When Shidou next came to, he seemed much more alert than before.
"Itoshi Sae!" he exclaimed brightly. "What the fuck are you doing here?!"
What the fuck indeed.
"It appears I am your emergency contact demon, and quite an emergency it seemed to be. What happened?" his voice firm, commanding answers.
Shidou laughed, cackling way too loudly, his laughter echoed and seemed out of place in the sterile hospital room. "Ah you know me Sae-chan, always getting into trouble."
"Where are your parents? Should I be contacting them?" He asked cooly and detached.
"NO!" Shidou shouted suddenly and vehemently.
Sae jumped slightly in shock at the volume and intensity before surveying Shidou appraisingly, eyebrows raised.
Shidou himself seemed taken aback by his own outburst, quickly backtracking on his own abruptness.
"I mean, I'm eighteen you don't need to call them." He finished casually.
Sae observed him, eyes narrowed, not buying it.
Shidou was clearly not very good at suppressing his emotions and there was something going on here. Sae was getting tired of feeling inadequate and receiving partial answers. Honestly, he was tired full stop and if he heard one more hospital machine beep or saw another flashing light he was going to scream. He felt the intensity of the hospital gnawing on all his senses, the bright fluorescent lights that buzzed faintly. The smell of disinfectant hanging heavy in the air. The constant beeping of that ugly, fucking machine. It was a constant onslaught. It was taking almost everything he had to continue sitting and not getting up and fucking off home where he definitely should be right now.
He grit his teeth, wishing he had his headphones with him to escape from this loud and beepy nightmare. Sae was on the verge of what his parents would have called a 'tantrum'. Just thinking about the word and how childish it was made him flush with embarrassment, but he lacked the words or the terms to call it anything else.
He hated this—hated how easily the world could reduce him to this state. Sometimes he got like this, too overwhelmed, and overstimulated by his surroundings he became shaky and hysterical. Sometimes shutting down completely, feeling incapable of words. This frustrated nearly everyone around him. Everyone had always found him weird. Odd. Rude. He had learnt that the acceptance of his behaviour was directly correlated to talent. His behaviour was overlooked, tolerated and even accepted the more results he showed on the pitch. The more successful he got, the more impressive his plays became, and the more his skills grew, the higher the tolerance of his behaviour became. He was under no delusion though, that this would be the case if he did not produce results, or that the people around him, managers, teammates, club officials liked or enjoyed him. They all simply dealt with him because his talent outshone all those other parts of himself that people did not like to look at. On the field, he was untouchable. Off it, he was "weird," "cold," and "difficult."
All he was, was a stupid soccer player. He had no other talents or skills. He was half-baked. His social skills had always been poor. But perhaps they would be better if everyone around him themselves weren't so lukewarm and annoying. All of them, conformists to a set of invisible rules and instructions he had never been given. Upon learning that he was constantly doing things 'the wrong way' he stopped trying altogether, and, through focus and dedication into the one and only thing he knew how to do, he didn't need to learn. He had grown harder and colder to people's responses to him over the years. He did not much care how others perceived his deliberate choices and responses. But that still did not mean that he liked people seeing him 'tantruming' and 'embarrassing himself' as his father would have put it. In this, he could not win either. The feedback he got from most people was that he was cold and showed too little emotion. Then on the opposite side of this spectrum, showing extreme emotion, he was also doing this wrong apparently and for 'silly' reasons. People whispered behind his back, casting him either pitying or condescending looks. Though people had not seen this extreme of him for many years. Sae was adept at isolation and suppression. He had learned to care little about others' opinions, but the fear of losing control in front of someone, even Shidou, gnawed at him.
As Sae tried to deep breathe and get a hold of himself so he could interrogate Shidou further, they were interrupted by Shidou's doctor.
"Mr Shidou, it's good to see you up and with us," the doctor said genially. "Would you mind telling us what happened?"
