#the road less with mikan and maki

[aparticularbandit]

The Road Less-- Yeah, Yeah, You Know: Chapter One

Summary: When Mikan finds a girl collapsed with a head wound, she can't help but help her out. Even if the girl very adamantly does not want to be helped.

For DR Rarepair Week 2024 Day Three: Self Care/Caring for the Other, hosted by @dr-rarepair-week-blog.

Chapter Rating: M for References of Alcoholism, Physical Abuse, and Child Abuse (aka Mikan references her life, so all of these triggers are potentially here). Fic Rating: M for Reasons Listed Above.

AO3

It was a poem they’d gone through in class earlier that day that did it.

Not that anything could really be blamed for this sort of thing.

Of course, if anything could be blamed for it, well, it would have to be Mikan herself.  She did make the choice to take a different route back to her place than she normally did.  Sure, she’d always been told it was the sketchier route, and sure, it went through some shady streets by other people’s estimations, but if she’s honest with herself, the better parts of town aren’t always really better.  If she takes the route she always takes, then she’ll still end up being….

She brings it on herself, of course.  She knows that.  Besides, all of that abuse, it just means they actually like her, doesn’t it?  Like how the boys on the playground used to pull on her hair or throw rocks at her or tease her – boys are only mean to girls when they like them, and some boys (and girls…and other people) never really grew out of that.  It’s certainly better than…than ignoring her, which people only really do when they don’t care, when they would be happier if she didn’t exist in the first place, and if she’s honest, everyone would probably be happier if she didn’t exist in the first place, which is why she’s always been more than okay when they—

They went through that poem in class earlier, and Mikan paid as much attention as she could, and the cute girl who sat next to her carved a few of the lines from it into her arm over lunch, and she’d cleaned her arm as much as she could and wrapped it up afterwards like she always did, and she didn’t say anything like she always did (because sometimes that helps people remember things, and that means they’ll do better in their classes, and how can you forget someone after using a knife to write words into their flesh), and when she started walking back to her place, she looked at the bandages covering her arm and thought of the lines now permanently etched into her skin (she can do her best to prevent the scarring, but that doesn’t mean it might not still happen) and decided it was time to take the road less traveled.

Or more traveled, maybe, just by people other than her.

But the thing is?

Mikan heard about how dangerous and treacherous these streets were from all of the people along her own street, from her mother and her mother’s many (near interchangeable) boyfriends, but it’s actually….

It’s not that bad?

If anything, it’s calmer.  Gentler.  The breeze stirs the leaves on the trees and Mikan smells cherry blossoms instead of sewage or alcohol or vomit from the drunks next door.  (Or blood, but that’s more often hers than not, and if she tries a little harder, she can still smell blood, and it’s still hers – the stain on her bandage, which probably her mother’s newest boyfriend will notice first, when he laughs at her for being so clumsy.)  The sidewalk isn’t cracked and crumbling here, the streets are mostly paved, and the houses look…nice.  If she listens, she can hear children laughing somewhere.

Mikan passes by an orphanage, and she hates herself for wishing it, but she thinks maybe it would have been better to be here.  But that’s…that’s selfish.  And it makes it sound like she doesn’t love her mother, which absolutely isn’t true – she loves her mother!  Even if her mother doesn’t exactly—

A loud schlump sound breaks into her thoughts.

Mikan recognizes that sound.  It’s the same sound as the drunks next door when one of them gets hit over the head and drops to the ground; it’s the sound of a heavy body dropping but not really down.  The sound of injury, usually.

And – as she always does (because sometimes that sound is someone she knows (never her mother, but occasionally one of her new boyfriends), not that that matters because they know her now, know that she can do exactly what she is about to do), Mikan rushes to the source of the sound.

If she hadn’t paid attention in class that day, if she hadn’t let her classmate carve those words into her arm, if she hadn’t paused before heading back to her place and chosen to take a new route, then she wouldn’t be here right now, and none of this would have happened.

Mikan rushes towards the sound, and she finds a girl around her edge, slumped against a wall, her dark hair pulled in two long ponytails, blood all over the top of her head and dripping down her face.

