The world seemed to be moving as if everything was stuck on fast forward. Nurses sped in and out of the white and pale green hospital room. They would come in and adjust the bag on clear fluids that hung by the bedside, check to make sure that all bandages were still in their place, and possible change a few if needed. They would chat with each other and attempt to get the teenaged patient to respond. But everything that the nurses would say became meaningless to the young male who lay, almost lifelessly, on top on the mattress.

The boy never moved, except to turn his head to face someone when they addressed him. Other than that, the nurses and doctors would work together to lift him off of the bed to feed him and change him out of the dirty bandages and hospital gowns he wore. Even though the people around him would try to talk to him, his eyes were always dull and he never responded.

There was a light knock on the door and a man in a long white coat came walking into the room, followed by a nurse. The doctor picked up the clip board that hung off the bed and flipped through the documents briefly before setting it back down. The man walked up to the side of the hospital bed and sat down on the stool beside it. "Ototya Ittoki?" He asked the boy, trying to get a responce, but boy only turned his head to look at him. "It's nice to meet you. I'll be the doctor taking care of you while you're here." The doctor paused again. He looked over the boy, who was covered in bandages. "You have many injuries including several cuts along your torso, many scrapes and bruises, a broken wrist and three broken ribs, and the large gash across your forehead. The problem isn't if you will heal, because you are healing very well right now, but that we don't know how these injuries were caused. Would you be able to tell us?"

Otoya remained silent and just stared at the doctor. He didn't move or make any sort of facial expression. But, suddenly, tears began to stream down his face, as if he was unable to hold them back. Not a single sound escaped the boy and the tears fell, he only looked at the man in the white coat with the usual lifeless expression. Even as the nurse ran up to the patient to dab the tears away with a white clothe, Otoya didn't respond.
Letting out a sigh, the doctor stood up from the stool and began walking out of the room. He whispered something into the nurses ear, so that Otoya would be unable to hear it, and left. The nurse then returned to taking care of Otoya. She adjusted the hospital bed so that Otoya would be sitting up and began to unravel the bandage that was wrapped around the boy's forehead, and clean the area around the several stitches, before putting on a new, clean set of bandages. Once she had finished, she let Otoya lay down once more, fixed the blankets which covered him, and said a quick good bye before leaving the room.

Now that he was left alone once more, Otoya looked up at the ceiling. He had heard what the doctor asked, and knew exactly what had happened to him. He could still feel it. The shock of being pushed down, the pain of being kicked by many different pairs of feet, the absolute horror that washed through him when one of his attackers pulled out a knife. It had been the first time anyone had actually taken out a weapon when hurting him. Otoya could feel his whole body tensing up and his heart beginning to pound in his chest. Not too long after his heart rate shot up, nurses began flooding into the room. One tried to calm him down while the others began doing something that Otoya couldn't see as his eyes began to grow heavier. Then, everything went black.

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Otoya woke up to one of the nurses tapping his shoulder lighty. He blinked his eyes open and looked up at the familiar nurse. She was the same one who greeted him every morning. The red headed boy sat up on his own and placed his hands in his lap.
"Good morning." The nurse said. "I brought your breakfast." She lifted the tray that had been on top of the bedside table and placed it carefully over the boy's lap.
Otoya nodded his head and picked up the fork on his plate and began picking at the scrambled eggs on his plate. The could see the nurse giving him a worried smile out of the corner of his eye, but he ignored it. The two sat in silence as Otoya ate. He hadn't had much of an apatite since he had entered the hospital, so he ended up leaving a good amount on his plate. Once he had finished, he placed the fork back down and looked away from the nurse, staring at the window that was currently covered by white curtains. The nurse saw that the boy was looking away and quickly ran to pull the curtain away so that the boy could look out the window.

"It's a lovely day out." She said as she went to clear the tray away from the boy. "I know you don't like moving too much, but you should see about going outside. You are allowed to walk around after all." The nurse waited for a reply of any kind, but got none. She decided to leave it at that and carried the tray out of the room, leaving the teen on his own.

Otoya stayed in his bed for hours. Durring that time, he had spent time simply staring out the window and being surrounded by nurses. The doctor came into his room and tried to ask Otoya questions, only to get the same silence. Even after he had been given lunch, Otoya did nothing but sit around and stare off into space.

