Katawa Shoujo Forums

Well, here I go. I used to write fan fiction quite a bit, but this habit has declined in recent years. After playing Katawa Shoujo, I felt compelled to write again, if for no other reason than to get the idea out of my head. I would just like to say that I appreciate feedback, good or bad. I also feel I should apologize in advance if this sucks.

So without further ado, here we go.

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I woke up to the steady rhythm of an EKG machine beeping not far away from me. Always hated those things, their so damn contradictory in their nature. The soft, quiet beeping that tries to be as unobtrusive as possible, while still being unmistakable for anything else. Reminds you of where you are, even if you somehow managed to forget.

…

Speaking of knowing where you are, where the hell am I? I can't see anything, and the only thing I can hear is the damn EKG. Wait...EKG. Okay. Safe bet I'm in a hospital then. Still doesn't explain why I can't see, but hey, one thing at a time.

“Kenji?”

A voice. Soft, feminine, familiar. Can't tell where it's coming from, but it sounds close. Can't see the speaker though.

“Kenji? Are you awake?” the voice says, “If you can hear me, please open your eyes.”

That would explain why I can't see anything. I try to open my eyes, and for a moment it almost feels like their stuck together. I get them open, but everything is blurry like trying to look at something through running water, so I slowly blink a few times to clear my vision. As the world comes back into focus, I see that I was right about being in a hospital. The room is so white it's practically blinding. White ceiling, white walls, white floor, all pristine, with not a speck or smudge in sight. Sunlight streams through a window on the left wall of the room. A television is hung in the right corner of the room, showing some kind of daytime talk show. The sound is off, and I can almost make out the captions crawling across the screen. I look to my left, and see a battery of medical equipment, the EKG being the only one that I recognize.

“Kenji?”

I look to my right to see the source of the voice, a woman, sitting by my bedside in a small uncomfortable looking beige easy chair. She's not exactly beautiful, but is attractive none the less. I would guess she's approaching middle age, but she looks much older. Probably because of the bags under her eyes, clear signs of sleepless nights. Her hair looks dirty, and not very well cared for, not at all the way I remembered it.

All in all, I'd have to say my mother looked like hell. She nearly trips getting out of the chair and rushes to my side. She seems to debate whether or not to grab my hand, before settling on simply laying hers on top of mine. She looks like she wants me to say something, so I do.

“Mom?”

She smiled at me, tears welling up at the corners of her eyes, “I'm here baby.”

I try to sit up and ask whats going on, but I'm slammed back down to the bed by a blinding jolt of pain, like someone just pounded a white hot railroad spike through my guts. My mouth works, but no sound comes out. Probably a good thing, because if I could have made a sound, I knew I'd be screaming. I squeezed my eyes shut, and I could feel tears running down my cheeks.

The pain was incredible, but after a few moments it begins to recede. I begin to gasp for air, and I only now realize that I'd been holding my breath the whole time. My eyes drift open, and I can see my mom, her eyes wide with panic. Her mouth is moving, but the sound seems distorted, and far away. I close my eyes again and force myself to take deep breaths. When I open my eyes again, my mom isn't talking anymore, and the expression on her face seems to have been downgraded from fear to intense worry.

I stumble over my words for a few seconds before I manage to croak out, “What did you say?”

She blinked, “I said don't try to get up.”

Could have used that warning a few minutes earlier, “Yeah, that's a good idea.”

She gives me a small smile, and I lay back down to catch my breath. The question of what the hell that was all about lingers in my head as I do. I consider asking my mother, but decide that the best course of action is to see for myself. I pull the sheets covering me down to my waist, and start to pull up the loose white shirt I'm wearing. My Mom tries to protest, but I pull the shirt up to my chest. About two inches to the right and a little upwards of my belly button there's a white gauze pad taped to my stomach. I start breathing a little harder, and I reach for the dressing. This time mom reaches out to try to stop me but I tear it off before she can stop me and...

I really wish I hadn't.

Under the bandage I see a small hole in my stomach. Actually, a whole makes it sound neater than it really was, as its really more like a small crater in my gut. It doesn't bleed when the bandage is gone, but the tissue inside is an angry red. I absentmindedly brush my fingers lightly over the hole, and pain shoots through my abdomen, not as intense as when I tried sitting up, but still pretty bad. A surprised gasp escapes my lips, and I quickly draw my hand back.

“What the fuck...”

“Kenji,” my mother grabs my hand, and I turn to look at her. My breathing is coming in ragged gasps now, but I choke out the rest of my question.

“What the fuck is this?!”

“Honey please calm down,” her tone is cool and calm, and under normal circumstances would be reassuring, but I'm pretty sure these aren't normal circumstances.

“Calm down?” I half shout, “There's a hole in my goddamn guts, how the fuck am I supposed to calm down?!”

“Kenji,” she takes my head in both hands and looks into my eyes, “Kenji please. It's going to be alright.”

At the moment, I'm seriously doubting that. My hearts going a mile a minute, the EKG beeping to match, and I'm drenched in sweat. Suddenly my chest starts to ache and I think I might be having a heart attack. One spot in particular starts to stand out, the ache there deepening into something reminiscent of the pain in my gut earlier. The fear taking over me is joined by dread as I pull my shirt up to my neck to reveal another bandage like the one on my stomach.

“Holy shit,” I say, my voice a horse whisper.

A sea of feelings and emotions are vying for my attention. Fear, pain, shock, nausea, all swirling together, into one enormous mass of anxiety that blankets my senses. The walls seem to close in, and I suddenly need to be somewhere, anywhere else. Where doesn't matter, as long as I'm not in this room.
I rip the electrodes off my chest, the beeping of the EKG becoming one continuous sound. My mother tries to stop me from yanking out the IV in my arm, but I throw her off, and swing myself over the side of the bed and get my feet underneath me.

