Breaking Shoujo: The Meth Route *Updated 8/7/14*

[Dreamcastin]

First off, before we get to the story I want to establish some things. This story will not follow Breaking Bad other than the premise. Other than that, they are going to be completely different. Also, if I make any errors in the Katawa Shoujo universe point it out to me. I love criticism, but it has to be constructive. I saw there was one fanfiction about a crossover but it didn't pertain to Katawa Shoujo very well. In this one it will stick to the KS universe we know and love.

I will most likely try to stick to a chapter a week, but things tend to come up in my life from time to time, but I will always give you a heads up if so. If anyone is good at editing and revising I need you. I’m not the best editor so I apologize if you see any mistakes that make you cringe. I am working on it at the moment so stay with me. Also, this is set to start right at the beginning of “The Deep End” before they head to the roof.




Chapter 1: I'm In It For The Money
http://ks.renai.us/viewtopic.php?f=52&t ... 82#p181782

Chapter 2: Welcome Back Mr. Nakai
http://ks.renai.us/viewtopic.php?f=52&t ... 00#p182000

Chapter 3: Coffee Is Always The Answer
http://ks.renai.us/viewtopic.php?f=52&t ... 93#p196393

Chapter 4: Russian Roulette
http://ks.renai.us/viewtopic.php?f=52&t ... 29#p201229

Chapter 5: Welcome To The Operation
http://ks.renai.us/viewtopic.php?f=52&t ... 39#p202139

Chapter 6: It Can Be Done With A Bullet
http://ks.renai.us/viewtopic.php?f=52&t ... 61#p203761

Chapter 7: Around The Block
http://ks.renai.us/viewtopic.php?f=52&t ... 99#p210099

[Dreamcastin]

Chapter 1: I'm In It For The Money


“Hold on Kenji, just let me grab my phone,” I don’t know why I said that so eagerly given the situation.

“You know how I feel about phones dude, I've done some research in the deep web and found feminists listen in on them,” Kenji said in his “normal” serious tone.

“I’ll take my chances,” shrugging off what he said like always. Then I extended my arm and turned my door handle very quickly. I walked in and slammed the door. I don’t want Kenji to go snooping from what he can see of my room.

I wish I could have went to the festival with someone. Anyone. Anything is better than taking your chances with Kenji, but out of pure boredom I’ll humor him.

“You coming? We have to get the fort finished before the feminists invade!” Kenji said very frantically.

“Oh yeah, right”, I said in a serious tone. I honestly don’t want Kenji to know that I think most of what he says is complete lies, as he’d probably attack me thinking I was some sort of feminist. I grin at the thought of Kenji slamming his fists very lightly at me.

Enough getting sidetracked I said to myself. I walked over to my table to grab my cell phone off the charger. Pushing away the stacks of pill bottles, I unburied my phone and grabbed it. One missed call the screen read. “I wonder who it’s from,” I said. Looking through my recent calls it said a number I hadn’t seen in a while, the house phone.

I wonder why they called me. Maybe to tack more pills onto my daily regimen. “Hold on Kenji, I got to give my folks a call.”

“Dude, they are coming inside the dorms! You got to hurry!” Kenji said panicked in a low voice.

I dialed in the home number and listened to the trilling of the phone. Finally I hear somebody pick up. “Hello” I say in a very professional voice.

“Hisao, honey we need to talk. Your father and I recently got your medical bills back.” My mother said in a voice that can only be explained in one word, depressed.

“Isn’t our health insurance supposed to pick up the tab” I said trying to prove her wrong due to the next thing she is predictable going to say.

“We got the bill…, it's more than what we could afford. I’m sorry Hisao, but your eighteen now. Your father and I did all we could to pay for it, but we can’t do it. We just can’t. The bill is getting forwarded to you.” My mom said in a monotone type voice.

I didn’t know what to do then, so I tried to plead with her. “Leave me with that kind of bill. You know I could never pay that. I’m a student at a cripple school, who can barely even walk to class without nearly keeling over and dying let alone work. You dump this on me, and I’ll be dead by the end of the semester.”

“I’m sorry, I really am. I wish I could do something else but it comes down to this. It’s either all three of us go down, or just you. We didn’t do this to be mean or anything else.”

Hitting end call right after she finished, I slammed my phone against a wall. Kenji then knocked on my door.

“Let me in dude, I want know what happened.” Kenji said it in a way like he actually genuinely cared about me.

