Facing my Pains

[Scissorlips]

Interesting turn of events with the change in POV, I didn't see that coming. For a moment there I thought maybe Hisao was going to pull through, helping him recover would have been an interesting plot device. But oh well. Now that you're pretty much free to take the story where you want, it will be interesting to see where things go. As others have pointed out though, your main character is essentially a saint who is never wrong and everyone defers to. It's simply unbelievable.

IEven the student council popsicle was impressed at what we'd done when she and her drill haired translator turned up.

Also, you, uh, might want to fix this bit. And try to get in the habit of reading over your story at least once before you publish it.

[Oddball]

I've poked a bit of fun at your story and character here and there, and I don't really mean anything by it, but I just have to ask one question that I'm really curious about.

What would you say are your characters' biggest flaws?

I mean, in the game, Lilly is overly protective and has trouble showing people the real her, Emi pushes people away, Rin can't express her self in ways people can understand, Hanako is painfully shy and has the self esteem of dirt, Shizune is overly competitive and can't understand things from any point of view but her own etc etc.

So, what would you say are the major negative qualities of your characters?

[demonix]

@atw_ah: Since the arrival of my character and Hisao are just under two months apart and I wanted to establish both characters to some extent (more so for the main character), but it took a lot of chapters to get to the this point in the story (I did plan in having Hisao in for only one week) and once I've gotten past this part and a few events afterwards the story should advance a bit quicker then it has been (the time skips should be longer then they have been thus far).

@Mirage_GSM: I think you've misinterpreted that part of the story as he was only going to make sure Hisao was doing okay before meeting back up with Suzu (he only had the school building to check before going to meet up with Suzu, so if Hisao hadn't fallen off the roof then he would've checked the whole of the school building missing out the roof because of the sign Kenji put on the door, and then he would've assumed that Hisao had gone back to his room without anyone noticing and gone to meet Suzu).
I think I did write write some of that too perfectly, but I wanted to convey that they were happier with who was put in charge instead of Shizune being in charge.
I'll be covering why Miki went running all around the town she didn't know where Suzu had gone and Emi went with her to think of other places Miki didn't know about (like the Shanghai) in the chapter after the next one.

@Oddball: Suzu did say earlier on in the story that her and Karou's fathers are somewhat alike in terms of how they respond to sudden changes (I think that I said that correctly), and I put the staring down bit in as a test of Karou's honesty with what he said about not taking advantage of Suzu when she falls asleep suddenly (which is why Suzu's father changed his tone afterwards).
I did leave a majority of Hisao's scenes as they were (except for the cold war scene) so they would mesh up with how they happened in the game (I did miss out what happened on the Friday since that is a major turning point before heading towards the manly picnic, but that part will also be covered in the aftermath chapter).
That did know that Karou witnessed the accident and the shock of that and seeing the person die could cause people to do something stupid afterwards like killing themselves (it might not happen, but I thought it added some effect to the story), so Hanako thought that it would be best if everyone stayed with him for the first night afterwards (you'll find out what happens in the aftermath chapter).
And I hadn't really thought of character flaws although I might have tripped over one a few chapters ago.

@Scissorlips: The chapter that I wrote from Suzu's POV was done at the last minute (I'd only thought about writing it after I'd finished the festival chapter), and there will be some slight changes in the characters personality after this incident (I hope it does because I might just muck things up an keep things unchanged).
I thought that sentence came out pretty well, but it does look a bit edgy now that I've read it a few times (I do make sure that there's as few mistakes as possible).

[Scissorlips]

I thought that sentence came out pretty well, but it does look a bit edgy now that I've read it a few times (I do make sure that there's as few mistakes as possible).

Oh. So you meant to say "student council popscicle". I guess I can... see that. I just chalked it up to some horrific autocorrect error, myself.

[demonix]

I thought that sentence came out pretty well, but it does look a bit edgy now that I've read it a few times (I do make sure that there's as few mistakes as possible).

Oh. So you meant to say "student council popscicle". I guess I can... see that. I just chalked it up to some horrific autocorrect error, myself.

I did intend to say that (I actually used that to describe Shizune a few chapters ago when she kept her cool after the revised cold war scene) although the spell checking on liberoffice is a bit limited so I couldn't tell if I'd done the spelling correctly.

