It came slowly at first—the burning need to leave himself behind, to escape Otoya’s words and the poisonous reality that infested them, but he could not shut it out. A hot wave of shame and terror ran up his body and blossomed in his head, and he felt the back of his neck prickle as beads of slipped down his spine. All the white noise in the infirmary room felt deafening.
“I didn’t— … I … wouldn’t … Even if I was— … I … I wouldn’t …”
He might have thought it had all been a familiar game, found comfort in the notion of unreality, but the bloodstained bandages protested. The burns and scars on Otoya’s body protested too, speaking something so vile that he could not look away. The anguished screams of the living, breathing, suffering person in front of him were more than he could ever deny. As Otoya shouted, Kohaku froze at his bedside, quaking under the weight of his words. The maze in his mind was collapsing.
He saw a floor of broken glass, a tear-streaked face, blood that dripped, dripped, dripped. He saw a grand battle with Seigen bent before him, a fire iron skewering his body—it was his own hand that gripped the other end. The worst of it was the realization that struck him next—knowing just how much Kohaku had wanted to hurt him. In the infirmary room, Otoya still screamed, but the screaming inside Kohaku’s head seemed twice as loud.
He rejected reality with every fibre of his being, every little fibre he had left. It was just as Otoya had said himself; he was a monster. That was all Kohaku saw when he looked back up at him—a towering monster that had ripped his eye from his head and left it on the courtyard floor. Enemy, enemy, enemy.
“Hah— . . .” The sound was half laugh, half whimper. With vicious force, Kohaku flung the tray at the other boy, upturning all of its contents as he sent it hurtling towards Otoya’s face. The glass of water shattered at his feet, but he did not seem to notice. A slow, pained scream was coming from his own mouth, but he did not notice that, either.
A moment later he was all but gasping for air, his vision bleary with tears. At some point he had gotten up off the bed and was now standing just two steps away, his hands shaking at his sides.
“Y— … You’re right,” he uttered, his voice half of what it was. “Something is wrong with me … something’s really … really …” His voice broke off in a painful crack, and a sob escaped him.
“I’m sorry,” he cried out, gripping his own wrist as he took two more steps back towards the door. “I’m sorry—!”
Even with Otoya’s reflexes, there wasn’t much he could do without arms to shield himself. With the burns and the chunks taken out of his side, he could barely even duck. The tray smacked into his forehead, thankfully not with enough force to shatter the dish into bits.
It may not have compared to an explosion, but the searing heat was enough to send him flailing. With no way to wipe any of it off, he just shook his head madly, bits of curry flying off the tips of his hair.
Gasping with the pain as it continued to soak into his already burnt face, he finally curled up enough to put his nose to the thick layer of blankets over his knees. It was still a stretch, and more hot curry slunk down his exposed back, but he was able to at least get a decent amount off.
His chest heaved as the mess finally cooled enough to be nothing worse than uncomfortable. It took a while of sputtering, but he was eventually able to look back up to see what was next. Kohaku was out of ammunition and didn’t look particularly ready to pick anything else up.
Otoya gave a breathy laugh, the pain throwing more grit into his voice.
“...I guess it kinda... counters feeding me, so... I’ll t-take it.” He coughed and swallowed whatever piece of food had made it into his mouth in the chaos. “But hey, i-if you’re a fucked-up person, then it makes me a slightly less fucked-up person for hurting you. C-can’t say I mind that so much, at least.”
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