A/N: After 7 goodbyes, kinda wanted to do some more stuff with Mutsumi's character that wouldn't really fit...so enjoy? These may or may not be in chronological order, writing this part before anything else. They also do not occur in the same country. 50.5, cuz FFN doesn't allow periods in chapter titles.
Mutsumi-chan doesn't need to divide the cake.
"H...eeee….yy Mu...umi! Can y.. ..ar us!?" A voice from a glowing screen called out. Mutsumi held it in both her hands, smiling as it illuminated her face in the dark room she was in. She shifted her body, moving across the bed she was in.
"Kinda…" She responded, her eyelids heavy and tired. "Happy birthday to you!" She smiled.
"Yo..rs too!" Nino entered the screen, holding out a cake on a plate. It was like looking into a mirror, both of their long hair reaching their back and covering the sides of their forehead; only difference was Nino's ribbons and Mutsumi's clips.
"Well, time zones...so..." Mutsumi let out a chuckle as Miku and Ichika poked Nino's face with icing on their fingers. "Enjoy your cake. I have to get to bed."
"How is it o..r there?" Yotsuba asked, yelling from somewhere in the room.
"Dark, it's pretty late here." Mutsumi sighed, smiling as her eyes slowly shut. "Goodnight."
"..ood niii...fff" Someone said, in between chewing and swallowing. Mutsumi hung up, letting the room go back to the darkness, sleep taking her rather slowly that night.
She glanced around the room, hospital rooms never really had a lot to look at. On the table by her bedside, framed in a white wood, an old photo stood up to meet her. She felt her eyes start to water slightly as she rested her head on her pillow, letting sleep keep her company until sunrise. "Happy birthday to me..." She muttered, raising her arm to shield her eyes from the sunlight entering through the window. Sitting up and walking around the room, she stretched and entered the washroom. Running the tap and washing the sleep from her eyes, she resigned herself to another day of testing.
"Mutsumi Nakano. You have something that arrived for you from doctor Maruo from Japan." A voice accompanied by a knock on her door, then the sound of the door sliding open. "Ah, the washroom. I'll leave these here then. Have a nice day."
Finishing up her business, she got out of the bathroom to find a small stack of presents awaiting her by her bed. A small collection of movies, some nail polish and accessories, a few sengoku themed video games that she couldn't play for a while, a journal of pressed flowers, and a travel guide of world cuisine. She could almost imagine her sisters browsing stores and pestering the doctor to send these to her. "Happy birthday to me!"
Mutsumi-chan's days in: the hospital.
"Alright. Mutsumi, please come with me." A nurse slid her door open, a gentle smile on her face to coerce the child. The two followed, entering a room with a man in a longer coat.
"Alright, please stand on the scale here." The doctor pointed over, his accent thick and guttural but barely understandable, pulling a set of files out from a drawer. She moved obediently, seeing that she was underweight. Her body frail and pale as more and more measurements followed. Blood pressure, blood extraction for blood sugar levels among other things, bpm, eyesight. Mutsumi's tests ended quickly, leaving her free for the rest of the day. Free, relatively; she was still confined to the inside of her room.
"Is there anything you'd like?" The nurse from earlier asked, standing in the doorway while Mutsumi walked over to her bedside.
"A book or two would be appreciated." Mutsumi replied, getting herself situated. "There's not much I can do here after all." She smiled, forced and longing for something. The nurse simply nodded, leaving for a while to return with a small stack of textbooks. Day after day, for years to come, she spent her time reading. Literature, Mathematics, Science, Circuitry, and many more; book after book came to her small world. Even when discharged into the care of a host family, she would spend her time buried in the pages or exercising the knowledge those pages imparted onto her.
"This should be it then. Take these twice a day and you should start seeing the expedited recovery effects yourself." Another doctor said, her accent more accentuated and fluid sounding than her previous ones. "Once we finish up the paperwork, you should be able to return to Japan."
"I see..." Mutsumi replied, leaving not only the doctor's office but also the hospital. "Japan, huh...I wonder how they are." Mutsumi looked back at one of her books as soon as she got to her room. She scanned through the pages, pulling out an old photograph. Its color had faded, but the clear smiles were still there.
Mutsumi-chan's days in: school.
Mutsumi sat under a tree, quietly eating her lunch while having a book to cover her face. The sky above was overcast, the people around seemed wary of rain yet still they walked around. She reached to her side absentmindedly, her fingers searching for her food: a ham sandwich with some onions. "Damn." She cursed, prying her eyes away from the book to find her lunch reduced to crumbs. She slammed her book shut, ready to get up just as a flash of light crackled above. Not long after that, the pitter patter of the rain trapped her next to the tree. "Well shit..." She leaned against the trunk, the branches above keeping most of the water away.
