Idyllic Dystopia

Chapter 9, the catalyst of this drawn-out experiment, is out!

I'm sorry in advance if no update appears next week. xD The muses and plot cats have decided to go on vacation, so it'll probably take an extra week or two before 10 appears.

Anyway, read on!

Apperceived Adversity

Ryoma looked about the large hospital warily. Nanako had dropped him off and went to park the car so he wouldn't miss his appointment, but Ryoma somewhat wanted Nanako to be with him, a friendly face in the unfriendly, sanitised clinic who would sit with him while he waited restlessly for the secretary to call his name.

He felt strangely out of place in the clinic. Almost everyone around him was in casts, with crutches propped up next to them, or sitting in wheelchairs. And all of the other people that were as young as him all had some sort of guardian with them, be it somebody who looked like an older sibling, or a parent.

Ryoma really wished that Nanako had come in with him, not caring about whether he was late for his appointment or not.

'Echizen-kun? Tanaka-sensei is ready to see you.' The smiling woman at the counter called out, with her eyes looking at another young boy seated in a wheelchair, with his eyes closed.

Ryoma stood up from his seat rather noisily, and the secretary turned to him, a startled expression on her face. She said uncertainly, 'Echizen-kun?'

Ryoma nodded, and asked brusquely, 'Do I go in there?' He pointed towards a smaller hallway, with fluorescent lights giving the hall an eerie feel.

The secretary nodded. 'The first door to your left...' She paused. 'Where are your parents?'

Ryoma muttered, 'Somebody will be around later,' and headed to the hallway.

x

Atobe and Fuji got off, and stared at their destination.

'Atobe...'

Atobe said, a quaver in his voice, 'We're at a hospital.'

Fuji replied in a composed voice, his usual smile adorning his face, 'I know that, Atobe. I think Ryoma went in through the front.'

Atobe turned to stare at Fuji, and demanded, 'How can you be so calm about this? There's something wrong with Ryoma! There's no other reason that he would come to the hospital!'

Fuji continued to smile, perhaps even more widely. 'Let's go in, or we'll lose him.'

Atobe didn't understand, but followed Fuji through the hospital's imposing doors, dreading what awaited him.

x

'So, Echizen-kun, you'll have to come back every week to do some exercises so we can monitor your physical condition, but you'll have to do the exercises I showed you at home too, okay?'

Ryoma nodded sullenly, his cap in his hand since Nanako had reproached him, saying it was impolite.

The man named Tanaka glanced at Nanako, who was sitting politely, her hands folded on her lap. He said with a smile, 'Make sure he does his exercises, so he can get better.'

Get better. Getting better would mean that he would become normal again, be able to do everything at his original pace...But Ryoma knew better. He wouldn't ever get better... He'd just improve a little from how he was, but he wouldn't be the same.

Ryoma knew that his thoughts were horribly negative, but at least he wasn't lying to himself. Realism was better than optimism in his case anyway, as he was less likely to be disappointed.

'Echizen-kun, is it fine with you if we do that then?'

Ryoma said, taken out of his thoughts, 'What?'

Nanako reiterated, 'Tanaka-sensei asked if it was fine with you.'

'Sure,' Ryoma answered inattentively, not particularly concerned about what he was confirming, as his mind was still far off in the realm of cynicism.

The doctor nodded. 'I'm glad that you complied. Sometimes, boys your age complain a lot about it, so I'm glad I don't have to insist on it. A nurse will meet you a bit later for that, so why don't you just sit in the clinic's waiting room until then?'

Ryoma nodded absentmindedly to what the doctor was saying, putting back on his cap in a lopsided fashion, and he and Nanako left the room.

x

'Excuse me, Suzuki-chan, but did a short boy with a cap and blackish-green hair pass by here?'

The woman's eyes widened, and Atobe was sure (though it may have been a trick of the light) that there were sparkles in them. Atobe frowned at the woman's attire, which reminded him of a burriko girl's. The sparkles in her eyes made her look like one of his crazy fangirls, and it disturbed him to see this late-twenties-to-early-thirties woman acting like this in the face of Fuji.

