reveilation | IC INBOX

Yeah, I can do that.

[ He swallows his own feelings and drops the smile. Terry sits down on the edge of the bed now so that it could be a little more comfortable for Kido's posture. He's quiet after, even though he's the worst at sitting still and doing absolutely nothing. This wasn't what he had in mind when he talked with Kido about relaxing while doing nothing at all, but he takes all this in stride and just does it.

He looks ahead at the white wall of the room. There's nothing particularly interesting on it, but it's something to keep his eyes on while he gently pats Kido's back mindlessly in two-second intervals.

His exhaustion is very close to catching up with him, but he wills himself to stay grounded despite his current low energy levels. His head also feels like it's throbbing... ]

[ For Kido, sitting still and doing absolutely nothing is an escape, not something to escape from, so when Terry agrees and she can let go of some of that fear, go back to leaning on Terry with her ear pressed up against his heart and letting her eyes close as he pats her back. Her breath hitches every once in a while, but it's helping. Her nose is so stuffy she has to breathe through her mouth and her throat doesn't like that, threatening to close and making the hiccups worse. Her head hearts. Her heart does too, but hurting is so much better than feeling absolutely nothing at all.

The tears stop eventually. Her breathing evens out. She's fallen asleep, and it'll just be like this for the next couple of days. Waking up, rejecting reality, and going back to sleep. Inconsolable. ]

[ Terry will stay at the hospital for all those days for however long Kido wants him by his side. He takes out his phone, and inputs a long distance command to Rimi to watch over the house and feed the cats at certain time intervals. It sure is nice, having a house buddy at times like these. With a quiet sigh, he continues to watch over Kido. There are times when the nurses come to change Kido's bandages and apply an ointment that will help soothe the burn and wounds. They also recommend her to take painkillers, which are on the bedside stool. Terry temporarily leaves Kido's side when the nurses come, but not that far--just beyond the curtain pulled around the bed area and makes sure that Kido knows he's there, since she'd be able to see his feet.

He eventually gets his sleep too, and this would also repeat for the next several days. ]

[ Over the next few days, the healing is remarkable compared to what it would normally take: a couple of days instead of weeks for Kido's burns to heal, her left arm in a cast and shoulder in a splint that could be removed by the end of the month if she continues to do as well as she is, her head is fine and her heart is healing but only physically. She's quiet the entire time, only speaking when spoken to but otherwise she would go the entire day without speaking if she could get away with it, earbuds in her ears and eyes closed as she lies in bed so she can lose herself in a whole different world. She takes her painkillers, and sleeps the days away. Honestly, she feels selfish, keeping Terry here with her when she's like that, but she can't bring herself to tell him to go home. She's wasting his time. Selfish selfish selfish.

"Nowell-kun..." The nurse pulls him aside at the end of the week, when Kido is allowed to be discharged. She is here to give him more homework: do your best not to upset Kido, because it'll be hard for her to heal fully if she's overly emotional and distraught all the time; she's seen how every time Terry's in the hospital lately, somebody is either screaming or crying or dead. ]

[ He's been waking up these past several days with nightmares that they were killed again, and when he opens his eyes, he sees that they're fine. It reminds him of the nightmares he had during the first five years of his life, living in disgust, fear, and paranoia that no place felt like a safe haven, not even his dreams.

Terry has been all three at some point in the hospital, but he'll take the homework, since he's very determined to help Kido to fully heal, if only physically for now. Mental and emotional health are important too--he knows that--but they need to take this one step at a time. But the thing is, he's not sure how he should go about doing this. He's only ever talks about the first thing that pops into his head.

...

He really is only good for breaking things, huh.

Terry has only lived in a selfish way throughout his life, but it's not his turn to be selfish anymore. With that resolution made up in his mind, he nods at the nurse and... that's it. There's no retort. No backtalking. No whining. He signs all the paperwork after.

He quietly breathes out. Things are different now. Despite his mental exhaustion, he goes back to where Kido is on the bed. ]

Hey, ready to go?

[ Kido's sitting on the bed when Terry returns, a single bag on her lap that contains everything that she had with her before coming here, wearing a plain black t-shirt and long pants because her hoodies had gotten too burnt in the fire to salvage— both of them, the only things she had left of her parents, gone. It was only because she didn't want to get anything wet going through the first floor that her pockets were otherwise empty at the time, no phone or papers or anything, but it feels weird having no jacket pocket to stuff her hands in, and no hood to pull over her head and block out the rest of the world. All she has to distract is the hospital wrist band she fiddles with, replacing the omamori that she'd lost forever too.

But there's no helping any of that. Kido nods and gets up onto her feet, unsteady for how little she'd gotten out of bed the past few days, but after those first few steps, it looks like she's fine again. The first few steps are always the hardest, but she'll always push through, and she'll always be fine. ]

...Thanks for staying with me, Terrence. Let's go home.

