The rhythmic sound of a heart monitor beeped constantly, piercing the silence of the room. Bip... bip... bip... The electronic sound was steady.
A soft exhale followed the monitor's sound. On the fairly wide guest sofa, Fuse slowly roused from his brief slumber.
The dark red-haired young man let out a small yawn, working his stiff jaw. His hand rose to rub his eyes, which felt sore and heavy. Once his awareness gathered, he lowered his hand. His blurry gaze refocused and returned to normal.
Instantly, his eyes caught a sight that shattered his heart. The figure of his mother, Sakura, lay motionless on the hospital bed. The woman's face was as pale as paper, surrounded by IV lines and monitor cables stuck all over her body.
Seeing that fragile body, Fuse stared blankly. His body froze on the sofa like a stone statue. His lips parted for a moment as if to call out, but they shut tight again without producing a sound. He just swallowed hard before breaking the silence with a very faint voice.
"So... this really isn't a dream, huh."
"It's not a dream. This is reality. And all of this is my fault, Fuse," answered a heavy voice from the corner of the room. The tone sounded incredibly exhausted and laden with despair.
Hearing that very familiar voice, Fuse turned his head toward the side of the bed.
There, the figure of his father, Isamu, sat hunched over on a visitor's bench. The large man's eyes remained fixed on his wife without blinking. Under Isamu's eyelids were extremely thick, dark bags. It was crystal clear that he hadn't closed his eyes or slept at all for a full day. In addition, there were red, swollen marks around his eyes. He had likely just finished crying in silence while Fuse was asleep.
Realizing the suffering his father was enduring, Fuse chose not to say a single word to argue or comfort him. He just let out a slow breath and turned his gaze back to his mother, still sleeping in a coma.
For Fuse, this tragedy was not his father's fault at all. Nor was it his helpless mother's fault. All of this suffering was purely the fault of the perpetrator, the criminal who had dared to touch his family. And deep in his heart, Fuse had already devised thousands of death scenarios to exact revenge on that scum.
"By the way," Isamu spoke up again, trying to shift the atmosphere. "Tokoyami came to visit you a little while ago. It's a shame you were fast asleep when he came by."
Isamu pointed his chin toward a small table in the corner of the room. "He brought a lot of fresh fruit as a gift. Just grab some from the table if you feel hungry and want to eat. No one else is going to eat it here except you."
Fuse glanced briefly at the fruit basket, then nodded slowly in acknowledgment.
"Knowing the misfortune that befell your mother, that boy also expressed his sorrow," Isamu continued, his voice trembling slightly. "But on the other hand, he was also very disappointed and confused. He said you didn't notify him or any of your classmates at all when your turn to fight came up. He told me your friends were panicked when they realized you had suddenly vanished and weren't at the arena."
Isamu tried to smile at his son. But the forced smile he managed felt incredibly painful to look at. The smile was empty and fragile. "Tokoyami is truly a very kind-hearted young man who cares about you. Talk to him and contact him later to explain your situation."
"That's enough, Dad," Fuse cut in quickly. He narrowed his red eyes, then looked away, staring at the empty wall. "I don't want to see or speak to anyone right now. Don't bring them up."
Hearing his son's firm rejection, Isamu fell silent for a moment, allowing the silence to creep back in. "That's exactly why I told you to contact him later, not now, Fuse."
Fuse said nothing else in response. He continued to stare at Sakura's pale face in a lengthy silence. The helplessness he felt gnawed at his ego. Until finally, he let out a long breath and stood up from the sofa.
"Where are you going?" Isamu asked, looking up slightly at his son who had suddenly gotten to his feet.
"To get some fresh air outside," Fuse answered without looking at his father. He walked toward the door. "Staying in this room full of medicine smell will only make my chest feel even more suffocated."
"I see," Isamu nodded his head slowly, staring at the hospital floor. A small, forced smile appeared on his lips again. Though the smile seemed incredibly empty and sorrowful. "No wonder you feel disappointed and frustrated. You had to throw away your dream, abandon that important final match, and come here just to see your mother like this."
"Enough, Dad. Don't bring it up again. It's in the past," Fuse shook his head vigorously. "Besides, I need to correct your statement. I don't regret leaving the stadium at all."
That was the truth. From the second he received the phone call and heard the terrible news that his mother was in a coma and being rushed to the nearest hospital, Fuse had run away from the sports festival event. Even though, at that exact moment, the schedule had already called his turn for a one-on-one match against Bakugo Katsuki.
For the sake of his mother, he hadn't cared about the rules at all. He didn't notify anyone about the reason for his absence, neither his friends nor the heroes who were his teachers. He just ran away, abandoning his grand stage.
