Thankies to Aquamarine Lacus and Oliviaaaox101 for adding this story to your favorites! 8D Many thanks also to fairylilac, tennis'shadow, and Zemmno for adding DTR to your alerts~ I just read my own story on the itouch like how I normally read fanfictions… And realized that my updates seem really really short. O_O To cure this I shall try to write at least 2k words in every update even if I stretch my mind to exploding.

Disclaimer: I own neither the songs nor the characters in this story. :D Save for the doctors though. They are all mine! /evil cackle

 

 

Diagnosis, Treatment, and Rehabilitation  Chapter 3     By Karina Eide

All the Lies

 

 

After all this has passed, I still will remain
After I've cried my last, there'll be beauty from pain
Though it wont be today, someday I'll hope again
And there'll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain

-Beauty from Pain by Superchick

 

She could feel it begin to wear on her. Every time she swung that red racket she could feel herself rapidly tiring. Her face clenched; she couldn’t just give up because of fatigue. She just couldn’t give up on her only outlet. She mentally went over the endless list of side effects. Immuno suppression, bruising easily, fatigue, inability to concentrate, rashes, diarrhea, and vomiting. It had been enough work to reassure her family that tennis wasn’t a heavy combat sport. If they saw her like this they would probably pull her without giving her time to argue.

 

She almost felt like crying; she really just couldn’t do anything! The doors at the end of the hall were all slowly closing before her. The patter of feet behind her signaled the approach of the girl’s coach. Sakuno inhaled deeply before simulating the relaxed breathing that most would have during the practice swings. She tried to keep calm as she felt the examining eyes of the coach look her over. The brunette only relaxed as the woman walked on from her aisle to check the rest of the girls and to bark out orders.

 

The teen slumped slightly and stretched herself once more before forcing herself back into drills. She repeated the mantra of “just one more” over and over until those words the only ones that filled her mind. She would get through this and at the end of the day she would succeed. Unbeknownst to her, a pair of eyes had seen the way the girl seemed to tire.

 

Niou’s eyes narrowed as he noticed the signs of fatigue: circles around the eyes, labored breath, unfocused eyes, and a slight quiver. He wasn’t the trickster of Rikkaidai for nothing: he could read people like they were books. She obviously wasn’t well and she knew it, that was the confusing thing. Girls by nature weren’t as foolhardy as men to continue training to the point they could hurt themselves. They knew their limits, but this girl kept on pushing forward. It was audacious of her to be sure, but it was also foolish.

 

Many things could be read through a person’s posture, but one thing that Niou didn’t expect to read was desperation. The look she gave made her seem like she was desperate to keep up with the group. Was tennis so important to her that she was willingly putting herself to the limit like that? “Niou-sempai! Where are you, Niou-sempai?” Niou cursed under his breath. Stupid Kirihara had to mess up his concentration.

 

Niou risked one last glance at the pig tailed girl before closing his eyes. He would have a little talk with her later. It wouldn’t do him any good to have Seigaku breathing down his back, right? He assured himself that was why he felt the emotion called worry before vanishing into the school once more.

 

-I never really wanted you to see-

 

Beep. Beep. Beep. “Urusai.” The weak voice whispered to no one as the incessant beeping continued in the room. What was the saying? ‘Pain lets me know I’m alive’? The saying could never have been more true for him. He groaned weakly through the mask as he gazed around the room. Did they really call them painkillers? It was never a painkiller, it was just a pain duller. The pain never left and it had been his companion for a good two years now.

 

Sometimes he fancied that pain was alive and talked to him. Something had to be the cause of the words in his head after all. Was that the definition of insanity? The state of being seriously mentally ill. If he had the strength to laugh he would have; he did feel rightly insane after all. Strapped down to a bed with an air mask locked around his face, he looked like a right demon. It was strange being on morphine, like an out of body experience.

 

Yukimura felt like he was watching himself from a third person view. He was moving the controllers, but was never truly in the moment. “Yukimura-san? I’m here to administer another dosage.” The brunette nurse poked her head through the sliding glass doors before heading into the stark room. She gave the sickly boy a glowing smile before walking over to the IV line dangling above his head. After replacing the old line and attaching a new medicine she left the room once more to leave the tennis player to himself.

 

He stared up at the ceiling. It was peppered with holes and water damage, almost depressing to look at. It was a strange thing about hospitals: they kept everything sterile, but never thought much about the patient’s mind. There was nothing distracting in the room save for the tv they had latched onto the wall. The tv with the controller he was too weak to move around. Hanging on the wall, it seemed more like a torture device than entertainment.

 

When you are alone for hours upon hours on end, you begin thinking of strange things. Legacy, did he leave a legacy behind him? What impact would he have on the people around him once he died? The scariest thing to imagine for the “god” was to vanish into the nothingness of history. To leave no impact on the world and see people pass by without remembering him, it was a scary thought. It was selfish, but nonetheless true.