My plans to run out of the room hit a snag, when I put weight on my right leg, and I hear a grinding, popping sound. I scream in surprise and pain, and trip over my own feet. My knees hit the floor, and my agony redoubles. Another scream tears itself out of my throat, and this time I don't stop. My leg, my stomach, my chest. Any one of them is agonizing, and now all three are lighting up my nervous system with pain.

I scream until there's no breath left in my lungs, and spots begin to dance across my vision. I pitch forward and fall face down onto the floor. I can just barely hear my mother yelling for the doctors as I pass out.


For the second time today I wake up to the sound of the damn EKG machine. I groan and try to get up, but my earlier experiences flash through my mind, and I think better of it. A look around confirms that I am indeed in the same room as I was before. Barely any light is coming through the window anymore, and the lights on the ceiling are on. I hear a noise and look over to see my mother coming through the door. She freezes in the doorway as she see's me, and I give her a weak wave. She smiles at me and then turns to call to someone outside before walking over to my bedside and gently takes my hand in hers. I manage a small smile, and lightly squeeze her hand.

We just sit like that for a few minutes, neither of us quite knowing what to say. Eventually I break the silence, “Hey. You okay?”

That gets a small chuckle out of her, “I'm supposed to be the one asking you that,” she pauses for a minute and then asks, “How are you feeling?”

A good question. The panic that I had felt earlier is gone, and I seem to feel a sense of calm that strikes me as weird under the circumstances. I mean, I still know my wounds are there. I would have thought that just thinking of them would plunge me back into the depths of fear, but I just can't really seem to get worked up about it. They don't hurt anymore either. It makes me wonder...

“Did they drug me?”

Mom seems to tense slightly at the question, but she answers, “Well, yes. The doctors thought it best that you be given something to calm you down, just until we can explain what happened to you.”

I couldn't really argue with their logic. Well since I'm all calm now I might as well ask, “Mom. What did happen to me?”

Her eyes widened slightly in surprise, “You mean you don't remember?”

I shook my head, and she fell silent. Her gaze turns down to the floor and she seems to be debating something with herself. She does this for about five minutes before she finally looks up. Her eyes are filling up with tears, and she utters a single sentence.

“It was Junichi,”

The words are like the shot from a rifle, leaving only stunned silence in their wake. My body goes rigid at the name, and the memories come flooding back.

“The front door unlocks with a click and I push open the door. I don't bother to announce my presence to the empty house. Mom is still at work, and Jack is still out of town doing whatever it is that a senior IT analyst does. I slip off my sneakers and wander into the kitchen. There's just enough milk left to justify not using a glass and I throw away the carton when I've finished. I snag a bag of chips from the cupboard above the sink, turn into the hallway to make my way to my room. I'm halfway there when I hear a rustling sound coming from my parents room at the end of the hall. I write it off as nothing, and get to the second door from the end, my room. I open the door, and throw my pack towards my desk. Just as I'm about to collapse onto my bed I hear a loud thumping sound coming from my parents room. Maybe someone was home after all.

I go back into the hall and walk to my parents door. As I'm about to knock, there's a loud crash, followed by a pained shriek. Dropping all pretenses of politeness I throw open the door. In an instant that seems to stretch on forever I am able to take in my surroundings. The room has been trashed. The bedding has been strewn all over the room, some of it coming to rest on the ceiling fan. All the drawers have been pulled out of the dressers, contents scattered over the room. The mirror over the dresser has been shattered, and there are pieces of it all over the floor. Then I see that I was right about someone being home. There were two people in the room. One of them was my mother, her form sprawled in front of the other person, who was standing over her, pointing a gun at her head.

The gunman hears me come in and looks up at me. With the sun from the balcony silhouetting him I can't make out a face, but I can feel it when our eyes meet. Neither of us breaks the others gaze. Seconds pass. Then the gunman and me seem to come to a decision at precisely the same instant. He raises the gun to point it at me at the same time that I toss the bag of chips I'm holding at his face. At the same time I lunge forward in a desperate sprint. A shot rings out, and I feel a sharp hot pain in my stomach. I dimly realize that I've been shot, but I keep going. The gunman bats the bag of chips away from him with his free hand, and fires another shot, and this time my knee explodes into agony. My leg was effectively useless, but my momentum carried me the rest of the way, and I slam my shoulder into his stomach.

The air explodes out of his lungs, and I knock him to the ground. He ends up on his back, and I take advantage by climbing on top of him, and start punching him in the face repeatedly with my right hand. I keep hitting him until his nose breaks with a sickening crunch. I don't let up, but if he's in pain, he's not showing it. He slams his fist into the wound in my stomach, and the world goes white. I stop punching him, and he uses the opportunity to get a leg between us, and shove me away. I know I have to keep moving, but everything seems to be happening in slow motion. I prop myself up on my elbows and try to sit up. When I do, I see the gunman standing over me, grinning like a madman as he lines up his shot, and pulls the trigger. Blood erupts from my chest, but at this point, I hardly notice the pain.

I fall back to the floor and find myself unable to move. No matter what I do, I can't seem to convince my body to do anything. So I just lay there, feeling the life flow out of me. I can see the gunman still standing over me, laughing his ass off as he looks upon his work. Then I hear a sound, like someone screaming from far away. The gun man abruptly stops laughing and looks past me. A maniacal grin spreads across his face. He prepares to give chase, but I reach out with strength I didn't think I had left and catch his pant leg in a death grip. The bastard jerks to a halt and looks down at me. His grin gets even wider, and he crouches down to hover over me. He starts to talk, an utterly meaningless action, as I can't make out what he's saying. What I do notice is the way he gestures with his gun as he rambles on. At some point he realizes that I'm not understanding him, and he gives the sky a long suffering glance, holding the gun at a forty five degree angle between my head and his. With one last explosion of effort I reach up and grab his hand, pushing it toward him. I can feel him tense up, and I know I only have one chance at this. Before he can resist, I snake my finger over his and pull the trigger. There's an explosion of sound and a shower of gore as the bullet blows a hole the size of a golf ball in his neck. He reels back, hands flying to his neck in panic. I'm close enough to hear the wet choking sounds he makes as he claws at his throat. After a few seconds his struggling ceases, and the light leaves his eyes.