"Ah, it's pretty boring I'm afraid Doc, I just fell and hit my head," Shidou responded nonchalantly, flashing a disarming smile.
Sae and the doctor blinked at him, taken aback. The doctor shot Sae a puzzled look, which Sae ignored. Sae felt just as surprised. He observed the demon, trying to gauge what was going on with him.
"You fell?" the doctor repeated, a note of incredulity creeping into his tone.
"Yepppp!" Shidou responded, popping his p's with exaggerated defiance. "You need your ears checked Doc?" He leaned forward into the doctor's space, his grin turning sharp, predatory.
The doctor now seemed slightly affronted, and Sae could see him trying to regain composure.
"You have some serious injuries Mr Shidou, injuries that -"
"I fell hard", Shidou interrupted, glaring at the doctor. The doctor stared back, unmoving, both at a stalemate before the doctor tried a new tactic, speaking calmly.
"Ok, you fell. Do you remember what happened before you fell?"
"Nopppe" Shidou responded, popping his p's again. "See, I hit my head pretty hard, so things are a bit fuzzy right now."
"Alright." The doctor nodded an air of resignation about him as he made notes on his clipboard.
""I feel fiiine. I'll be allllll back t'normal in a couple of days. I know th' drill." Shidou said casually, though his slurred words betrayed him.
"Can we g-get outta here Sae-chan?" he spoke turning to Sae, the quiet observer in all this, who had been fixing Shidou with his piercing gaze throughout the confrontation with the doctor. Sae merely quirked an eyebrow at him.
"I must strongly advise that you do not leave until you're discharged", the doctor interrupted sternly.
"Like I care what you think!" Shidou shot at him defiantly before turning puppy dog eyes onto Sae. "Pleaseeeeeeee."
Sae surveyed him, and then the doctor, mulling it over in silence. Finally, he shook his head.
"No, we stay until you're discharged demon. What a waste of my time if I took you from here only to bring you back because you still need care." He replied coldly.
"Awwwww look at you, carin about my well-being and sh-shit under lashes," Shidou grinned at him lazily, as he stifled a yawn in his hand.
Sae's glare was icy. "Only an idiot would ignore medical advice," he sniped back, but Shidou was already succumbing to sleep again.
The doctor left, informing them he would be back and would like to chat with Shidou when he was more lucid, though Sae doubted that a more lucid Shidou would be a more agreeable customer. They were also informed that the Police would likely contact Shidou for a home interview or request for Shidou to attend the police station, so they could interview him when he was in a more stable condition. This Sae was glad Shidou was asleep for, he didn't want to deal with Shidou's reaction yet.
He observed the sleeping demon in puzzlement. He did not understand why Shidou lied about what happened to him. Any idiot could see he had been in a fight. Maybe Shidou just enjoyed being defiant to authority figures. Sae had certainly seen that side of him before. That was nothing new, but this secrecy was. Something uneasy bubbled in him, he'd never seen Shidou not acknowledge being in a fight before. If anything, Shidou seemed to talk about fights as though they were as simple, mundane and as common as walking or talking. One second, he was angry and throwing fists, the next he was laughing – the demon took nothing seriously. Sae had never seen him lie before, even by omission, until now. The realisation left him feeling unsettled. He prided himself on discipline and control and Shidou was throwing him off balance.
Sae couldn't shake the unease. He'd not much considered that Shidou had things he'd like to keep to himself, he presented too much like an open book, much to the dismay of everyone around him as the demon was feral and had a liking for vulgarity. He was not like normal people. But he hadn't thought Shidou had the capacity for secrecy before. Though others seemed to despair at Shidou, Sae himself had found him quite easy to read. Sae hated feeling out of his depth. Even in small, minute ways. Sae needed further details, so he could feel fully in control of this situation and move on. He thought he'd had a good grasp on who the demon was, but it appeared some serious recalculations were going to need to be made so he could grasp complete control again.