[ It's a little strange to see Kido without her trademark hoodie, but he keeps his mouth shut and his mind bans that from ever going out of his mouth like several other thoughts he had before. He holds his hand out towards her. She's free to make that choice whether she wants to hold it or not. ]

Yeah, let's go home.

[ He smiles a little, glad to see that Kido can walk just fine. The past week has been a wild ride, and honestly, he's ready to rest. He wants to sleep off all the bad stuff and maybe brush the cats as distraction. He's never had a disdain towards hospitals before, but he'd rather be home. ]

[ Kido hands the bag over when Terry holds out his hand, because holding your hand out like that means "give"... But also because her left arm's in a cast, so she only has the right one free, and between holding the bag and holding Terry's hand, she has to free it up so she can curl her fingers around his, a loose grip but one that won't slip away.

No complaints about going home here, because no matter how much she sleeps in a hospital, there is no rest. Hospitals are just... bad memories, the blank white walls and the beeping and waking up in the middle of the night and imagining the nurse coming in to bother her mother again, frustrated and angry because maybe she would've gotten better if the nurse had left her alone and let her rest, maybe she wouldn't have died. But instead, it's Kido's own arm being poked, blood drawn, fluids replaced, the constant beeping driving her nuts because she can't tune that out like she can music. There's really no rest in a hospital. Even if she'd done nothing but sleep, had Terry there with her and she hoped he would be lying down and asleep whenever he could too, there's no rest.

She just wants to lie on the ground with ten cats piled on top of her and be like that forever. That'll work. ]

[ I'm a genie for your wish started playing in the background here. I guess the restaurant really wants Kido to be buried in cats.

Terry starts to wonder though, from how Kido talked about Konoha, where was he when Kido and her family was getting shot? Was he getting shot too? Did he already die?

...

It's a what-if. More importantly, it's a what-if in a world that he can't reach. Guess it won't ever matter now, since it already happened. Terry carries Kido's bag with one hand and holds her hand with the other. He quietly hums a tune on the way there:

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away...

And he keeps his hold on her hand firmly. ]

[ Why would he hum such a sad song, Haki, oh my god. Even Kido recognizes the tune for it, and bows her head as she walks, too late to stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks and having no spare hand to scrub them off her face. It's a bittersweet song, desolate and desperate, speaking of a love that's so tenuous when Kido had just lost so many people in her life that she loved, and her grip on Terry's hand tightens because she doesn't want to lose him too.

This is just how it is all the way home, I guess. Terry doesn't even have to say words out loud to make Kido sad. He's trying his best but grief is selfish and unreasonable and overly sensitive, it's not fair ]

[ Because he's also sad and didn't think Kido would recognize the song, but it turns out she does and Terry regrets it. He can't take this anymore. Why is everything he's doing end up in a way he doesn't want?

He easily starts carrying the bag over his arm instead of holding it by the hand and swiftly picks Kido up bridal style so that he doesn't agitate her wounds by positioning. By the time he's already done that, Vassago appears behind them and casts Makajama on Kido so that she'll forget how to stay awake for five minutes.

Go to sleep, Kido... ]

[ Terry dealing with his problems by knocking it out, mood.

Kido chokes back a sob when Terry picks her up, the last look she gives him being one of surprise— and fear... before the heaviness settles and her eyes flutter shut, the tension leaving her shoulders and her head dropping to tuck against Terry's chest.

Good night... Even if it's only for five minutes, once she's asleep, she stays asleep with the exhaustion that always settles in after she cries. And she's been crying on and off all week. But as long as she's held or if Terry is there, she can relax a little, knowing that he'll keep her safe. ]

[ Terry shakily breathes out and looks over at Kido with a sad look on his face. He wants to do something right to help Kido!! Why is this so hard!! Anyway, he knows the debuff won't last long, so Vassago vanishes when he's no longer needed and Terry zooms to the house, unlocks the door, and puts Kido on the bed in his room. Then he quickly starts cleaning her face, wiping her tears and tear stains. The kittens have been well fed and the black kittens that Kido named all trail over to Terry's room and paws at the bed. Terry carries them all and puts them on there. Umi followed too, so she also goes up the bed. They all surround Kido, some even snuggling next to her arms, one curled up on her chest, and Ami comes in, carrying Omi and the rest of the two kittens. It looks like they can tell when someone is extremely sad, so Terry helps them all up on the bed and they all go curl up next to Kido. It's a cat heaven in here...