[Oddball]

And I hadn't really thought of character flaws although I might have tripped over one a few chapters ago.

Thank you for explaining this. Frankly, this is the biggest problem that me, and several others that have posted seem to have with your story. You character is flawless. Well defined character have flaws. It gives them depth and makes them come across as more relate-able to the readers. There were plenty of cases where it looked like you were setting up your character to make some huge mistake and over estimate his abilities, or other people's abilities, or something and just totally fall flat on his face because of it. Yet every time he manages to come out smelling like roses. The story loses drama because the reader doesn't get the feeling that the character can fail.

[demonix]

I had intended for the character to have a pretty much normal life apart from the few incidents at the beginning only for the current incident to change things, but it seems that I wrote it too perfectly although it might give me a few ideas to add in (there is a scene I'll be putting in that would go into your description where he would be set up for a big fall only to come out of it at the other end smelling of roses, but he won't feel that is the case).

[demonix]

And here's the chapter I could say has been around two months in the making (since it was something I'd had planned since I started this project).

There might be a few inaccuracies, some loss in the flow of time and some urine taking but I think it all gels together (and I have at least managed to match up the end of the extra chapter with the end of this one, but the last part of the extra chapter won't be explained until the next chapter).

I should make it clear that Karou doesn't know Kenji's first name which is why he only refers to him as Setou during this chapter.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Death

I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
I only looked up because I heard the sound of a fence, but all I ended up seeing was someone falling from the roof.
For the first few seconds it felt like time was standing still as the person seemed to be hovering in thin air, with what looked like an arm sticking out from beyond the fence.
Eventually time marched onwards, and gravity being the cruel mistress that it was dragged the body to the ground where it hit with a horrendously hideous bone crunching noise that made my impact sound like someone hitting a piñata.
A deafening silence descended over the area for the first few seconds, and then the first scream broke through the silence followed by a lot of talking.
Nobody seemed to want to approach the body, but somebody had to check the person and give any possible medical assistance until some of the nursing staff turned up, so I traversed the eighty or so meters from where I was standing to the body.
The body was lying face down as the impact was mainly to the back of the head and was enough to turn the person over, so I turned whoever it was onto their back, making sure to support the head and neck to make sure I didn't cause any more damage and then...

I thought the slightly messy hair looked familiar, but now that I had the body turned over it was clear that it was Hisao.
That must be why I hadn't seen him after that initial glimpse, but I shouldn't dwell on it since I should check him for any signs of life.
As I went to check to see if he was breathing, I was confronted by the smell of alcohol and no signs of breathing.
I didn't know if that had any meaning as to how this happened, but I needed to do something even if it doesn't work and it looks like all that research I did after my accident is going to come in handy, even though I'll have to do hands only CPR since I didn't want to get the smell of whatever he was drinking on my breath.
It didn't take me that long to prepare, and the scar that went down his sternum told me where I should place my hands.
I kept running over the whole procedure in my mind while I was doing it.
Push down at least six centimetres with at least two compressions every second, and don't worry if a rib cracks as it's better to be alive with a broken rib then to be dead without one.
As I kept on going, I wondered if it was helping since every time I looked at Hisao's face there were no signs of life.
After a while I lost count of how many compressions I'd done, the amount of time I'd been doing this and eventually I couldn't keep going and had to stop.

Once I finally looked beyond my hands, the full sight of what had been happening when I started this was now clear.
I was now kneeling in a pool of blood that seemed to have originated from the injury to Hisao's head, and it became crystal clear that everything I'd done was for nothing.
The impact must have at least broken his spine as well as severing his spinal cord along with mulching his brain.
Since there was nothing more I could do I decided to close his eyes, but as I did, I felt a hand on my left shoulder.
When I'd closed his eyes, I turned my head to the left and found the person who'd placed his hand on my shoulder was very familiar.