 

A small tear rolled down his face. He was scared. He didn’t want to see the future and yet he wanted it all to stop.

 

-The screwed up side of me that I keep-

 

119. That was not good at all. Sakuno stared at the orange pulsometer on her finger as the numbers across the screen flashed a bright red. She calmed her breathing down before stuffing the pulsometer back in her bag. It wasn’t at all good to have such a high number considering how fit she used to be. She lifted a hand up to her forehead to wipe away the sweat before leaving the changing rooms. What she didn’t expect was a visit from a tennis regular.

 

“Niou-sempai. What are you doing here?” Sakuno flushed slightly as she realized how rude she appeared. “Gomen. I didn’t mean to be rude…” She cut off slightly with a cringe. No matter how hard she tried; she was still horrendously awkward with strangers. She looked up at the gray haired boy nervously.

 

“You’re ill aren’t you?” It was like a dagger to the heart. How could he have known? Or was the question really, ‘how much does he know’? Sakuno swallowed to keep her calm and looked at him directly in the eyes. “Iie, Niou-sempai. Why would you think that?” She could feel herself squirming as she lied through her teeth. This was a subject that he had to realize that she didn’t want to even think about. She saw the amusement flicker through his eyes with much distaste. This was like a game to him.

 

“You look pale, Ryuuzaki-san.” She could just imagine the game. But it took two people to play chess, and he didn’t have her in checkmate just yet. “It must be your imagination, Niou-sempai. I am fine.” She walked past the boy in an effort to escape, but to no avail.

 

“Note the choice of wording.” Sakuno froze as she realized her mistake. “Fine is synonymous to decent or mediocre. Fine does not mean you are well, Ryuuzaki-san.” She flinched at the cold tone to his voice. It was the sound of a mother who just caught her child stealing cookies from the cookie jar. She heard the sound of his shoes as he walked back up to her side.

 

“Don’t play around with your life, Ryuuzaki-san. If you’re sick, pushing yourself will only make it worse. Go to the nurse.” Sakuno bowed her head slightly and let her hair cover her face. Anger was what drove her now. She clenched her fists as she listened to him speak. He had no clue what he was talking about and it was irritating to listen to.

 

“It won’t get better, so why should I care?” She murmured softly to herself. She gave a grunt of acceptance to fend off the trickster and pushed past him in a short sprint. The cancer was like a shadow hanging over her head. It was there wherever she went and she couldn’t escape it, so why try?

 

-Locked inside of me so deep-

 

“You’re doctors aren’t you? Your job is to heal people, not to kill them dangit!” The nurses turned away as they heard the shriek from down the hall. What was going on was part of the business. No matter how much they all fought, they would always lose some.

 

“Calm down, Yukimura-san.” Akihiro exhaled and looked at the woman before him. This was one of the problems with his job. When dealing in rare cases the rate of mortality was extremely high and the news was tough to break to the family. “YOU CAN’T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!” A fist was slammed down onto the desk in front of the spectacled doctor.

 

The woman shook with fury. How dare they label her son as a lost case. She knew Seiichi was more than that. If these people wouldn’t save him, she’d find others. This was her son, and they were obviously not going to protect him. She glared at the gray haired doctor before turning to leave the room. The floor shook with the force of the door slamming.

 

She strode quickly past the shell-shocked hospital staff and into the room of her son. “Seiichi…” She froze for a moment at the sight of her son before walking up to the bedside and resting a hand on the side of his face. “You’ll be better soon, love. Just stay strong for your mother and she’ll get you out of this rat hole soon.” She choked up as she stared at the blank eyes of her boy. He had so much more ahead of him. There was the whole world ahead of him; she knew it.

 

“You’ll get better. I promise.” She closed her blue eyes sadly and wept.

 

 

I’m finally introducing Yukimura! I’ve referenced him, talked about him, but never really brought him in. I don’t know a whole lot about Guillian Barre, but I’ll try to keep it realistic. The end part is entirely plausible and it’s one of my hospital pet peeves. -.- I loathe it when doctors do things like, “Let’s wait and see.” Or “We can do this surgery, but you’ll lose an entire lung and some other organs so you’ll be an invalid forever.”

NO. That is entirely stupid. If those doctors aren’t gonna treat you well, get a second opinion. Don’t just stop at the first coot even if he is well known and all that junk. Especially when doctors basically tell the patient, “You’ll die in a few months.” Patients are more likely to hurry themselves to death from the psychological stress of being told that. -.- There are always options from medicines to surgeries. RAWR.

My rant is now over. The song was Cold by Crossfade. /nods
I need opinions! SakunoxNiou or SakunoxYukimura? Yukimura will get to meet her eventually, never ye fear. And sorry if I’m making this kinda angst. O3o I’m trying to bring parts of hospital life that people never think about together and it can come out a bit… Over the top. |D

I’ll talk to you all later! Ja ne~