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In, out.
Each breath felt like it was scraping against his lungs, it only got worse with the clasps around his hands keeping him to the bed, same with his legs. There are concerned faces all around and the light above him is too bright, too in his face. His entire body feels like it’s shaking but from everyone’s reactions you’d think he’s gone perfectly still. There’s terror here.
In and out.
He pulls at the clasps around his arms and instantly winces as it brushes against the bruise formed (from previous struggles). His mind is running faster than it should and voices are loud, no one's mouths are even moving. He doesn’t know why he can hear them in the first place. His vision is blurring and he thinks it’s because he might be getting dizzy, but something wet slides down his cheeks and he knows that he’s crying. Oh it hurts, it fucking hurts.
It needs to stop, the pounding in his head needs to stop. He doesn’t know why but he knows that the people in the room are the cause of it.
Thoughts pour in insistently.
“What happened” “What’s going on?” “... Shin–” “... can’t” “Why can’t he… help?-” “... wasn’t like this” “...overuse” “Stupid esper…” “...please–” “... just… get better–” “... didn’t notice” “Sorry…” “... sorry” “... I’m so–” “... it’s my fault” “...responsible–” “... so–” “... sorry”
He tries slamming his head against the table he’s currently on but is only met with the softness of a pillow. He wants to pass out so badly.
He hears someone shouting – at least that’s what it sounds like – for someone else. Why the hell is he here anyways? He doesn’t know who these people are, he thinks he doesn’t? They look familiar but not quite right.
They look like Lu, Heisuke, Aoi, Sakamoto, Nagumo, Hana, Natsuki, Granny Miya and Mafuyu but everything else in his mind is telling him that he’s wrong. Their voices sound the same – hell even their thoughts – but he can’t accept it.
He shuts his eyes and he hears someone mention something about dimming the lights and soon enough it’s darker – thankfully – but it doesn’t stop the panic in his brain. Something’s wrong, something's wrong, something’s wrong, he knows there’s something wrong. There has to be something wrong, why else would he be panicking like this?
“Shin, can you hear me?” He hears a feminine voice and if he didn’t know any better he’d say it was Aoi, but the voice grates against his ears and it feels like there’s honey poured down his ear canal, it’s disgusting and he wants it gone.
“He’s biting his tongue–!” Another voice shouts, Lu? No, it can’t be her, where would she come from? He knows her voice, and this once sounds so warped, like Lu but not quite. Like someone was doing a Lu impression.
Wait– he’s doing what?
He tastes blood swirl around on his tongue and his winces, moving his head to the side and spitting out the blood – not wanting to swallow it. Soon enough he’s coughing, he doesn’t even know why, and soon everyone’s panicking again. Something about not being able to sit him up but soon the restraints are off and he feels someone move him up and begin to hit his back soon enough getting whatever was in his throat out.
His hands are free, his feet however aren’t. His hands are spasming and he doesn’t even know why, soon enough someone pushes him down. They look like Natsuki.
“Fucking– how the hell did it get this bad?” Not-Natsuki hisses at him. It can’t be him, but it looks so similar.
“I– I don’t know– he woke up like this and–” Not-Lu is sputtering.
He doesn’t listen to them anymore, instead shutting his eyes. His head feels so hot it’s cold and the rest of his body begins to feel staticy all over, pins and needles running up and down his body.
Then it goes black
(STOPPER)
Shin’s finally asleep, it took a little longer for the medicine that Miya gave him to work but it worked and that’s what mattered. Sakamoto sighs in relief and looks over to the rest of the group, for the past 2 days they’ve been trying to help Shin.
Two days ago everyone in the store was awoken with a scream, when Sakamoto went to check it out he had found Shin curled on his bed, hands clutching his head, and screaming until his lungs almost gave out. At first he thought it was a nightmare but when Shin looked at him he soon found out that it was something much worse. Shin didn’t recognize him, he recognized his shape and his face, but didn’t know it was him.
He had to knock Shin out to take him to Granny Miya, but it didn’t stop there. No matter how many times Shin might fall asleep he would seemingly wake up 10 minutes later freaking out. Granny Miya had pointed out that it had been from overuse of his powers, now it seemed like they didn’t want to shut off at all, hence the constant waking up.