That’s when the shift happens, if it hadn’t happened earlier – Mikan switching from herself into, well, still herself, but the version of herself she’d like to be all the time, the one who doesn’t have to be scared or afraid or anxious, the one who has control and doesn’t have to resort to anything to be heard.  She makes her way to the other girl, kneels down in front of her, and murmurs, soothing, “I’m Mikan Tsumiki, and I’m here to help you.  I’m the best trained nurse in the area—”  She reaches out to take the girl’s hand in her own.

But the girl snatches her hand away and glares up at Mikan with cold red eyes.  “I’m fi—”  Then she collapses.

Mikan stares at the girl curiously for a moment.  When the girl doesn’t move again, she creeps forward and places two fingers on the pulse point at her neck.  Weak.  Wavering.  Fleeting.  She’s lost too much blood, probably, or that hit on her head did more damage than she’d predicted.  If it’s messed with her brain too terribly much, then there’s nothing she can do about that.  Mikan’s no brain surgeon; she’s a nurse.  There’s only so much she can do.

But what she can do is a lot.

~

It’s quite a bit later before the girl wakes up.

Notably, this is because Mikan has her hands on a lot of medicine that she probably shouldn’t have and wisely, in her estimation, decided to keep the girl out while she carried out all of her other checks and balances (it doesn’t look like brain injury, but she really can’t be sure without imaging technology that she doesn’t have), while she pulled what did not look like glass out of her head and then stitched her skull back up (which was really what she needed the medicine for; the girl didn’t seem like the sort who would stay still while she was doing all of that, and she certainly didn’t want to make things worse), while she bandaged up the other miscellaneous bits and pieces she found during her examination (she was gentle and she was careful and she didn’t do anything untoward), and while she, uh.

Well, she was just the slightest bit afraid of what the girl would do when she woke up.

So she may have, uh.

Strapped her down to the table.

Which of course is likely why the girl glares at her with fire in her eyes when she finally does wake up.

(Mikan was dozing.  She couldn’t just leave her patient alone when she definitely needed her help, and this little hovel separate from the place where she lives is actually....

Let’s just say Mikan likes being here better than she likes being there, and as long as she lets them know later that she was taking care of a patient, usually there’s no punishment for not showing up.  (There’s usually no punishment anyway because that would require either her mother or her mother’s current boyfriend or both of them to notice that she wasn’t there, and that only happens when something goes wrong.  Sometimes she’s grateful to be away when something goes wrong, even if things still go wrong for her when she gets back.))

What’s weird is that the girl isn’t yelling – not at her, not at the situation, not at anyone or anything that might be listening.  She’s not struggling against her straps; maybe she was before Mikan roused from her rest, but if she had, it certainly wasn’t enough to move the hospital bed or the bedsheets or the IV stand or anything, really.  And she’s not….

She’s not afraid.

(Or if she is, she’s really, really good at hiding it.

Mikan’s a little jealous, if she’s honest with herself, but that require being honest with herself, and Mikan’s not as good at that as someone else might want her to be.  She’s very good at deluding herself, actually.  It keeps her sane.)

The girl’s lack of fear sends Mikan back to stuttering, back to anxious, back to uncertain and unsure, and she stumbles over her words, tongue thick with barely waking, “L-l-like I said before, I’m M-M-Mikan Tsumiki.”  She stands and bows to the other girl.  “I-I-I’m—”  She swallows, stands, takes the words she’s about to say and strengthens herself with them, and then doesn’t stutter when she says, “I’m your nurse.  You collapsed with a head wound, and I made sure that you were—”

“I told you.  I’m fine.”

“You’re fine now,” Mikan gently corrects.  “Because I took care of you.”

The girl glares at her unblinking.  “I would have been fine.”

“You would have died.”

“That would have been fine.”  The girl should look away.  She shouldn’t mean that.  She should be softening the steel of those words by refusing to meet Mikan’s eyes, by acting as though she is tough and it doesn’t matter.

