Author's Notes
This was originally supposed to be three chapters, but I realised once I started writing it that I couldn't prolong it for that long because I lacked any form of experience in the subject. I haven't even read a story about it, so lack of knowledge to feed inspiration there. Remember what initially inspired this fic? Boredom in the sickbay while being sick? It's actually come quite far from that...but I'll save the farewell speech for the epilogue.
Take note that time floats around here. At one point, I might be talking, for example, three or so months after he wakes up from a coma, then we're back to the first couple, then jumping along to eight months. I found it works that way, so since I'm the one who's writing this, I'm sticking to it. To be honest, it isn't quite as confusing as it sounds.
Chapters remaining after this: 1
Enjoy, and tell me what you think.
Sakura, Mono no Aware
He's always been in and out of hospitals. But that doesn't make it any easier, or more tolerable. Especially since he's going to be there for a while yet with hopes for recovery slimming – but at least there are friends and family to help him through...
Kouichi K & Kouji M
Rating: T
Genre/s: Drama/Hurt/Comfort
Chapter 28 – Never Go Astray My Love
He had been in the hospital for so long, that it was strange to see him out of it. Whether it was odd for him or not was a little harder to tell, simply because he was occupied with learning, relearning and realigning himself with a world he had been apart from for over a year. He may have only been in a coma for half of that, but it had soon become apparent that he, like many others whose brains were affected in the vegetative state, had developed a sort of retrograde amnesia that clouded the main hurdles of his illness. On top of that, his short term memory was still suffering, though it appeared to have somewhat improved...enough in any case that he was permanently catching on to the simple actions a child of two or three could carry out with ease without forgetting again momentarily.
The first couple of months was like re-raising a toddler, Tomoko noted somewhat fondly, watching her son sleep peacefully. Most of it had passed in the hospital, but even before returning home, she found that improvement, like much else in life, was a double-edged sword. Once his memories had aligned with the present, it was quite obvious to him that he could no longer do things that had once come easily to him. It had taken him four weeks to relearn the Japanese alphabet, which the neurologist had attributed to his young mind. Some older patients, he noted with a hint of professional sorrow as he always did, never did learn to do read again. It had taken longer still to string them into words and sentences that made sense; two months in, he was talking like his one year old self over thirteen years ago. And barely understanding more.
If it bothered anyone, they hid it well. The period which had passed in darkness hid that from all of them. Now there was only that one focus.
But as time passed, muscle strength improved as did his mind, onlookers couldn't help but notice the subtle differences in him.
He seemed almost reluctant for their company, which was the first odd thing to be noticed. The old Kouichi would never shy away from company, even if he had to shadow it like a...well, shadow, to be honest. He was quiet still, he always had been, but there were times where it seemed to almost be a different sort of silence. Not the calm, gentle soul, but one still struggling between two faces, two persona. It was eerily reminiscent from Duskmon in a way...especially as once he began re-grasping languages to his older ability to be able to turn his insight into something legible, his way of pointing these things out shadowed the turmoiled interplay between the kind and gentle soul and the hardness that came from somewhere else.
In the end, it was a biology lecture that cleared up that issue. Yutaka actually, who was still studying psychology at the colleague, finding that there were instances the organ carried more than its simple biological functions over a transplantation, and others still where it was the life-threatening event itself, even if cushioned under loss of memory, that brought about the steel.
They also noticed, Tomoko most of all, that his sleeping patterns had changed. He had been a deep sleeper, and when awoken suddenly, quite violently shocked. But now, he stirred at the faintest sounds, and had trouble sleeping at all on the days where there was no moon. She suspected it had something more to do with the open curtains than supernatural forces as Izumi had suggested at some point. He seemed almost afraid of sleeping in full blackness...not that she could blame him. Whether or not his memories ever returned of his coma, that blackness at the back of his mind was still a thing that had almost taken his life. And he still remembered the far briefer coma he had fallen under, if only between his "death" by Lucemon's hands and his awakening with Kouji's tears trailing down his pale skin.
There were alot of things to do; sometimes, one wondered where, apart from sleeping, he ever got time to himself. He didn't, to be honest, but that suited him fine, though he constantly found himself wishing, from the moment he could, that he could be more independent and less of a burden on other people.
Tomoko would notice that look straight away and scold him for it. When she was home. Because she also had a job to maintain, in which case she left Kichida Arini to watch him, who claimed that between one adult son, a teenage son and daughter and a perfectly capable house-husband, she was sure they could hold the fort for six to eight hours without her. She enjoyed helping her daughter's friend in any case; it hadn't been all that long since she raised up her youngest son.
