One Thousand Paper Cranes
"Poor Rika-chan. Her grandpa was the nicest, most generous man in the world. It's a shame he got lung cancer…"
Eiji sat in his classroom, toying with a spare paper crane in his fingers. They had been making them for Rika's grandfather and reached one thousand just as Eiji finished his last crane. He decided to keep it, something about how fragile and beautiful it was. Everyone had tuned out by that stage to hear Eiji say anything.
"Eiji, look!" Fuji smiled, holding an origami cat made of some old notes. It had drawn on patches of black like a patchy coloured cat.
"Hm?" Eiji asked. He had never really known Rika's grandfather but her grandfather was all that he could think about. "I'm sorry, Fujiko. I can't seem to concentrate on anything today."
Fuji's smile faded a little for a few moments, but he continued distracting Eiji from class further. "Saa… aren't the final rounds of the Tokyo Prefectural Tournament coming up?"
Eiji tried to pay attention to Fuji, he really did, but he couldn't. Before he realised, it was lunch break and everybody was leaving the classroom. He got up and felt his chest tighten again. His breath hitched for a second but eased as he released the air in his lungs.
"Jaa, I'll meet you with the others, okay?" Fuji said as he straightened his books and left for his locker. It was in a whole different are to Eiji's. The lockers were alphabetical and 'ki' was twenty one Japanese letters before 'fu'.
"Kikumaru-kun, please shut the door when you leave the room?" Nakamura sensei asked as he left the room.
Eiji nodded as his chest tightened again. Taking in breaths became difficult. "Sensei…" The teacher was too far away to hear Eiji's struggled gasp. He put his hand to his chest as he tried to sit on his chair. He slipped back, his eyes shutting as he felt the corner of the desk on his head.
-One Paper Crane-
"Where is he?"
Momo rubbed the back of his head. "Where is Eiji-senpai? We can't find him anywhere." He sighed as Fuji dragged Tezuka along. Fuji wouldn't let Tezuka waste his time on unnecessary things – like staring down troublemakers – when Eiji needed to be found.
"Here's the classroom," Fuji said. He went to grab the door. "Ah, the door's not shut."
Momo walked in loudly like he usually did. "Eiji-senpai! Are you in here?" He stopped frozen in the middle of the room.
"What's wrong Momo?" Fuji asked. He looked at the desks. "Eiji's stuff is still here… and it's a mess. It's never a mess."
"Fuji-senpai, Tezuka-buchou, I'm going to get the nurse," Momo said as he stepped toward the door.
Tezuka caught on quite quickly. He calmly walked up to where Eiji lay on the floor. He had fallen; bodies – even if it was Eiji – could never find his mangled position comfortable or possible while they could still feel the stretch of their muscles. He used the little knowledge of first aid he knew. Fuji was in a restricted panic.
"Momoshiro, hurry. He's not breathing correctly," Tezuka instructed and Momo ran at top speed. Tezuka noticed Eiji's pale skin. His lips were turning blue, which meant there was very little if not no blood reaching his face. Alternatively, it could have been a sign that Eiji's heart had stopped beating. How Tezuka hoped that it was the first possibility. Tezuka checked and found a weak pulse at least. Eiji wasn't dead. Yet. 'What did Oishi and Ryuuzaki-sensei did when someone fainted last year?' "Fuji, get me a chair," Tezuka said, recalling the memory of one of the graduates from last year fainting on a really hot summer's day.
Fuji complied. "Here." Tezuka signalled for Fuji to sit on the floor and hold Eiji still as Tezuka propped up Eiji's legs so blood would reach his head, not his toes. Fuji held Eiji's legs in places as Tezuka rolled Eiji so his spine was straight and he was on his back. That was all Tezuka knew; now they had to wait.
-Five Paper Cranes-
"Get out of my way!"
Momo pushed open the nurse's office door and almost fell into the room.
"Hm?" Nurse Kobayashi asked. "Please close the door and knock before you come in. Be polite!" The middle aged woman looked at her notebooks carefully. She looked rather average. Average height, average build, average dark hair, average dark eyes. She was merely unique in the way she used her average-ness.
