[Tokugawa Taro]

---

The hospital's interior flushed with the stark lighting of its fluorescent bulbs. It glared off the vinyl flooring, leaving no corner untouched, almost giving the impression that the light itself had sanitizing properties.

This stood in sharp contrast to the sky outside, gray and choked with clouds. It had taken Taro a moment to adjust his eyes once he'd stepped inside the building. When he did, he crouched to set the basket he'd tucked inside his hoodie on the floor, then began to wring the sleeves and pouch over a spot that was already sort-of wet until he was no longer dripping.

It had been raining all throughout the morning with no signs of easing. Droplets smacked against the glass of the window panes, and a persistent rumble of thunder bellowed all across the village. On days like this, it was all too common for lesson plans to get derailed and for instructors to pass out busy work instead. Either that, or the odd instructor would decide that being out in the middle of a downpour was character building and would push them even harder to follow through on their assignment. It did not take long for Taro to decide he would be too antsy if he had to sit inside all day, nor was he in the mood to wash mud out of his clothes when he got home. So when he heard and subsequently confirmed the rumors that Mitsumi was in the hospital, he came up with a plan immediately on how he'd rather spend his day and, doing nothing to conceal his intentions, walked out of the academy.

Mitsumi was not usually his first pick for company. Or his second. The girl was older than him, and though he had seen enough of her to know she was like this with just about everyone, he couldn't help but take it as a personal insult every time she started fumbling over her words—he harbored no malice against her, and it frustrated him that she either didn't know this, or that it didn't matter one way or another. Then there was, of course, the scars. She clearly tried to hide it, and for good reason, but in spite of her best attempts, the fleshy, reddened abrasions still jumped out into view. It was an ugly mar on her skin, and he still hadn't gotten used to seeing it. To keep himself from staring, he often had to turn to look elsewhere in a way that was not natural for him to do in conversation.

Still, he held a great pity for her. Taro did not know her to have many friends, and he wondered if anyone had even paid her a visit since she'd been in the hospital. Maybe her parents, if she had some in the village. He didn't know her life.

It was that, and that she genuinely seemed like a kind and tender person. One who, in spite of this, seemed to draw the worst lot in life. The fact that she had wound up in the hospital again for the second time in only a short number of months seemed to confirm to him that Mitsumi had the misfortune of someone who was simply very, very unlucky.

That, alone, was good enough reason for him to try doing something nice for her.

When he had reached the market, many of the outdoor stands and kiosks were absent, or otherwise closed down due to the weather. Fortunately, he had stocked up on fresh fruit just the day before, and he'd already established a solid rapport with a local weaver and knew where to find her. The bamboo basket she'd had available was about the size of a loaf of bread, and she hadn't finished tidying up the shape of the handle, but it was well enough for him to pay the full price and a little extra, then be on his way.

Back at his apartment, he'd begun to stuff the basket with ripe figs, pears, persimmons and grapes, but upon seeing just how much the basket still had room, he had a better idea. On a cutting board, he began carving shapes into the fruit. The skins of the pears were stripped off in spirals, and what was left was cut into triangles. With the persimmons, he attempted to trim their halves into stars, though the points were uneven and by the third persimmon, the shape of it had become unrecognizable to anyone but him entirely. The grapes were too small to anything to them, but for the figs... he wasn't sure how well they would hold up under the knife of his creative endeavors, so he simply etched smiling faces into their skin. He ran the pears and persimmons, skin and fruit alike, through with chopsticks, then arranged them between the figs and grapes to give the overall impression that it was more full than it was.

Satisfied with his work, he hoisted the basket to step outside. Then he remembered the rain, and that as it was, the basket would not fit under his shirt. So he returned to his counter to snap the chopsticks in half. With this modification, the basket looked just as half-full as it had before. Still, he was running low on fruit, and he had started to get bored with cutting them up, so he began to make his way to the hospital.

After some pointers from the lady attending the front desk, and only a brief stint of confusion as to the hospital's exact layout, Taro found Mitsumi's room.

A part of him fretted for just a moment as his imagination took hold. He imagined some way, somehow, whatever injury Mitsumi had suffered had made the scar on her body even worse. If not that, then maybe the other half of her body was covered in burns now, or even that she may have some new deformity that he couldn't even predict in his wildest imaginings.

Luckily, though, after stepping into the room and seeing her, this did not seem to be the case. His relief was so great, a huge smile lit up his face at the sight of her, and for once, he had no trouble looking directly at her.