My eyes flutter close, and I for a moment resent that the last thing I see in this world will be that bastards corpse. I can't shake the feeling that his face was somewhat familiar. I push it aside. Doesn't matter. At least my Mom is safe. At least I didn't die for nothing. My body goes cold all over, and through the darkness, I think I can see...

“Mr. Tsubaraya?”

The doctors voice snaps me out of my memories. I blink a few times, and look at him. He is a short, stocky man, elderly, with white hair that doesn't reach the top of his head.

He smiles, “There you are. We were wondering where you went.”

I don't laugh at his joke. Reliving the memory has left me tired and shaken. Suddenly I just want nothing more than to go back to sleep, if only to delay having to deal with this for a few hours. I lean back in my bed, and pull the sheets back over me.

“I'm very tired. I think I'm going to go to bed.”

The doctor tries to protest, “Mr. Tsubaraya please, we need to discuss your injuries-”

“I got shot,” I said, “Unless there's something else wrong with me that will kill me if we don't talk about it right now, I'm going to sleep.”

The doctor clearly doesn't think this is a good idea, but he doesn't try to push any further. He nods to me politely, then gestures to my mother to follow him. She smiles at me once and promises to come back soon before following the old man out into the hallway.

I close my eyes, and wait for sleep to take me. The entire time, I can see that bastards face.

The last thought I have before I drift off is why the man I considered to be like a brother had tried to kill me.

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

So there it is. I hope it doesn't suck too bad. Next time: Recovery, and the road to Yamaku.

Homophones are The Enemy:

their so damn contradictory in their nature.

"they're"

Actually, a whole makes it sound neater than it really was...

"hole"

With that out of the way - I guess this is not the Kenji we all know and whom some of us love... Might get a bit confusing later on, but why not.
I don't see how it is possible for someone who is lying on the floor to grab the pistol of a person crouching above him and turn it around so it points at his attacker.

Got shot? Idgaf, got shot multiple times? Isdgaf, got shot multiple times, killed a man, mostly blind, and yet I STILL don't give a ****. A girl outside my room? HOLY **** IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD FEMINAZIS AND NINJA DEATH SQUADS!

Gotta love Kenji

Mirage_GSM wrote:Homophones are The Enemy:

Man I hate those. I've always had trouble with the whole, there, their, they're, thing. Thanks for pointing that out. I have no explanation for how I put down, "Whole," instead of, "Hole," guess I wasn't paying enough attention.

Mirage_GSM wrote:With that out of the way - I guess this is not the Kenji we all know and whom some of us love... Might get a bit confusing later on, but why not.

Lol, yeah, it's not the same guy. I picked the name for a couple of reasons. One is because I've always found it weird that in a lot of fiction, no two people have the same name, and I thought it would be interesting to play with that.

Thank you for your advice. I truly appreciate constructive criticism, as nobody ever got better at anything without somebody pointing out what they did wrong.

Until next time!

Hm... well, it's worth keeping an eye on at least. Quite a different backstory than most. Just, as always, keep an eye out for sueishness.

danzilla3 wrote:

Mirage_GSM wrote:Homophones are The Enemy:

Man I hate those. I've always had trouble with the whole, there, their, they're, thing. Thanks for pointing that out. I have no explanation for how I put down, "Whole," instead of, "Hole," guess I wasn't paying enough attention.

Mirage_GSM wrote:With that out of the way - I guess this is not the Kenji we all know and whom some of us love... Might get a bit confusing later on, but why not.

Lol, yeah, it's not the same guy. I picked the name for a couple of reasons. One is because I've always found it weird that in a lot of fiction, no two people have the same name, and I thought it would be interesting to play with that.

Thank you for your advice. I truly appreciate constructive criticism, as nobody ever got better at anything without somebody pointing out what they did wrong.

Until next time!

Let's go play over there
Let's go play where they're at
Let's go play with their pool

Fun fact; getting shot isn't anything like it is in the movies.

In the movies when the hero gets shot, he grimaces, bleeds a little bit, and then keeps on going. Maybe he'll stop long enough to slap on a quick field dressing, but he's ready to go again in minutes, and by the end of the movie he'll be riding off into the sunset with the love interest like it never even happened.

In real life, you get shot, and then assuming your not dead, you immediately need to start treating the wound as best you can. Chest wounds are some of the worst. They're often called, “Sucking,” chest wounds because, as the name would imply, they suck in air, which can result in a collapsed lung. If you don't want to die, you need to apply whats called an occlusive dressing to keep air from getting in, but also letting excess air out. In my case my mother, at the prompting of the emergency operator, put a sheet of plastic wrap over it.

Once all that is taken care of, you need to start worrying about spinal cord injury. Part of your spine runs through the back of your chest after all, so it's a real concern. There's not much you can do to help that except to keep as still as possible. If the spine is injured, then moving around can make it even worse. Keeping myself still was harder than it sounds, because at some point after I passed out, I started convulsing. Luckily, the bullet didn't hit my spine. It did however get lodged between a vertebrae and a blood vessel.