Not only that but they were seemingly messing with his ability to recognize people and faces, as no matter how many times they tried to get Shin to recognize something of them he instead looked like he had seen a ghost.
Sakamoto had contacted Lu and Heisuke about the situation.
Nagumo had come after realizing no one was at the shop.
Aoi and Hana wanted to come to check in on Shin.
Natsuki and Mafuyu came because apparently they had plans with Shin that day but he didn’t show up, so they came over to Granny Miya’s.
“Is he okay now?” Lu asks, looking over to Shin with concern.
“He’ll most likely be somewhat the same when waking up, but I can guarantee that whatever pain he was experiencing is gone now,” Miya replies, taking a drag from her cigar. “Anyways someone needs to tell that kid to cool it down with his powers, he’s been overusing them too much and now it’s like he’s broken the switch,”
“What’s that supposed to mean, yo?” Heisuke asks.
Natsuki frowns. “Before he described his powers like a radio, right? He could turn up the volume or lower it at will, but he’s broken the dial that allows him to do that. So now instead of having control over it it turns up and down at will, and currently it seems like it’s up,”
“How long will it take for him to heal?” Aoi asks.
Miya sighs, shaking her head. “A while, it’s hard to say, I’ve never dealt with anyone like this before, supernatural powers are something that even in modern science we don’t really understand, let alone in medicine, but I’ve done all I can for him. However, if I had to guess how long it’ll take for him to recover I’d say possibly around a week or so, maybe more depending on how much he keeps freaking out,”
“What could be making him freak out?” Lu asks.
“His clairvoyance,” Natsuki replies. “Honestly if i had to guess his brain is probably overloaded with information, so much so that he can’t think anything through,”
Heisuke frowns. “Well what can we do about that, yo?”
“Well, isolation is the obvious answer,” Nagumo responds casually, almost immediately everyone in the room – except Hana, Aoi and Miya – sends death glares his way. Sakamoto didn’t like the idea. Shin wouldn’t like isolation, honestly waking up like that might make him worse, depending on his state.
“Like hell that’s gonna work, his clairvoyance reaches pretty far, and I doubt that we could find a place like that in such a short amount of time,” Natsuki replies.
“The JAA has one,” Nagumo replies smoothly. “Besides I know you guys don’t wanna do the whole ‘isolation thing’ in general but honestly? I don’t see what other choice you have. You can monitor him as well and there are speakers if you need to talk to him, just in case he regains… well some sanity while in there,” Nagumo says it so easily.
“Even then putting Shin in there doesn’t sit right with me,” Lu replies nervously.
Sakamoto looks at Shin and then the rest of them, he then glances over to Nagumo who only looks back at him. Nagumo’s being genuine, he’s been with him long enough to know when he’s not. Despite that, the idea still doesn’t resonate quite right with him. However, it’s not about him, it’s about Shin.
“We’ll be the first to know if anything changes, correct?” Sakamoto replies. He hears Lu sputter but ignores her.
Nagumo nods. “Yep! You can also monitor him as well– like I said before, although you might want to hire others to monitor him–”
“We can do it,” Sakamoto cuts him off, Nagumo doesn’t waste a second – almost like he expected this.
“That’s also fine, I’ll call someone up to transfer him, it’s best we do it sooner rather than later, it’d suck for him to wake up in the middle of it, that’ll probably freak him out even more!” Nagumo chimes as he pulls out his phone.
Lu looks at Sakamoto in disbelief. “Are we really just going along with this?” She asks.
“I don’t see how you have a choice,” Mafuyu says. “Honestly his idea isn’t too bad, and besides keeping Shin with more people seems worse than leaving him alone,”
“Never knew you cared so much,” Natsuki snorts, Mafuyu glares at his brother but doesn’t say anything. “But yeah, I don’t like it, but it’s honestly just what we gotta do now, don’t have much of a choice,”
“We’ll be doing all of the monitoring,” Sakamoto replies firmly. “It’ll be fine,”
It has to be fine, it’s the only answer they’ve got.