He pulled the hood from his head, then greeted her in an almost sing-song voice. "Heya, Mitsumi-chan."

Without waiting for her invitation, Taro gave one final pat to his still-slightly-damp pants before helping himself to sitting at the edge of her bed. He set the basket down next to him then, still looking at her, asked, "How are you holding up?"

---

Itagaki Mitsumi

[Itagaki Mitsumi]

To summarize Mitsumi's feelings about hospitals in a single word: suffocating. She hated everything about them. The too-white walls. The smell of disinfectant. The long, quiet corridors, punctuated by the patter of indoor slippers. The occasional quiet emergency. The careful manner of the nurses and doctors.

In all honesty, the injury to her knee hadn't been too bad. She had strained the injury when she had walked on it in her fugue state, but she had had worse.

Far worse.

She suppressed the urge to scratch her suddenly itchy face, and let out a long sigh, setting down the book she had been trying to read, staring numbly at the ceiling. She knew the injury wasn't bad enough for her to be in inpatient care for more than a day or two.

The reason she was here was not because of her knee. It was the fact that she had let the thing take control. Or she had actually just suffered a psychotic break. Mitsumi needed to show calm. Capability. That her sanity wasn't strained to breaking point.

And it wasn't.

Probably.

Mitsumi sighed again, and eyes the crutches by her bed. Couldn't even visit the garden today.

The door opened, and Mitsumi looked lazily in that direction. It was probably a nurse, since her family had already visited before the rain had gotten too bad. But the person who stepped through the door was neither a nurse nor a stranger.

"To-To-Tokugawa-kun?!" Mitsumi blurted, turning a deep shade of red. Laying slovenly in bed with a bandaged left in a mercifully concealing hospital gown was not how she wanted anyone to see her. She retreated back towards the head of the bed instinctively, as much as her still-immobilized leg would allow. He had a fruit basket? Why was he here?

"I-I... I'm fine!"itsumi blurted. Her face felt hot, and she nervously ran her hands through her hair, trying to smooth out her bed head, and making sure her face was at least partially concealed. "Um... c-can I... help you...? Did I... miss some homework...?" What was she meant to say? Or do?

Mitsumi wasn't used to receiving visitors that weren't family.

[Tokugawa Taro]

---

Taro kept his expression still as he bit back some minor irritation. Mitsumi, predictably, had begun her habit of stuttering, over the more formal use of his family name no less. Really, he wished she would just relax a little.

Her questions as to whether he came here for favors or to give her homework assignments caught him by surprise, though, and his brow raised to reflect this. Then he laughed. How long had she been in here, anyway?

Taro sobered after a moment, and when he did, he shook his head and wagged his finger while he clicked his tongue at her. Slowly, punctuating each syllable as though teaching its pronunciation to a child, he said, "Ta-ro-kun." He rarely ever minded when people used his surname, but Mitsumi was a special case. If she knew she could use his given name, perhaps she would start to see him as a friend? Besides, it wasn't like he could return the favor. He didn't remember her family name.

"I came here to see you, silly," he said, as though this should have been obvious. Taro looked away for just a moment, puckering his lips in contemplative thought. "Although, I guess that kind of stuff is important to you." He turned to her again, the easy grin returning to his face. "Sorry, I didn't even think about that. I can check tomorrow to see if you have any, if you'd like." He wouldn't mind making the trip back up to the hospital. He was bound to get bored at some point in class tomorrow anyway.

"Here," he said, sliding the basket closer to where it rested by where her thigh probably was. Taro leaned over to peer into the basket, then began pointing as he named each of them individually. "Persimmons, figs, grapes, and pears. This is some of the pears' skin, but you don't have to eat it if you don't want it. I think it's supposed to be healthy for you, but I wouldn't." Without giving it much thought, he plucked a grape that had fallen wayside and covered up the corner of one of the fig-face's smiles, then popped it into his mouth. Around a mouthful of grape, he said, "I tried to keep it all dry, and I think I did a pretty okay job." Mostly.

---

Itagaki Mitsumi

[Itagaki Mitsumi]

Mitsumi knew well enough that her mannerisms were annoying. They annoyed her. It wasn't as though she chose to stammer, or have difficulty treating most people with a friendly-yet-distant politeness.

And yet Mitsumi was surprised when she was presented with a wagging finger. She followed the point with wide, purple eyes.
"Taro-kun," She repeated after a moment, and her face was bright red at this point.

