Side Affects
ch.4
(Ryoma's pov.)
As I woke up, I tried to open my eyes, but found I could only crack one eye open. From what I could tell, the annoying clicking noise that woke me up was a camera, so I just buried my head under the blanket again. A few minutes later I heard an unknown voice mention medication must be affecting me.
My only thought was 'Che' which I would have said if my head wasn't spinning. So instead I settled on glaring at the person who disrupted my sleep. Even if my glare was more like pout than an actual glare. After a minute I realized I couldn't see without everyone looking like blobs. The next thing I know I stick my hand out and poke the closest blob. I later found out that the blob was the smiling tensai. As I kept poking it, I heard it chuckle. Then I heard a soft giggle of my cousin Nanako. After what seemed like hours to me, I started to fall into a deep sleep.
The obnoxious blobs woke me up some time later with their obnoxious noise. Once I was up I saw that they were not just blobs but instead students from a school. I was just staring at them trying to see without my vision becoming to blurry, trying to figure out what happened. So when I spot Nanako I just stared at her confused.
My cousin, after noticing my unmoving stare, says, "You came down with a fever."
I quietly reply, "When can I leave?"
She just sighs and answers, "Once the doctor says you can leave. I know that you just got out of the hospital but we have to make sure you're alright."
When I was about to retort, but decided against it. So I turned to my other side facing the regulars. When I saw them I turned to lie on my back but someone in front of the bed kept looking at me. I choose to lie on my stomach and hide under the covers. That way I could ignore everyone in the room.
After ignoring them for a while I turned to Nanako and stated, "I'm hungry."
She just replied, "How long were you going to ignore us if you weren't hungry."
I just say, "Until I fell asleep, and who are all of these people?"
Nanako sighed saying, "You poke one them, completely ignore them, and now you want to know."
"Actually before everybody looked like a giant blob," I said as I looked around, seeing their reactions.
Most jaws were hanging wide open, another was smiling, and one looked like he didn't care.
I heard in the background:
"Oishiii, do I look like a blob, Nyah? "(Eiji) (You don't need to say who it is, let us guess )
"No Eiji, you don't it's just the medicine."(Oishi)
"Hmm...blobs...maybe side affects from the medicine...more data...scribble"(Inui)
"Do we really look that way? I mean I thought we looked normal."(Taka)
"Interesting way of looking at things, ne, Tezuka?"(Fuji)
"..."(Tezuka)
Nanako left soon after to get something light to eat for me. I decided to try to annoy some of the Regulars who I was introduced to. At first I decided to bug Eiji by starring at him. Within minutes he looked nervous.
At that moment Fuji decided to intervene by opening his icy blue eyes and starred at me. So I starred at him to show I wasn't going to back down. I distinctively heard muttering about me not backing down from a challenge, not to mention the scribbling in the book. After a few minutes I heard Nanako coming back with food.
She brought me some miso soup, which didn't look to bad, and some rice with soy sauce. She handed it to me and I began to eat. After I was halfway through she handed me a small bowl of rice with a small plastic container of soy sauce. I finished all the food which was hard since I usually don't eat that much.
When they were leaving I waved and started to fall asleep. Nanako mentioned that I was going to Seigaku. As soon as they were gone she asked me if I wanted to join the tennis club, and that I could as long as I would eat healthy and drink plenty of water and milk. The only bad thing was that I could no longer have my favorite grape Ponta. After I agreed, she told me I could go home in a day or so, which made me a very happy kid. Hospitals stink.
On my last day I saw a whole group of students with a tennis bags speaking to a doctor. I heard part of the conversation. "Could you explain why Jirou sleeps all the time?"
The doctor responded, "It is a part of a disorder, that cant be treated."
I heard a sigh and one of the kids say "Kabji, grab Jirou"
The one called Kabji simply said "usu." They walked out as Nanako and I were leaving. Soon I decided to sit down since I was tired. She said that I wasn't as tired as usual.
When I got up and she told me, "You should eaten more earlier". But that would have made me sick. We were almost out when we were stopped by the doctor.
He said "Since he just is got over the cancer we compiled this information on how to handle what ever symptoms that may arise. We also have a list of medicines that will help with joint pain he may feel."
From a distance I heard an arrogant voice say "Doctor could I have a word with you?" The doctor said good bye to us and walked over. The arrogant person asked "What was so important that I had to wait for you? What problem is more important than ore-sama's problem?"
The doctor said through gritted teeth "The child has just recently finished chemotherapy for a type of cancer."
Then 'Ore-sama' said "I'd like you to fix Jirou so he doesn't sleep all the time."
The doctor said in an angry voice "You made me rush for this? Do you know how series cancer cases can get; I just wanted to help him get out of here as soon as possible. After all, it is torture for a young child to be stuck in a hospital for a year. But fine let's go see what we can do for Jirou." He walked off leaving many guilty faces in his wake.
This summer went by slow for me, since I had to eat healthy and drink lots of milk and NO PONTA! I was slowly working on stamina, and power. After 2 months of working out and increasing my training load by wearing lead weights, I got to play a real match. I was gaining weight back at a healthy rate, and if you didn't know any better, you could say I looked perfectly healthy. I was so happy that I was finally allowed to go to the street courts I ran all the way there.
As I reached the courts I saw a group of tennis players and challenged a serious, tall dark hair guy called Tachibana Kippei. When we played I used my twist serve, and to say he wasn't expecting that was probably the understatement of the century. After the first 2 serves he figured out how to return it. When it came over the net I twisted my body and slammed it over with my cyclone smash(the one used against sanada in the anime).
By the time the score I was 5-3 I was exhausted. So that is when I decided to use my left hand for the first time during the set. Also used the split step to keep up and once I finished the game nobody knew how to respond. Once it was over I walked to a bench before my knees gave in.
Tachibana came over and asked if I was okay, I just said it was my first match in over 6 months. The group asked me to eat at a fast food place but I declined.
"Is there a reason for not wanting to eat there?"
"Yeah, it's just my body can't handle it yet, and I don't want to go back to the hospital."
"Hmm, why were you in the hospital before?" he asked.
I fidgeted before saying "A while back I was in chemotherapy."
"Oh", he replied.
"I think I'll just go home and eat, you guys could probably come over, Nanako won't mind."
After arguing for a while, they finally agreed, part of the reason was because they would worry I would pass out from over exertion.
When we walked I said "ignore anything my stupid oyaji says." I was told to respect my elders.
As we approached my house, we saw the old man laying on the porch. He saw me and asked me if I was okay, and I said yes. He then grinned like a Cheshire cat and said "So you'll bring friends over, but not girls. Oh kami what did I do to deserve this."
Needles to say, they were quite shocked, especially when he just left and went to read his magazines. When he was reading them Nanako called him a pervert and said called us for lunch, after confiscating the magazines that is.
We all ate in the back since there wasn't enough room in the dining room. After I was done Nanako emerged to give me a pill which made me drowsy. I told my new friends about the side affect of the pill, and they left. I ended up spending a lot of days training with them.
Once school started I joined the team, and when Oishi recognized me, he started to panic about my health. I gave him the doctor's note that said I could. They had come up with the idea of me joining the ranking matches if I beat a non-regular member. The reason was I was in my 3rd year because of my test results.
I eventually made it to a regular spot, and there was a lot of practice. The first time I really showed that I suffered from Leukemia was when I was running and had to stop because of a fever and didn't eat that much. The only good part was I never had to drink Inui juice.