“You did all you could”, Mutou said.
“It-it didn't help”, I said rather weakly “th-the impact probably killed him”.
I couldn't say anything more, nor could I move from my current position since my legs had fallen asleep and I didn't want to put my hands into to pool of blood since I didn't want to have any more blood stains to clean, but help was at hand as Mutou and another person lifted me off the ground and moved me as far away from the pool of blood as possible so I could get back on my feet.
A little while after I was able to stand on my own, the nurse along with some of his assistants and some equipment came through the crowd, but all I could do was shake my head as a silent way of telling him that there was no hope for Hisao.
His assistants still went over to check, but what was said afterwards was to be expected.
“He's long since gone, sir”, one of the assistants said “the impact probably did it”.
The look on the nurses' face darkened significantly when that was said.
“And what is his involvement in all this”, the nurse asked.
“He witnessed the whole incident”, Mutou said “and he did CPR even though he knew that it wouldn't have worked after he'd exhausted himself”.
A small smile appeared on the face of the nurse for a few seconds.
“At least someone tried”, the nurse said “we'll need to make sure an ambulance is coming so they can take the body away”.
“You need to make sure the police are coming”, I said “I can't be sure if this was an accident”.
“What do you mean by that”, Mutou asked.
“Because I saw an arm sticking out from the fence on the roof”, I said “I'm not sure if that arm was from someone trying to stop him falling or pushing him off the roof”.
I started scanning the crowd while trying to recall the first thing I saw in regards to this incident.
From what I was able to see the person who owned the arm was wearing something that was green in colour like most of the schools uniform was, but as I looked around I couldn't see anyone that was wearing the full school uniform which could mean whoever else was involved had left the area, or...
The person couldn't still be up on the roof since only a complete idiot or someone who is completely wasted would stay up there, but I had to make sure even if this was the most idiotic thing I've ever done.
As I started to think about the task I was about to do, all of the exhaustion that had built up from when I was doing CPR faded away.
“When the police get here, tell them to head for the roof”, I said “I'm going up there now to see if the other person I saw is still up there, and hold them until they arrive”.
I ignored the protests from the nurse and Mutou as I at first walked and then ran towards the schools main entrance.
I knew that there was only one way to get to and from the roof, so even if the person hadn't left the roof yet, I'd still run into them as I headed up the stairs.

The corridors were almost devoid of life, which helped as I stopped on each floor for a few seconds to listen for signs of life.
There weren't any people above the first floor, and there weren't any sounds that meant someone was trying to run away, so once I'd cleared the last floor I headed for the roof.
I slowly ascended the stairs that lead to the roof, trying to make as little noise as I could so I didn't spook whoever was on the roof, if there was anyone on the roof.
The last few steps felt like torture, but I finally made it to the door that lead to the roof and I had a feeling that someone was still there as there was a piece of paper with 'off limits' written on it which looked like it had been placed here recently.
If the person who placed that there had any sense they'd have removed it when they left, but then this was only a feeling so I pushed the door open, making sure not to disturb any evidence if any needed to be taken, and walked out onto the roof.
The sounds from below were a lot more muted up here, but there were sings that someone had been here because there was a blanket on the floor and as I looked around, I found someone else standing on the roof.
This person was dressed in the full Yamaku uniform which matched what little I'd seen of the arm, but I soon remembered that I'd seen him in Lilly's class when I helped out and since he must've been up here with Hisao, he must be the infamous Setou I've heard about.
As I walked towards him, he must have realized why I was here.
“It wasn't my fault, it was those feminist bitches”, Setou said as his expression and posture changed “THEY'RE THE ONES THAT DID THIS”.
Since I'd heard about his feminist conspiracy theories from my classmates, I couldn't believe a word of what he'd just said.
“I can only go by what I've seen”, I said “so I'm going to hold you here until the police arrive and take you in for questioning to see if you had any physical involvement in Hisao's death”.
I started walking towards him to detain him, but it didn't start that easily as he managed to avoid my left arm and after a quick movement, I managed to intercept his moving right arm with my own.
Once I'd gotten a hold of that one arm with both hands, I tried to place it behind his back but he continued to resist as he tried to run away.
It didn't work as I still kept a firm grip on his arm, so he went to pushing me backwards which kept me on my feet as I had to make a few quick movements so I could avoid getting close to the fence, but I couldn't avoid the wall next to the door as one avoiding movement that kept me away from the fence put my back on a direct course with the wall.
That only made me angrier, so I moved forwards slightly and used the wall along with Setou's shoulder to get airborne and get Setou on the floor.
It worked since after a few seconds of air time and some distance, Setou was doing a good impersonation of 'eat floor, high fibre' while I was on his back, restraining both his arms.