At times, you could tell Kouichi was frustrated by the slowness of it all, even though he was progressing well, in some areas, faster than one would expect. By eight months, he could walk the length of the small apartment without any individual aid; it took a little longer to refine his reflexes. Repetition, after a little while came easily; stringing bits of knowledge together to compensate for new scenarios was taking a lot longer. Simple math problems he could do once the basic strokes were rewired into his brain, but the more complicated ones that required application still managed to elude him.
He also wasn't quite as reserved with his emotions, something Junpei particularly noticed, mainly because it was the reservedness of the raven haired male that had bothered him for the longest time. They, family and friends, stayed to see the changes that had infallibly failed to bring them in a full circle.
The Kouichi they knew never left that though. No matter how frustrated he was, he kept looking forward, though he sometimes needed someone to hold the binoculars (not literally, of course) for him. Every failure, every problem, was met with a determination to try harder, to pay back the people that had brought him this far, who had stuck by him when they had every chance to turn back and suffer less.
'Why?' he had cried at one point, the pencil falling from his hand as they failed to grasp the firmer nuances of writing elegantly and drawing legibly. The lead had clattered to the floor, but he had made no attempt to try picking it up, knowing he would fumble it. Kyuukai played with it instead.
Yoshiko had been across from him at that point, patiently guiding his hands and talking about mundane things like the new school year in the process. So had Izumi, who had decided the brunette would be teaching her art, which Yoshiko had, after the surprise faded (though she supposed it had something to do with the stuffed animals now assorted between the nine, excluding the babies which had somehow, with some help, spread themselves out amongst the other terminally ill occupants of the children's ward), agreed on the condition that the blonde taught her how to cook in return. Izumi had, obviously, agreed.
The two girls at that point stared at Kouichi, who determinedly avoided their eyes. They knew he wasn't talking about the drawing. Or the pencil. He was asking why they were still there.
Two variants of green eyes met, before returning to the blue who still strayed from them. 'We could have,' Izumi had said softly. 'But you're our friend. And that's enough.'
In the end (about a month later actually), Junpei had expanded on that once the ex-warrior of wind had relayed the question, realising he was getting his first taken chance to converse alone with the ex-warrior of darkness.
'It's because we have each other. We're so tightly woven now, between our adventures in the digital world, your family being the whole "absence makes the heart go fonder" cliché and those guys who've known you since...well, most of elementary school, which is quite a while in a kid's eyes. Then our parents, family friends, brothers in the case of Takuya, Shinya and Yoshiko (at some point, the formality had disappeared between them all), and people who we barely know, like Yagami-sensei and Takuya's vice-captain last year...forgot his name. Let's just say we're one super tight coil of DNA, and one little mutation ain't going to change anything. To be honest, I think it was only because they had so many other people and things impinging on their lives that they were able to make it through this and still stay together.' He had paused for a second there. 'Do you understand the DNA-'
'Science is fine,' Kouichi waved off. 'Remembering facts.'
'Physics?' Junpei had asked dryly, remembering the teen labouring over the calculations.
'...getting there.'
'Good.' He pulled out a textbook. 'Try your luck with these.'
Kouichi groaned, but did so anyway. And found he actually managed to complete the first two without help.
'See? You're getting there.'
He had smiled at that point, a real smile...which were now the only smiles they saw.
'Arigato.'
'Hey,' Junpei held up his arms. 'Don't thank me.'
'To all of you,' he amended, closing the book. 'But they're not here to hear.'
'They don't need to be.'
He thought about that for a moment. 'True.'
In just over one and a half years, he was almost fully recovered. He was still having problems with his short term memory, which seemed to be sadly permanent. Nor had his memory of that one fateful year ever returned, but everyone was thankful that it started after the school year, which meant the family bonding still remained in tact.
When Kouichi had teased, after about one and a half years, about Kouji being the elder brother (and he really looked it now, because nine months in a hospital bed had really stunted his growth) Kouji had good-naturedly whacked him on the head. That had led to accusations on both sides and a heart to heart discussion, from which, the same root emerged as Junpei and Izumi had alluded to.
And eventually, two and a half years after the initial downslide, they could truly say that time and this tale had managed to close its (admittedly rather wonky) circle, as he readied himself for the final dive into normalcy. Returning to school after that prolonged absence.
There had been a lot of discussion between the family and the school board, namely to what year he would be entering in to. He had completed a semester and did the work for about a third of the following one of seventh grade, but he had not completed more than half. However, he would be starting in the spring, which would force him to repeat the work he had already covered, further delaying his education. In the end, they agreed to admit him into eighth grade, while his friends started tenth (except a certain sport fanatic), and he would simply have to work harder to bridge that final gap.