Of course, all of this assumes that the bullet didn't hit one of the numerous major organs, or blood vessels that are in the chest. If that happens your pretty much fucked, because there's nothing you can do in that case but pray that help gets to you in time to make a difference. By some miracle the bullet did miss all of those, but of course I still had two more wounds trying they're best to kill me as well.

The gut wound had been the worst of them. The bullet had torn open the intestines in there, releasing waste into my system. Once the danger of me bleeding out had passed, the doctors had to contend with a pretty serious infection. The balding doctor, who I should really refer to as, “Dr. Kitagawa,” told me that at one point I was running a fever of 106 degrees Fahrenheit. It was so bad that I lapsed into a coma for about a month and a half before I woke up that day in the hospital.

Compared to the other two wounds, the knee injury was trivial. The bullet had blown right through the knee, taking the knee cap, and tearing all the ligaments as it did. In yet another stroke of unbelievable luck, it didn't damage the femoral artery, which would have caused me to bleed out before anyone could have helped me.

All things considered, I should have been feeling pretty damn lucky. At least that's what Dr. Kitagawa said, and my mother seemed to agree. And it's not like I wasn't grateful to be alive, because I was. It just felt like with all the pain, and anxiety that was now a part of my daily existence, “Lucky,” just seemed like the wrong word.

“Lucky people don't get shot,” I would tell myself whenever I was feeling particularly self pitying. Which was whenever I didn't have anything to occupy my mind. So pretty often, at least at first.

At first I tried to pass the time by watching a lot of television. After all, I was trying not to think about my situation, so what better than some mindless entertainment that I can shut my brain off, and enjoy? It didn't really work out the way I'd planned though. Everything I watched reminded me of something I didn't want to think about. If I watched something with a lot of action, I'd think about the day I got shot. Comedies just made me depressed, and the game shows and talk shows just seemed so irrelevant. The news was the worst I think. I thought that keeping up with current events would keep me grounded, help me keep track of time in an environment where days, and weeks seemed to blur together. And it worked. Which is why it was awful, because while it did help me keep track of time, it eventually became depressing to see how long I'd been in the hospital, with no prospects of leaving anytime soon.

After that, I started to read a lot. I'm not exactly an avid reader. I mostly follow a few authors that I like and read what they put out and very little else. As luck would have it, a couple of the authors that I liked had released new books during the time I'd been comatose, and there were still a few whose body of work I wasn't up to date on. So it looked like I'd found something that would occupy my time for a good long while. I read half of the books in a week. In another week, I was once again shit out of luck.

The answer to my problem came about two months after I woke up. My mom had come to visit me like she always did after she got off work, and told me she'd gotten me a present. An iPod, loaded up with songs from my own small collection of CD's, and a bunch of songs that she and my step father picked from their music. I thanked her, though I didn't really think I'd get much use out of the thing. Then one day when I was bored and starting to get introspective, I fired it up, popped in my earphones, and set it to shuffle.

It was surprisingly easy to get lost in the music. To just lay back and focus on nothing but the melody, and the instruments, and the little stories that each song told. By the time, I opened my eyes again, a few hours had passed, and I hadn't even run through half the stuff that was on the thing. Not that it would have mattered. I'm the type that can listen to a song he really likes over and over again, and not get tired of it. After a while, just listening to the music wasn't enough; I wanted to learn how to play it. So I got myself a few books on how to play guitar, and started to teach myself how to play. Well, I started learning the theory anyway. I didn't own a guitar, and even if I did, I doubted that the hospital staff would have looked upon me making so much noise very kindly.

Two months after I woke up, I got the news I was waiting to hear practically since I woke up. It happened on Christmas, funnily enough. My mother had to work the first half of the day, but she came to visit in the evening. She said, she'd gotten me a present, but that it wasn't ready yet. I didn't care. I was just happy to have some company. The only thing worse than being alone on Christmas, is being alone on Christmas in a hospital after all.

We'd talked about all the things we usually did. Work, life at the hospital, music that I had learned. Then she switched to the unwelcome subject of family.

“Jack sends his love,” she told me, handing me a pretty card with his signature scrawled on the inside.

“I'm sure he does,” I said.

She frowned at my tone, “Whats that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means,” I said, “Two months, and he hasn't come to see me once. Yeah, I'm really feeling the love here.”

She flinches at my words, and I realize that I'd put more heat into my voice than I'd meant to. I guess the whole thing was getting to me more than I thought. I guess the thing is, that I had always thought Jack and I were pretty close. My biological father died when I was young, and Jack had married my mother when I was 12. We'd gotten along pretty well, and though I never really came to think of him as my father, I'd always considered him family. I guess I was kind of hurt when he never showed up.

My mother had regained her composure, “Jack's been traveling a lot for work lately. He's been really busy.”

“So busy that he can't pick up a phone, or write a letter, or just do anything that would indicate that he gives a damn?” I shot back.

My mothers frown deepened, and she looked away. I instantly felt bad for taking my frustration with Jack out on her.

I reach out and grab her hand, “I'm sorry,” I said, “It's just...I guess I always thought we where pretty close. I guess it bothered me more than I thought.”

My mom gives me a small smile, but I can see that there's something else she wants to say. I thinks she was going to tell me what it was, but unfortunately, Doctor Kitagawa chose that moment to enter the room.

“Ah, Mr. Tsubaraya,” he notices my mother, and gives her a polite nod, “And Mrs. Tsubaraya. I trust your both doing well this evening?”

“Doctor Kitagawa,” I mirror his nod, “Whats the news?”

Kitagawa put a hand to his chest and did his best to look wounded, “Why Mr. Tsubaraya, what makes you think I didn't just come to wish you a Merry Christmas?”

“Because you never come to see me unless you've got something to tell me about my condition,” I replied. That was probably a little rude, but true none the less.