After that, he knows the house hasn't been touched for several days, so he starts cleaning with a broom instead of a vacuum (he got one), but keeps the bedroom door open in case Kido needs something. ]

[ Terry is a fool who doesn't believe Kido when she says that the only thing she needed from him was to be there... Her default state is irritable and prone to tears anyways, and it's difficult to console anybody dealing with loss. Upon waking up, even, she was on the verge of going through the five stages of grief, with the first being anger.

Kido is very good at anger.

But the first thing she feels when she wakes up is the weight on her chest, the warmth, and the slow, uninterrupted rumble of a purring cat, and all of that anger dissolves away. One or two of the cats meow when she sits up in the bed, and the one lying on her chest slides off, to curl back over by her side. Hana-chan? Aiko? One of the black ones, but she can't remember their names, it's been ten years. But they seem to remember her, and Ami lets Kido bow her head and press her face into the soft fur on her back; she doesn't cry, just breathes and listens to the rumbling, and remembering Seto telling her that the purring of a cat is at the exact frequency to help heal wounds. Remembering how Kano used to turn into a black cat and prance around for her and Seto to cheer them up. Remembering them and missing them but she doesn't cry.

Maybe she's getting better. Maybe this is helping. It doesn't have to be direct to be thanks to Terry. ]

[ If only Terry knew... alas, this is his first time dealing with anything related to this. There's a first time for everything? Terry is still busy cleaning the house, but no longer with a broom this time. The sound of running water can be heard in the distance. He's probably washing something.

Ami is the true mother of this household, taking care of all these children. She doesn't mind Kido planting her face into her fur and keeps purring. Maybe she recognizes Kido's pain, like how the number of her children was originally five, but one was born weak, and so that one had left first. It sure has upgraded her motherly instincts, even extending that to the humans that she is more familiar with by now. She wonders where the yellow one has gone (Rei), but hopes that she will turn up soon. Hi I'm Haki and all I do is play cats in Cetana now.

In the meantime, Hana-chan bumps her head against Kido's when she bows down and purrs while nuzzling against her hair, even batting at it with its paws playfully. ]

[ Terry's doing fine... Also I can't believe one of Ami's kittens had originally died, why is this the first time I'm hearing about sad cat death oh my god

Kido turns her head so that her ear's left pressed against Ami's back, watching Hana-chan chase after her hair when it moves away, pouncing but not managing to catch any of the strands because they're too short. ...It's only then that Kido realizes how much shorter her hair is, because she hadn't looked at herself in a mirror in all this time. Reaching her hand up, she smooths out her hair— it's the same length in the back, because most of it had been tucked away in her hood when she was out there in the dungeon, but the hair that always falls on either side of her face regardless of if her hair is tied up or hidden away, it's shorter now, the tips brushing her shoulders instead of being all the same length reaching the middle of her back. It doesn't look bad, and she doesn't have the same hangups about her hair as Rei does, but it's important to her for a different reason: she and Ayano had promised to grow out their hair together, so they could match as sisters and Kido had kept it going after Ayano died. Seeing her hair now is like breaking a promise, losing her sister another time. ]

...There's nothing for me to go back to, over there.

[ She mumbles, holding Hana-chan close to her neck when the kitten nuzzles against her, pawing at her hair. At least somebody still likes it. ]

But I haven't lost everything. I have you guys, right? And Terrence. And...

[ idk yet if Kido and Rei talked before discharge or only after, but if they somehow didn't talk because Kido was asleep all week, she probably believes Rei had died back there in the fire and only Kido had made it back alive, RIP Rei )': ]

[ I can spin a tale for every single batch of cats I get, Card. We can maximize the sadness of this Black Cat household one day. :')

The other black kittens yawn, stretch, and all topple onto Kido's lap. Umi looks at the kitten pile and goes to join in. She was always a weird one, but it looks like she cares about Kido too, despite the number of times she judged her in the past. Imi, Emi, and Omi bundle around their mom, but they eventually find the courage to go over to Kido because they want affection too. It's funny how they're going about it, because they're stepping all over Ami. lmao. It doesn't look like she minds though, because she's staying still and letting Kido use her body as a pillow of some sort.

Hana-chan meows at Kido when she leaps to try and catch her hair again but tumbles on top of the other kittens on Kido's lap.

They love Kido a lot...

Meanwhile, Terry stopped walking with a bowl of chicken noodle soup on the tray that he's carrying, several steps away from his room. With the door open, he can easily hear things, but he wonders if he should go in yet...

...

He'll wait a little more. ]

[ Are all the black cats are also unwanted children? where is their mother, Haki???

It's hard to be sad when surrounded by so many kittens jumping around like that, and Kido moves so that she's lying down on her right side, bringing her knees up a little so she can form a little half circle and attempt to hug as many cats as she can in her arms. She loves them a lot too, and doesn't think about anybody doing something rude like eavesdropping outside of the room, so she just continues to talk quietly to herself. ]

I don't know what to do now... Why did we all have to die, anyways? All we wanted to do was live... We kept to ourselves, never made trouble for anybody...

