3671/Kenji, Seriously Heal Please!

Kenji, Seriously Heal Please!
Date of Scene:	15 January 2016
Location:	Njorun Station - Medical
Synopsis:	Turns out Momoyo has a softer side as she spent the week in Kenji's Union Medical room, having knocked him out prior with a move that caused him nightmares about his failures fighting Shadows... Nagato makes a cameo at the end, a veteran of the type of shame Kenji is suffering.
Cast of Characters:	Nagato, 715, 928

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Momoyo Kawakami (928) has posed:
     There were numerous empty cups of what looked like a combination of soda, water, juice and protein drinks. Various different wrappers around despite the nurses cleaning occasionally, and a stack of primarily fighting manga nearby. Well, two or three stacks, really. Despite all the sanitation, the room even was scented quite feminine to boot. It would have been nice to contemplate were it not post-op recovery from surgery to handle the various semi-permanent wounds inflicted by the Shadows.

    Sprawled sideways in a sofa chair Momoyo must have stubbornly hauled in a week ago, she laid beneath the television flipping through manga pages and texting her friends back in Kawakami City. For Momoyo of all people to sit with this much evidence of not having left the bedside, she must have been seriously bored. Sipping what must have been her 48th glass of water waiting here between other goings-on, she quietly turned the page on the manga she was reading, dressed in her chipmunk tee-shirt and slacks along with various leather straps on her arms. If anything she actually looked a bit tired from worrying over the patient.

Kenji Kawasaki (715) has posed:
     Kenji Kawasaki's eyes fly open.

     Immediately, he's sitting up, hand on his head. His eyes are wide and angry, burning with fury. His aura is the same, a raging bonfire of...well, rage, screaming out of all control.

     His other hand has nearly crushed the metal bar of the bed. There's blood flowing from between his fingers, but he doesn't seem to have noticed.

     Slowly, Kenji takes stock of his surroundings. Njorun medical. It takes him a moment to release the metal, as if he's not quite sure he can without falling. When he doesn't fall, experimentally, his shaking breath evens out *just a little*.

     His eyes jerk upwards and to the side. He doesn't say anything.

     A moment longer. Then his eyes flick across the trail to the couch, and to Momoyo. The bloody hand closes into a fist as he stares at her. His hand shakes.

     His eyes flick upwards again. There's a very long moment before he relaxes his hand and pushes back up against the bedpost.

     "In between the fucking dreams," Kenji says slowly, his voice hoarse, "I started imagining what I'd do to you if I woke up."

     "I'm still fucking thinking about it. Do you have the slightest clue what you put me through?"

Momoyo Kawakami (928) has posed:
     "Yeah. I'm sorry. I wasn't about to let you fight for real in that condition... Yang couldn't handle you, and there was a non-zero chance Nero would have just bled you out for fun." She replies calmly... but her eyes were red. Not just her irises, but, it looked like she'd been crying quietly off and on.

    She turns the page on the manga slowly, freely giving the boy time to assess his surroundings. She reaches up to wipe away a tear, but didn't bother to tell him to be careful of his stitches.

    "If you keep moving around, I'm going to have to put you down again, and I only know one way to do that without hurting you." she replies finally, her voice cracking. Well, except for that.

Kenji Kawasaki (715) has posed:
     Kenji focuses on her for a long moment, like he's not quite sure of what he's hearing.

     Then he slumps back. "Yeah. Okay."

     He glances at his bloody hand. The stitches aren't torn. He crushed the metal with his bare hands, without Kojin. The hospital bed's mangled sidebar has his hand's shape engraved in it from the force of his...fury? Fear? It's hard to tell. Certainly his adrenaline, at the very least. Kenji under normal circumstances just isn't that strong, not without Kojin. Then again, is it really a statement of strength if you bleed to cause it? With a resigned sigh, he tears part of the hospital blanket, wrapping it around his hand.

     His eyes swing back around to her. "Have you seriously been here the whole time?"

     "...did you drag that fucking couch in to sleep on or something?"

Momoyo Kawakami (928) has posed:
     "Yeah. I did, okay!?. Just... /SHUT UP/ for a while, Kenji. You're an idiot. I felt guilty. I know that technique was the last thing you needed before they flooded you with enough morphine for you just be a vegetable." It might not have been morphine, but she wasn't terribly composed herself, either.

    She turns another page, trying to keep her hands from quivering and her shoulders from shaking. The boy wasn't helping at all, but Xiaomu or Yang weren't around to remind Kenji he was being an asshole. "How are you feeling." she asks, lamely, but it was a hard edge in her voice that demanded he change the conversation from how long she'd been waiting there.