He seemed to take it in stride though, “You got me,” he laughed, “I am here to give you some news about your status.”

I tensed up a little, “Good news, or bad news?”

“Oh very good,” he said, “In fact, you might even consider it my gift to you.”

I could feel a surge of hope begin to well up inside me, though I was careful not to let it get my hopes up to high, “Alright then. Lets hear it.”

He nodded, and his smile grew, “Alright then. After careful consideration, I have determined that you are well enough to be discharged from the hospital after the first of the year.”

I smiled wider and warmer than I had in a long time. My mother's face practically lit up with joy, like a little kid let loose in a candy store. She reached over and squeezed my hand with almost painful force.

“Wow. That...” I paused for a moment to keep from weeping with joy, “That is good news.”

Dr. Kitagawa nodded and stepped forward to shake my hand, “Yes indeed. Congratulations my boy,”

I grasped his hand and shook twice before letting go. His face took on a more serious quality and he continued.

“Now I should tell you that even though you are being released, your recovery is not complete. You will still need to undergo physical therapy to regain your mobility. It will be tough, but I believe that with hard work, you will be able to regain some use of your right leg,” he folded his arms across his chest, “Furthermore, you will have to come back here for X-rays, to make sure the bullet inside you hasn't moved.”

I nodded. I knew that I had a tough road ahead of me, but I was more than ready to get out of this place.


The physical therapy was perhaps the most brutally painful thing that I had experienced since actually getting shot.

Before I could learn how to walk on my injured knee, I had to relearn how to walk. That was probably the most painful part, both physically and mentally. In the hospital they'd had me use a walker to go a short distance a couple of times, but I'd mainly gotten around in a wheelchair. In therapy they had me start out on the parallel bars. I fell down a lot at first, but most often when it came time to put any kind of weight on my right knee. Even a little bit of weight would cause the bones in my knee to grind together very painfully, causing me to loose my focus, which would then cause me to loose my balance and fall to the ground.

I'd never felt more pathetic in my life. Walking is one of those things that I think everyone takes for granted. Once you've learned to do it as a child, it's just a given in our minds that we'll be doing it until the day we die. To suddenly not be able to do something that comes so naturally to most people is disheartening.

Learning to walk on my injured knee required a lot of patience, and endurance. I eventually resigned myself to the idea that no matter what I did, just the simple act of walking was going to be painful. Bit by bit, fall by fall, I began to learn to move through the pain. Eventually the pain was no longer novel, it was just another fact of my existence, something as natural as breathing.

Three months later I was able to walk, albeit with the aid of a cane, and I was called back to see Dr. Kitagawa one last time. He met me and my mother in an exam room and looked pensively down at a clip board.

“Well Mr. Tsubaraya, it looks like the last X-ray confirms that the bullet has not moved, nor caused any kind of detectable damage,” he looked up at me, “And your physical therapist tells me that you've improved greatly in the last three months.”

I permitted myself a small smile, “Yeah. Walking still hurts, but with the cane I can get around pretty well. As long as I don't bump it into things, I do pretty good.”

Dr. Kitagawa nodded, “Excellent. Before you go I wanted to ask you one last thing,” he looked up from the clipboard again, “What are your plans for school?”

The question caught me off guard. I guess I'd been planning on going back to my old school and I told him as much.

He scratched his chin, “I see. Well I would like to suggest an alternative if you don't mind.”

He reached into the pocket of his lab coat, and produced a brochure, which he handed to me. On the front page was a picture of a fancy looking school, with the words “Yamaku Academy,” written on it.

“Whats this?” I asked, passing the brochure to my mom.

“It's a special school for people with disabilities,” He said, “I think you would really benefit from some time there.”

“I don't really see why I would need to go there,” I protested, “I mean I just have a little trouble getting around.”

“It's not just your leg Mr. Tsubaraya,” he sighed, “I want to put you there because of the bullet lodged in your back.”

My eyes widened in surprise, “But it hasn't moved. You just said that.”

“It hasn't moved, yet,” he corrected me, “The bullet is situated in a very dangerous place. If it moves, it could kill you fairly quickly. Besides that, you will still need frequent X-rays to determine if the bullet is moving, or causing problems.”

It was hard to argue with that logic. I looked over at my mother, who looked up from the brochure to give me a hopeful smile.

Well I guess it was decided then.

“So, when do I start?”

THIS! IS! AN! UPDAAAAAAAATE ftw

Sooo... I take it the bullet was more dangerous to take out than risk problems later...?

Of course, the real reason is for dramatic plot happenings later

Guestimate wrote:Sooo... I take it the bullet was more dangerous to take out than risk problems later...?

Yeah, imagine having to explain why a patient is paralyzed because you accidentally nicked their spine. Probably in court lol

Guestimate wrote:Of course, the real reason is for dramatic plot happenings later

That could be an interesting idea, in a "Oh shit" kind of way

“Your going to be late.”

I glanced at my mother from across the backseat of the taxi that we had caught at the train station. A small amused smile played across my lips at her words.

“I'm already late,” I pointed out.

She scowled, “You could at least try acting a little concerned.”

I shrugged, “Working myself up about it isn't going to get me there any faster.”

My mother glowered at me for a few more seconds before leaning forward to harass the poor driver. I went back to looking out the window, watching the world go by as I draw closer and closer to my new life.

Though I would never have told my mother, I was actually glad to be running a little behind. I never liked the first day of school, and I especially disliked the first day at a new school. Putting them both together was a recipe for anxiety and discomfort.

Ah well. At least I'd have missed the opening ceremonies. Always hated those. I was never a big fan of crowds, even less so after my shooting, as I found out this morning at the train station. Waiting for the train had been a little slice of hell, and when it finally did arrive, I practically had to force myself to board.