"Nurse Koba-"
"Uh, uh, uh. Close the door and knock first please," she corrected again. She was strict on manners. After all, she too was a mother and had learned that you need to teach your child/children to respect others.
"Nurse Kobayashi, Eiji-senpai is unconscious!" Momo shouted over Nurse Kobayashi as she tried to protest again. It was unbelievably disrespectful but she wasn't going to listen to him. He needed her to listen to him.
She smiled just a little to seem reassuring. "Tell… Eiji-kun to stay still when he opens his eyes. Where are you all? The cafeteria? He just fainted," she said as she seemed to look at her notes and begin to close over the folders she had open. "I'll be there in a minute. I just have to put these back on the shelf."
Momo bowed to try and seem more respectful. He would get down on his hands and knees if he had to. "You have to come now. He's not breathing properly and he's been unconscious since the start of lunch," he said in the most respectful way he could. "Please, Nurse Kobayashi. I beg of you."
She got up rather quickly then. "What is Eiji-kun's full name, Momoshiro-kun?"
"Kikumaru Eiji, Nurse Kobayashi. Third year, class 3-6-"
Briskly, she pulled her jacket around herself so she wouldn't drip over it. "Come, Momoshiro-kun."
-Nine Paper Cranes-
Fuji sat back against a desk. "Tezuka, I can't tell if he's breathing anymore. I don't think he is." Tezuka pulled open the last window in the room.
"Thanks Tezuka-kun, Fuji-kun," Nurse Kobayashi said. She knew the names of most of the students that attended the school. "You've done well. Momoshiro-kun told me what happened on the way."
She checked his airways, then his pulse. Her face began to look awfully serious. She tried again and felt the weakest pulse she had in a very long time. It had been at the hospital the last time there was one that weak, not at a school.
"Fuji-kun, in my pocket, there's my phone. Please call an ambulance." She knew CPR wouldn't help at this stage. He was alive and perhaps it would help his heart beat, but there was the chance that it could make it worse. He was breathing; therefore, he could quite easily become conscious again if it returned to a normal rhythm. Performing CPR could also break a rib or two – perhaps more – which could cause unnecessary pain on Eiji or even puncture his lungs. All she could do was wait.
She took the phone off of Fuji once he was done. She dialled the front office and told them to put a message over the PA system. A few moments after she hung up, the announcement was made for students to go back to their classrooms. Class 3-6 were to meet at the basketball courts instead.
"Boys, please go to your class and tell your teachers that you're okay. Fuji-kun, please tell Nakamura-sensei that Eiji is unwell. Tezuka-kun, can you meet the ambulance out the front and bring them here afterwards?" she instructed. "Then please remain with your classes until the drill is over."
-Fourteen Paper Cranes-
"Eiji!" Oishi almost cried. They didn't expect to see him at school, not having the last two days off. "Are you okay? You left school in an ambulance!" Oishi was quite obviously worried about his doubles partner.
Eiji smiled. "Hoi, hoi! I missed you too, Oishi!" He said as Oishi gave him a quick hug as guys did. They were on a train, so it was hard to keep balance.
"What happened?" Oishi asked.
Eiji held onto the handle as he explained the whole story to Oishi. Oishi listened intently as Eiji laughed at his own misfortune. Eiji seemed to think of it all as a massive accident, not anything important. He also seemed to find two days at home doing nothing was more boring than watching paint dry, so he made numerous paper cranes to fill in time.
Oishi smiled and sighed with relief. "Don't push yourself too hard," he said kindly. He missed his friend. "You could have taken the week off to get better."
Eiji nodded. "But that's boring, Oishi! I have to thank Momo, Tezuka-buchou and Fujiko. They're the ones who noticed that I was unconscious. Imagine if the whole class walked in and found me! Disaster, nya~!"
Oishi nodded. "I guess you're right," he said with a chuckle.