She still didn't understand why he was here. He was here to visit her while she was in the hospital, but that was the pretense. It didn't answer the why. The only answers that came to mind were impossible.

Especially since she hadn't failed to notice that Taro had difficulty looking at her.

"This... i-is for me...?" She hadn't really noticed the fruit basket, on her disordered state. She leaned forward, and took a fig up with unsteady fingers. There was... a face? It was kind of cute, and it prompted a small ile, equal parts amused and surprised. "Did you m-make this, Tok-... T-T-Taro-kun?" It was a little rough. Small imperfections and rough edges that made it look decidedly homemade. "I-I mean, thank you. Really! Th-thank you, but... we hardly know each other. S-so... why?"

She was still flustered, fingers worrying at the fig as she risked glances up at Taro - who she kept having to remind herself not to call Tokugawa.

Did noone in her life go by their family name among acquaintances? Just her?

[Tokugawa Taro]

---

As Mitsumi fumbled over her words, Taro took the time to bite into the grape he had picked. It had been moderately-sized, and when his teeth split the skin, sweet and faintly sour juices burst into his mouth.

At seeing a small grin forming on her face, his own expression brightened. He wasn't sure if he had ever been able to make her smile before. Panic seemed to be her default response to most things, and any way that he could get around that with her was a little victory on its own.

He nodded affirmation when she asked whether he had made it. After he swallowed, he said, "I did." He always tried to give credit where credit was due, though, especially when it came to the small businesses he'd come to frequent in Kumo, so he went on to clarify. "I got all the fruits from Shinozaki-san in the market yesterday. I would've gotten some fresher ones today, but a lot of the shops had closed down because of the storm. Then I got the basket from Akabane-san. She usually does a better job," he said, picking at where the slivers of bamboo stuck out and threatened to unwind from the handle, "but I told her I needed one today, so she let me get one that she was still working on. I just cut them up and put it all together."

Mitsumi still seemed stuck on the reason for his visitations, though, his explanation from before apparently dissatisfactory.

"That's true, we haven't talked a lot." Everything he knew about her was surface level. She was shy, rule-following, kind to others, and something really bad had happened to her. She probably couldn't say too much more about him, either.

As to the question of why, he gave a small shrug and a blunt answer. "Didn't have anything better to do." Be at the academy attending his classes, someone like Mitsumi might think, but he had spent so long now skipping lectures that didn't immediately grab his attention, he'd started to think of them as more of an extracurricular activity than anything he was actually obligated to do.

As flustered as she seemed, though, she would probably still be wondering why her. Taro found his eyes starting to drift down to where the pink scar tissue on her cheek wasn't perfectly concealed by her hair, so he looked away from her finally, instead turning his attention to the white walls of the hospital room. He hummed and puckered his lips to try to cover this up, to make it seem like a more thoughtful gesture than anything. He did take the moment to think, though it didn't take him long to know the answer.

"But also, I don't see you having a lot of friends, so I figured you haven't been getting a lot of people to come and see you, and that really sucks. No one deserves to be alone, especially when something bad has happened to them. I know I'd be going crazy if I was stuck in here all day."

A quick cursory glance around the room, and it was anything but homely. Nothing on the walls, nothing on the windowsill. Anything that wasn't just a wardrobe and a sink were all clinical of nature. The only thing she had to do as far as he could see was just staring out of a window. Maybe he really should have tried bringing her some homework.

---

Itagaki Mitsumi

[Itagaki Mitsumi]

As Taro spoke, Mitsumi slowly ate the fig, trying to enjoy the subtle sweetness. Perhaps it would be an antidote to the bitterness that arose in her chest.

Taro meant well. Even if he was just an excuse to skip class, he was still here to check in on her, a mere classmate. To ensure she wasn't too isolated, too bored. Rationally, it was a kind gesture. Not polite, but kind.

And yet she could feel resentment. That she appeared so pitiful. That she was in a position where a near-stranger would even think to do something like this.

All Mitsumi wanted was the strength to stand on her own. To be someone people looked to as an exemplar, or at least an example of someone competent. Not this. Never like this.

She knew she struggled to make friends. That didn't mean she wanted to be faced with that fact. She knew her failings better than anyone already.

Mitsumi has simply let Taro speak, and then was quiet for a long moment.
"I... I have some b-books at least." The forced smile didn't reach her eyes, not that her gaze met Taro's similarly deflected eyes. The knot in her gut tightened. "A-and my mom and b-brother visited t-today..." It felt so pathetic, and the polite veneer finally cracked.

