Chapter 71: Deal Me In
Suijin never got to ask.
His mom called him, saying that something came up and that she had to leave early, forcing him to hold his question until the next day.
But the next day, he couldn’t because he was woken up by a noise coming from outside his room.
Suijin stirred as the clamor of voices awoke him from his slumber.
Rubbing his eyes while sitting up, the boy noticed a bunch of figures outside of the door.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t glean any information from the door due to the specific type of hospital glass obscuring the light.
“You can’t just barge in here whenever you want! Please wait for the patient to wake up!!!”
“Sir, if I may, it is 2:39 PM. It would do a patient such as Shimizu much good to connect with his peers and wake up this late in the day.”
“Even so—”
Suijin grabbed his head as he felt a headache start to form, even though he had just woken up.
The boy rubbed his head while speaking up, “I’m awake now, so you can let them in.”
Suijin heard the doctor quickly say, “Pardon for the intrusion,” before opening the door and glimpsing at himself.
Likewise, Suijin got to see the horde of his classmates quickly pile in. He spotted the usual Bakugo and his group, Midoriya, with Ochaco and the gang hanging around him, along with the quieter ones in his class.
Once the doctor left and the door was shut, the space was still roomy enough to move in, even with nearly 20 people inside.
Suijin scanned the crowd, ignoring their stares and noting the few missing figures in the crowd.
“Ahem.”
Stepping forward, drawing his gaze to her, Momo was the first to speak. “We discussed and decided that visiting you would be appropriate.
Unfortunately, as you can see, Mina, Shoji, Todoroki, and Tenya were unable to make it due to prior arrangements.”
As she said that, walking up from behind her was Ochaco, carrying a large paper bag that was visibly stuffed to the brim. “Filled with presents from all of us.”
Suijin nodded, accepting the bag and putting it beside him on his spacious bed.
He then turned his head to the unusual person in the room, spotting Enjiro, Sero, and Kaminari near the figure.
“What do you want, loser? I’m only here because these extras dragged me.”
Explaining himself even though nobody asked, Bakugo’s face turned a slight shade of red, though if it was from embarrassment or anger, nobody knew.
Regardless, Suijin turned his attention back to the general group, now presented with a new problem.
How was he supposed to entertain 20 teenagers in his room? The answer... gambling!!
“I’m out.”
“Me too.”
“Competition’s looking rough. You might as well quit now while you're ahead. You wouldn’t want to lose everything, would you…”
The teasing voice was so painfully obvious that anyone would easily recognize his intent just from the tone of his voice.
Anyone but Bakugo. Instead of verbally responding, the boy put all of his cards in the pile, believing that, by Sero’s words, he obviously had nothing.
“All In.”
And thus, it was down to two.
“All In.”
Another voice said, and the sereneness matched the calm, expectant expression on her face, an expression poised with elegance, not giving away even a hint of their thoughts.
‘Is she trying to trick me to gain more, or is she really that confident? But maybe she really has nothing and is trying to make back off with her face.’
Sero would be more composed if she tried to reverse-reverse manipulate him, if she showed something, anything from her expression.
But the deadpan face saying, Go, spurred the boy on.
‘I’ll... I’ll pick....’
“...a-all In.”
Thus, the winner for that particular round was Momo, taking home the bunch of candy the teenagers had on them.
As the group lamented on their loss and just as quickly moved onto the next round, Suijin, continuing to opt out with the excuse of ‘tiredness,’ looked besides him.
With everyone, even Bakugo, being invested in the game played below, the boy thought it was a good time as any to look at what they got him.
He looked at the front label, [From: Class 1A, To: Suijin Shimizu].
Opening it, he took the first item that was on top, peeling off the tape that was holding it in place.
Luckily, not every gift held the same from and to tag; instead, they opted to write in bold letters over the get-well-soon wrappings their name.
So, picking this one up, Suijin saw the name Tsu before ripping into it.
Inside, he was presented with a pair of goggles—ones that were bulkier in the front as they could extend out and be zoomed in to see farther distances.
And hearing the noises, the group in front of his bed, sitting on the floor, stood up.
“I got you that so when you go for your long-distance shots, you have better accuracy, got the idea from Snipe and his whole costume, ribbit.”
Suijin let out a heartfelt ‘thank you’ before moving on, and the next was a medium-sized box that was filled with two distinct items.
Ignoring the quick ‘That’s cheating' from him shaking the box, Suijin noted that this was from Kirishima and Bakugo.
Inside, he first spotted a cup, but not just any cup, ‘Th-This is…’
What could leave Suijin so speechless?
Well, it was the fact that he was holding the Master Portable Blender 3000, supped up to sync to your mobile device, and splicing your food in half the time with double the efficiency.
“You mentioned before that you always make your protein shakes whenever you need them due to you not wanting them to sit, so I went out and got you the best Bro Blender I could find.”
Suijin had no time to rest as he was quickly urged by his curious classmates to look at the rest of the box; apparently, nobody knew what the others brought.
Suijin, spurred on by them, looked inside and saw a book titled How to Restart Training for Weak Recovering Dummies.
“Baku-Bro spent hours looking for an original copy of this since it was discontinued before he ended up finding one on—.”
“Sh–SHUT UP! I GOT THE DAMN BOOK BECAUSE YOU KEEP PESTERING ME THAT I NEEDED TO GET HIM A GIFT, AND AFTER LOOKING ONLINE, I QUICKLY FOUND THAT THE TITLE SEEMED TO SUIT HIM!”
Suijin held the book, apparently meant to be an insult, close to himself as he imagined how he perceived this would have gone.
When he’d just woken up, he initially planned on pretending to sleep and letting the rest return on their own.
‘But.’
Going through gift after gift, noting the usefulness of the gifts, Suijin had no choice but to acknowledge that they seemed to have put a lot of thought and care into what they brought him.
Suijin, for the first time since his injury, felt like
He belonged, not in a glass cage where others looked in on him like he was fragile but truly belonged.
They didn’t treat this like it was the end.
They didn’t act as if he would never return to the classroom.
Instead, they brought him things that would improve him when he did return.
They believed in him.
It was evident in their unconscious actions and in their not-thought-out words.
Feeling at ease Suijin had a smile that only a few in the room may have been able to tell as he set down the bag of gifts that he had finished opening.
“Deal me in.”
