Vanilla

Five

[Vanilla]

It felt like a mouthful of iron. Hot, molten liquid sticking to my teeth, coating every inch of my tongue and nearly slipping down my throat before I bolted upright and emptied the contents of whatever had accumulated in my mouth on what I soon realized was a human hand that was not mine.

"Was not expecting that to happen." I turned—a throbbing in my head—to the owner of the hand, registering a white coat and a general face I could not identify. "And no, I don't think you should be moving around in violent jerks, boy. You're lucky it's just a couple of cuts and abrasions. Except your tongue of course."

My attention snapped towards her at the word. My tongue? I swallowed, tasting something vaguely bitter and an overwhelming stench of metal but nothing else. I couldn't feel it. I couldn't tell if I was moving my tongue or if anything in that muscle was functioning. At once, I panicked.

"Wha—" A rude, heavy sting prevented me from going any further and the woman in the white coat handed me a paper cup that was half full.

"Gargle and spit."

I did; taking the cup and filling my mouth with as much water as possible to rid of the iron dulling my sense of taste. As soon as I saw the colour of the water I'd spat out, I knew my face was paler than whatever was inside that cup. "Wha... t's..."

At once, I struggled to request for something to eat. The words were difficult to make out but with maximum effort and patience, coupled with careful enunciation and slower speech, I managed to voice the thought on my mind.

"You know, I doubt it's the occasion for you to be worried about your sense of taste but Alfred did boast about his nephew having the most mod-like taste buds, so," the nurse rolled her eyes. "I understand you want to give your tongue a test but don't rush it. It's not like you can taste anything now—the muscle's on an anaesthetic jab."

I let my jaw hang open. Something fell out.

She picked it up with her gloved hand and placed it back into my mouth. "Fine, fine, I'll give you something to eat." In a matter of seconds, I was handed a pain killer and another cup of water. Good god. What's happening? I can't seem to... did I fall? And how did I—

"You're awake!" Another voice, loud and electrified, burst through the doors of the room, shaking everything inside. I felt a brief drilling in my temples. "Sorry. The doctor said to get some documents you might need from the administration office, so. Oh! Oh and you're not going to believe me or this or anything I'm going to say for the next couple of minutes but hear. Me. Out."

While Xu proceeded to launch into a blow-by-blow account of her adventure while I had been asleep or knocked out in the land of agony and pain, I slowly began to take in my surroundings. Naturally, I observed and conjectured about this being the school's infirmary and the lady in the coat being the school doctor and had been about to make the most ridiculous conclusion regarding Xu's superhuman strength—she must have dragged me all the way here from the race track—when this girl began talking about some equestrian fool whose name she could not remember but who apparently knew mine.

"...knew that but thank god he did because I honestly couldn't fish it out no matter how much I tried but all thanks to him, I mean," bursts of excitement, "he did get you all the way here without demanding any form of, like, compensation or anything and by the way," Xu did not hesitate to drop a casual remark along the way, "I'm beginning to think that you're actually popular or something. I suspected it from the start, you know. Can't fool me, really. I mean, your hair stands out from being so light-coloured and all and like, people don't usually know someone else's full name even if they are friends so he probably either really likes you or you're just that famous."