The red haired boy looked at the door, then at the ground. He thought about what the nurse from that morning had told him. He supposed it would be a good idea to move around some, especially since he had been doing nothing but sitting and laying down for a few days now. Otoya pulled the blankets off of him and took the straps from the machines off of his wrists before slowly swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He looked towards the navy blue pajamas that had been placed on the shelf under the beside table by one of the nurses. The leaned down and unfolded them, placing the two separate pieces on the bed next to him. Otoya then began slipping out of the gown he was in, letting it drop in a heap on the floor, before slowly putting the pajamas on. He managed to put the pants on easily enough, only having trouble when it came to standing up to pull them on without falling over. Once those were on, he threw the shirt on, buttoning it up all the way to hide the bandages on his chest and stomach. He stood up, putting all of his weight on the bedside table, then the wall, until he was able to reach the crutches that leaned against the wall.

After situating himself over the crutches, Otoya made his way for the door, then into the hallway. No one bothered to stop him as he walked down the hall. He didn't really know where he was going, mostly because he had never been outside of the room and didnt know his way around the hospital. He found a map on one of the walls by an elevator and looked it over. He saw the the courtyard wasnt too far from where he currently was, and began heading in that direction.

Otoya met the fresh outdoor air in a sudden burst as the automatic sliding doors opened up. The sound of his crutches changed as he went from tile to stone and continued down the pathway. There were many other patients outside, some in wheel chairs, some followed by nurses, and many of different ages. Not wanting to be too close to anyone, Otoya wandered until he found a bench that was in one of the far off corners of the open space. It was a bit tricky to hold the crutches in one hand as he sat down, but once he did Otoya was able to relax on top of the bench.

A light breeze came by every now and then, blowing against the red head's face and lightly through his hair. It had been so long since he was outside. Otoya didn't even remember what day he had been brought to the hospital. The last thing he remembered before waking up in the highly sterile room was the mass amount of pain that coursed through his body as he was beaten. Otoya could feel himself beginning to shake as the memory of crazed grins and hurtful voices passed through his head. Feeling his eyes beginning to water, he lifted an arm up to rub any possible tears away with his sleeve. He hung his head low and stared at his feet.

Suddenly, a shadow covered Otoya's feet. When the teen looked up he saw another boy standing in front of him. This boy looked like he might be around his age, maybe a bit younger even. He had blonde hair and was wearing the same navy blue pajama pants as Otoya, only with a white tee-shirt on top, showing that he was a patient too. "Ming if I sit with you?" The boy asked.

Otoya whipped his eyes one last time and nodded. He watched curiously as the blonde boy sat down on the bench and stretched out his arms and legs. "Tired of being cooped up inside? Or are you just running from the nurses?" The blonde asked with a smile on his face. Otoya simply shook his head. "So, neither?" Otoya nodded in responce. "I know that this is a really stupid question, being in a hospital and all, but are you ok?"

The red haired boy looked at the boy and coaxed his head to the side. He then looked down at his feet and shrugged. He began pointing to all of his injuries, mainly his forehead, ribs, and wrist. But when he looked at the blonde to see if he had understood, he saw the look of confusion on the other male's face, Otoya looked back down at the ground, a frown on his face. He took took one of his index fingers and pointed to himself, then brought it up to his face and traced a line from the corner of his eye to his chin.
"Why were you crying?" The blonde asked, understanding the last motion that the red head had made.

Otoya brought both of his hands up and gripped his throat lightly. It almost looked as if he was choking himself.

"So," the blonde thoat about it for a moment. "You can't talk?" He watched as Otoya shook his head. "Why not?"

The red head looked around nervously. He didn't know what kind of motion to make to try and explain why he wasnt talking. He could feel his whole body beginning to shake again.
"Hey, it's ok." The blonde held his hands up as if he wanted to do something to help the red head, but didnt know how to. "Um, uh, you don't have to force yourself."

Otoya looked at the other boy and smiled his thanks. He was rather curious about this boy. He hadn't expected someone to come up and try to talk to him, outside of one of the nurses that is. This was the Otoya's first conversation since coming to the hospital as well. Or at least, the first one where he had responded. Wanted to know a bit more about the boy, Otoya raise his hand and poked a finger at the chest of the boy sitting next to him, holding it there as he coaxed his head to the side and gave a questioning glance.
The blonde boy looked down at the finger then at the boy, an eyebrow raised. "What? You want to know something?" He saw Otoya nod and began to think about what the boy might want. "My name?" He asked, earning a happy smile and nod. "Oh. I'm Syo. Syo Kurusu."

Otoya looked at Syo happily. It was nice to be near someone other than the usual nurses, especially since Syo was probably so close in age. Although Otoya had never responded to any of the nurses, he had wanted nothing more than to be able to talk with someone again. But with the nurses and doctors it was always the same thing. They just wanted to know what he didn't want to remember. Then it hit him, he needed to tell Syo his name somehow. He looked around frantically, trying to find something he could use.
"Here you go." Syo handed Otoya a cellphone. It was already open to the 'New Conact' page.