Kenji Kawasaki (715) has posed:
     Kenji is suddenly extremely awkward. His face goes red, and, for a moment, the barriers of the young man are lowered. The admission of it - the apology, the statement about guilt, the knowledge that she's been sitting here for a full week to keep an eye on him, the tears around her eyes, all of it hits him at once, and he suddenly looks immensely uncertain of himself. The teenage swagger and the anger and all of it just kind of die in his throat as he suddenly is looking anywhere but her, probably to hide a very powerful blush, or to hide the look of shock on his face. He looks very little like the Banchou of Taiyou High at that instant, very little like someone who can pour fire from the sky and merge with a god. He looks like a chastised, embarassed young man.

     "...I'm not okay," he admits. He works his jaw for a moment. Talking after being asleep for so long left a strange taste in his mouth.

     "...I'll get better, though. I'm not hurt anywhere. I guess whatever it was you did gave me time to heal. Except my hand, but that's my own stupid fault, so, whatever. Don't blame yourself."

     Kenji looks down at his bloody hand for a long moment.

     His defenses are down.

     "...I'm really...goddamn weak. That's how I feel. Powerless. Pointless. Pathetic. I feel like somebody who can't help anyone, no matter how hard I try. People important to me, random people I've just met who need help...just keep fucking slipping through my fingers every time."

     "That's...how I feel right now."

Momoyo Kawakami (928) has posed:
     Unable to sit quietly in the chair, once she was certain her knees wouldn't just give out, she gets to her feet. Her hair obscured her eyes, one of the clues as to how upset she was, as she dropped the manga on the chair. She hadn't even tried to keep her place, she'd been toying with it as something else to focus on.

    "I should have gone with you, instead of enlisted." It was a funny thing to say, since Kenji was the veteran to traipsing the Multiverse relatively. But she crosses over close to the bed, clearly not having collected her thoughts. Instead, she leaned in, curling her arms around Kenji and just started slowly crushing his head into her bustline. Her hair drapes over him, and it was a remarkably calm, feminine moment for her. Aside from her inhuman strength only causing a dull ache in his neck after a few seconds, which he might have endured. Unmistakably, a few tears dropped into his hair, along his scalp. "You're a moron." she insists, though she was being hypocritical there.

    She lacked the ability to be articulate and try to comfort him about it, so she just settled for comforting herself, treating him like her bro. A slow, ragged sigh passed through her frame as she contemplated what he must have been thinking, but she couldn't put words to him beating himself up. "So friggin' stupid."

    "Hey... Xiaomu's been texting me all week asking how you were doing, and I've been switching with Yang. I... I had to fight a battleship while you were out... so... she watched you too." she started rambling just a moment, her fingers stroking through his hair softly.

Kenji Kawasaki (715) has posed:
     So that was unexpected.

     Kenji *was* about to reply. He was about to say something like 'it's cool' or 'I don't think you could've changed what happened' or a bunch of other things. He was going to say *something*, at the least.

     And then all of a sudden she's got his head in her chest and she's /crying/ over him.

     And that's, well, that's *weird*. That's really weird. It's not something that.../happens/, to Kenji. People, in general, baring their emotions to him like this, doesn't really happen to him. Emotions in general aren't something he's used to dealing with, let alone emotions like *this*, affection and fear and someone *literally crying over him*. Hell, he doesn't even usually deal with the emotions of other teenagers - he's gone out with two girls, *ever*, and one of them turned out to be a Confederate, and *neither* of them had cause to treat him like this.

     So Kenji just...shuts the fuck up. He doesn't say *anything*. He doesn't move, he doesn't speak. His face is probably redder tha the blood flushing it, but he's not...he just...he /doesn't/.

     He's just silent for a long moment.

     Finally, some part of Kenji's brain decides that it might be wise to actually *answer* her.

     "Oh. Uh. That's cool. Did you win?"

     It says a lot that the first thing he can think to ask, jammed into a woman's cleavage, is whether or not she won a fight.

     A moment later, with great difficulty (largely from avoiding her chest, and also being blind), his hand goes up to her cheek, carefully avoiding her chest. With yet more great difficulty, he wipes away her tears.

     "I said it...uh, Monday...and I meant it. So, uh...I guess I'll...say it again."

     "...thanks for worrying about me."

Momoyo Kawakami (928) has posed:
     She lets out another sigh, finally collecting herself as her arms release Kenji's head. "...No, it was a draw." she moves from Kenji, instead staring out the window at the peaceful scenery below of Njorun's natural beauty fading into the mists.

    "It turns out Admiral Nagato originally sank from nuclear tests." she tosses her hair lightly. "During the match, I used some moves that reminded her of the bomb that sank her. She... started going off about protecting the Fleet. It was only for a few minutes and she recovered right at the end of the match, but I unhinged her a bit." she sniffles a moment, her fingers adjusting her hair again.