Except that this girl, whoever she is, is tough.  She continues to hold Mikan’s gaze with those intense red eyes.  Her tone doesn’t change.  She means exactly what she says.  In her estimation, it would be fine.

Ah.

She knows that feeling.

And because she knows that feeling, Mikan can’t tell this girl that it would not have been fine, no matter how much she may or may not believe that, because that would be like saying it to the version of herself who also believes it would be fine if she died.  (Except that a part of Mikan still desperately wants to live, and she suspects there’s something inside this girl that does, too.)

“W-w-well, um.”  Mikan glances down to her hands, all earnestness lost under that crippling gaze.  “I-I-I didn’t think it would…it would be, um.”  She stops herself.  Shakes her head.  “I won’t ask who…who hurt you, but.”  She licks her lips.  “But if you ever get hurt like that again, y-y-you should come and…come and f-f-find me.  I’ll make sure that y-y-you’re not….”  Her voice trails off, and she swallows.  “I’ll make sure that everything gets better.”

When the girl doesn’t say anything in response, Mikan glances up again, anxious sweat beading at her forehead.  The girl’s expression seems to have softened.  She’s still staring at her, but at least she doesn’t seem to be glaring at her anymore.  That’s…that’s good right?

“What if it’s someone else?” the girl asks, voice soft in the air between them.  “Would you help them, too?”

Mikan’s eyes widen, and she straightens.  “Y-y-yes!!”  She doesn’t smile, although she wants to do so, because the question means that this girl, whoever she is, actually sees some value in her.  Or, at least, in what she’s capable of doing.  “I-I-I don’t....”  Her gaze drops again, and she fidgets, pushing her uneven hair back out of her face.  “Everyone needs help sometimes, and I’m…I’m good at helping people.  E-e-even if…even if maybe they don’t think they should…should be.”

Only then does the girl’s gaze drop.  Maybe she’s considering it.  Thinking about it.  Maybe—

“Are you going to let me go?”

“Oh, oh, oh, y-y-yes!”  Mikan goes to the bed and starts unbuckling the straps.  “I-I-I was just worried you might…you might make things worse if you…if you tried to get out—”

“You were scared that I’d hurt you.”

“N-n-no!”  Mikan flinches.  “I-I-I m-mean, y-y-yes, b-b-but.  I-I thought if I-I explained, th-then—”

“You were right.”

Mikan flinches again as the last of the straps slips off, as the buckle clanks against the metal of the hospital bed, as the girl smoothly sits up, turns on the edge of the mattress as Mikan backs up, and doesn’t glance up at her.  “I-I-I…I was?”  She can hear her own voice growing higher, and she hates it the most when she squeaks.

“Yes.”  The girl pulls the IV out of her arm.  Then she pushes herself off of the bed and stands for the first time at her full height; to Mikan’s surprise, they’re the nearly the same size.  The girl seemed so much smaller than her – not frail, just small.  She still seems small now, but not in a way that makes her nonthreatening.  Just—

The girl meets Mikan’s eyes.  “Maki,” she murmurs.

“H-h-huh?”

“My name,” the girl says.  “Maki Harukawa.”  She doesn’t smile, but she flushes the slightest bit (probably from standing, not from anything else) when she says, “Thank you.”

Mikan blinks, and the girl disappears.

For a moment, Mikan whirls around, as though she might catch a glimpse of Maki again, but there’s nothing, no one.  She takes a deep breath in and crumples into the chair where she’d been dozing before.

She’ll probably never see her again.  That’s…that’s normal for random strangers (not normal for the drunks who live next door to her mother).  And that’s…that’s fine, probably.

(But Mikan wants to see her again.  Which is an awkward thing to want, considering it would mean that the girl was hurt somehow.  She doesn’t really want her to get hurt again.

Except….

Except she does.

(But Mikan is very, very good at lying to herself.  So she’ll lie to herself about that one, too.))

[appreciate-kaimaki]

Could I request headcannons for SHSL Biker Gang Leader Maki and SHSL Nurse Kaito?