“What about the fort” I said to try and brush him off.

“The war on feminism can wait until later. Right now the only thing I’m focused on is seeing what is going on,” he said.

“Fine, come on in.” I unlocked the door and opened it. He then ran into my room quickly.

“Okay so what was that about? You sounded pretty angry there.”

“My mom called.”

“So what’s the problem? Don’t like your mom?”

“She told me I have to pay for my medical bills.”

“So?”

“So the medical bill is in my hands now. It's quite a lot so now I have no idea what to do.”

“Holy shit dude. How would you even attempt to come up with money?”

“I don’t know Kenji. I just don’t know.”

[Mournful3ch0]

...deep web, and found the...

Commas are unnecessary after conjunctions. You seem to do a lot of this in your writing.

“I’ll take my chances” shrugging off...

Missing a comma.

...the door, as I don’t want Kenji to go snooping...

You could remove the comma here or remove the 'as' and start a new sentence. Your call.

“Enough getting sidetracked,” I said to myself. I walked over to my table to grab my cell phone off the charger. Pushing away the stacks of pill bottles, I unburied my phone and grabbed it. One missed call the screen read. “I wonder who it’s from,” I said. Looking through my recent calls it said a number I hadn’t seen in a while, the house phone.

It is my personal belief that talking to yourself in writing looks silly. I think the best way to deal with internal dialogue is leaving it as a thought in italic form.
[Ex. Enough getting sidetracked I dictate to myself.]

...tack more pills onto my daily regimen of swallowing a massive amounts of pills per day.

A bit of repetition can really break the flow.

“Dude, they are coming inside the dorms! You got to hurry!” said Kenji very scared.

Kenji can be scared, but you may want to try being more subtle about it than saying it outright. Try something like: ["You've got to hurry!" Kenji whispered, his voice rising in panic.]

One ring, two ring, click.

Onomatopoeia is generally frowned upon. I personally don't mind it but I thought you might want to know.

“Hisao, honey we need to talk.

This one is really minor: His mom addresses him as Hicchan. Though, judging by the severity of the situation, I guess that doesn't apply.

“Fuck you mom, goodbye”

I don't really see this guy as Hisao, as he would likely have totally frozen at the news rather than lashing out in anger immediately.

“Holy shit dude. That’s a lot of money, how are you going to pay for this.”

Question mark? Question mark.

Ok, with the proofreading out of the way, I'd like to say that this is a story that I'd like to see develop. The plot is dark; just the way I like them. [Madame Lillian's Specialty Service, anyone?] Though I haven't gotten a proper taste of how the drug dynamic will play out, I feel this will be one I will enjoy as new releases come forth.

Thanks for writing, I hope this was helpful.

[Blasphemy]

So for starters I highly recommend you go through this http://ks.renai.us/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=2485 topic which will provide you with a lot of writing tips, many of which you should probably apply to this first chapter already. I'm not intending to sound mean but there are a lot of issues that you better attack now before continuing with new chapters.

For once, you constantly switch between tenses and your punctuation for dialog is all over the place.

As far as the content itself goes:
80.000.000 yen? That's apparently almost 600.000 euro. Those meds must be some real good stuff

The "cause" for your story path is a bit too absurd for my taste. Of course you can take a few liberties but nevertheless, it seems very unlikely that after pretty much just a week there are suddenly huge monetary issues coming up for the Nakais. It would be more believable if you can come up with a more reasonable origin for the monetary issues. Perhaps one of the parents loses his job or the two of them get divorced etc. pp. Doesn't matter if it's rather unlikely as well as long as it doesn't really contradict the former occurrences. If Yamaku and meds couldn't be payed for with their current income, then Mr. and Ms. Nakai wouldn't have send Hisao over there.

My last point will be about Hisao being OOC (out-of-character). His mom probably, too, to be frank. I mean as I said the current event leading up to your path switch is a bit ridiculous but even so I have to wonder if Hisao's parents would try to force the bill onto him. Purely from their characterization that doesn't seem likely, as they like and do a lot for Hisao. If that move is even possible legally and/or if that wouldn't backfire to the parents immediately either way is a whole other question.
And even in that absurd situation Hisao finds himself him, I simply cannot see him cursing and reacting like that. I'd imagine Hisao would be completely baffled and out of words, or in generally just acting completely dejected. “Fuck you mom, goodbye” however, just no.

