Chapter Text
None of the Capsules knows how long Tetsuo has been lying on Haryki-ya’s bathroom floor. Yamagata found him a few minutes ago, and he hasn’t stopped slapping him and calling his name since then. Tetsuo lies motionless, eyes rolled back, a trickle of foam hanging on the corner of his mouth.
Kaneda is keeling next to his friend’s head, and he feels like dying. The sight alone mentally and physically disgusts him more than any slasher horror film he's ever watched. More than the most violent street fights he's been in. He can't really hear anything right now, except for a constant ringing in his ears and Yamagata’s blurred yells.
The others peek through the door in shock; Kai is the only one that finds the courage to enter the bathroom, elbowing his way through. He stops behind Kaneda.
Kaneda hears him mutter a “Shit” under his breath, but he can't turn around. It’s like a steel hand is pressing against his nape, forcing him to keep his head low, keeping him focused on Tetsuo. He can't look at anything else, not for any reason. A senseless, disturbing premonition that Tetsuo could die if Kaneda dares to look away from him — but is he even alive? Is he breathing?
How long was he out before they found him convulsing on the ground?
In his short life, Kaneda has witnessed a fair number of overdoses right before his eyes — often from kids his age — but seeing Tetsuo is a whole different thing. Almost physically painful.
Tetsuo isn’t giving any sign of life, his face deathly pale, his lips a bit blue. At least the spasms were a reaction, a signal that Tetsuo’s body was still functioning and working to expel the shit he’s been getting high on all night.
Haruki-ya bursts in like a mad dog — Kaneda recognizes his aggressive, wide stride, and his thundering voice, soon blending with his friends’.
“The fuck are all you doing in here!?”
“Call an ambulance, old man!”
“What?”
“He’s ODing!”
“Get out of here, now!”
“OH FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!”
“Yamagata, not now—”
“What did he take? Does anyone know what he took?”
“No, I didn’t see him…”
“We need to get him to the hospital”
“Turn him on his side, on his side, damn it!”
“I said pick him up and get out! I don’t want problems in my bar”
“You should’ve thought about that before selling drugs to minors, asshole!”
“Tetsuo!”
Everyone shouts down at the same moment. Kaneda’s eyes widen: Tetsuo jerks once, twice, lets out a couple of faint groans and retches. Kaneda and Yamagata hurry to turn him on his side. Tetsuo empties his stomach onto the already filthy floor of Haruki-ya, gasps and resumes vomiting. Once he’s finished, he’s propped back to the wall. He pants like a maniac, shaking from head to toe — so violently that it seems like another crisis. Kaneda can only whisper “Easy, easy, easy, easy”, as he brushes the sweaty, vomit-soaked hair from his forehead.
Kai brings a glass of water and manages to make Tetsuo drink a little. It takes them a good half hour to get him back to full consciousness, but even then, he can't stand up. Kaneda’s distressed brain starts racing: getting Tetsuo home by bike is out of the question, since he doesn’t seem capable of holding onto someone’s back.
He decides to take care of him personally. He doesn’t mind carrying him home like a dead weight and breaking his back in the process. He just wants to get Tetsuo as far away from that place as possible. Tetsuo seems to understand, and maybe still too weak to complain or protest, he rests an arm on Kaneda’s shoulders and lets himself be pulled up.
“What about your bikes?” asks Kuwata.
“Just leave them here”, is Kaneda’s immediate answer. “We’ll come back to get them tomorrow.”
“… You know it’s a huge risk, don’t you? Someone might steal it”
“I don’t care”
“But—”
“Kuwata, I don’t give a fuck right now. Okay?”
“You sure?”
Kaneda ignores him, ignores everyone, with their looks full of judgment, concern, and stupid disapproval, and heads out with Tetsuo.
Fortunately, they catch the last bus of the night; Tetsuo, half unconscious, rests his head against the window and closes his eyes. Every single passenger around them can tell that Tetsuo is high, but despite his age, none of them bats an eye. After all, it’s not an uncommon sight in Neo-Tokyo.
Meanwhile, Tetsuo’s recovery can’t seem to make Kaneda’s anxiety subside — on their way home, he doesn’t miss a chance to check on Tetsuo every thirty seconds, examining his face closely and even checking his pulse for a heartbeat.
Suddenly, Tetsuo jerks his wrist away, his eyes still stubbornly closed.
“Not dying” he mumbles, flatly.
‘But you’d like to, wouldn’t you?’ Kaneda thinks. ‘Is that what this is? You want to die?’
Kaneda stops touching him, but he doesn’t stop looking at him.
Once they reach Tetsuo’s house, Kaneda decided he should take advantage of the fact that Tetsuo is too weak to protest. So, he takes care of him. He gives him more water, puts his head under the faucet to clean his hair of vomit, strips him, and puts him to bed. Then he sits at the foot of the bed, watching silently as Tetsuo puts a hand on his eyes and keeps it there. Kaneda thinks that Tetsuo may be doing this out of shame. Anyway, he looks more like himself now.
Kaneda should feel better, but he doesn’t. There’s something he needs to get out of his chest.
“What was that?” he asks softly, with no hint of reproach or accusation.
For the first ten seconds, Tetsuo doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even move a muscle. Just when Kaneda starts to think he didn’t hear him, Tetsuo lets out an annoyed sigh.
“I was tired”
End of the discussion. Without sparing him another glance, Tetsuo turns his back to him, shutting off Kaneda’s voice. But he doesn’t shut off his desperate need to understand.
‘Tired of what?’ he wants to ask him, wants to shout at him. ‘Tired of being at the club? Tired of the pain the accident left you? Tired of your life? Tired of us, tired of me? What the fuck are you so tired of that makes you want to die?’
Kaneda stays seated on the bed in total silence for long minutes, staring at him like an idiot, not getting any more answers. Then he gets up, locks himself in the bathroom, slides down the door and breaks down like his nerves, crying silently.