Thank you, anon, for sending us our first AU/talentswap ask! This one was such a joy to write! I had to think a lot to make a scenario where a biker gang leader and a nurse could meet and grow closer together, but the ideas really started to flow pretty soon. And in the end, it became the longest piece I've ever written on this blog... so long, in fact, that I converted it into a full fanfic! Did I do your idea justice? What do you think? Your fic is under the cut, so please enjoy!

~Mod Shuichi~

Maki Harukawa is the roughest, toughest, most ruthless gangster the world has ever seen, standing at the very peak of street hierarchy and feared not only by the other gangs (many of whom are double her age) but also the police themselves. She routinely prowls the streets with her gang, clad in her signature red and black leather jacket with a dagger strapped to her thigh and revving her bike's custom engine as loudly as she can as she tears through the streets like the queen of the road she is. And this would have been like any other day, had a rival gang led by Shirogane Tsumugi not decided to mount a sneak attack on her to 'reclaim the streets'. Two of her goons got a van and t-boned Maki's bike in an intersection in a very underhanded move.

They should have known better. Maki Harukawa does not go down that easily - and even if she can't fight them right now herself, her well-trained subordinates are lightyears better than Shirogane's bear-handed misfits. Still, she knows she'd be dead if it weren't for her natural agility and reflexes, and she also knows she's extremely lucky to have gotten off on just a broken arm and leg.

She's rushed to the hospital and Korekiyo, her second-in-command, drops by with some of her gang members to check up on her once the operation's over. Maki tells him not to mind her too much, and to go wage war on Shirogane and her band of idiots instead. He heeds the command with much gusto, but not before pre-paying her bills to the best service the hospital can afford. Never say crime doesn't pay, she muses.

(Other gang leaders would be worried about their second-in-commands usurping their rule while they're out of commission. Not Maki, though. She knows her subordinates like the front of her hand, and they will never betray her while she's still alive.)

Now that she is effectively relieved from duty, the only thing left to do is to rest and mend her bones. Easy, huh?

Apparently not, as the personal nurse assigned to her is the single most annoying human being she has ever seen. His spiky purple hair and goatee clash horribly against his scrubs, and every fifth word out of his mouth is a space pun. He also doesn't appear to be intimidated by her at all - doesn't he know who she is? Any hope that he would be somewhat tolerable is dashed to pieces like her bike when he immediately gives her a despicable nickname in the first minute they meet.

"Hi, I'm Kaito Momota!" he announces way too jovially to someone who just had two limbs wrapped in a cast. "I'll be your nurse for the next four months. Nice to meet you, Miss Maki Roll!"

"Maki Roll?!"

He then proceeds to spend the next three hours explaining how he made her that nickname (because her first name is Maki, you see, and his mom just so adores his maki rolls that it's become a reflex whenever he sees the word, oh did he mention that he makes some wicked maki rolls?) and Maki is ready to either strangle him or rip her own hair out of her scalp when Momota is finally called away by intercom. The reprieve is short-lived, however, as the purple idiot barges back in a mere ten minutes later, ready to torture her with more bad puns and incessant storytelling. At this point, Maki would rather strangle herself. One thing is clear: she cannot take this for four effing months. She'd go mad by the second week.

She takes advantage of one of his bathroom breaks to flag down a passing doctor, a lady with deep purple hair and lavender eyes (was purple hair a thing in medical personnel these days?), and begs her to get her a different nurse, a doctor she could talk to, anyone other than Kaito goddamned Momota.

The doctor, 'Mikan Tsumiki' according to her nameplate, apparently cannot understand Maki's adverse reaction. "B-but didn't your friend ask for the best we had?", she replies quizzically. And right then and there Maki learns from Doctor Tsumiki that Kaito Momota the imbecile in purple is in fact the Super High School Level Nurse what the hell?!

"Everyone's so energetic and cheerful after meeting him," Doctor Tsumiki continues, and Maki can barely contain her incredulousness. Momota chooses that moment to reappear, and Doctor Tsumiki excuses herself. Maki forces herself to think for the best - if he's the Ultimate Nurse, at least he'll be good at treating her enough for her to ignore his prattling.

