gauze taped to her face with the ends of a crimson scar peeking out above and below it; and secondly, this singular eye held so much emptiness that Mai felt her heart clench and her limbs lose strength.
"N-Natsuki?" Mai's brain finally regained control of her body and tongue began to function. "What h-happened? You look... terrible..."
The single emerald blinked at her comment before Mai heard a gruff, "Thanks, Mai." The sarcastic retort gave Mai the ridiculous hope that the Ice Princess still had some fight in her. She gave Natsuki an apologetic look and quickly bent down to collect the scattered textbooks, while swatting away Natsuki's attempt to help.
"I don't know how but you're badly injured. As soon as I've dropped these textbooks off, we are taking you to the infirmary." Mai saw a protest bubbling and quickly added, "This way Midori and Yohko-sensei can explain your absences to Fumi-san."
She was pleasantly surprised by a tired nod of agreement and the pair set off towards their classroom in a slightly stagnant silence. And so, Mai thought about how Natsuki had been a dutiful student for about the first month of the new school year but slowly she had begun to miss the first few lessons of school on some days. She had initially thought that old habits did indeed die hard but it was strange that Natsuki still managed to get her homework to Mai to hand in on time on her behalf. If her rebellious nature did not care about attendance then why bother with homework? Now that she had seen these injuries, Mai mused that there was a lot more going on than just Natsuki's apparent gaming obsession.
Before she knew it, her feet had taken her to the door of their classroom and Mai quietly told Natsuki to stay by the door while she delivered the textbooks and spoke to Midori. Knowing that Natsuki would agree given her dislike of drawing attention to herself (and Mai just knew she would attract all sorts of attention with this appearance and quite possibly a few more admirers to the 'badass Ice Princess' fanbase - especially if Chie managed to catch wind of it), she slid the door open with her foot and sauntered in without waiting for a reply.
Midori immediately took the textbooks from her but froze upon catching a glimpse of Natsuki through a small gap in the door that Mai had deliberately kept open. The normally rambunctious Hime quite somberly turned to Mai and without whispering much more than, "Mai-san, please report to Yohko-sensei", she simply excused her from the rest of the lesson.
As they began to walk towards Yohko's office, Mai glanced at the girl she had come to call her friend and once again felt her heart squeeze uncomfortably at the sight of her bandaged and limping form. But this time, refusing to give in to the awkward quietness, she resolutely turned to her friend and went for Natsuki's favoured blunt approach. "
Natsuki, what's going on? There is no way you got these injuries from playing computer games."
"I don't want to talk about it." Natsuki's terse reply almost threw Mai off.
Almost.
"Well, I'm worried sick about you..."
"You don't have to be, alright?"
"What do you mean, I don't 'have to be'? I'm your friend, Natsuki, I care about you!"
Natsuki blinked a single emerald eye in disbelief and Mai simultaneously wanted to hug and punch the girl for it.
"Natsuki, I just want to help… I mean, look at you! You can hardly walk!"
Natsuki knew that Mai was going to be ridiculously persistent unless she gave her something to mull over. She had to give her a relatively realistic alibi.
"I'm not stupid, Natsuki, you must be up to something dangerous!"
"Look, I'm street racing for money, alright?!"
Mai opened her mouth to speak but ended up leaving it almost comically hanging as shock stalled the words she had wanted to say. Natsuki took the opportunity to continue on towards Yohko-sensei, refusing to see the pity and god-damned sympathy she knew she would.
Misplaced sympathy but sympathy nonetheless.
But nobody would ever understand what she was going through.
And it was better that nobody knew.
When Natsuki slid open the door of the Infirmary, she was greeted by the sight of Yohko-sensei and Nao (of all the people she wanted to avoid). Both initially appeared surprised but then the former merely sighed, while the latter merely sneered. As Yohko stood up to get Natsuki's file and a slightly shell-shocked Mai entered the room, Nao chose to break the ice with her usual tact.
"So, now you know how it feels to lose an eye, Kuga."
"Nao!" Mai immediately stepped in, expecting Natsuki to react badly and Yohko-sensei to start asking unwanted questions but to Mai and even Nao's second or third shock of the day, Natsuki merely blinked her tired forest green eye and looked impassively into the glaring lime green, before following a fortunately oblivious Yohko to an Infirmary bed when beckoned.
"Was there a need for that, Nao?" Mai hissed as Yohko-sensei drew the curtains around Natsuki's bed. She was met with silence and confusion as Nao continued to stare at the spot Natsuki had been standing.
"Why didn't she react?" Nao muttered to no-one in particular before quietly slipping out of the Infirmary, leaving Mai standing there in yet another stunned silence.
