'Have you done the deed?'
'Yes Sir.'
'Good.'
The man turned to face the anxious teen in front of him. The kid tried to look as relaxed as possible but he knew better. Everyone feared him, this mere teenager was no exception. 'Impressive work.'
'Thank you Sir. Can I just ask... why didn't we want to kill her?'
Sir turned to face the boy and he stepped back in fear. Sir chuckled, the kid's fear simply amused him. 'My boy, think of the bigger picture. We want this boy to suffer. We want him to doubt everything he thinks he knows, we want him to tear himself apart with guilt. I would like to see his pain and I am going to use his loved ones as pawns.'
The boy shivered. 'I... I understand Sir.'
Sir gave a curt nod and dismissed him with a wave of his hand. The boy pushed his horn-rimmed glasses further up his nose and pushed his blonde hair out of his eyes. Sir knew he was hesitating, he had another question. But unfortunately for him, he was in no mood to talk.
'GO!' He snapped angrily. His tone was enough for the boy's face to drain of colour and he left without another word. Sir grunted with displeasure and began to pace the room. His plan was beginning to work. First, he was going to slowly begin to hurt every single one of the boy's loved ones. Now that the pathetic girl had been hit, it was time for the next step. He walked over to his desk and sat at the chair, taking off his hat and setting it on the desk next to him. His laptop whirred to life and he smirked at the image displayed on the screen. Excellent.
'I will get my revenge, my love.' He purred, gently stroking the photo of a strikingly beautiful woman. 'I will destroy him and everyone he loves. I will tear his life apart just as he tore mine apart.'
The laptop pinged with a message and he scanned it over briefly. He tapped a few keys and slammed it shut in satisfaction. Good.
Hiro Hamada was going to pay for everything he'd done to him.
Rena was aware of a painful, dull ache that radiated throughout her entire body. She shifted slightly and winced as shock-waves of pain were sent reverberating across her frame; ricocheting off her bones and settling deep inside her muscles. She almost didn't open her eyes. The desire to simply shut down and go back to sleep was overwhelming. But her need to know what those sounds were and what was going on won her over. Almost reluctantly, her eyes slid open and she was instantly almost blinded with a fluorescent light and gleaming white ceiling tiles. Not a promising start.
Naturally, her hair fell in front of her face as soon as she lifted her head even slightly. She lifted her hand to brush it out of her eyes and a slight tugging sensation in her hand confirmed her worst suspicions. She glanced down and groaned at the cannula stuck into it. Yay! A hospital. She tried to sit up but found that she was both too exhausted and too in pain to. Carefully, she pressed a hand to her chest. For whatever reason she felt as though her entire torso had been crushed under some kind of immense force. It then occurred to her that she had no idea what had happened to land her here. Her entire upper body hurt the most and she could feel a couple of stitches in her palms. She scrunched up her nose and yep, there was a breathing tube that she could not believe she'd missed. In fact, Rena was only just beginning to fully process her surroundings. So she was in the hospital, that much she knew. She hurt a lot and she didn't know why. She wanted this breathing tube off. Now.
She shifted positions so she was more in a sitting position and coughed. As soon as she did so, her vision of the hospital was obstructed as someone flung themselves at her. From the way in which they managed to both be gentle enough as to not hurt her at all yet suffocate her in a hug she knew instantly it was Tadashi.
'Hey.' She whispered. Her voice was gravelly and the word scratched at her dry throat.
Tadashi pulled away and glared at her. 'Don't pull that on me. You almost die and the first word you say is HEY?'
Rena smiled weakly. 'Isn't that basically what you said though?' That's all she could manage to get out. Wordlessly, Tadashi reached over for the water jug on the bedside table and handed her a glass. She took it and gulped it down gratefully, the glass shaking in her weak hand. 'I'm fine.' She snapped, noticing how Tadashi was eyeing the glass warily. She'd been awake for ten seconds and he was already irking her. A new record, it had to be.
'Okay!' He said, holding his hands up.
'I...' Rena hesitated, unsure of what to ask. Her head was pounding and it felt strangely fuzzy, almost as though someone had shoved cotton wool in her ears. 'What? How? I don't...?'
Tadashi shook his head, his voice thick. 'Honestly, I don't know what happened either. You were really weird for a while and then... and then...' he swallowed, tears forming in his eyes. Rena felt sick. Whatever happened, clearly it hadn't been good. Her chest throbbed nastily again and a sharp jolt went up her arm where one of the cannulas was connected. 'And before you ask where Hiro is, he's here. He went to go grab some food.'
Rena nodded and sighed in relief. She knew that Hiro wouldn't abandon her. Tadashi seemed close to tears so she didn't really want to push him any further with questions that he was unable to answer. The teen in question sat down heavily in the chair behind him and Rena squinted at him, noticing the ways in which his shoulders slumped forwards and how there were dark circles around his eyes.