And he is very good at his job, indeed. He can change her casts without her feeling a single thing. He's always ready on call in case she needs anything, and he's making a visible effort to ramble less after the first few days. He still doesn't seem to acknowledge at all that he's treating the number one gangster in town, though.

He knows who she is. He'd be an actual idiot if he didn't, considering her name still shows up on the news at least once a week (including the report on her 'accident').

Yet he is still as friendly and, dare she say it, charming as the first time he met her. (What? He is annoying, but there is a certain charm to him.) It's nice, but it's also scary. If what he's showing her is a facade, it's a better mask than any she has ever worn and she's terrified of it.

One day she just goes 'fuck it' and decides to ask him herself. Time in the hospital is supremely boring, so Maki can at least blame the situation for her curiosity getting the better of her. She puts on her best game face and calls him over.

"Hey, Momota."

"Yes, Maki Roll?"

"Do you know who I am?"

"Well, duh." He gestures to her patient card at the foot of the bed. "Why wouldn't I? Maki Harukawa, the SHSL Biker Gang Leader. I'm not that stupid, you know."

"Then why aren't you scared of me? Why do you keep trying to get closer? Do I look like a joke to you?"

There. She said it. Now all she needs is answers.

Kaito pulls up a chair and plonks himself down on it. His eyes have a serious look she's never seen before as he opens his mouth.

"I'd be lying if I wasn't a little bit scared. Your eyes have that look down pat. But I'm not gonna let that bother me. At all."

"Why?"

"I became a nurse because I wanted to help people, make them happier and healthier, and I won't stop just because some lady has an unconventional job. The queen of England could be sitting here right now and I'd treat her exactly the same way. To me, you're not Maki Harukawa the gangster. You're Maki Harukawa, the girl with a broken arm and leg."

Maki is thrown for a loop at his words. Nobody had ever considered her identity seperate from her title before. No one has ever treated her like everyone else before. The nerve, part of her mind screams. It's kindness, another part yells back. Maki thinks the latter is more likely.

And as she's thinking, the idiot just has to add, "Plus, I think you're kinda cute."

She takes pleasure in watching Momota duck to avoid the pen she throws at his face.

As the days pass by, she finds herself opening up more and more to Momo... Kaito. (He had insisted upon calling him that, reasoning that they weren't strangers anymore. He wasn't wrong, so she obliged.) As the SHSL Biker Gang Leader Maki is used to a life of hushed voices and fearful glances whenever she shows up, and she deals with it because being the top of the food chain means she has to keep her image intact. But Kaito is different. She feels like she can be actually personal with Kaito, in a way even Korekiyo cannot provide. Maybe it's because whatever she tells him, he doesn't judge - he just listens.

He listens to her past as an orphan, tossed from foster home to foster home. He listens to her recounting the brutal world of street crime and how it burned her childhood into ashes. He listens to what she feels about Korekiyo, how she's grateful for him because he was her first real friend. She can tell he's genuinely interested in whatever it is she's saying.

And then, when she's done talking, he'll share something about himself. He used to want to be an astronaut, before deciding his talents would better be used helping the sick and injured. His best friend is the SHSL Detective (one of them, at least). He helped set him up with his crush the SHSL Pianist, and they've been dating for almost a year. He can actually make some delicious maki rolls. (He brought some over one day to share with her at lunch and she's never tasted a better roll. Maybe the nickname isn't too bad after all?)

It's all very new to her, and Maki is both unnerved and excited by it at the same time. One thing is sure, though - it feels very good to have someone who understands her.

The four months are gone in a flash, and soon Kaito is removing the last pieces of her leg cast as she reads a text from Korekiyo saying he'll head over to pick her up. Maki steals a glance at the nurse busying himself with the cast saw. Is it too sentimental to think that she'd like to see him some more? First impressions aside, she's really grown attached to him - and a part of her wonders if that attachment could become something more. Dammit, Maki thinks. She's been away from action for too long. She must have gone soft. Lost in thought, she jumps in surprise when Kaito's face abruptly fills her field of vision.