    "At first I was excited that I'd finally gotten her to take me seriously... but then I saw the look in her eyes. This was a hardened war veteran, Kenji. She's seen more death than you and I can even think about." she tilts her head a bit. "And I just made her relive her death. First thing she does is spout off about all her Fleet Daughters, only after that did she start mistaking me for an enemy ship in a war that in my world was sixty or seventy years past."

    "Hah. Talk about pressure for protecting people... you have no right, Kenji. No right to feel useless about protecting people compared to that woman. I bet she feels ten times worse than you do and she's a decorated veteran... and I broke her heart just to get a stronger opponent. It was an accident, and she challenged me, but... I enlisted under her for a week Kenji before she fought me as an equal. I'm sure she had her reasons but she was incredible."

    "And so are you."

Nagato has posed:
    Just outside the door stands the Admiral and in her hands she clutches a small pin and a hat. She's been standing outside the door, away from the entrance listening to everything inside, initialy coming to visit to check up on Kenji. "Incredible, huh?" she whispers, taking a look at the door. Does she go in to interrupt the two or does she leave the 'get well soon' gift on the floor and walk away. The former is chosen.

    Nagato gives a knock on the door frame before making her apperance, "Afternoon." she speaks in a soft, but firm voice, "Kenji... and Momoyo." Nagato looks around the area, having not been in an actual hospital room before, "I would ask if you're comfortable, but I shall take the obvious answer..."

Kenji Kawasaki (715) has posed:
     As she releases Kenji, he fights his blush back down to normal. She's already seen him vulnerable more often than he'd like. Probably, if Kenji had had his way, she'd never have seen him like that at all. But the repeated emotional blows, the repeated realizations, the affection and intimacy, it had all left him severely unbalanced. Off his game. The mask came off.

     Some small part of him regrets veering back into waters he is experienced in. Some small part of him wonders if that wasn't important, if what just happened wasn't important - not for her but for *him*. If letting someone else see him, uncertain, off-balance, and weak, wasn't something that he needed. Something *people* needed.

     "Ah."

     Kenji listens. He listens in basically silence, because there's not really any natural interjection points, and he's still sort of rebalancing after that emotional battery. It's a break he needs to get his own thoughts in order, and while he listens, he doesn't really see he needs to say anything. It's a story, not a discussion.

     And, when he opens his mouth to say something - probably to protest the 'no right' thing - he doesn't say anything. He just sits there with his mouth open for a moment before closing it and shaking his head.

     Oh, he wanted to say something. He wanted to say a lot of things. He had all kinds of thoughts about *that*...but...it just...

     It wasn't really *important*, was it?

     "That sucks," he says finally, because he's not sure what else to say that wouldn't start a fight. And...well, starting a fight is the easy way out, right? And maybe that's not what he needs to do. Maybe instead he can just shut up. Maybe he can just shut up and accept it.

     At the end, he shrugs. "No, I'm not. I don't think so, anyway."

     Nagato enters.

     The change in Kenji's demeanor is almost immediate, almost /subconscious/. The look of vulnerability vanishes in an instant as he goes back against the bed's back. There's a subtle change in his shoulders, a subtle squaring as he sits against the pillows. It's not all that easy to see.

     Kenji moves his injured hand a little and shrugs. "Been better."

Momoyo Kawakami (928) has posed:
     The change for Kenji is noticeable, but for a sharp judge of character like Nagato, the contrast to Momoyo was probably hilarious.

    While Kenji decided to toughen up when an attractive thirty-something wandered into the room, Momoyo turned, without confirming who it was (as if the approaching aura didn't make it obvious beforehand) and /saluted/.

    "Admiral."

    It was still clumsy to Nagato most likely, but for Kenji to see her do that might have been jarring, especially given the conversation at hand.

    "He hurt his hand waking up from the nightmares I gave him... but he looks like he's doing better. I'm sure the medics will want to keep him in bed a day or two longer..." she glances over at Kenji. "...but he won't put up with it."

    "Kenji, this is Admiral Nagato. She's stronger than me." she quips. That was her casual introduction. It was objectively true for anyone who could see her auras, but for Momoyo it was an about-face given her constant warranted arrogance.

Nagato has posed:
    The sudden change in demeanor catches the Admiral's eyes and she shakes her head breifly, both Kenji's and Momoyo's. A small salute is given back towards Momoyo, "You no longer have to call me Admiral, however, I do appreciate the continuance of such." She gives a brief nod at the explination and the interesting introduction. She gives a brief, short bow towards Kenji, "Greetings."