It had been a little jarring, not least of all because I thought I hadn't let the shooting affect me that way. Looking back, I realized that I'd never really given myself a chance to process my emotions about the event. When I was in the hospital I had tried my best not to think about it, and the combination of my music and the groovy painkillers the hospital had provided me with for most of my stay made it pretty easy not to. Then when I was let out, I was pretty much focused on the physical therapy, and learning to walk again.

Then when I was packing my things for the trip to Yamaku, I had come across an old photo of me and Junichi. My mother had done a pretty good job of sanitizing my room of any reminders of my shooter, but she'd missed one, an old picture of me and him, standing in front of the apartment building in New York where I was living at the time. He had his arm slung over my shoulders, a stupid grin plastered on his face. Even I was smiling, although not as wide as him.

Seeing his face again for the first time since the incident suddenly brought the full weight of what had happened down on me for the first time.

I had been shot.

My best friend had tried to kill me.

And the worst part of it all was I still didn't know why.

The police hadn't told me anything, save that the investigation was ongoing. They'd asked me a couple of questions though. When I'd last seen Junichi, could I think of any reason why he would want to hurt me. I suspect my answers where about as useless to them, as their answers had been to me. I'd told them that I hadn't spoken to him in two years, but that we'd parted on good terms.

So since it looked like I wasn't going to get any answers anytime soon, I had tried to put it out of my head. Done a pretty good job of it too. Until I found that damn photo.

Seeing his face again had brought back all kinds of memories, most prominently the look on his face after I'd shot him. He'd bled out within seconds, but at the time it had seemed like an eternity, and I could clearly remember every emotion that flickered across his face. Fear, anger, pain, and then just...nothing. His body just went slack, and the life left his eyes, and that was it. He was dead. I'd killed him.

After that I just couldn't manage to get to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I would see his face, dead eyes staring straight at me until I couldn't take it anymore and opened them again. Eventually I guess I just drifted off, but I'd forgotten to set my alarm, and my mother's hadn't gone off for some reason, hence my reason for being late.

The taxi slowed to a stop, and my mother informed me that we had arrived. I opened the door and got my good leg out first before pulling myself up, and getting the cane underneath me. I shuffled around to the back of the car to say my goodbyes to my mother. The driver had popped the trunk, and my mother was lifting one of my bags out of the trunk. I felt bad that I couldn't help her get all my stuff to my room, but with my leg, I would only have gotten in the way. Besides, I felt like it would be the polite thing to do to at least show up for my first day of class, even if it was already half over.

My mother smiled as she saw me, “Well, this place looks nice.”

I nodded, “If nothing else, it looks big.”

She frowned, as if disappointed that I didn't say it looked nice. Then she stepped forward and put a hand on my shoulder, “So your good to go right?”

I nodded, “Yup.”

“You've got my contact information?”

“Of course.”

“Do you have your pain medication?”

I tapped my right pants pocket so that the bottle of pills rattled, “Sure do.”

“What about-”

“Mom,” I reached up and grabbed the hand she'd placed on my shoulder, “I'm fine. You don't need to worry.”

She squeezed my hand, “I know. But I will anyway.”

I smiled in what I hoped was a reassuring manner, “It's gonna be fine. I'll call you tonight okay?”

Tears welled up in her eyes, but she blinked them away and nodded, “Alright. You better get going. I think the lunch period is almost over.”

I nodded and walked over to the main entrance, a black wrought iron gate set into a red brick wall. It opened with more ease than I would have thought and I walked through. I looked back to the street and threw my mother a wave before shutting the gate behind me.


As I walked along the paved walkway leading to the main building, I found myself having to revise my first impression of Yamaku Academy. It wasn't just big. It was huge. At least as big as any other school I'd attended, if not bigger. The buildings were made out of brick the same as the front gate, with Corinthian columns framing the entrances. The place reminded me more of a university than a high school.

The lunch period was winding down as I got to the main building. People were milling about the campus, students in teachers united in their rush to get back to their classrooms on time. I walked through the doors and came into the first floor lobby. Though it was a large room, it basically consisted of a large, wide ramp, with pathways cutting horizontally across it. Glass partitions flanked each side of the ramp, with a metal hand rail set into it. I walked up the ramp and through an open doorway that led to a stairwell, made of some kind of stained hardwood.

For some reason seeing the stairs was what made me realize that I had no idea where I was supposed to go. I knew my class number, 3-3, but I had no idea where that was. I mentally kicked myself. Why hadn't I thought to find out what floor my homeroom was on? For that matter why hadn't anyone told me? Or maybe...had mom told me? In the taxi maybe. Damn. Should have payed more attention.

Not knowing where to go, I stood to one side of the doorway to let other people pass, while trying to figure out where my class was. I thought about asking someone, but doing that felt like an admission of defeat, and my stupid, stupid pride wouldn't allow me to do it. Just when I was resigning myself to looking around for some kind of directory, when a passerby saved me from my dilemma.

“Can I help you?”

I turned to look at my savior. He was a tall fellow in his early thirties, with messy black hair, and a few days growth on his face. He wore a brown overcoat on top of charcoal pants and a dark blue dress shirt, and black tie. On someone more lively, his appearance would have lent him a sort of roguish air. As it was, he just looked like he hadn't slept in a couple of days, a theory lent credibility by the deep bags under his eyes.

“Yes, actually, I'm looking for class 3-3.” I said.

His eyes widened slightly, as if in sudden comprehension, “Ah, you must be Tsubaraya Kenji then.”

I quirked an eyebrow at him, “Must I be?”

He nodded, “Yes. You were the only one absent this morning.”

I blinked, “So I guess that makes you...”

“Mutou Akio,” he extended a hand, and we shook, “Nice to finally meet you.”