"It really does suck," It was muttered, but audible. She drew her good leg into herself, and hugged her knee, gaze drifting out of the window. "Hey, Taro-kun," Mitsumi's voice was soft, distracted, but more steady. "You're skipping c-class to be here, right?" She risked a glance through her obscuring hair in his direction. "So... why are you even enrolled...?"

[Tokugawa Taro]

---

A stretch of silence, long enough for him to look back over at her and wonder at her quietude. Her expression was unreadable to him though, and before he could start guessing what she was thinking, she spoke again.

Some of her family had visited her already, and she had books to pass the time. At face value, none of these things sounded appealing.

The only books that had ever really captured Taro's interest were a series of manga his friend had shown him, but even with those he only ever got through a few chapters at a time. As soon as dialogue began stretching and taking up most of the panels, whenever they were extrapolating on how this organization was structured or how those powers had originated, he got bored and left it alone for months at a time. He couldn't imagine spending a whole day just reading.

Then with her mother and brother, he knew logically her relationship with them was likely different from his own, but even knowing that he couldn't conceptualize a truly joyful reunion with her family. For his part, there was no familial warmth between him and his half-siblings. Out of the ones he had met, most of them were older and showed no interest in him. They may as well have been strangers. Then with parents, Taro had now been able to see how his friends interacted with their mothers and fathers, and how odd it was that his own were so often structured like business meetings. Even in the absence of those stiff formalities, though, and how positively his friends spoke about their own parents, they just seemed like nuisances to him. Nagging, controlling. It seemed far better to be away from them than with them.

When Mitsumi finally conceded that it did, indeed, suck, he gave a small, sympathetic smile. He wasn't entirely sure whether she was referring to the stay at the hospital itself or if it was an admission of her own loneliness, but he felt for her either way.

The shift in conversation to himself caught him off guard at first, and he frowned and raised his brow to show this. "Hm?"

It was something he was asked quite often, though. It was a question of confusion from students, and something commonly more patronizing from teachers and other adults in the village. To each of them, he gave approximately the same stock answer, a sort of half-truth. After he recovered from his surprise, Mitsumi got this same treatment.

"I'll graduate eventually," he said, leaning back and propping himself up with his hands on the spot where Mitsumi's good leg had been just moments ago. Taro shifted his gaze to stare up at the ceiling as he continued to explain himself. "I show up to some classes, and plus, I might be getting a new tutor pretty soon." Someone had responded to the poster he'd left up in Tani no Hashi soliciting for a mentor, anyway, and maybe this time it wouldn't be some stuffy scholar who just studied Sunagakure and the Chikamatsu clan, but an actual puppet-wielding shinobi.

"I think being a ninja would be pretty cool. I mean, I can already transform into basically whatever I want, and ninja get to help people and beat up bad guys and stuff." Taro looked back over to her. "That's why you wanted to be a kunoichi too, right, Mitsumi-chan?"

---

Itagaki Mitsumi

[Itagaki Mitsumi]

It was a fairly blase answer, which surprised Mitsumi. Mostly because most aspiring shinobi had either never really considered the question, or had a strong conviction. To hear something that was almost intentionally noncommittal was not what she was expecting.

But it could have been a lie. It didn't really matter either way. She had a question posed to her, that made guilt lance through her heart. It would be easy to simply vaguely nod in assent. But... she had always been bad at lying. With everything else she was hiding, she could speak a little of the truth.

"When... Wh-when I was a kid, s-sure..." Mitsumi pressed her lips together, and stared put of the window. "Now... N-now I just w-want the strength to st-stand on my own." She had faced some of the darkness within her, and was comfortable with one truth she had extracted from it. She craved power. Not power over other people, really. But she craved it all the same. Why else would she be so willing to have a monster implanted in her?

Mitsumi breathed out a long, slow breath, quelling that tremor of panic. Welcoming that beast into her was the entire reason she was here in the first place. "I w-want people to think... I don't know... Th-that I'm capable, you know?" When she said it aloud, it sounded weird and pathetic. Mitsumi snatched another fig to help hide her face again.

But the fruit stopped before her lips,and she risked a glance up. "D-doing a great job of that, huh?" It was self-depreciating humor, but it was an attempt at making Taro laugh or smile, and, though thin and small, Mitsumi's own smile reached her eyes, before she hid her face behind her hair and pilfered fruit again.