[Helbereth]

“Enough getting sidetracked,” I said to myself.

It is my personal belief that talking to yourself in writing looks silly. I think the best way to deal with internal dialogue is leaving it as a thought in italic form.
[Ex. Enough getting sidetracked I dictate to myself.

As someone who often uses that italics aside for internal thoughts, I should point out that this doesn't seem like an instance of an internalized thought. Instead, it seems more like this is Hisao actually verbally talking to himself, which could be indicated better. By that I mean it's somewhat ambiguous as written, and you could personify something nearby to indicate that he's actually speaking and not just thinking.

Something like this:
“Enough getting sidetracked,” I said to the empty room.

“Fuck you mom, goodbye”

I don't really see this guy as Hisao, as he would likely have totally frozen at the news rather than lashing out in anger immediately.

I agree with this 100%. Hisao is anything but confrontational, especially where his parents are concerned. At most, he might think that to himself, but he's far more likely to react with passive aggressive sarcasm or not at all. He could clench his hand into a fist, grit his teeth and spit back a seething, "Fine..." or something to that effect, but straight up swearing at his mother wouldn't even occur to him.

80.000.000 yen? That's apparently almost 600.000 euro. Those meds must be some real good stuff

Ah, but it's not just the meds he's taking now that are included in his medical bills. He had a heart attack, was rushed to the hospital by ambulance, and spent four months in varying levels of watchful care. It sounds like a lot, and I'm not sure how hospitals work in Japan exactly, but it doesn't sound like a terribly inaccurate number.

[Dreamcastin]

Updated with all the fixes. Thank you all for the help and not holding back. I need this to get better at my writing skills. As for it being illegal, I see it otherwise. Since there is no birth date for Hisao he could have been 18 when he had his heart attack. I always thought when he got put in the hospital, he was being billed. But his parents probably thought they could afford that with their health insurance. Since it never covered it, he got the bill given back to him. I guess it's all on perspective as it's never really solidified in game.

[bhtooefr]

Japan has universal (although not single-payer, it seems - looks like just individual mandate) health care. Patient has 30% responsibility according to that article, but then there's catastrophic coverage that stops the patient responsibility (which would almost certainly kick in well before $600k) - and that would come into play for a heart attack. Looks like there's no penalty for not complying with their individual mandate, though, and it sounds like the public assistance isn't automatic.

In any case, with regulation of procedure costs (which appears to be effective in Japan), I'd also expect that the actual procedure and hospital stay would be much cheaper than in the US.

Basically, a $600k bill for a heart attack, arrhythmia treatment, and a 4 month hospital stay could only happen in the US. Every other country that could support such high costs has enough of a social safety net that no patient would see anywhere near that bill (and due to how the safety net works, costs are lowered significantly even for those that do fall through the cracks), and every other country that lacks that social safety net has lower healthcare costs due to the market not being able to bear those costs.

I've not actually seen Breaking Bad, but here's a parody of what it'd be like in Canada, and it sounds like the situation in Japan would be similar:

Despite the premise being completely implausible due to the setting, still interesting to see where you go with this story.

[Oscar Wildecat]

FWIW, you could through in the tuition for the private boarding school into that bill. Then again, if the premise of the story is that Hisao's parents are throwing him to the wolves (so to speak), who knows what's actually in that ¥80,000,000...

[Dreamcastin]

Japan has universal (although not single-payer, it seems - looks like just individual mandate) health care. Patient has 30% responsibility according to that article, but then there's catastrophic coverage that stops the patient responsibility (which would almost certainly kick in well before $600k) - and that would come into play for a heart attack. Looks like there's no penalty for not complying with their individual mandate, though, and it sounds like the public assistance isn't automatic.

In any case, with regulation of procedure costs (which appears to be effective in Japan), I'd also expect that the actual procedure and hospital stay would be much cheaper than in the US.

Basically, a $600k bill for a heart attack, arrhythmia treatment, and a 4 month hospital stay could only happen in the US. Every other country that could support such high costs has enough of a social safety net that no patient would see anywhere near that bill (and due to how the safety net works, costs are lowered significantly even for those that do fall through the cracks), and every other country that lacks that social safety net has lower healthcare costs due to the market not being able to bear those costs.

I've not actually seen Breaking Bad, but here's a parody of what it'd be like in Canada, and it sounds like the situation in Japan would be similar:

Despite the premise being completely implausible due to the setting, still interesting to see where you go with this story.

