Ken's shameless, no matter who he's around. So Ryohei's presence doesn't hold him back from turning his head to nuzzle Chikusa's temple, breathing in his scent, reassuring both of them with the gesture. Ryohei's free to think what he likes about it. He hardly seems to be paying attention to Ryohei himself; having handed responsibility over to someone with the power to handle things, he seems to have fully entrusted the matter to them.
He does glance at Ryohei after a moment. "It'll make his bones better, right?" He's not sure how the ring works. He knows you normally have to align broken bones if you want them to heal properly; will it restore Chikusa's knees to the way they should be even without getting them aligned first? He hopes so, but he's not sure.
Something like that is hard to miss, but.. Ryohei still seems to miss the implications of it, blinking as Ken’s nuzzle nudges Chikusa’s head a bit away from the sun flames. Neither of them seem particularly bothered that they’re just doing this so… Maybe it’s a foreigner thing! After all, despite their names, they’re not actually from Japan, right?
Just bros being bros.
At the question, however, he freezes up. Biology isn’t exactly his area of expertise, after all, but….
Chikusa sighs. “I told you we should have gone to Shamal.”
“Shamal only looks over girls!” Ryohei’s brow furrows as he pauses to look over Chikusa’s damaged legs again. Broken bones need to be set, right? And that’s just for limbs in general. He’s not sure about joints. “Maybe this sort of extreme injury needs to go to a hospital…” Against Ken’s body, Chikusa goes stiff.
"No!" The word is fired from Ken's lips like a bullet, his arms tightening reflexively around Chikusa as though he expects him to be snatched from his arms. Hospitals have, on occasion, been required by himself and Chikusa, and there's nothing they hate more. The tubes, the needles, the people in lab coats in power over them - it's always a relived nightmare of Estraneo. And Chikusa's never been hurt quite so badly; Ken's terrified of how long he might have to be in there, what they might do to his partner. Worse, he's not sure mundane medicine can fix injuries this extensive; that's why he opted for box healing as a better solution in the first place.
"He can't go to a normal doctor, byon! They'll put him in casts and he'll be stuck there for months and he might not even heal right! Can't your stupid box heal everything?!"
He's as tense as piano wire. Even more than Chikusa, he's radiating terror, thinly masked by sound and fury. He's in his most dangerous state, one Chikusa's seen before on occasion - an animal at bay, ready to do just about anything to himself or to anyone else if it'll get him out of the situation he's cornered in.
Correction: Ken is the most visibly terrified. Chikusa is just as much so, although it’s almost impossible to tell to most people. Still, however, his fingers have subtly but definitely started to dig into Ken’s clothing, clinging back to him as much as Chikusa is being clung to himself. His eyes still haven’t stopped focusing on Ryohei, keeping track of every single movement.
In the face of such open panic and silent but vicious distrust, Ryohei actually pauses as he stares at the two with a furrowed brow. He’s clearly doing what he doesn’t do most of the time, which is that he’s trying to think carefully about all of this. Finally, he gets up to his feet. “I’ll call Doctor Shamal!” he announces, louder than is really necessary. “So stay right there!!”
This...is a solution that hadn't occurred to Ken. To not have to choose between Shamal or Ryohei, but to have both. He blinks at Ryohei for a moment, then glances at Chikusa as though looking for his more intelligent partner to find some flaw with this.
Ryohei doesn't seem to need any input on the matter, so Ken supposes if there's a problem, they can just leave while Ryohei's gone...but this sounds like a good plan to him, on the face of it.
Ryohei really doesn’t need anymore input on the matter, because he goes running off back into the house- front door this time. That just leaves Ken and Chikusa back sitting on the lawn, Chikusa still shrunk back against Ken.
At least he seems to be giving some thought to it all, lips drawn tight together as he stares at the door Ryohei has just vanished through. For a few tense seconds, he thinks heavily. Eventually- “We’re not going to a hospital.” Like it really needs to be said for either of them.
"Damn right we're not, byon," Ken huffs, tugging Chikusa closer against his chest. He's shifted so that he's holding Chikusa more from the side than behind now, Chikusa's head pillowed against his shoulder.
Ken couldn't take a more overtly protective stance if he tried. Anyone who wants to take Chikusa to a hospital will have to knock him out or kill him to arrange it; that much is blindingly obvious.
