[[Blood Splatter]]
Who: Joshua and Neku
When: Post Game
Rating: I’ll slap an R on it to be safe.
Warnings: Blood, I spose? Language, possibly more.
Summary: Unfortunately it’s not as easy as ‘bang’ die, ‘bang’ live. But when did he ever truly consider that Shibuya- Joshua- was done with him?
They'd all felt some repercussion of coming back to the RG after three weeks. The aches, pains and general hypersensitivity of their newly reclaimed bodies had been something they'd all silently suffered through when not in each others' presence, though Neku and Beat certainly seemed to have more trouble than the girls, understandable when they’d actually been playing the Game (in different ways, at points) through the entirety of that period. But it was also something that had ended for them all after a few weeks, one after the other slowing in the veracity of their complaints till there was none to be made at all; continuing with their lives with a skip in their step and a zest for their lives that had been missing before.
All except Neku, that was. He'd stopped his complaints at much the same time Beat had, but his body still felt... heavy, awkward, like it was a piece of him he really didn't need anymore and was holding him down in ways he couldn't understand. He refused to think on it, merely gritting his teeth and getting on with the days, the weeks, the months, never talking to anyone when the symptoms began to get a tad more... alarming.
He always seemed to have a cold these days; a shortness of breath and a headache that sent him into spells of dizziness that had him slumping to the ground if he was lucky enough to be alone. School was a nightmare; he couldn't concentrate, didn't have the energy. It was hard enough to try and enjoy the time he spent with his newly acquired friends, never mind study, and those two things became the only parts of his waking day.
Of course, he had to have the black luck to cough up blood for the first time in front of Shiki. The look on her face when she had seen the splatter of red across his hand had him babbling excuses about a throat infection and having already seen the doctor, something she obviously wasn't buying, but he'd hightailed it out of there before she could say much else.
And he was still coughing up blood now, slumped down in his bed and exhausted, his breathing a soft wheeze. Only six in the evening, and he was so exhausted he could sleep for days. Neku struggled under his covers with great difficulty, settling with a wheezing sigh of relief and falling asleep almost instantaneously, the pained look on his almost white face easing slightly.
Even in rest however, his body was finding no comfort, small shudders in his body turning to wracking coughs which left small patches of blood on the pillow. He mumbled weakly in his sleep, body too weak to bring him to consciousness.