A Brighter Day in Black and White

Tadashi had put off visiting Gemma longer than he should have. It wasn't that he had forgotten her or didn't care. He didn't like hospitals. Being in a hospital meant something was seriously wrong. the last time he had set foot in one wasn't all that long ago when he was being carried in hurt and bleeding, his senses all going haywire. Still he didn't want her to be alone. Other people probably had visited her but he felt like it would have been wrong not to go at all.

Tadashi walked slowly through the halls of the hospital looking for the correct room number. He wasn't lost though- stopping to ask for directions and then getting a good look at the maps had been enough. Eventually he made it to the right room and knocked without entering. "Gemma, it's Tadashi. Um, is this a good time to visit? I can come back some other time if you want," he said, sounding really unsure of himself. He considered Gemma a friend and was pretty sure she considered him one too but he didn't really know what you were supposed to do when visiting someone in a hospital.

He stood there at the doorway waiting for a response, holding something behind his back and out of sight. Tadashi hadn't had the money to buy anything for her but he had figured out another way he could maybe brighten up her stay a little bit. Well, he hoped it was something she would like anyway.

@Lucidity

Tadashi heard Gemma telling him to come in and then thump of something hitting the other side of the door. It was far too quiet to be anything big but he was a little confused why something would have hit the door. He was just cracking open the door as he heard the rest of it.

Why did she throw the pillow? Actually nevermind, this is Gemma. She's probably really bored.

Tadashi came inside and picked up the pillow to bring back over to the bed, keeping his gift hidden behind his back. He was starting to think it was a dumb idea but he didn't exactly have many options. "Hey Gemma, I think you dropped this," he said quietly as he gave a small smile and handed it over to her. His shirt was not the usual white or grey button-downs he normally wore. This was the first shirt he had bought since his senses had changed and he wasn't aware of it yet but it was bright yellow instead of the light grey he thought it was.

"Um, I hope you're doing... ok," he looked away and shifted his feet. That was pretty stupid- she wouldn't have needed to go to the hospital unless it was something serious.

Tadashi's nose twitched just a little bit as he acclimated to the scents of the room. The very strong lavender was layered throughout the room and perhaps much more than he would have personally preferred but the smell of lavender itself wasn't terrible. There was the faint hint of, well, vomit but Tadashi ignored that. Gemma was sick so that was expected and he wasn't about to bring it up and embarrass her.

He smiled back at Gemma as she laid back down "You're welcome. You just relax and don't do anything to make yourself feel worse." At the part about her not dying but having to deal with a lot of vomiting he made a bit of a disgusted face. "Yuck, vomiting sucks. I'm glad you're going to be ok though. I was pretty worried." Yup, worrying seemed to be one of the things Tadashi was best at. It seemed like he was always worried about something these days.

With Gemma seemingly more comfortable with her pillow back to lay on Tadashi was relieved. He didn't know exactly how upset her stomach was and she had done a good job to mask it with her smile but she was definitely not feeling well. He glanced down at his shirt in confusion. "What- what do you mean stuff like that? Why would this shirt match my.... oh no. What color is this shirt?" Inside he was so embarrassed- his cheeks probably even grew a little pink. Leave it to him to go out and accidentally buy some crazy colored shirt because he didn't take someone along who could see color. His smile faded a little but he tried not to look upset because Gemma seemed so happy. If it made her happy maybe it wasn't such a bad thing.

"I'm doing ok. Still getting used to having friends, like you, and family and school and all that stuff. Good news is i'm definitely going to be graduating as long as I don't skip classes." As he spoke his eyes wandered around the room and over the gifts left by other people. They all seemed to be very nice and some even might have been expensive. It reminded him of the object he had been hiding behind his back the whole time.

As self conscious as he was about his gift he decided to just quickly hand it to Gemma and be done with it. "Here, I couldn't afford to get you something but I made this instead." Next to Gemma on the bed Tadashi placed a small but thick book that seemed to be made of white index cards cut in half and bound together at one end. On the cover was a pencil drawing of what looked like a cat with shaded in paws sitting next to a flower.

Inside the booklet each page had a different drawing on it so that if the pages were flipped quickly it created a moving picture that told a short but weird and funny story. In it the cat from the cover walked across the page and spotted a flower. It picked the flower and danced around on its hind legs with that flower until finally falling over backwards. As the cat lay there a whole bunch more flowers popped up and surrounded it. The cat looked worried and tried to put the original flower back in the ground but it was at an odd angle. Suddenly all the flowers grew smiles and then the scene shifted to the cat sitting with a bunch of flowers watching some sort of movie about dogs falling over.