The red head nodded his thanks and too the phone into his hands. He began typed his name down, but he didn't know what else to put. He did have a cell phone, apparently it had been found with him and wasnt broken, but he hadn't charged it, so it was probably out of battery. But still, he could probably ask one of the nurses if he could borrow a charger. After deciding to put in his cell phone number, Otoya looked at the screen once more, wondering what else he should put down. There wasnt much else to put down. With a shrug, Otoya put in one last thing before handing the phone back to its rightful owner.

Syo looked at the saved contact that was now in his phone.

Otoya Ittoki
(xxx) xxx - xxxx
Room 2017

"Otoya?" Syo muttered. He then turned to face the boy next to him, holding his hand out. "Nice to meet you Otoya."

The red haired boy nodded and took Syo's hand in his, shaking it with a smile on his face. Then he remembered something and tapped at his wrist, as if he were tapping a watch.
"It's about 4:30." Syo said, looking at the clock on his phone. He watched as Otoya became frantic. The red head tapped at his own chest before making a movement with his fingers like a person walking. "If you gotta go then don't worry about me. Go ahead. I'll send you a message later though."

Otoya began to stand up, grabbing hold of his crutches, and situated himself on his feet. He nodded to Syo and waved before turning around and heading back inside. After going through several halls, he finally made it back to his room, where he then went straight to the small bag that was on the other side of the room. It was the bag that he had had with him before he had been beaten, and luckily, it still had a lot of his stuff in it and mostly unharmed. After shifting through the partially ripped and broken items inside of the bag, Otoya finally found his phone. It was an old flip phone, but it was one of those ones that was practically indestructible, so it barely even had a scratch. Otoya pressed the power button and was happy to find that it still turned on, but it was extremely low on battery and needed to be charged soon.

"Oh, you're up!" A nurse said when she came into the room. She was surprised to see that the teen was out of bed and moving around. She was carrying a bucket of water, a sponge, and few sets of clean bandages.

Otoya made his was over to her and held his phone up to her, pointing to the battery image in the top corner, hoping she would understand that he would like to charge it.
"Hmm. I think that there might be someone with the right charge somewhere. I can go ask if you like." The nurse said, placing the objects in her hands down on the table in the room. Otoya nodded and handed to phone to the lady. "Sit down and take off your shirt so that I can check the bandages while I go see if I can find another charger for you. I'll be back in a minute."

Otoya nodded and went to go sit on top of his rooms bed when the nurse left. He leaned his crutches against the wall, taking care to make sure that they wouldn't fall he was sitting down comfortably, he began taking off the pajama shirt, unbuttoning it and shrugging it off so that it lay on the bed. He then sat and waited for the nurse to come back.

The nurse came back into the room carrying a black cable as well as Otoya's cellphone. She plugged it into the outlet nearest to the bed and rested the phone on top of the bedside table to that the boy would be able to reach it easily. "There you go. You got lucky. One of the other nurses had a charger that fit." The nurse smiled and began to unwrap the bandages around Otoya's chest. Once those were off, she dipped the sponge in the bucket of water and began to dab at the boy's chest. She wanted to make sure that the scrapes and stitches that went across it were nice and clean before she covered it with the new set of bandages. She then did the same with Otoya's upper arm. Once she was done, she smiled at the boy happily. "I'll bring you dinner soon. So why don't you stay in bed for now?"

Otoya didn't respond, but instead reached for his shirt and began putting it back on. He pushed himself back onto his bed, pulling the covers back over him, and looked out the window once more. For the whole rest of the day, he ignored the nurses and doctors who came into the room and checked up on him or gave him food. Although he did steal glances towards his phone, clearly waiting for it to go off at any time.

The sound of his phone vibrating against the bed side table made Otoya jump in his own skin. He quickly picked up the phone and flipped it open to see that there was a message from a number that wasnt saved in his contacts. He opened it up and a smile grew on his face right away.

Hey! It's Syo.

Otoya quickly saved the number before responding to the text.

Hi Syo. Thanks for talking to me earlier.

The red head sat up in his bed, adjusting it so that he was able to sit up, and brought his knees up towards his chest. He stared at his phone, waiting for it to go off again. When if finally did, he happily opened the message.

No worries. You looked really down. And it was cool meeting you.

The two boys continued to text each other. They didn't really talk about much though. Neither of them cared to bring up what had landed them in the hospital, so they tried to avoid that topic. Instead they would talk about how awful the food was and how the nurses never left them alone. To Otoya, even if it was meaningless chatting, he loved it. He had never talked to someone so freely before. And since he didn't have to open his mouth to speak when texting, he was able to freely talk to Syo. What was better was that Syo didn't seem to be judging him at all. It made Otoya happy to know that there was someone in the world who might actually care.