As I restrained his left arm, the door flew open and several police officers ran onto the roof but instead of what I thought would happen, the first officer hit me over the head with something and a second pushed me onto the floor.
The second officer started to give me the same treatment I'd done with Setou along with a knee pressing down on my lower back, but each time I tried to move or explain myself I was beaten over the back with whatever it was they were using.
As the cuffs went on the door opened again, and all I could hear were the footsteps of two people.
“We've detained two suspects, detective”, the officer said.
“What do you mean by two suspects”, the detective asked.
“We were told to arrest anyone who was up here”, the officer said.
“If you lot had listened to everything, you would have known that one of the students had come up here to see if there was anyone still around”, the detective said “and if he'd detained anyone, your orders were to assist him not to put both of them in cuffs”.
“Then how can you explain the blood stains on his trousers”, the officer asked “he would have to be involved in this because of that”.
“That's because he tried to help the victim”, the detective said “and the injury was enough for the victim to bleed out during that time which is why he has blood stains on his trousers”.
I then heard the footsteps of the detective come in my direction.
“What have you been doing”, the detective asked
“He was resisting arrest”, the second officer said “I had to do something”.
“That doesn't mean that you can beat the crap out of someone”, the detective said “we're not Americans and you've already been warned about this kind of thing”.
“But I can't just let a suspect walk all over me”, the second officer said.
“Stop sending this around in circles”, the detective said “get your ass back to headquarters and I'll finish up here”.
The sound of footsteps going away from me along with the door opening made me feel slightly relieved, but not as much as when the cuffs were removed and I was able to get back to my feet.

“You must be mister Nomura”, the detective asked “your teacher did say that you'd be up here”.
I only nodded to confirm what had been said, since I was wondering why I wasn't screaming in absolute pain after the combination of the beating and hitting the wall.
“We need to take you to headquarters for an interview”, the detective said “since you witnessed most of what happened”.
After nodding again, I looked over to where Setou currently is as he's been restrained by several officers, but they do have some handcuffs on him.
“Make sure to check him over for any bottles or flasks”, I said “from what I could smell, the victim was drunk”.
Almost as if they knew what I was going to say, one of the officers calls out and shows a small bottle or flask of some kind.
“Put that in an evidence bag”, the detective asked “and take him out the back. I don't want anyone to be hearing that”.
The remaining officers acknowledged what the detective had asked, and left the roof with the still ranting Setou in tow while the officer who had found the item was putting it into a bag and then departed once that had been done.
A little while afterwards, the detective and I also headed to the door.
Most of the walk downstairs went in silence, but the detective decided to break the silence as we went down the final set of stairs to the lobby area.
“I didn't expect that the involved party would still be up there”, the detective said.
“Neither did I”, I said “I thought that he'd be back at the dorms by nargh”.
I didn't manage to finish what I was saying, as a massive surge of pain went though my body and I missed the last few steps landing hard on the floor.
It must've either been blocked out by a surge of adrenaline, or I'd been able to block the pain myself and didn't realize it.
Unlike the last time I was like this, I still had some command of my hearing as I heard someone walk or run towards me.
“What just happened here”, the nurse asked.
“I don't know”, the detective said “he was talking normally and then this happened”.
“Do you know if anything happened that would have caused this”, the nurse asked before continuing “don't bother, the reason for this is written all over his back”.
“One of the officers went overboard”, the detective said “even though they didn't have all the information”.
“Didn't they know something called tact, especially around here”, the nurse said “I've already lost one student and I don't want another to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life”.
“I'll make sure that person is fully reprimanded for all this”, the detective said.
“Never mind that, we have to focus on what's here”, the nurse said “he needs to be in a better position so I can give him something to deal with the pain”.
I didn't really know what was happening after that because of the continual pain spikes, as the nurse and the detective moved me around.
After what felt like another age, the pain started to subside and I found that I was now sitting on the stairs.
“Did anyone get the license plate number of the truck that ran into me”, I asked trying to inject some humour into my current situation.
“It's good to see you back with us”, the nurse said “we didn't get the number, but we know that you'll be a bit sore for the next few days”.
“That's to be expected”, I said “as long as I didn't have any other injuries”.
“Your hard head seems to have protected you from some of the hits”, the nurse said “but we need to get you out of here since the police have to cordon off the building, and we didn't want to move you until the pain killers I'd given you had time to work”.
I spotted the piece of cotton wool as I was helped to me feet and walked out of the building, but I only managed to get a little way out of the building before I needed to take a break.
After the nurse and detective left me, I took in everything that had happened.