"Earth to Maki Roll," he says, "As I was saying, your arm and leg have mended splendidly, so you'll be cleared in the next hour - so I got you a good health present!"

He hands her a bundle wrapped in glittery purple wrapping paper. She tears it open, only to find... her old jacket?

It's not her old jacket. Her old jacket got shredded to ribbons in the crash and they had to throw it away. But this one, also black leather with crimson highlights but shiny new, fits her perfectly in both style and size.

"I saw the interns throwing out your jacket the day you got here. I guessed you might miss it, so I got you a new one. It's not the exact same model, but..."

"How did you know my size?"

"You're joking, right? You went through more than a hundred hospital gowns. Of course I remembered." His smile is blinding, and Maki can't help but give a small smile back in return. For a split second, as she holds the clearly heartfelt gift, all her emotions do battle debating what to do. She settles for hugging him awkwardly around the midsection with a muttered "Thank you."

"You're welcome! It wasn't a big deal, really." Kaito's smile is positively radiant as he hugs her back.

She could really get used to this.

NO. Stop it, Maki. You're the SHSL Biker Gang Leader. You have a reputation. You can't be this soft.

Speaking of soft, Kaito's shirt feels really soft...

Maki. STOP.

She recoils quickly, ducking to hide the blush on her face, and spits out "I bet you give presents to all the patients you treat!" to hide her embarassment only to immediately regret it when his face visibly falls.

"I'm not that kind of person, you know," he mutters, "you were the first time I bought someone something." It's the quietest she's ever seen him. Great, now she's the one feeling bad.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. Kaito gives her a small smile as he escorts her to the doctor's office. "It's okay. I guess I should tell you you're also the only one to get a nickname?"

She laughs out loud, and it feels good again.

True to Kaito's word, the doctor soon gives her the all-clear. He does, however, remind her to go easy on her limbs and keep doing physical therapy for at least another month.

Korekiyo is, true to his word, waiting for her just outside the door with a full brigade of riders in tow. As Maki strides out to meet him, he wordlessly hands her a cracked pair of glasses and a bloody ribbon. Maki grins as she inspects the trophies. Shirogane won't be bothering them anytime soon.

He beckons her to the new bike he just dismounted and mounts the one next to it, just behind the rider. "It's all yours, boss. Just out from the shop."

But before she can get on her new bike and leave, she is reminded of Kaito standing just a few steps behind her, his eyes fixed on her back. Maki's no mind-reader, but she can clearly see the thinly veiled longing etched in his face.

It should be a tough decision. She has a reputation to keep, control to reassume, and underlings to whip into shape, after all. But Maki didn't become queen of the road by doing what everyone expected her to do, did she? It's that moment she decides to do what she does best - follow what her heart tells her. She asks Korekiyo for a pen.

Kaito has decided he's stared enough and just turned to go back inside when Maki's voice rings out from behind him.

"Wait!"

He turns back around. Maki saunters toward Kaito, new jacket glinting in the sunlight. She leans in close to his ear.

"I might come back a few times for my physical therapy... surely you wouldn't mind walking me through the steps a few times?", she whispers, her warm breath tickling his ear. Pleasant shivers run through Kaito's spine.

Kaito gets the message. His smile could call the Sun too dark as he replies, "I'd love to!"

Pulling the boy close into a hug, Maki stuffs a note in his pocket and plants a quick kiss on his cheek before walking back to her bike and the waiting Korekiyo. A few throaty revs and a hand signal from Maki later, the bikes all zoom away leaving only a small cloud of fumes and some skid marks behind.

Left alone in the parking lot, Kaito fishes out Maki's note and opens it, pumping his fist when he sees its contents - a phone number underlined twice, with the name 'Maki Roll' written next to it. The short message below simply reads 'Call me'.

Back at their headquarters, Korekiyo dares to ask Maki about the purple-haired nurse she seemed quite close to. Her only reply is a smile and "Someone I can tolerate being close to."