The good news is that when Ryohei comes bounding out of the house a few minutes later, he doesn’t seem intent on knocking Ken out and definitely not killing him. Instead, there’s a paper scrunched up in his hand that he glances at, just to remind himself of the basics of the conversation he’d just had. He does learn, after all.
“Doctor Shamal said that a sun flame would just make the healing go faster, but it wouldn’t set bones! They have to be set first! And he said that to find out the damage, we’d have to use an x-ray!”
“No,” is Chikusa’s immediate answer, sharper than his usual quietness. Ryohei’s face furrows in a frown.
For once, it's Ken who has the more restrained, reasonable reaction. His eyes narrow at the words, but it's a second before he says anything.
"Does Shamal have one?" After all, Shamal was where Chikusa wanted to go first - had preferred it to Ryohei, in fact - and that doesn't count as a hospital. So maybe an x-ray can happen without an actual hospital visit.
But the dark realization is sinking in to Ken that, if they need this machine and they can only get one at a hospital...they'll have to go. Chikusa might refuse it on his own behalf, but Ken won't refuse anything that will fix Chikusa. It may be literally the last thing he ever wants to do, but they've had to endure it before and they can endure it again.
“I’ve never heard of a school having an x-ray machine…” Which, considering that Hibari attends Nami Middle, maybe they should really have one for all the broken bones he gives even other Namimori students because they didn’t follow his rules.
Still. That’s obviously not what Chikusa wants to hear. His fingers dig hard into Ken’s arms, a clear signal that he’s prepared to physically launch himself if need be away from this whole discussion. Logically, he knows that this is what he needs to do. Without his legs, his usefulness to Mukuro-sama plummet, and he’s already for years now felt like it’s been a precarious position to start with. At the same time… Hospitals and the sickly smell of medicine and death, it’s too much. It strikes at something that’s been buried deep inside of him.
Before he can do anything, however, Ryohei slams his fist into his open palm suddenly. “Wait!! I know someone who’s extremely like an x-ray machine! He could probably help!”
Ken curls his body more around Chikusa, although for the first time tonight it's not to protect him. It's a preventative measure, making it so that his own body is in the way of Chikusa trying to leap out of his arms. However bad the hospital is, it's better than Chikusa being maimed for life. Ken will do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn't happen.
"It's okay, Kakipi," he mutters. His voice is tense, but resolute. "If...if you've gotta go to the hospital, I'll go with you, byon. I'll protect you, promise."
For them, this is the equivalent of someone telling the virgin sacrifice that if the sacrifice gets thrown into the volcano, they'll jump in after them.
His head jerks up when Ryohei talks, in his usual overly loud voice. He squints suspiciously at him. "How can someone be like an x-ray machine, byon? Is Shamal coming here?"
If Ken seems wary of this new suggestion, then Chikusa is doubly so. How can someone be like an x-ray machine, and is that even good enough for what needs to be done? It feels like another trap to get him in a hospital, something that’s working him up more and more as he thinks about it.
Half of that is Ken’s fault, for all his partner is doing the best for him. With his legs already broken, Chikusa is helpless enough although that wouldn’t stop him from crawling away or even forcing broken legs to carry himself. When your sense of pain doesn’t work, you become capable of making a lot more ill advised decisions. However, Ken wrapping around him keeps him from doing even that much. Traps him. It far too easily makes him think of being strapped to an operating table, lights blinding him and needles pressing into his skin.
As usual, however, Chikusa keeps all of this hidden by a stony mask, so Ryohei can’t really be blamed for his obliviousness as he beams at the pair. “His eyes are extremely strong,” he promises, like that explains things. “He can see into the human body, or something!” Unfortunately, the details about all of this are probably best given by someone… not Ryohei. “I bet he could see what parts are broken!”
Ken squints at Ryohei. This time it's a squint of confusion, as he tries to work out the logic in his head. "So...can he fix what's broken?" he asks eventually. Fixing Chikusa is what he wants. He doesn't care which of Chikusa's bones are broken so long as someone fixes them.
This time it’s Ryohei who pauses, nose scrunching up as he thinks carefully. “Maybe?” he offers after a moment, clearly very unsure, and Chikusa gives a sigh. Between these two, it’s becoming clear to him that it’s going to take forever to make sense of everything.