I've probably made a pile of mistakes since this incident started.
It would have been pointless trying to resuscitate Hiasao since the impact must have been fatal, and heading up to the roof would be the most stupidest mistake I'd done since all it got me was a needless beating.
As I was wallowing in the mistakes I'd made, I heard what sounded like a lot of people walking towards me.
When I looked up, I could see that a majority of the crowd was comprised of my classmates with a few others.
I probably look like a complete mess to them as I sit here.
“What happened here”, Misha asked in an unusual tone.
They probably haven't been told everything, and I'm not going to hide it from them, so I'm going to get straight to the point.
“It's Hisao”, I said with my voice sounding a bit unsteady “he's dead”.

[Oddball]

Wow. Doesn't anything excite this guy or make him lose his cool?

[Mirage_GSM]

Oh great, he's providing CPR, then he's catching the perp with the teacher standing around stupidly - he's even giving orders to a policeman.
Too bad there wasn't a fire for him to put out as well.

[demonix]

Wow. Doesn't anything excite this guy or make him lose his cool?

Well I counted two loosing his cool scenes.

Oh great, he's providing CPR, then he's catching the perp with the teacher standing around stupidly - he's even giving orders to a policeman.
Too bad there wasn't a fire for him to put out as well.

Well what would you do if someone had a heart attack, you were the only person who was close enough and you knew that you could help (I know that is a bad example, but I just wanted to see this from his mindset since he was the nearest and knew what to do even though doing it was pointless since Hisao was already dead which I believe is why there's no further story after the manly picnic), and he went up to the roof to check if the other involved party was still up there and to keep the person there until the police could come and remove them plus Mutou and the nurse would have had other things to do like clearing the area and covering Hisao's body with something until the ambulance came to take him away.
Also he wasn't giving an order, he was suggesting that they search him because he wasn't sure if they knew that Hisao was well oiled before his death plus they were already doing a rub down search before he even said that (I probably wrote that part slightly incorrectly).

[Oddball]

Wow. Doesn't anything excite this guy or make him lose his cool?

Well I counted two loosing his cool scenes.

I didn't see them. I saw what you might have thought was bad reactions from him, but he handled somebody dying better than some characters in the game handled their test scores.

Oh great, he's providing CPR, then he's catching the perp with the teacher standing around stupidly - he's even giving orders to a policeman.
Too bad there wasn't a fire for him to put out as well.

Well what would you do if someone had a heart attack, you were the only person who was close enough and you knew that you could help (I know that is a bad example, but I just wanted to see this from his mindset since he was the nearest and knew what to do even though doing it was pointless since Hisao was already dead which I believe is why there's no further story after the manly picnic), and he went up to the roof to check if the other involved party was still up there and to keep the person there until the police could come and remove them plus Mutou and the nurse would have had other things to do like clearing the area and covering Hisao's body with something until the ambulance came to take him away.
Also he wasn't giving an order, he was suggesting that they search him because he wasn't sure if they knew that Hisao was well oiled before his death plus they were already doing a rub down search before he even said that (I probably wrote that part slightly incorrectly).[/quote]
Personally, I probably panic, and I have combat lifesaver training. Now if he had just given Hisao CPR that would have been fine enough on it's own.

But he did that, then he was rational know where to go and find the "killer", brave enough to confront them with no regards for his own safety, stop him, and then give advice to the police about doing their jobs.

Now if he had seen Hisao die then had a full blow panic attack and puked, or kept trying to give CPR after the Teachers or Nurse said it was too late, or went to stop Kenji, got his ass handed to him and was directly responsible for Kenji getting away, or basically anything that involved him not doing the exact right thing in the exact right way, it would have went better.

