Closed Confusing Times PV Valentin Schnell

Valentin waited by Hiro’s bedside with a small wild bouquet of purple coneflower, chamomile, and milkvetch. At his feet rested a cooler containing chocolate ice cream, persimmons, and rice cakes. With no one on Val’s quidditch team hospitalized, the captain was freed up to visit the wounded on other teams. Failing to be a perfectly impartial angel, Valentin chose to first investigate the conditions of people he felt close to from Mahoutokoro during his rounds. He’d been visiting daily, multiple times per day, out of concern for Hiro in particular who had not woken up after a considerable time. Not only would it have been weird to not visit wounded in the hospital this year, as he did every year, but there was no way he'd ignore his own friends in such a position. Hiro's downfall must have been particularly brutal, figured Val, so every day Hiro failed to wake up, the seeker added more to the collection of gifts to greet the beater when he woke up. The first three days were marked with collecting different kinds of flowers while the latter accumulated complementary varieties of food. After all, when Valentin had been recovering from his slug-induced illness, Nikolai had done wonders for Val’s recovery, including through the collection of flowers. The seeker doubted the hospital food would be very good today, as he knew St. Mungo's well, but he thought of bringing snacks only late in the gathering process because eating was usually the last thing on his mind.

“Welcome back,” chimed the seeker as Hiro opened his eyes. Valentin had been through it a million times. He knew it was simply better to wake up to someone who cared than it was to try to figure out patterns on whichever unfamiliar ceiling they’d be staring at for days to come.

“Hm? Get away from Yami, you say?” Valentin’s eyes half-closed from amusement. “I wonder if it isn’t him trying to keep me away. I was hoping to visit Kohana-san, too, but haven’t found a good opportunity without his hellhound guarding him like a prized dinner bowl.” Valentin’s eyebrows raised with amused dismissal of the topic.

“How’s your head feeling? You seem to have taken it pretty roughly this time. When you feel up to it, I brought you some snacks.” Unlocking and putting the cooler up onto the bedtable within easy reach, even an infirm person would find it simple to access its contents without injuring themselves further. “I figured you might like these rice cakes. I took a gamble with the chocolate ice cream and there are also some persimmons here in case you’re concerned about maintaining your athletic figure.” Chuckling, Valentin meant the latter remark as a joke, even if it was secretly a self-denigrating one lined with wary consideration.

Reference for Val’s flower language

"It seems to be fine now. The healers here are usually the best in the area."

Valentin nodded. He knew Tone would get quality care here at St. Mungo’s. It had taken a few years to regain basic trust in medical establishments following his mother’s death, but as a frequent patient rolling in and out of clinics, outposts, and hospitals of all sizes, Valentin knew that this was as good as Tone could get in the area. Clearly, after several days of being unconscious, the beater had been in need of a high standard of care.

“I wouldn’t just let you rot in a rinky-dink tent with such injuries as yours. Luckily someone already had enough sense to bring you here, so I didn’t even have to intervene.”

"Wow, snacks and ice cream? You're being so nice to someone you barely know. You better be careful, I might think you're trying to hit on me!"

“Barely know? Well, maybe our correspondence and casual interactions didn’t do much for you, but they always meant something to me. Besides, we’re brothers in quidditch. Anyone who flies in the sky is a part of my house – like extended family – let alone someone I’ve been interacting with over the years. Either way, it’s a matter of basic hospitality for me to take care of anyone who’s fallen from on high. Still, I can’t be everywhere at the same time – at least not yet. It’s simply convenient that I don’t have anyone from my own team to be tending to at the hospital this time, so it frees up my schedule. No one needs their captain today, and maybe they’re glad to have some time away from me after everything I put them through for victory.”

Valentin pulled one rice cake out from its wrapping to spare Tone the strain of having to handle it in his wounded condition, then extended it on its thin paper holder towards the other boy. Batting his eyes, Valentin knew that he’d bypassed Hiro’s remark about flirting with him, but it wasn’t out of cowardice.

“I did come here to see someone – you. Sara was my secondary target, if you will. See, if I were trying to hit on you, I would have given you a rather different variety of flowers. Call me old-fashioned, but it’s a way that I communicate. Look at this one, the purple echinacea – it means strength and good health. This one is chamomile, meaning healing, and this is молочная вика – I don’t know the name in English, but it wishes that ‘my presence softens your pain.’ Were you hoping for some other flowers from me?” Valentin’s smile broke wryly at a crooked angle, clearly not taking Hiro seriously.

“As for the match, congratulations on your victory. Your seeker made it to the snitch first and it seems your Ginyami is able to get away with more than the average player. Still, he can do better. You don’t need to feed his ego by telling him he had considerable impact on the game, but he certainly helped. Thanks to your team’s cohesion, your sacrifice was not in vain. It was a nice game.”

Leaning forward and sinking his elbows into his knees, Valentin’s eyes flicked about inspecting Hiro’s state now that he was conscious and able to move.

“Is there anything I can get for you?”

