Chapter Text
When Reki was nine years old, he fell from the old Ryukyu tree in his backyard and broke his left leg.
The tree was old and battered, and he’d climbed it so many times that he learned to ignore the occasional cracking branch or peeled-back bark that might have scared off another kid from going any higher.
Reki can still remember the chalked crack the branch made when it gave out beneath him and the swoop in his stomach that followed one second later. He’d made a mess of his hands and knees on the way down.
He doesn’t remember the trip to the hospital or what happened when they finally got there, just that it took two hours and ice cream from the nice nurse before tears and snot finally stopped running down his face and he could speak again. On the ride home, his dad wore the weary expression of someone just realizing his head would gray earlier than the other parents’ would.
The healing process was a mix of itchy skin, dinosaur-themed Band-Aids, and soothing smiles from his mom whenever Reki hobbled into the room with his too-big crutches and puffed, bandaged foot. He still occasionally finds dust-covered get-well-soon cards from his classmates in random places, like at the bottom of his pants drawer or between volumes of his favorite manga. (He’s not sure how they got there, but one of his empty toolboxes is slowly accumulating all the notes.)
Bathing had been the worst of it all. Every night, his dad had to help Reki wrap his bright yellow cast with a black garbage bag and scrub himself without putting any pressure on his foot. Mostly, Reki sat quietly and let his dad do all the work. He’d usually ramble to Reki about his newest work project or sing off-key versions of his favorite songs from the retro-hits radio station he listened to on the way home from work.
“Sometimes, we lose sight of where we are,” his dad said one of those nights, cutting off his out-of-tune rendition of Tokyo Boogie Woogie to wipe away the shampoo that was starting to sting Reki’s eye. “We get so excited by what we want to do that we forget to lay out the foundation first. That,” he nodded toward Reki’s trashbag-covered foot, which was sticking awkwardly out of the tub, “is what we get when that happens.”
Reki was too focused on the itchiness under his cast and the lukewarm temperature of the bath water to think about what his dad was saying. All that, with Koyomi’s occasional grating knock on the door, and her demands to know when they would be done because she wanted to shower, curled a ball of frustration in his chest. All he wanted to do was climb into bed.
“Maybe you stepped on the wrong branch,” his dad said, washing Reki’s hair out. “Or, maybe, you were never meant to climb that tree so high in the first place.”
Reki frowned, and his dad smiled.
“Let’s be more careful next time.”
He didn’t remember that night until five years later when he broke his leg for a second time.
Pain, Reki realized as he curled in on himself in the ambulance, unable to answer the EMT’s questions, unable to find room for air, is your body screaming out at you to stop. Pain is what you get for stepping on the wrong branch.
Pain is what you get for thinking you could climb the tree in the first place.
Reki hadn't cried that time when he went under for surgery. Sometimes, he thinks it might’ve been better if he had.