His CPR failed because Hisao was already dead. Not his fault.
The cop attacked him. Also not his fault. Heck, that last one could have given you another chance to save things. He went off on his own and attacked somebody, and instead of getting praised as a hero, the cop could have yelled at him for foolishly risking his life, assaulting another person, or interfering with a crime scene, or something to that affect.

Even just having a different character say that somebody should check the roof while he's still in a bit of shock would have ... well, not made it better but made it less horrible.

Here, let me give you one more idea that would have worked better. He runs after the "killer" but he's too late and Kenji gets away without anybody even able to tell who it was. Now your character actually has a real reason to feel he didn't do all he could and should have done more.

Look, really you're a good writer as far as plot and technical abilities go, but you really need to stop pampering your main character so much. Let him fall on his face a few times and have other characters laugh at him for doing it. Let people not like him and have good reasons for it. Let him try to do something and utterly fail, not for reasons beyond his control, but because he honestly just wasn't good enough.

[Mirage_GSM]

...and he went up to the roof to check if the other involved party was still up there and to keep the person there until the police could come and remove them plus Mutou and the nurse would have had other things to do like clearing the area and covering Hisao's body with something until the ambulance came to take him away.

So the let a student go after a potential murderer?
If something happened to him they'd both find themselves in court for gross negligence or something like that.

[demonix]

I'll paste these in quotes since I'm too lazy to quote the chapter twice.

That only made me angrier, so I moved forwards slightly and used the wall along with Setou's shoulder to get airborne and get Setou on the floor.

The second officer started to give me the same treatment I'd done with Setou along with a knee pressing down on my lower back, but each time I tried to move or explain myself I was beaten over the back with whatever it was they were using.

They might not be the best examples, but anger could be classed as someone losing their cool (although I didn't make that clear in the second example).

Also he was suffering from shock partly from seeing the start of the accident and mainly from seeing the impact, although he did manage to clear his head enough to go help but with it resurfacing partly after both events (the only time he spoke in his normal tone was when he confronted Kenji, and yes I do suck at not being able to put in character vocal changes).

Plus he exhausted himself doing CPR so you have to wonder how long he was doing it for (I did destroy the flow of time at that part), and he was the only one to see the start of the accident.

The plan for holding Kenji was for a simple holding his arms behind his back, but that would've been too boring which is why I put the struggle in and for the police to enter the fray with little information and thinking that Karou was involved in Hisao's death due to the blood stains on his trousers (assumption is the mother of all fuck ups as they say in under siege 2) which is why the police took him off Kenji and ended up having a beat you whenever you want to say anything officer dealing with him (the first officer who whacked him over the head isn't going to get out of this scot free) which is why I had that delayed action surge of pain come in later along with the nurse having a go at the detective, and the reason that he considered everything he'd done as a mistake was because he could've done a more through check of Hisao's head and found that is was bleeding which would've all but confirmed that he was already gone an that CPR would've been pointless (although it would've made things even worse if he'd gone up to the roof to go after Kenji) and that going to the roof on his own was as much of a mistake since he could have waited for the police to arrive before heading up there (but then he did think it was the stupidest thing he'd done) and there's another beating of sorts coming up.

And I think that it would be really stupid in having people laughing at him after messing up considering what has happened to him already which is why I'm not going to go there in this story.

Just in case you missed this Mirage.

I ignored the protests from the nurse and Mutou as I at first walked and then ran towards the schools main entrance.

They'd already told him not to go, but he ignored what they were saying.

[Mirage_GSM]

No I didn't "miss this".
They "protested" but docile staff that they are they just meekly watch as a student ignores their orders and walks off to confront a potential murderer.
I can see that going down well in court: "But it wasn't our fault. We protested!"
Basically it drives the point home even harder. Your OC knows what to do, and all others submit to his expert opinion. If he had just slipped away while they were distracted... that would have been marginally better I guess, but as it is...
And you call this "losing his cool"?
In the first example he is in the middle of a fight. You'd have to be Ghandi to not get a bit angry there.
In the second he is calmly trying to explain something to a man beating him up for no reason at all. He's not even struggling, which would have given the cop a reason to hit him in the first place. I don't know what country you're from, but usually cops don't beat up people just for talking. Certainly not where I live and not in Japan either. It would lose them their jobs, and they know that.