“If it means not going to the hospital…”
The acquiescence has Ryohei grin again, and he points up to his bedroom window. “You can wait in my room! It’s extremely bad for neighbors to see bleeding people on our front lawn.” Something he may or may not have had to learn through personal experience.
Ken growls. "Just bring somebody who can fix him, stupid!" He scoops Chikusa up off the ground, like he weighs nothing. "Shamal, your x-ray guy, you and your box, your scrawny boss, a surgeon, whoever! All of them at once, byon! Just figure out how to fix him!"
And then - somehow, in a way perhaps known only to Ken because he moves too rapidly and Chikusa's body in his arms makes any clear view impossible - Ken scrambles up the side of the house to Ryohei's window and is through it, Chikusa still held against him. Ken lays him carefully, almost reverentially, on Ryohei's bed, and if Chikusa's getting blood on his sheets then Ken cares even less about that than he would at any other time, and at any other time he wouldn't care at all.
There's only the pause of a moment before Ken's climbing onto the bed with Chikusa, wrapping his arms around him and curling up against his side.
Everything happens in such a blur, but it doesn’t matter to Chikusa. The only thing that matters to him is that Ken is still by his side, still able to be felt and then seen and then felt again. Sure, his legs are still a mess, but Chikusa doesn’t care- he’ll survive. Already, he’s certain that he’s even in better condition than before thanks to what little healing Ryohei did to him before the subject of his knees came up.
Once Ken has settled against him, Chikusa curls his fingers along his neck. “...You’d really come with me to a hospital?”
"Duh," Ken mutters, even as his face presses into its usual spot against Chikusa's neck, nose nuzzled against his skin. His fear and anger and distaste at the idea is evident in his voice, but his answer was entirely without hesitation. "Who'd make sure they don't do bad stuff to you if I wasn't there?"
He simply breathes for a moment, warm air against Chikusa's neck. "...if the dumb sports guy doesn't find anything better, we might have to. You gotta get fixed, byon. I'll look out for you, though."
Ken is in no position to be criticizing Ryohei's intelligence, honestly.
What parts of his body still aren’t shattered and broken- most of it, now, Ryohei managed that much above the waist- go further stiff at the idea. There’s not even any way to verbalize it, to solidify his thoughts and emotions with words. Or perhaps that isn’t true… but it’s what he feels in that moment, thinking of chemical smells and needles and straps binding him to gurneys. Helplessness.
Ken knows it, too. Perhaps he doesn’t need to tell him anything at all.
“I don’t want them to touch me,” he mutters into Ken’s hair regardless. Even for his own good, he doesn’t want to be in that kind of position again.
"I know, byon," Ken says, lips moving against Chikusa's skin. It could almost be mistaken for kissing. "I don't want them to touch you, either." The same tension from Chikusa's own body is practically thrumming through Ken's. "But...I want you to get better more than I don't trust them."
He wants Chikusa to get better more than anything.
"You'll be safe this time. I'll make sure they don't do anything that isn't making you better, Kakipi."
On one hand, that is reassuring. Ken would tear down a building in Kong Channel before letting anything harm him. Chikusa has seen him do the same for Mukuro at an idle gesture, and if Ken is dedicated to protecting him with even a fraction of that….
Yet there’s a flaw. “How would you know?” Chikusa mutters, taking a deep breath. “They could mention things, and you’d have no idea if they were good for me or not.”
“They could lie,” Chikusa counters, faster than he’d usually respond, his fingers kneading Ken’s shirt. “They could lie and you wouldn’t know.” Maybe all of this is paranoia, but he doesn’t care. Instead, he tries to curl into Ken’s body more, as much as his shattered legs will allow.
"Mukuro-sama would know if they're lying, byon," Ken says stubbornly. "And I can smell when people are lying!" This is...something of an exaggeration, although it's true that Ken's senses and instincts are sharp. Even if he doesn't know much about first aid, much less complex medical procedures, it'd be hard for a doctor to get even a necessary one past him, much less convince Ken that something harmful was safe and required. "Besides, if they did anything bad to you, I'd rip 'em to pieces, byon. I don't think they're that stupid."
