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August 25: After the Fall

We knelt on the tatami of the Midoriya living room, a heavily bandaged Tatsu-nii in between the two of us, as we got the scolding of our lives from Tappei-san. With veins popping out of his forehead as the old dragon shouted at us, this was the most enraged we had seen him on our whole lives. Even the way he breathed looked like he was about to breathe fire at us. Yukino-san and the rest of the group stayed by the door, listening. Oddly enough, Tappei-san never once hit Tatsu-nii nor any of us during the course of the sermon. Still, the redness in his eyes made me think that he was holding back his own tears.

“You think you’re lucky just because it fell on the trees?” Tappei-san said. “And what if it didn’t fall there huh? What if your broken-ass plane took a damn nosedive down to the lake? If Shigure hadn’t been there where you were no one would even be able to haul your sorry ass to the hospital. Consider yourself lucky I didn’t make your Mom talk to you.”  

Tatsu-nii avoided eye contact, caressing his bruised forearm. Tora and I kept our mouths shut.

As he looked over us, Tappei-san took a puff from his pipe, seemingly calming down. “Shigure got back to me while you were in the hospital. Nothing bad happened to your plane, but it's gonna be stuck there for a few. Be happy he was generous enough to get help having it hauled back up.”

“Sorry...” Tatsu-nii said, head still low.

“I'm not stopping you from doing any of this.” Tappei-san took another puff. “But if you're flying a big-ass plane with your weight on it, double- no, triple check if the damn thing can handle you or anyone you take with you. Now, don't you have to say sorry to them too?”

Tatsu-nii turned to us, head hanging lower. “I’m sorry for dragging you guys into this. I know you didn’t get hurt but still...”

“Relax, Tatsu-nii,” Tora said. “I’m sure we can get that plane flying back in no time.”

The disheartened dragon stayed silent.

“Yeah. It just needs a couple extra tweaks that’s all,” I added. “Maybe replace a few some connections with the gauges, change the fuel tank, some other-”

“Guys, enough.” Tatsu-nii looked at us, smiling yet looking forced. “Let’s call it a day. I don’t think I’m flying this summer. But maybe in the next year or so. I’ll just have to focus on being a master carpenter until then.”

Tappei-san smirked. “Don’t get your hopes up that that’ll happen quick. Now Torahiko, Hiroyuki, come with me.”

Tappei-san gestured to Yukino-san and the rest who were witnesses to everything by the hall. And even though we didn’t want to leave Tatsu-nii alone, we had to follow Tappei-san’s orders. At least I was sure that Yukino-san would be able to comfort him alter that intense mess.

Out in the hall, Tappei-san stopped and we followed suit as he turned around, looking sternly at the two of us.

“You two mind telling me what happened before the plane fell?” he asked. “Only you two saw what happened.”

I coughed. “Well, that’s...”

“It’s not Tatsu-nii’s fault the plane fell,” Tora said. “We helped him check everything and didn’t see anything broken that could’ve led to it.”

The old dragon bonked him on the head. “I know that. He’s not that dumb to not check everything.”

“Then why-”

“Never mind whatever I said! Just tell me what happened.”

I went in front. “Thing is, it started out pretty rough, the flight. Tatsu-nii was getting close to the edge when the plane was still on the ground.”

“Then it crashed down?”

Tora shook his head. “It got to fly just before he reached the edge. Was high up in the air when he did.”

“And then?”

I scratched my head. “And then just as he was about to return, the plane lost speed and...”

Tappei-san nodded, stroking his beard with two fingers. “I see. Did you all make sure that the fuel tank was full?”

“We did.” Torahiko said. “I even helped with the filling.”

“Hmm...” Tappei-san knit his brows. “I think I have an idea what happened now, but until Shigure tells me what they saw in the plane I can’t tell if I’m right.” He then patted us both on the shoulder. “As for you two, call it a day. I’m sure you two also have it beat. The kid needs time alone. At least give him that.”

We left the house that afternoon worried and confused. It wasn’t exactly right to leave Tatsu-nii alone in that state, but we had to take Tappei-san's word for it. Hopefully what Yukino-san did was enough to lighten up his funk even if just a tiny bit. Mental scars are often more painful than physical ones, personally speaking. But we still didn’t know what to do. Tatsu-nii had always been the jolly one among us and we rarely if ever saw him genuinely sad. Then we had in idea: if there would be only one person who could help us regarding Tatsu-nii’s emotional state right now, it would be Kenji.

Stopping by the Mikazuki house, we had a word with Kenji about Tatsu-nii and what had happened, the bear being alone. Filling him on the story so far, when he heard about the plane crashing he had such a look of shock on his face that it seemed like his fur was about to turn all gray. He got all frantic and asked if the dragon had any injury and we said that apart from bruises, none that endangered Tatsu-nii’s life, to which he breathed in relief. Torahiko then had this idea of inviting Kenji over the next day so all three of us could talk to him.

“Are you even sure that he’d listen to any of us?” Kenji asked.

“I’m sure as hell he’d listen to you,” Torahiko replied.

“Plus it’d be a good time for you to tell Tatsu-nii that you’d been thinking about him,” I added.

The bear raised his hand. “I’m gonna have to stop you two right there. Anything going on between Tatsu and I is between us. I’ll only blab about it when I feel like it.”

Tora frowned. “So you’re not in on the plan?”

Kenji smirked. “I didn’t say I wasn’t.”

And with that, we had our little plan for tomorrow and left the house just as Juuichi-san had arrived. Just before leaving, we took a quick glance at Juuichi-san and he had this forlorn look on him, possibly because of the upcoming martial arts competition. It got me wondering whether there was something in the summer air recently that people we knew were experiencing just crappy situations. Tora’s only reply to that was that such things happened all the time near the end of the month. Regardless, I felt that these last few days would be a handful.