That last remark held a tone of gentle rebuke. I tried to avoid making eye contact and said, “Yeah, uh...sorry about my lateness. Had a bit of trouble finding the place.”

If Mutou found it suspicious that I would have trouble finding the only school in a small town located at the top of a mountain, he didn't show it. Even I knew it was a flimsy explanation, but I somehow doubted that just coming out and saying, “I overslept,” would have gone over better.

“I trust it won't happen again?” he asked. I nodded and he continued, “Good. You can follow me to the classroom now.”

He started up the stairs, and I was about to follow him, but stopped before the first step. Me and stairs don't exactly mix well anymore, but I still felt like I should try. Chalk it up to the same misplaced sense of pride that wouldn't let me ask for directions I guess.

After a few steps Mutou realized I wasn't following. He turned to look at me seemingly noticing my cane for the first time.

“You could also take the elevator, if you would prefer.”

I thought about it, but shook my head, “No, I can do it.”

The teacher's frown told me he thought that was a bad idea, but he only shrugged, and continued up the stairs. I followed suit, limping along a few steps behind him. By the time we got to the second floor, my knee was sending spikes of pain all along my leg, and I was starting to think this wasn't such a good idea. When we got the third floor, I was pretty certain that it had in fact been a bad idea.

Mutou was kind enough to let me catch my breath outside the classroom. When I had stopped panting he asked, “Are you alright?”

Good question. I was still breathing hard, covered in sweat, and the pain in my right leg was incredible. But on the other hand I still felt...strangely good. Like I had achieved some goal I hadn't even known I wanted until I had attained it.

So all in all, “Yeah. I'm good.”

He nodded and was about to open the door when he seemed to remember something, and asked me, “Do you want to introduce yourself to the class, or just take a seat?”

“I think I'll just find an empty seat,” I said. I had never liked standing up in front of the class and introducing myself. Partially because speaking in front of so many people makes me nervous, and partially because if my peers were anything like myself, they'll have forgotten seventy five percent of their classmates names by summer break. This way I could just introduce myself as necessary.

Mutou nodded, and opened the door. The room was surprisingly large, and yet very simple. There was a blackboard and a large desk up front. The students all sat in simple wooden desks. A row of lockers in the back was the only other thing there.

I scanned the room for an empty seat, getting my first look at my classmates as I did so. A lot of them looked normal, with nothing obviously wrong with them. Others were a bit easier to spot. One girl in the front row was missing her left hand at the wrist. Three seats down from her was another girl who was missing both her legs. There was one guy who had a beret on his head, and a bandage over his right ear. In the back I could see one other guy with a cane, and a girl with purple hair who was holding a hand over the right side of her face that couldn't quite hide what looked to be burn scars.

Well, at least you don't have to worry about being the most fucked up person here.

I was disgusted with myself as soon as the thought crossed my mind. But even if thinking that made me an awful human being, I couldn't help feeling a little relieved. Anywhere else, an eighteen year old walking with a cane is unusual. At least here I'd blend in a little better.

There were two seats currently open, both of them near the windows on the far wall. One was next to a cheerful looking girl with hair a shade of pink rarely seen in nature. The other was next to an overweight gentleman who looked to be sleeping. The pink haired girl looked a little more talkative than I wanted to deal with on my first day, so I walked to the back of the room and took my seat next to the sleeping guy.

The days assignment had already been written on the blackboard, and people seemed to be splitting into groups. Just before I resigned myself to looking for a group to join, I noticed that the purple haired girl wasn't moving to find a partner and started working on her own. I didn't know for sure if that was an option for everyone, but I decided to give it a try and see if I got away with it. If Mutou had a problem with what I was doing he gave no sign of it, so I got started.

The work wasn't really all that difficult. It was mostly memorization, and then a couple of basic problems to demonstrate that you had actually read the material. I managed to get through about a third of it pretty quickly. But as I neared the fifty percent mark, I had the unmistakeable feeling of being stared at. I tried to ignore it as best I could, but after five minutes I couldn't take it anymore and looked up to see the pink haired girl looking at me over the back of her chair. I met her gaze, hoping she would look away, but she held fast. I started to feel weird just staring back at her so I decided to break the silence.

“Uh...Hi?”

The girl broke into a wide smile and said in a voice about a hundred decibels louder than necessary, “Hi~!”

I winced inwardly at the sudden noise but tried to smile, “Can I help you with something?”

She gave me a puzzled look, “No. Why?”

“Well it's just that you've been staring at me for about five minutes now, so I just wondered...” I trailed off and shrugged.

“Wahaha~!” if her speaking voice was loud, her laugh was practically deafening. A quick scan of the room showed that people had now started to stare. It made me a little uncomfortable, but this girl didn't seem to notice.

“Was I making you uncomfortable? Sorry~! Sorry~!” she clasped her hands together and did a couple of shallow bowing motions, smiling the whole while, “I was just thinking that I hadn't seen you before! Are you new here?”

“What gave me away?” I asked.

She either didn't get the joke, or didn't find it funny, “Well~! I don't remember you being in this class last year, and your not wearing a uniform~!”

“Huh, makes sense I guess.” I muttered.

I thought maybe that would mark the end of the conversation, but the girl leaned forward and said, “I'm Misha by the way~!”

She looked at me expectantly, and I remembered that I hadn't introduced myself, “Tsubaraya Kenji. Nice to meet you.”

Misha beamed at me, and I wondered if she was ever going to turn around until the girl in the seat beside her tapped her on the arm. Misha looked her way and the girl did something with her hands that I guessed was sign language. Misha did something similar with her hands, and turned back to me.

“It was nice to meet you Kenchan!” she said before turning back to her work.

I sat blinking in my chair for a moment, my brain still trying to process the encounter. I shook my head and looked down at my work.