Finally, that seems to be enough to quiet Chikusa's pessimism. He falls quiet, laying against Ken and focusing on his breath. He's still scared, remembering too easily cold tile beneath his palms and lights shining brightly into his eyes as injections pierced thin skin, but... Arguing with Ken has helped. Perhaps is the reason he did so in the first place, knowing his partner wouldn't stop for anything.
For who knows how long, he stays where he is, clinging to Ken like his life depends on it, but soon, the sound of the front door opening and closing can be heard. Even louder, however, are a pair of voices, one that is completely recognizable as Ryohei's. In Ken's arms, Chikusa goes tense again, not sure what to expect.
Ken hears the voices even before the door opens, and he shifts his body reflexively so that his torso is half-over Chikusa's own, like he's determined that anything at all that might want to get to Chikusa will have to get through him first. His eyes lock on the door, and the growl in his throat is low and quiet enough that only Chikusa will really hear it, but it throbs through his whole body with the intensity of it.
He doesn't know who Ryohei got to help them, but they're going to have to meet Ken's approval before he lets them anywhere near Chikusa.
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badliifechoiice22016-01-08 10:36 am
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He does glance at Ryohei after a moment. "It'll make his bones better, right?" He's not sure how the ring works. He knows you normally have to align broken bones if you want them to heal properly; will it restore Chikusa's knees to the way they should be even without getting them aligned first? He hopes so, but he's not sure.
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Just bros being bros.At the question, however, he freezes up. Biology isn’t exactly his area of expertise, after all, but….
Chikusa sighs. “I told you we should have gone to Shamal.”
“Shamal only looks over girls!” Ryohei’s brow furrows as he pauses to look over Chikusa’s damaged legs again. Broken bones need to be set, right? And that’s just for limbs in general. He’s not sure about joints. “Maybe this sort of extreme injury needs to go to a hospital…” Against Ken’s body, Chikusa goes stiff.
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"He can't go to a normal doctor, byon! They'll put him in casts and he'll be stuck there for months and he might not even heal right! Can't your stupid box heal everything?!"
He's as tense as piano wire. Even more than Chikusa, he's radiating terror, thinly masked by sound and fury. He's in his most dangerous state, one Chikusa's seen before on occasion - an animal at bay, ready to do just about anything to himself or to anyone else if it'll get him out of the situation he's cornered in.
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In the face of such open panic and silent but vicious distrust, Ryohei actually pauses as he stares at the two with a furrowed brow. He’s clearly doing what he doesn’t do most of the time, which is that he’s trying to think carefully about all of this. Finally, he gets up to his feet. “I’ll call Doctor Shamal!” he announces, louder than is really necessary. “So stay right there!!”
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Ryohei doesn't seem to need any input on the matter, so Ken supposes if there's a problem, they can just leave while Ryohei's gone...but this sounds like a good plan to him, on the face of it.
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At least he seems to be giving some thought to it all, lips drawn tight together as he stares at the door Ryohei has just vanished through. For a few tense seconds, he thinks heavily. Eventually- “We’re not going to a hospital.” Like it really needs to be said for either of them.
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Ken couldn't take a more overtly protective stance if he tried. Anyone who wants to take Chikusa to a hospital will have to knock him out or kill him to arrange it; that much is blindingly obvious.
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“Doctor Shamal said that a sun flame would just make the healing go faster, but it wouldn’t set bones! They have to be set first! And he said that to find out the damage, we’d have to use an x-ray!”
“No,” is Chikusa’s immediate answer, sharper than his usual quietness. Ryohei’s face furrows in a frown.
“But-”
“No.”
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"Does Shamal have one?" After all, Shamal was where Chikusa wanted to go first - had preferred it to Ryohei, in fact - and that doesn't count as a hospital. So maybe an x-ray can happen without an actual hospital visit.
But the dark realization is sinking in to Ken that, if they need this machine and they can only get one at a hospital...they'll have to go. Chikusa might refuse it on his own behalf, but Ken won't refuse anything that will fix Chikusa. It may be literally the last thing he ever wants to do, but they've had to endure it before and they can endure it again.