So, last night, when he had briefly turned on his cracked old phone to check the time, thousands of notification messages and unanswered calls flooded the screen. Spam from the class group, panicked messages from Midoriya, lectures from Iida, and anxious texts from Kaminari.
Looking at the screen filled with a barrage of panicked texts, Fuse could only shake his head wearily and immediately turned the phone's power off again. He didn't have the energy to reply to all of them.
Besides, even if he had chosen to stay and fight Bakugo in the arena, the final outcome was already certain and predictable, he would have emerged as the victor.
But in the end, that championship title meant absolutely nothing to him now.
Once he reached the door of the hospital room, Fuse gripped the cold metal knob. Before turning it, he glanced back. He stared at his father's back, who sat hunched over, the back that was usually sturdy now looked incredibly weak and had lost all its will to live.
Isamu still sat frozen, his gaze locked on Sakura. Ever since he started talking to Fuse earlier, Isamu's eyes hadn't left his wife's face for a single second.
"And, Dad," Fuse called softly, his voice slightly gentler. "You should find a place to rest and get some sleep. Your eyes look like those of a living corpse."
His father didn't respond to the suggestion. Isamu just stayed silent, continuing to stare at his wife's chest rising and falling with the help of the breathing machine.
Seeing the stubbornness of his father's head, Fuse let out a resigned sigh for the umpteenth time. He turned back to face the door. With a slow movement, he opened it, stepped out, and shut the hospital room door tightly, leaving his father in silence.
…
Screech.
The sound of heavy iron hinges being forced open echoed.
Stepping through that doorway, Fuse finally set foot on the hospital's wide, open rooftop area.
The late afternoon wind, blowing quite strong, hit his face directly, ruffling his dark red hair and carrying away the antiseptic smell that had clung to his nostrils. The air up here felt much cleaner and more liberating.
Fuse walked slowly along the floor, heading toward the chest-high wire fence bordering the edge of the roof.
Upon reaching it, he gripped the iron fence post, cold beneath his palm. He bowed his head, staring far down at the city streets below.
From this height, the people walking by and the cars driving past looked as small as worker ants. They were busy with their own lives. Fuse stared at the bustling cityscape in a long, empty silence. Letting his mind wander completely blank.
He kept doing this in silence, accompanied only by the cold wind.
While his thoughts drifted aimlessly, Fuse's ear suddenly caught a sound. The impact of a pair of feet landing on the concrete floor behind him. The sound was quite loud, as if the person had just jumped down from a height.
Fuse wasn't startled at all by the sudden arrival. Besides, ever since he had stepped out onto the roof, he had known there was someone else besides himself lurking up here.
With a very casual movement, he slightly turned his head to the side, just to look at the figure from the corner of his eye.
The figure was a young man. His posture was fairly tall and his face could be considered somewhat handsome. He was wearing a young blue-patterned hospital pajama. Fuse stared at the young man's face closely. Even though he tried to search deep into his memories of this world's past, he was absolutely certain he had never seen this patient's face appear in the Boku no Hero manga panels or anime storyline.
Random kids, I guess, Fuse murmured with a very quiet voice, almost just a whisper on the wind. He chuckled softly after saying it, his mind suddenly recalling a meme he used to see flooding his social media in his past life.
Hearing that whispered, mocking laughter, the young patient slightly raised an eyebrow. Feeling offended. He stepped closer to Fuse's back. "Why did you suddenly laugh at me like that, huh?" he asked in a demanding tone.
Fuse shook his head slowly, still looking down. "It's nothing. I wasn't laughing at you. I was just recalling a funny memory from my past."
Hearing that dismissive-sounding answer, the young man stared at Fuse's back and blinked in surprise, before narrowing his eyes with an evaluating look. "Weirdo," he muttered softly.
Fuse didn't care about the insult at all. He bowed his head deeper, redirecting his gaze back to the hustle and bustle below.
The silence enveloped the hospital roof again for several minutes, filled only by the sound of the blowing wind.
"For what it's worth, I've spent the last two hours sitting on this roof," the patient spoke up again, apparently bored of the solitude. "And for ten minutes, I've been watching you stand there, bowing your head and staring at the streets below like a statue. Is there really something so interesting down there? To me, watching the little ants walk by is incredibly boring."
The young man paused for a moment, then asked with a slightly gentler tone. "What happened to you? You look like someone who's given up."
"There's nothing interesting down there," Fuse answered flatly. The corner of his lips curled slightly into a very tired, forced smile, and he turned his head slowly to look at the young man. "I was just thinking hard... about what might happen if I decided to jump from this height."
"I lost it. And I forgot how to feel the word."
…
A/N: I thought this was too short. But oh well.