'Oh, you mean that snarky boy?' The woman laughed, her face tinged pink. 'He asked me for directions to the physiotherapy clinic, over there.' The woman pointed to the duo's left. 'You'll see the door on your right. Are you his friends?'

Fuji nodded, an innocent smile on his face. 'Thank you very much!' He headed in the direction that the lady had pointed, with Atobe following.

Once there was sufficient space between the lady and the two of them, Atobe asked, a raised eyebrow, 'Suzuki-chan?'

'It said "Suzuki" on her nametag,' Fuji explained, 'And if I used "-chan", considering her age, she'd probably find it cute and then it'd be more likely that she'd tell us where Echizen went.'

Atobe muttered, 'You're such a calculating...'

'Why, thank you,' Fuji said, but without the smile. 'I wonder where Echizen needs to go to the physiotherapy clinic though.'

Atobe nodded, and the two of them simultaneously started walking down the hall at a brisker pace.

x

Nanako sat beside Ryoma, and desperately tried to think of something to say that hadn't already been said to fill up the silence.

'Ryoma-san...' Nanako started. 'How was your school day then?' She almost wanted to hit herself; she had asked the same question less than five minutes ago.

'Fine' was Ryoma's monotonous response, and the pair fell back into silence.

'Tanaka-sensei is pretty nice, isn't he?' Nanako tried again. 'And the clinic here seems very professional.'

'Yeah,' Ryoma said.

And then quiet ensued.

Nanako really wished that she could verbalise something - anything - that Ryoma would answer to with some kind of enthusiasm. She never had anything much to say, other than the usual polite things, such as 'How was your day' and 'How are you doing', or sometimes 'Do you like your meal', which would result in answers from Ryoma such as 'Fine' or 'Yes'.

In the past, when everything was unchanged, the connection between them, that had previously been there, however obscured, had been there. A connection that Nanako could use to confirm that yes, the two of them were family.

But after the accident, when Ryoma left... Nanako couldn't find that connection any more. It was as if the Ryoma that returned wasn't the Ryoma that had left, as if somewhere, deep inside the shell of the fake Ryoma, the real Ryoma, her relative, was hidden.

And all she was to the fake Ryoma was another polite person that he had no bond to.

Nanako almost wished that they could go back in time, and try to fix everything.

But they couldn't.

'Um, Echizen-kun, and ...' A lady spoke, and the duo both looked up to see a nurse.

Nanako replied, 'Meino Nanako.'

The nurse smiled. 'Well, here it is.'

Nanako noticed the expression on Ryoma's face.

And decided that the scene wasn't going to be pretty.

x

'What the hell is that for?'

The voice that shouted out was all too familiar to the brunet and the diva.

They started running down the hallway, and found the door to their right with the "Physiotherapy Clinic" plate on it. They opened the door, to find a glaring Echizen Ryoma and a meek-looking nurse.

Ryoma didn't seem to have noticed their intrusion, so irritated he was.

The nurse replied quietly, 'Tanaka-sensei told me that you had agreed to this...'

'As if I would agree to using such a thing!' Ryoma retorted.

'But if you don't use it, your health could deteriorate more, and-'

Ryoma interrupted, 'I'm walking just fine now, thank you.'

'But in case-' The nurse tried to continue, but was interrupted again.

'Can't I just use crutches?' Ryoma asked.

'In the long term, you won't be able to, and your arms-'

'Then I'll just not run any more!' Ryoma cut the nurse short.

The nurse seemed close to tears. 'Could you please just sit in it? Even though your case is a very mild one...'

Ryoma's voice was low this time. 'I don't care if I have fucking paraplegia. If you think I'm going to bring myself to school in that thing, you're mistaken.'

The nurse had no words to say, and the whole clinic was silent. Everyone else who had been sitting there had been listening to their heated (on one side, at least) conversation.

'...Echizen?'

Atobe broke the silence, and he stared at Ryoma and the wheelchair that the nurse was proffering.

Ryoma stared back at Atobe and Fuji, all with their eyes wide open, confused dark blue and shocked light blue ones staring into defiant golden ones.

x x x

Wasn't that just a lovely place to end it off? Now. Lengthy reviews would be delectable, as would reviews saying 'Update soon' or 'Why the hell did you give Ryoma paraplegia?'. nn -awinchan