[ She finds one of Ami's front paws, and nudges her finger under it. Toe beans have magical healing powers. ]

So, whoever that was... why did he have to kill us? Why aren't we ever allowed to be happy? I don't get it...

[ They were all smiling and laughing and on the way home from the amusement park, thinking of nothing but the new friends they had all just made. And then seconds later, a stranger pulls out a gun and starts shooting everybody down. What the hell? ]

[ Their mom is frolicking somewhere in Hirajiro, living the childless life because she ran away from her duties and ditched her babies. :'( Then humans fed them, so that's why they like people. Now they get to pounce on a bed.

Tsubomi "I can hug all the cats" Kido. Sugoi ne.

Since Ami only has one foreleg, she just lets Kido play with the little toe beans. It looks like it's pretty hard to bother her. She's a hardened mom cat with a soft center for her family. She's already lying down anyway, so the touching doesn't knock her off balance or anything either.

Terry thinks that's enough so he knocks on the wall after making himself seen near the doorway. ]

Hey, I brought soup. Are you hungry?

[ Black cat mama, let the humans adopt you too ):

And Kido can absolutely hug all the cats, just watch her. Or- she wasn't expecting anybody to be watching, missing Terry come in but looking up when he knocks and her hand slips out from under Ami's paws like she doesn't want to be caught doing something embarrassing. It's just kind of hard to pretend she's not curled up on her side like a cat herself, with nine other kittens lying around her. ]

Oh. Not really...

[ She can't remember if she ate in the hospital. She probably had to have some sort of feeding tube in if her throat was burned the first few days, she thinks she might have had apple sauce or some other soft thing that doesn't take too much thought or effort to swallow down when she doesn't feel like eating. It'll take a while before her appetite picks back up, and being a sad sack all the time doesn't help either, so it'll probably go hand in hand, she thinks. Eat, and have the energy to get better, and so she nudges the kittens off her shoulder and side so they won't be knocked off all of the sudden when she sits herself up slowly. ]

I'll have some, though. Soup's best when it's hot... Did you already eat?

No, but I will soon. I just wanted to get this to you first.

[ Terry looks over at the kittens that are rolling around and smiles. They're so cute. He thanks them in his head for taking care of Kido. ]

Here. You can eat on the bed with the tray.

[ There's a spoon with some napkins in the corner of the tray, the soup filled into the same ceramic bowl that were used to contain gyudon earlier in the month. ]

Let me know if you need anything else.

[ He says that, but he keeps himself seated on the bed, near Kido. ]

I'm not eating on the bed.

[ It's a nice gesture, but Kido shoots it down immediately haha... It's just that it would be an absolute pain to clean up if something spills on the mattress, and a tray's not going to help if there's a dozen cats romping around where she sits.

She's careful to take the tray and hold it up out of the way while she slides off the bed and onto her feet. ]

If you haven't eaten yet, let's go to the living room and eat together.

[ And maybe feed the cats so they don't go pawing the soup if left unattended for half a second. ]

Sure.

[ Terry also gets off the bed and goes get some soup for himself in the kitchen. There's some more left... he tried to make it pretty healthy with less salt, but with more flavor. There's no table yet in the living room... but since they managed to get a nice house, there's a counter near the kitchen and chairs high enough to sit on, so Kido doesn't have to sit on the floor. He sits on the chair next to her when he's done.

The cats follow Kido out, but careful so that they don't get in the way of her balancing act. ]

[ She makes it to the kitchen without incident, taking the bowl off the tray so she can set it on the counter to eat, but doesn't start eating until Terry sits down too, swinging her feet a little under the chair so the kitten have something to bat at and paw around. Head bowed over the bowl, she tucks her hair behind her ears so they're not in any danger of falling into the soup, though it's too short for that anyways. ]

...What were we doing before this? What... do I need to be doing?

[ It's been ten years. Most of it she can't remember, bits and pieces of the most important memories from her time in the orphanage to living with the Tateyamas to moving out with just her siblings, and everything from Hirajiro had fallen to the side like a dream she's struggling to recall now. Even this house, while familiar, has that strange dreamlike quality of being more like a home from her childhood memories than one she'd recently moved into. ]

I can't remember a lot of things.

[ Even though it hasn't been ten years for Terry, he also feels like what happened felt like so long ago. He waits for his soup to cool down a little after mixing it with his spoon and considers what to say. ]

We were summoning Personas to fight Shadows in Dungeons. We mostly did that so we could take their loot to sell for money for the house and the stuff we need for it. Several days before it [ them dying ] happened--

[ ... ]

We gathered people in the house so that we could discuss what's going on in this place and stuff like that.

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