Wat. Just kidding, thanks for the info. I guess I'm used to the "American" way so to speak. Sadly I'm going to hide behind the whole "KS is a different universe" guise. But seriously though thanks for the fact check.

[Mirage_GSM]

He, I wanted to post the exact link bhtooefr did ^^
Basically I agree with everything he said, and 600.000$ for four months of hospital stay (that would be 5.000$ PER DAY) is frankly ridiculous for any country.
Tuition can't be too high either, since Hanako is able to afford it.

As for it being illegal, I see it otherwise. Since there is no birth date for Hisao he could have been 18 when he had his heart attack.

What does it matter if he's 18 or not? He's still going to school so his parents are obliged to support him. Especially since he's disabled.
I'm not sure about Japan, but in Germany this applies until the "child" has finished university.

Oh well, the premise of "Madam Lillian" wasn't exactly realistic either, and it was still a fun story. If you don't want this to seem like a crackfic*, you might want to dial it back a little, though.

*pun not intended

[bhtooefr]

Tuition can't be too high either, since Hanako is able to afford it.

I've seen two justifications for Hanako being able to afford it despite high tuition, in fanfic. The spoilers potentially spoil multiple fanfics (and I'm a bit fuzzy on which ones they spoil), so it's probably best not to mouse over them unless you've read a ton of Hanako fic already.

The first is a Yamaku Foundation that gives grants to disadvantaged students. Most fics that play with the grant approach require the student to do something in exchange for the grant. At least one fic (I forget which, was it Hanako's Story?) uses that as a plot device to ensure that she continues to go to therapy.

The second is the firefighter that saved Hanako's life having suffered PTSD himself from what happened, and deciding to ensure that Hanako has a good life, using his life savings to pay for her tuition. IIRC that was an extra in That Guy's series.

[Helbereth]

Tuition can't be too high either, since Hanako is able to afford it.

I've seen two justifications for Hanako being able to afford it despite high tuition, in fanfic. The spoilers potentially spoil multiple fanfics (and I'm a bit fuzzy on which ones they spoil), so it's probably best not to mouse over them unless you've read a ton of Hanako fic already.

The first is a Yamaku Foundation that gives grants to disadvantaged students. Most fics that play with the grant approach require the student to do something in exchange for the grant. At least one fic (I forget which, was it Hanako's Story?) uses that as a plot device to ensure that she continues to go to therapy.

The second is the firefighter that saved Hanako's life having suffered PTSD himself from what happened, and deciding to ensure that Hanako has a good life, using his life savings to pay for her tuition. IIRC that was an extra in That Guy's series.

Personally, I always figured Hanako's parents had been rather wealthy, and her schooling is being paid through a trust fund. The animated sequence in the act 1/act 2 bridge seems to indicate that her parents were at least in the upper-middle class. Aiko's parents were rather well-off by the time her father started to decline, being employed in the financial and culinary fields, which is why they could afford the school. If Hanako's parents were similarly employed, it wouldn't be much of a stretch for them to have set up a trust for their daughter; it might even explain some of her disdain for her birthday, especially since she turns 18 during the one in the VN, which would probably mean she's eligible to take control over that trust.

[Dreamcastin]

A little update for you all, it hurts to go a day without saying something I guess. I may have the next chapter out by Saturday. I've been furiously typing away, fact checking and playing all the routes instead of taking notes in class. I really hope this turns out good, this chapter is going to be longer than the first one I believe. Right now I'm working on getting the hang of writing a fanfiction. Also a bit of good news, I got a editor to help out. So most likely less errors!

[Oddball]

Since there is no birth date for Hisao he could have been 18 when he had his heart attack.

No he couldn't.

He specifically says during the game he had his birthday while he was in the hospital. It doesn't say how long after, mind you, but he wasn't 18 when his heart first acted up. From the way he says it though, it feels like his birthday took place after he was there for a while.

[Dreamcastin]

Since there is no birth date for Hisao he could have been 18 when he had his heart attack.

No he couldn't.

He specifically says during the game he had his birthday while he was in the hospital. It doesn't say how long after, mind you, but he wasn't 18 when his heart first acted up. From the way he says it though, it feels like his birthday took place after he was there for a while.

Guess I never really caught that while writing it. Good find. Although I really wish the devs would have gave him a exact date of birth to help out the fanfic writers.