"Stuck?" A boy approached her, maybe a grade below her, wearing a pair of jeans and a blue shirt with a band's logo printed on it. He held an umbrella in one hand and carried a small toolbox in another. Mutsumi nodded, holding her book tightly to her white summer dress. "What's your name? Haven't seen ya around before." He asked, a slight twinge in his voice and his emphasis on his words...
"He's probably from Boston like that one nurse..." Mutsumi thought silently, walking sheepishly towards him. "Mutsumi. I'm...uhh...an exchange student." She struggled to say, mentally translating into English, taking five minutes for that one sentence.
"So you're who the others were talkin' about. Said you're pretty smart, wanna join our club? We could use someone like you." He turned the toolbox over, revealing a sticker that showed "Robotics club." He walked over, moving the umbrella slightly. Mutsumi nodded after some hesitation, the two of them parting ways once they were inside. "Come to the sixth floor lab, I'll introduce ya." He waved.
"Robotics? I can't wait to tell them." Mutsumi entered the nearest restroom, pulling out her phone. "Yotsuba! Yotsuba! I'm joining a robotics club! I'm so nervous. What do I do? What've you guys been up to?" She sent a message quickly before leaving the room. She returned to her classes, oddly enough it was a technology class according to her schedule.
"So you're the new girl." A girl around her age waved her hand with a cheery smile. Blonde hair and blue eyes, a pair of glasses and a zipped up jacket with a matching pair of pants. "Welcome to the club." She opened the door as Mutsumi approached the sixth floor lab.
"Robotics? That sounds so cool! Make me a pair of rocket boots! I've been studying like crazy over here! It's only been a month, but we already miss you. Call soon 3" Yotsuba messaged back around sunset.
Time flew by, Mutsumi leading the club to victory in local competitions, until...
"Sorry guys. I have to go..." Mutsumi said, rubbing her arms as she stood by the door of the lab.
"But we'll never win without you!" The blonde said, nearly dropping a circuit board she was working on. "Come on, do you really have to?"
"Yeah...I'm sorry."
"Well, good luck then." The boy said. "Guess we'll have to start working harder."
It was the cycle that plagued her studies. Saying goodbye so often until she had become desensitized. Her emotions taking a toll for every time she had to get on a plane, until she began to push people away. "I've had enough." She thought. "There's no point." Despite that, she always found herself in clubs. Every time, however, she kept to herself until the others began to subconsciously alienate her. Even after competitions, she would stay in the corner away from the celebration.
Mutsumi-chan's days in: her host home.
Mutsumi looked out the window of her room in her host family's home. The sun was scorching down on the streets below, cars barely driving by in this tropical heat. Her door locked and her desk cluttered save for a few stray wires and circuits she was too exhausted to put away. A plate of food in one hand, some local fruit and something called balut which she'd rather not touch; and a small sketchbook in the other.
"Mutsumi, are you okay?" An elderly voice called out to her from the hallway. Her gentleness snapped the young redhead out of her trance, making her set the plate down. "I know you're not sick, but I want to know why you wanted to skip the field trip? Where they're going is nice at this time of year."
"I'd just...rather be alone." She replied, opening the sketchbook to a rough drawing of a small serpentine machine. "Thanks for your concern."
"Ahh...I. Well, don't stay there all day. Lunch is going to be ready soon." And with that, footfalls were heard heading away. Silence, then the sound of scribbling, then the flipping of the pages of a book. Mutsumi, stone faced, continued drawing, occasionally writing notes while linking to parts of the machine. She worked until her sweat began to drip onto the desk.
"Where did I put that?" She muttered, standing up and moving about the room. Tiptoe to look on the top shelf, on all fours to find something under the bed, and peeking in her luggage until she found it. A small bag big enough to fit in her lap, inside a laptop and a note from a certain tsundere doctor. She smiled, also grabbing a book from the shelf before she switched the device on. Glancing back and forth from everything she had, she began typing. Strings of code, search queries, a few miscellaneous comments and reminders.
"Eyy! Open up!" Another voice called out, a young boy's. "Come on red! Let's do something! I'm bored!" He said jokingly, also somewhat annoyed but mostly joking.
"Go watch some game shows or something." Mutsumi replied, irritated and stomping over to the door.
"Eeww...I'm not old like you! Come on, let's play a few games or something." The door received a few knocks. "Or are you scared you'd lose?"
"To you? Don't make me laugh." Mutsumi unlocked the door, looking down at a 10 year old boy, five years her younger. "You're on! Loser buys the winner dessert."
"I was craving some halo-halo, hope you're ready." The boy punched his palm.
"Ew, you like that purple stuff? Are you 60?" Mutsumi chuckled to herself.
"Don't talk when you act like more of a grandma than my actual grandma. You can't even walk to school without taking breaks." The boy darted to the other side of the hallway, opening the door to reveal a gaming console switched on and prepared.
"Why you little punk!" Mutsumi ran after him, digging her knuckles into his head.
Though her school life was lonely, at least her host families kept her company; not like they had a choice.