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Still. That’s obviously not what Chikusa wants to hear. His fingers dig hard into Ken’s arms, a clear signal that he’s prepared to physically launch himself if need be away from this whole discussion. Logically, he knows that this is what he needs to do. Without his legs, his usefulness to Mukuro-sama plummet, and he’s already for years now felt like it’s been a precarious position to start with. At the same time… Hospitals and the sickly smell of medicine and death, it’s too much. It strikes at something that’s been buried deep inside of him.
Before he can do anything, however, Ryohei slams his fist into his open palm suddenly. “Wait!! I know someone who’s extremely like an x-ray machine! He could probably help!”
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"It's okay, Kakipi," he mutters. His voice is tense, but resolute. "If...if you've gotta go to the hospital, I'll go with you, byon. I'll protect you, promise."
For them, this is the equivalent of someone telling the virgin sacrifice that if the sacrifice gets thrown into the volcano, they'll jump in after them.
His head jerks up when Ryohei talks, in his usual overly loud voice. He squints suspiciously at him. "How can someone be like an x-ray machine, byon? Is Shamal coming here?"
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Half of that is Ken’s fault, for all his partner is doing the best for him. With his legs already broken, Chikusa is helpless enough although that wouldn’t stop him from crawling away or even forcing broken legs to carry himself. When your sense of pain doesn’t work, you become capable of making a lot more ill advised decisions. However, Ken wrapping around him keeps him from doing even that much. Traps him. It far too easily makes him think of being strapped to an operating table, lights blinding him and needles pressing into his skin.
As usual, however, Chikusa keeps all of this hidden by a stony mask, so Ryohei can’t really be blamed for his obliviousness as he beams at the pair. “His eyes are extremely strong,” he promises, like that explains things. “He can see into the human body, or something!” Unfortunately, the details about all of this are probably best given by someone… not Ryohei. “I bet he could see what parts are broken!”
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“If it means not going to the hospital…”
The acquiescence has Ryohei grin again, and he points up to his bedroom window. “You can wait in my room! It’s extremely bad for neighbors to see bleeding people on our front lawn.” Something he may or may not have had to learn through personal experience.
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And then - somehow, in a way perhaps known only to Ken because he moves too rapidly and Chikusa's body in his arms makes any clear view impossible - Ken scrambles up the side of the house to Ryohei's window and is through it, Chikusa still held against him. Ken lays him carefully, almost reverentially, on Ryohei's bed, and if Chikusa's getting blood on his sheets then Ken cares even less about that than he would at any other time, and at any other time he wouldn't care at all.
There's only the pause of a moment before Ken's climbing onto the bed with Chikusa, wrapping his arms around him and curling up against his side.
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Everything happens in such a blur, but it doesn’t matter to Chikusa. The only thing that matters to him is that Ken is still by his side, still able to be felt and then seen and then felt again. Sure, his legs are still a mess, but Chikusa doesn’t care- he’ll survive. Already, he’s certain that he’s even in better condition than before thanks to what little healing Ryohei did to him before the subject of his knees came up.
Once Ken has settled against him, Chikusa curls his fingers along his neck. “...You’d really come with me to a hospital?”
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He simply breathes for a moment, warm air against Chikusa's neck. "...if the dumb sports guy doesn't find anything better, we might have to. You gotta get fixed, byon. I'll look out for you, though."
Ken is in no position to be criticizing Ryohei's intelligence, honestly.
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Or perhaps that isn’t true… but it’s what he feels in that moment, thinking of chemical smells and needles and straps binding him to gurneys. Helplessness.
Ken knows it, too. Perhaps he doesn’t need to tell him anything at all.
“I don’t want them to touch me,” he mutters into Ken’s hair regardless. Even for his own good, he doesn’t want to be in that kind of position again.
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He wants Chikusa to get better more than anything.
"You'll be safe this time. I'll make sure they don't do anything that isn't making you better, Kakipi."
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Yet there’s a flaw. “How would you know?” Chikusa mutters, taking a deep breath. “They could mention things, and you’d have no idea if they were good for me or not.”
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For who knows how long, he stays where he is, clinging to Ken like his life depends on it, but soon, the sound of the front door opening and closing can be heard. Even louder, however, are a pair of voices, one that is completely recognizable as Ryohei's. In Ken's arms, Chikusa goes tense again, not sure what to expect.
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He doesn't know who Ryohei got to help them, but they're going to have to meet Ken's approval before he lets them anywhere near Chikusa.
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