    She approaches the two slowly, placing the blue naval hat and anchor-pin on the bed near Kenji, "Speaking of nightmares, you ... did do a good number on me that day. Though, I won't be here long, I only came to check up on Kenji, I didn't expect you to be here, Kawakami." she eyes the couch, "Much less with a couch."

    There's things Nagato would want to say in this kind of situation, many different ones but finding the right time to say it is the question... for now, she just keeps her stoicism there and regards both of them with another nod...

Kenji Kawasaki (715) has posed:
     "Yeah. Nice to meet you."

     Kenji shrugs, a little. It's not that he's trying to be cold to Nagato - he's really not. He's *really* not. Momoyo clearly respects her, and that says at least a little. But...but it's different. The situation's changed. A moment ago, Kenji was defenseless because someone was showing him affection, fear, a lot of things that Kenji is just totally unused to. Not just someone, but someone he'd dealt with repeatedly before, someone he had some social tie to. Nagato is...

     Well, she's a stranger.

     It's not like he doesn't know who he is. But they've never met. They've never spoken. And the look on his face - the set jaw, the squared shoulders, the /closed-off/ look - makes that really clear.

     "Thanks, I guess," he says, shrugging and scratching the back of his head, "I mean, you don't really have to. I've been asleep for a week, it's not like I was even critical before then anyway. Momoyo makes it out to be way worse than it was."

     That's not true. He was beat up pretty badly. But elites, fortunately, heal rapidly.

Momoyo Kawakami (928) has posed:
     Momoyo moves to start gathering her piles of manga up (and Yang's and some of Xiaomu's borrowed ones) and clearing her trash off of the desks and dressers. "I'll be back later to get the sofa chair. Medical won't care since they don't have the traffic of a standard hospital." she replies.

    She does stop though, placing a hand on Nagato's shoulder with her back to Kenji. "Kenji... I know you need to grapple with what you were telling me about yourself. But the pain I saw in your eyes was the pain I saw in Nagato's. If you wanna get through hell a bit faster than brooding..." she nods her head to the other red-eyed woman. If one squinted it was like looking at an older, wiser Momoyo. "...She can help. Just enlist with the Fleet Daughters. Haguro could use you sparring with her, you'd enjoy arguing with Kiso or Tenryuu. Helping middle schoolers open peanut butter jars would be good for you... and you'll have the baths all to yourself when she's not making you scrub them for getting bored and eyeing up girls." Clearly, Momoyo had been up to more mischief in the past week than Kenji ever would have in the same enlistment.

    "But if you wanna know how to protect people better and who to talk to when you /can't/... Admiral's gonna be in High Command before too long and that's going to make it tricky to talk to her when Xiaomu is flaking." she finishes, waving on her way out. While it was impolite to leave in such a situation, it tended to be the way Kenji and Momoyo preferred to operate.

Nagato has posed:
    Nagato gives a brief nod from the brief acknowledgement, the visual look of Kenji gives the Admiral a light frown, but it's nothing new to her. She's seen the look many times before with some of her destroyers and even cruisers giving the same look after reprimand. Plus...

    She's still a stranger.

    "I offered her a chance to retreat from the sparring to come check on you, a match can be rescheduled, a persons health cannot." she gives a slight chuckle, "She had a different countenance than she normally does when dealing with people when it came to you, Kenji. She had care." Nagato takes a brief look towards Momoyo when she makes the suggestion, she shakes her head, "If he wishes to, he can, however, I won't force it on him." o O (Like I did you, Kawakami...), "High command, huh? That would certainly increase my responsibilities. Perhaps, you might be overstating things, Kawakami..."

Kenji Kawasaki (715) has posed:
     Kenji is not someone prone to emotional displays. He's not someone prone to /showing/ how he feels, except anger - anger is *easy*, hot blood is *easy*. You can just default to screaming and hitting something when you're hot-blooded, and that's basically all that's expected of you. It makes it easy to...well, to *hide*. To hide *behind*. To pass off the emotional stuff as something you don't have to deal with. That's the easy way out, and...

     Well, Momoyo may have started some thought, but it takes more than that for a person to change.

     He watches Momoyo leave without a word. He shrugs. "I'll think about it, I guess. I don't do great on water, though. Not really good ship material."

     Nagato speaks. Kenji nods.

     "Yeah, she told me." He shrugs a little, staring at the sheets. "That you offered to let her take off, I mean."

     She didn't talk about the other thing, but he sort of deduced that when she started crying over him. He scratches the back of his neck, looking away from Nagato to hide his blush. "Dunno why," he says, "I'm not that important. I'm just some asshole punk from Taiyou High."