The walk to school was filled with Eiji ranting about hospitals and random students asking what happened to Eiji on that day. Oishi smiled the whole way. Practice was awfully quiet without Eiji's bouncy enthusiasm. No one would have ever guessed Eiji was quite good with academic subjects. It didn't fit his character at all.
"Eiji-senpai!" Momo called as he almost knocked Eiji over. Ryoma was lucky not to fall on his face as Momo leaped off of his bike. The bike fell on the ground with a thud as Momo left it to interrogate his senpai.
Eiji smiled. "Hi Momo!" he laughed, noticing Momo's distraught expression when he realised he had just scratched his new paint. "Thanks for saving me the other day." Saving was perhaps too strong a word for that sentence, but Eiji had said it anyway.
Momo blushed. "All I did was get Nurse Kobayashi…" he snapped out of his 'ego-stroked' state. "What was wrong?"
Eiji took a deep breath. He'd have to say this so many times it wouldn't be funny by the end of it. He already felt like attaching a sign to himself explaining exactly what happened so he didn't have to say it over and over again. Sure, he loved the attention, but it got very repetitive after a while.
"Anaemia?" Ryoma asked. It sounded like he had heard of it before. "Don't girls tend to get anaemia, Eiji-senpai?"
Eiji explained about the different types of anaemia. Anaemia was a disease of the blood where there was some sort of part of the blood cells that was either minimal or not there. Girls tended to get the iron-deficient anaemia because of their 'monthly-cycle' whereas there were other types common in both boys and girls, such as the one Eiji had: lack of oxygen to his blood cells. Eiji then explained that he had two older sisters – twenty three and twenty one years old – a mother and a grandmother. He really didn't have a choice but to find out.
"I can still play, nya! The doctor said as long as I take care of myself, I should be fine and shouldn't faint very often. But because I fainted the other day, he said for the next week or so take it super easy or I could make it worse," Eiji concluded with.
Oishi smiled. "Well, 3-6 has a substitute teacher today. Nakayama-sensei is going to Kobayashi Rika's grandfather's funeral," Oishi filled Eiji in. "So your classmate Rika-san won't be there either. Or Nurse Kobayashi since it's her father that died."
Eiji smiled. He already knew Nurse Kobayashi and Rika were related; mother and daughter, respectively. "Thank you, Oishi," he said. They got to the tennis courts and Eiji beamed. He almost got down on the ground and hugged the court. "I missed these courts so much! The hospital was so boring!"
They heard a cry of Eiji's name before Eiji was tackled with a hug. It was very uncharacteristic of the tensai, but Eiji fainting/knocking himself out on a table had almost given Fuji a panic attack. Quite literally. Fuji realised why he was quite glad he never had to deal with anyone being sick in his family. He wouldn't ever be able to handle being a doctor.
"Fujiko!" Eiji smiled. "Thank you for saving me!"
Fuji shook his head. "Jaa, I didn't do much. Tezuka told me what to do. The most I did was hyperventilate after you left in the ambulance. I ended up in Nurse Kobayashi's office too."
Eiji laughed. "You, Fuji Syuusuke, the tensai of Seishun Gakuen's tennis team, hyperventilated? Nya, that's so weird."
"Eiji," Oishi scolded, "Don't be mean."
Fuji chuckled. "It's okay, Oishi. So what happened?"
Eiji explained it for the umpteenth time that morning. He was beginning to seriously consider the sign idea. Or make up pamphlets to hand out to people when they asked. "I had anaemia when I was little and it came back. So I fainted and knocked myself out on the table," he explained in short. Eiji chuckled a little once again when he said he knocked himself out. That didn't happen all that often in a classroom.
"We have Takawa-sensei today… he used to teach in the military schools," Fuji almost groaned. He may have been a genius at tennis, but he did find troubles with teachers. Ryuuzaki-sensei had told him off on quite a regular basis.
"Boys, get changed. You better be on these courts in five minutes or it's laps for all of you," Ryuuzaki-sensei yelled as if on cue. The regulars were mostly tardy. Only Inui, Kaidoh, Taka and of course Tezuka were there on time. It set a very bad example for everyone else.