Tone couldn't help but smirk a little at Valentin's words about what the camp provided for first aid. "Rinky-dink... what kind of words are those?" He said with a shake of his head. Really, Valentin chose odd adjectives sometimes. But it was a little bit amusing to him. "True... I meant more like we haven't really seen eachother physically that much, even though we got to know eachother through letters and such before." Tone clarified when it came to 'barely knowing' eachother. "You were always surrounded by your admirers and also 'others'...

So I never really got a chance to spend time with you alone before." He added. As Valentin spoke of how anyone who flew on the quidditch field was like a brother to him, Tone smiled at him. "Quidditch is definitely an important part of my life, it's one of the few things that always gives me joy whenever I take part in it." Tone agreed with the white haired seeker before him. Tone could have said a few more things about what Valentin had said but decided not to for now. There would be time for that later on. For now, he'd gather himself a little.

As the seeker handed an unwrapped rice cake over to him, Tone took it with a nod of his head. Biting into it, he chewed and looked over at Valentin again as the boy told him he'd come there to see HIM. Tone couldn't help but chuckle at this. "Really? I feel honored." He said with a shake of his head, finding it hard to believe but willing to accept the lie. It was nice to be looked after and cared for, even if it wasn't true. When Valentin went on to explain his pure language of love from flowers, Tone smiled at his words. As Valentin smiled in a crooked way, the beater grinned at him.

"I don't know, what other flowers were you thinking of getting me?" Tone asked with an arched brow. "I'll have you know I have my own way of flirting too. I'll show you mine if you show me yours!" He said with a smirk, almost as if he were challenging Valentin. When the seeker told him they'd won the match, Tone raised a hand into the air and cheered, almost instantly grimacing. "Ow." Even though the healers had done their job, he was still a little sore. If not from the match, due to healing, then from lying in a bed for five days straight without getting up at all...

A sigh escaped his lips as Tone leaned back on his bed and he made a face. "I only wish that I'd been able to survive for longer than the first part of the match. I feel as if all my hard training from the past year essentially went to waste. I wasn't even able to do much." Tone said with a shake of his head. He crunched down on the rice cake and chewed. Glancing back over at Valentin when the seeker spoke again, asking if he could get him anything, Tone shook his head a little. "I can't think of anything but thanks for the offer." He told him and glanced around the room. "Did anyone come to visit me? I mean other than you." Tone asked him.

He couldn't help but be curious. Although, Valentin might not know the answer to this question. It wasn't as if he'd come to see him every day for multiple hours, right?

Enchanted Backpack Inventory:
Pocky, Homemade Goods, Rice Cakes, Books, Recipe Notebook, Quills & Inkwells, Self-Inking Quill, Parchment Paper, Wand, Silver Arrow [+3 all stats] and various other items.

"Rinky-dink... what kind of words are those?" Hiro shook his head, but Val could only laugh and shrug. For as gifted as the Turk was at languages, English would never be his native tongue. He would always have to try out new words and shrug off awkwardness when using them imperfectly. Hiro went on to explain his stance on why they didn’t know each other better despite the passing of years.

"You were always surrounded by your admirers and also 'others'… So I never really got a chance to spend time with you alone before."

“Fair enough, but… it’s not like any of these ‘admirers’ took things to much of a higher level. I still have space in my life for friends… just like there’s still room for quidditch. I’m glad that it always gives you joy. May it always be a safe place for you to find yourself, however chaotic your life becomes. As for the flowers…” Smirking with a glint of pain in his eye, the seeker waved his hand over the bouquet. “These are the right ones to convey my wishes for you. Sympathetic magic, I think they call it.” Still, the challenging note in Hiro’s voice cut into Val’s mind. There was only so much Valentin cared to maintain the pureblooded dignity he was taught to demonstrate. At some level the Durmstrang boy needed to drop the veils of polite society and get his hands muddied and his mouth bloodied by gritty reality.

“You’ll show me yours, eh?” Cocking his head to the side with an amused curl of his lip, Valentin’s Tatar eyes narrowed. “Do you mean to tell me you haven’t been snapped up by some adoring fan yet? That’s unbelievable considering how many get to enjoy watching you perform as a beater. Perhaps you are simply over-selective… or are you hoping for, waiting for, someone in particular? I didn’t see anyone else when I’ve been coming to visit, but maybe someone was here and I just spooked them off. People act like that around me a lot these days. I saw a nurse hide behind a curtain just yesterday, but I’m wouldn’t know if he’s just wanting to lurk and feed the rumor mill or if he has a thing for you. Maybe you’ve been receiving ‘special attentions’ while you’ve been knocked out, and you didn’t even know it. I wouldn’t be surprised, with a sporty charisma like yours. Even at our level, plenty of people are attracted to those bathing in the starlight.”

Valentin folded his arms over his chest and grinned. It hadn’t mattered at all that Hiro hadn't made it through to the end of the game. Surely some fans out there were crying over Bakugo’s valiant martyrdom, whether they were too shy to show their faces at the hospital or not.