Chapter Text
Tachyon woke up to the sight of a stark white room and the sound of an old TV. She could barely remember everything that came before. The last memory she had was-
The accident.
Once she thought about it, everything came rushing back into her mind at full force. The feeling of hitting the turf, every foot that pressed itself into her body, the lack of sensation in any of her limbs, the loss of vision and consciousness once every other Uma on the track had already run her over. Her body still felt stiff, and her eyes were barely open enough to comprehend the images on the television before her, which seemed to be playing a broadcast of another race Tachyon couldn't identify. All she knew was that there were a bunch of other racers, running down a track very much like the one she had fallen on, and they were racing without a care in the world, because Tachyon was the only Uma she knew who actually took racing as seriously as she did.
Before she could think about much more, she was suddenly made aware of how much pain she was in. It radiated up her back as though she was being repeatedly stabbed with daggers, all up her spine and into her neck. She tried to move but found her entire body rigid and being held in place by something she could only feel and not see, minus one thing that was within her field of vision—a cast around her leg, being held up in a sling attached to some kind of metal bar. She tried to crane her neck up to look at where the bar led, but found that to be too painful to attempt, so she kept her head facing forward in the end. She resigned herself to where she was, knowing that she was miserable and unable to move as she closed her eyes.
Her nose twitched at a smell.
Earthy, slightly nutty, and mildly bitter on her tongue when she inhaled. She recognized the smell—it was freshly brewed coffee, the kind that her friend, Manhattan Cafe, would make for herself and her friends. Cafe visited Tachyon often, but never without a mug of freshly brewed coffee in hand. It was a very distinct smell, what with the beans used to make her coffee being imported by her family, so Tachyon could tell she wasn't smelling just any cup of coffee. That had to be a coffee made by Cafe, a coffee made with her special coffee beans and poured into her special white mug with a black cat emblem on the front.
"Cafe?" she asked, finding her voice softer and more hoarse than she remembered.
"Tachyon," said Cafe's almost excited voice, and she came into view from the left side, holding her signature coffee mug. She was keeping it at an angle, towards her, so she didn't spill it on Tachyon.
"How long was I out?" Tachyon said, peering her eyes to the side to look around. She couldn't find her phone, but she knew she hadn't brought it with her onto the track, because she never did. Her phone couldn't have been damaged alongside the rest of her; realistically, it was probably still sitting in her dorm room back at Tracen. There wasn't a clock nor a calendar within her field of vision, so telling the time or the date was up to guesswork right now. She was hoping it wasn't more than from the day into the night... but the severity of her injuries left little room for that to be a possibility.
"Two days," Cafe said, her grip on the coffee mug wavering ever so slightly. (Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, Tachyon had an eye for the smallest of details.) "You were... asleep. Two days." She said it as though it was hard for her to think about and much harder to say out loud.
Tachyon had a feeling she was either wording it softly or just a little ignorant. She didn't feel rested, like she should've been after two straight days of sleep; she felt exhausted and in pain. She still felt as though she had been trampled and crushed under the weight of 13 other Umas, and she felt stiff as a board from sitting in the same position in this hospital bed for two days straight. Tachyon hadn't been sleeping for two days—Tachyon had been in a two day coma as a result of all the physical trauma she endured on Nakayama Racecourse.
"Two days," Tachyon repeated, running it through in all sorts of different numbers in her head. Two days. 48 hours. 2880 minutes. So much time, gone in the void while she was recovering from the injuries her brain had endured on top of the pain in her back, neck, and legs. There were probably bruises everywhere that she couldn't see, probably numerous broken bones, probably a good amount of internal bleeding that had been treated through surgery. (Not to mention the damage to her dignity; she had tripped on air and been trampled in front of a gigantic crowd, and now anyone would remember about her was this.)
Cafe didn't say anything else, just moving the chair she had been sitting in before so that she was now within Tachyon's line of sight while they sat with one another. It was honestly surprising to Tachyon that Cafe was here, just sitting with her and coexisting. Cafe seemed to fear Tachyon to a point, although that could be attributed to Tachyon's incessant begging for her to be a guinea pig, and Cafe's continued declining of that request. So for her to be here despite that, for her to be at Tachyon's side while she was at her lowest... that meant a lot, even if Tachyon wouldn't admit it out loud. And they sat there for a good while in one another's company, Tachyon keeping herself occupied by silently watching the TV in front of her and wishing she could be there on the racetrack again.