-Twenty Seven Paper Cranes-
"Stand and attention!" The class stood as Takawa-sensei shouted in a military fashion. "My name is Takawa-sensei. I want nothing but discipline and respect from you. Good morning class."
"Good morning, Takawa-sens-"
"You can do better than that!" he barked. "'Good morning Takawa-sensei, sir!' Repeat!"
"Good morning, Takawa-sensei, sir!"
"Good," he concluded, walking around the classroom with his hands behind his back. If they added a moustache and managed to change his race to German, he would be a perfect Hitler. "Now remain standing and introduce yourselves. After you have introduced yourself, you may sit. Class president!"
"Hello, sir. I am…"
"This guy must be a nut case," someone whispered. "I want Nakayama-sensei back…"
Slowly, the front row had said their names, hobbies and repeated because they were mocked like unconfident soldiers in the army. Of course, they weren't actually soldiers but petrified students who were absolutely unsure of exactly what they were supposed to be doing.
"Excuse me, sir," Eiji said, raising his hand. "May I please sit down?"
"What's your name son?" Takawa-sensei barked.
"Kikumaru Eiji, sir," Eiji said, though his voice was quieter than normal. "May I please sit, Takawa-sensei, sir?"
Takawa-sensei walked up to Eiji's desk. "Louder. What's your name?"
"Kiku-" Eiji said taking in a large breath to remain calm. This guy was going to annoy him. He could feel it.
"Louder."
"Kikuma-" his face was beginning to go pale.
"I can't hear you."
"Please, sir. I need to sit down." Eiji felt so dizzy, but his head wasn't spinning yet at least. He was rather desperate.
"You have legs that look like they work perfectly fine to me. Tell me your name."
"His name is Kikumaru Eiji, sir. He needs to sit down." Fuji looked at Takawa-sensei with his eyes wide open. His eyes were harsh and unforgiving.
"Fuji, you don't need to-"
"Fuji, was it? Are you a wise guy? Tell me, why can't… redhead over here tell me his name?" Takawa-sensei growled. He looked Fuji straight in the eye. Not many dared to do that.
Eiji tried to take a deep breath. "Fuji, don-"
"Sir, he needs to sit down," another classmate pointed out as Eiji put his hands on his desk. Everything had begun to spin. Other students stood up for Eiji as well.
"He has anaemia, si-"
"Kikumaru Eiji, sir!" Eiji barked as loudly as he could. "Permission to sit, sir!" He held his head with one hand to try and keep himself up.
Takawa-sensei smiled. "That's better. Permission granted." Eiji fell back into his seat. His head landed on his arm as he fought to stay conscious. "Sit up boy!"
"Excuse me, Takawa-sensei, Eiji-kun there is about to faint. I suggest you stop badgering him and get on with teaching the class National Language." Nurse Kobayashi was standing at the doorway with Rika behind her. "I heard yelling while I was on my way to get a few things from my desk."
Takawa-sensei growled. "This is my classroom. I am the teacher. If he is unfit to stand for ten minutes, then he shouldn't be at school."
Nurse Kobayashi looked at her watch and then the class clock, then back again. "Rika, does that say it's past ten?" she asked to Rika behind her. Rika nodded. "I'm very sorry, Takawa-sensei, but if you started at the dot of nine, as I'm sure you did, it's been over an hour," Nurse Kobayashi pointed out, continuing to check her watch against the clock. She doubted hers would be off time though. She had timed hers to the clocks in the hospital and then timed the school clocks to the same time. She always did little things like that to organise the world.
Takawa-sensei looked at the clock, then his watch, then the students who all looked rather tired from standing up and bored out of their minds. "Thank you for telling me this, Nurse. Run along now." Takawa-sensei wasn't pleased. "Get out of my classroom!"
Eiji sat up, rubbing his eyes. "That feels better, nya," he pointed out. Just sitting still for a few minutes had helped him a lot. It really wasn't that hard to prevent himself from fainting.
-Forty Paper Cranes-
(A.N: I wasn't going to post this until tomorrow, but it was sitting here and the prologue is really short. So here's the first chapter! Please review!)