Memories of helping Maki limp to the infirmary when an attempt at landing a kick ended in bloody knees, of her shaking making it too hard to hold a pencil and writing notes for her and of when her eyes clouded over in the middle of lunch and she had to be lead by the hand to the faculty office filter in and out Naoya’s thoughts.
The arm gently wrapped around his waist and propping him up is the same arm that belonged to the girl from those memories; just as fragile now as she was then, but the atmosphere around her has completely changed.
A firey determination in a young woman pushes two sets of wobbly legs into her temporary housing, pushes him down in a creaky wicker chair with a faded floral print and returns to her half-dazed and bloody companion with cotton balls and a bottle of…..something Naoya’s hazy mind can’t put a name too.
Maki’s hands soak the cotton balls in the liquid with practiced ease and reach out to dab at his wounds-
“Ah, sh– gAH. What the f-”
The pain is unbearable and he can barely hold back a torrent of swear words as she mops up his blood soaked face.
He can hear her starting to giggle and as his vision clears he thinks he can see the outlines of a smile on her face.
“I’m glad one of us is having fun because I -Ouch! ….I am not.”