'When was the last time you slept?' She asked him suspiciously. God, this was SO Tadashi. She remembered sitting opposite him when Hiro was in her place. Tadashi had gone as long as possible without sleeping, determined to always keep an eye on Hiro. He'd passed out after about four days of refusing to leave the hospital. It was a good thing that she'd woken up earlier, before Tadashi managed to kill himself or something. It occurred to her then that she had no idea how long she'd been out, just as she had no idea about what had landed her there in the first place.
Tadashi ignored her. 'I'm gonna call a doctor, alright? They'll need to know that you're awake.'
Rena sat up quickly to protest and instantly regretted it. It was the tiniest movement but the pain shut her up. 'Fine!' She muttered through gritted teeth. Apparently Tadashi was too exhausted to notice because he simply nodded and left to find a doctor. Rena sighed and reached across to fiddle with the machines until she found the controls for the painkiller drip. She had no idea which it was but cranked it right up, assuming it was morphine. Sitting back and waiting for the medicine to work, she sat up and surveyed the room properly. It was extremely small with what she presumed as an even smaller bathroom leading off from it. Chairs were scattered haphazardly across the room and she could spot her family's stuff littered across them. Tadashi's cap had been thrown on the chair to her left and Hiro's hoodie was draped over another chair by the door. Half of the room was also occupied by her bed and the million machines that had been keeping her alive. Again, her mind wandered as to why she was here in the first place. It worried her that she seemed to have little to no memory of what had happened.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of her brothers approaching. Her head turned towards the doorway just in time to spot Hiro standing there, staring at her. His eyes were wide and he dropped the snacks he was holding to the floor. He kicked them to the side and stepped towards his sister.
'I've... I've a bone to pick with you.' He said. He raised a hand to point at her threateningly but Rena wasn't stupid. Despite her slightly fractured state of mind she still saw how badly both his hand and his voice shook. 'You... you promised me! You promised me!'
'Hey!' Rena said, taken aback by his behaviour. 'Hey, come here.' She stretched her arms out and after an internal debate Hiro sank down into her arms, hugging her way too gently for it to be normal Hiro behaviour. The younger teen was trying to disguise the fact that he was crying, and he wasn't very good at it. Rena saw Tadashi watching from the doorway, his face exhausted yet full of concern. She shot him a questioning look but he simply shrugged.
'I'll, uhh..' He scratched the back of his neck, unsure of what to do. He took a half-step backwards and jerked this thumb over his shoulder. Rena nodded and he closed the door behind him to give them some privacy.
'Hey!' She said again, only just managing to pull the sobbing kid off her. Ashamed of his tears, he sat down in a chair next to the bed and tried to wipe them away quickly. 'What's wrong? Come on, I'm okay! I feel fine, absolutely great in fact!' This was a lie. Truth be told, she felt like shit. But she couldn't reveal this to him, she didn't want to make whatever he was going through ten times worse. Her gut clenched as she looked at her snivelling little brother, half guilty that she'd done that to him and half utterly depressed about it.
'You promised!' He choked out, 'when Tadashi almost died you promised that you'd stay! You promised that you'd stay and you wouldn't die!'
Rena simply stared at him. What the hell was he going on about? 'But... but I am alive. I'm fine?'
'Yeah but you did die!'
He said it so matter of factly that for a second she thought he was joking. Then an awkward moment of silence passed and it occurred to her suddenly that he was being dead serious. 'No... no I didn't.' She said numbly.
Hiro shook his head. 'No you did.. you definitely did. I heard it, and so did Tadashi. He uh, he didn't take it very well truth be told. But the fact still remained that you broke your promise!'
Rena softened, realising then just how... well... young Hiro was. In that second she saw the tiny child that had grown up being picked on and would come home to her crying and snivelling about school. 'I'm sorry. I... I had no idea that happened. I don't know what's happened. Like, at all. But the fact remains that I'm still here now, yeah? I'm still alive, and clearly the promise wasn't broken because here I am! I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I'm not leaving either of you. You think Tadashi would be able to handle living without me, without either of us anyway? Nah, I hate to break it to you but I'm not letting anything take me down.'
As bleak as that conversation was, she found a silver lining in that she now knew what that pain in her chest was. Clearly it had come from the doctors trying to bring her back to life. The prospect of her dying should have terrified her, or made her want to get outside and seize life's opportunities. But no, all she wanted to do was curl up and go back to sleep and escape the pain. The morphine was beginning to do its work and she was beginning to feel a lot more tired. She lay back down and Tadashi came into the room, talking about something that she wasn't listening to. Her burning desire to know why she was there had diminished for now and she felt her eyelids slipping. She felt Tadashi squeeze her hand and mutter something but she didn't hear.
'Mmm. Going to sleep.' She murmured softly before letting herself escape once more.