This one, that one… they were all acting weird today…
Meanwhile, Yohko inspected, cleaned and re-dressed the wounds and as ever recorded them into her notes but did not even bother to ask questions – she had learnt a long time ago that Natsuki would only talk if she wanted to. Once she was done, she offered Natsuki pain medication, which was as always refused, and pulled the curtains back to find Mai patiently waiting on one of the chairs. At Yohko's nod, Mai rose from her seat and made her way over to her friend as she left to speak to Midori and Fumi.
"Natsuki..."
Just from the tone of Mai's voice, Natsuki had a feeling she was in for either a long lecture or further interrogation and so she closed her good eye to avoid seeing her friend's concerned ones, as she felt the bed shift as Mai sat down on it. She was however caught off guard when Mai began, "Look, I'm sorry about earlier... I-I didn't mean to pry. It's just that I'm worried about you, you know?"
Guilt.
Natsuki was no stranger to the feeling of guilt gnawing at her innards – she bore the guilt of surviving while her only family perished because the First District wanted her, she had lived through years of guilt when she failed to find the answers to their deaths and she had stomped on the guilt on the rare occasions she had glimpsed the hurt in Shizuru's eyes when she brushed her off.
So this… this guilt, was not new.
She had just lied to one of the very few people who bothered to care about her.
But she had always done it to protect them.
The less they knew the safer they were.
"No, I'm sorry, Mai… I didn't mean to snap at you."
Mai shook her head and quickly checking that they were definitely alone in the Infirmary, asked quietly, "So… you've been illegally racing your motorbike for money… And I'm guessing you crashed this time?"
Clearing her throat, Natsuki nodded and looked down at her bandaged hands, knowing it would be easier to lie if she did not look into Mai's eyes, "I… was making a lot of money through these races and… just got careless, you know?"
"But why, Natsuki? What on earth were you thinking when you got involved in this?"
Natsuki let out a light snort at Mai's borderline naïve comment. "Mai… I've been around these… circuits for as long as I've had my Ducati. You're forgetting that I'm not exactly a poster-child for good behaviour."
This made Mai stop. She took another good look at her friend and had to firmly remind herself that this young girl in front of her had been through some horrors in her life. While she did not know the details, all sorts of rumours were rife within the school – ranging from the Ice Princess being 'the youngest the Yakuza ever recruited' to 'an assassin using high school as a cover' but always pertaining to violence.
Even Chie was finding it hard to discern any truth from gossip, with the only thing that was for certain was that Natsuki was an orphan with no father in the picture and a mother who passed away in questionable circumstances, leaving an angry and hurt (and visibly scarred) girl hellbent on vengeance. Mai swallowed hard and also looked down at the bandaged hands that Natsuki was so intently studying and wondered if people had really died by them. And if they had, Mai wondered if Natsuki felt any peace at all now that the Carnival was over and the First District was gone.
In the silence that reigned after Natsuki's last comment, Natsuki had waited for some sort of chiding remark but when she heard none, she had wondered if Mai was judging her for her life choices, given that she had revealed some of her intentions of revenge to her during the Carnival. But her head shot up at the sound of sniffling.
"M-Mai… are you… are you crying? Why are you crying?" Natsuki suddenly panicked and forgetting her injuries, struggled off the bed to find her some tissues. Hobbling back to the bed, Natsuki merely sat on the edge of it next to Mai, waiting uncomfortably while she accepted the tissues with a watery, "Thanks…" and tried to calm down.
When Mai had finally gained some control over her emotions, she looked up only to find herself fighting back another sob at the sheer amount of concern in Natsuki's only visible eye and Mai wondered how anyone could go through what this girl probably had and not turn into a heartless monster. Without thinking twice, she threw her arms around the girl, albeit gently, and as always, her heart clenched when she felt Natsuki going rigid in her arms – clearly unused to this sort of human contact or affection. Pulling back, Mai collected her thoughts and cupping Natsuki's face to look deep into the now confused emerald, she whispered fiercely, "Promise me you won't get yourself killed."
The emerald blinked, "Wh-What?"
"I know you won't stop all this… racing stuff if I asked you to… but could you at least promise me that you'll be more careful?" Mai's instincts told her that whilst the "street racing" was a likely explanation for Natsuki's injuries, there had to be more to it. But she also knew that Natsuki would sooner die than tell her the truth right now and so decided to play along with the story Natsuki was willing to share. "I… I don't know what I'd do if you got yourself killed, Natsuki…"
"Mai…" Natsuki looked… overwhelmed if anything and Mai saw her struggling to formulate a sentence for a few moments before she finally replied with a gruff, "I-I promise I'll try…"
Mai wiped away the last of her tears as she smiled with genuine gratefulness and pulling the girl into another gentle yet awkward hug, whispered, "Thank you, Natsuki…"
But this time, Mai felt Natsuki shyly returning the embrace.