Kenchan huh?

I've been called worse I guess.


The rest of class passed uneventfully. Once the bell rang I realized I once again had no idea where to go. This time however I was smart enough to ask Mutou for directions to the dorms. He told me and with some difficulty I made my way downstairs.

The walk from the main building to the dorms was not a short one. On the plus side it did go through a very nice courtyard. Manicured lawns, tall trees. I was sorely tempted to sit on one of the benches and take a rest, but decided against it.

The dorms were up another set of stairs. Yay. The dorm itself was plain, but functional, cream colored walls, a common room with a TV in it. I remembered that my room was a few floors up, but at the thought of more stairs my leg almost seized up in protest, so I decided to take the elevator. My floor was just as plain as the lobby. Four doors, only one other with a nameplate on it. I debated whether or not to knock and introduce myself, but my leg made the decision for me, and I made it to my door, fished out the key, and entered my room.

It was almost like a hotel room. Everything was neat and tidy, like nobody had ever lived here before. The only signs that other humans had ever been here was a bag at the foot of my bed, and my school uniforms hanging in the closet. I walked over to the desk and found my iPod with a note on top of it, which read only, “Call me,” on it. That would be my mom, I guess.

I limped over to the bed and sat down on it, sighing in relief as my weight was taken off my leg. I had pulled the phone out of my pocket, when it started to ring. Guess mom got impatient.

I flipped the phone open and spoke, “You've got an uncanny sense of timing you know that? I was just about to call.”

There was silence on the other end of the line, and I wondered if I had done something to offend her. Then the caller spoke.

“Kenji?”

I blinked in confusion, not expecting to hear the voice that came out of the phone. I was so surprised I didn't respond.

“Kenji? Are you there?”

“Yeah I'm here,” there were a lot of things I wanted to say, but I settled on, “It's been a while Jack.”

He coughed, “Yeah, uh, sorry about that. I was...busy. Couldn't get away you know?”

I didn't, but I agreed, “That sucks. So...Whats up? Did you need something?”

“No I just...” there was a long pause, “Your mother told me you started at your new school today. Just wanted to make sure you were settling in alright.”

“I'm doing okay,”

“That's good. I'm sorry I couldn't be there to help move you in, but...”

Didn't expect you there anyway.

“Business right?” I said instead of the unkind thought I'd just had, “Don't worry about it. I understand.”

“Okay. Good.”

A silence seemed to settle over us, and neither of us broke it for a while. Eventually I said, “Hey, I'm pretty tired. Think I'm gonna turn in for the night.”

“Oh. I mean yeah. Big day right?” he said.

“Yeah. Well I'll talk to you later.”

I was about to snap the phone shut when he spoke again, “Kenji?”

“Yeah?”

Another long pause. Then, “I just, uh...wanted to make sure you knew that you can call me if you need anything right?”

I didn't, but I just said, “Yeah of course. I'll talk to you later alright?”

“Okay. Take care.”

I shut the phone and laid back on the bed. My leg throbbed and I unconsciously reached for the bottle of pills in my pocket. I got the bottle out popped a pill and closed my eyes, suddenly feeling to tired to do anything else.

Mom would be mad at me for not calling.

But I could deal with that in the morning.

a cheerful looking girl with hair a shade of pink rarely seen in nature

"rarely"?

“It was nice to meet you Kenchan!”

By now it's probably inevitable that in fanfiction Misha uses the chan-suffix for absolutely everybody even if she doesn't do that in the VN^^°

Otherwise decent chapter. Nothing much happening, but that's to be expected when you have to introduce the characters.

Mirage_GSM wrote:

a cheerful looking girl with hair a shade of pink rarely seen in nature

"rarely"?

“It was nice to meet you Kenchan!”

By now it's probably inevitable that in fanfiction Misha uses the chan-suffix for absolutely everybody even if she doesn't do that in the VN^^°

Otherwise decent chapter. Nothing much happening, but that's to be expected when you have to introduce the characters.

Thank you very much for your feedback. I actually had to think really hard about Misha adding the chan-suffix to his name. In the end I went with it after noticing that she started calling Hisao Hicchan after not knowing him very long. Still not sure i made the right call, but eh, to late to change it now

Also, I'd now like to play a game called, Character Names According To My Spell Check. Starting with Mutou.

1. Mutton
2. Muted
3. Mutinous
4. Mutual
5. Motor

Until next chapter!

Thank you very much for your feedback. I actually had to think really hard about Misha adding the chan-suffix to his name. In the end I went with it after noticing that she started calling Hisao Hicchan after not knowing him very long.

It's not really a problem. I just noticed that in fanfiction, Misha tends to use the chan suffix for absolutely everyone, when in the actual VN she uses it only for Hisao and Shizune. She calls everyone else by their normal names: Emi, Lilly, Hanako, Hideaki and probably Rin as well, if she had any lines talking to her.
So if you want her to call your OC "Kenchan" (personally I'd go with "Kecchan", but both are possible) that's okay, just try not to overuse it.

EDIT:
I just noticed there is one other person she uses chan for: She calls Yuuko "Yuu-chan"

I have to admit I was thrown in the first chapter. Using Kenji's name, I automatically assumed it was the same guy as the game and that was a bit hard to wrap my head around. The guy also seems to have pretty good knowledge of sucking chest wounds fore a teenager. The part where he's talking about them makes him sound a lot older than he sounds elsewhere in the story.

Also, you're talk about the first day of school gave me some hope that you were going to avoid the normal cliche openning, but then you seemed to zigzag and go straight back to the highly overdone, "late for school, meets Mutou in the hall, escorted to class, get a nickname for Misha," beginning that almost everyone seems to do.

I'm not just complaining though. So far it looks like a fairly interesting story with a good strong character.