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Rohan’s heating is broken – or, well, you could argue with semantics and say it’s dysfunctional, not “broken”, since it does work at times, when it wants to, kind of like its owner and wanting to work alongside other people. It simply refuses to most of the time, leaving him to shiver in the cold; and when it does, it’s like it must catch up to all of the heat it’s forgotten to make in the past hours or so. It’s infuriatingly inconsistent.
There is no other rational explanation for why the air flip-flops between cold and, at times, for a moment, blisteringly hot on his skin. It suffocates him so suddenly, it manages to catch him off guard, and it makes him skip his line when inking or slip a finger on a picture that has trouble sticking to the paper of the album in front of him, causing it to fall, and it’s more tiring than anything. He has to call for a repairman one of these days – but God knows he doesn’t want to deal with that at the moment, so he shoves it aside, thinks of stopping Kira instead.
(Along the way, Rohan forgets to question why he’d even have the heating on in the midst of summer to begin with).
Right, Kira. His manga is on hiatus because of Kira (injuries? Pah, those are an excuse for the weak-willed, and Rohan isn’t weak-willed), but he still draws chapters because having a backlog is always a good thing, and sometimes, it makes him think of something that furthers the investigation for a crazed serial killer – be it a lead to dig deeper into or a place where he might not have gone to observe and take pictures in, everything is worth looking into.
(That might be an issue, because Rohan has no sense of half-measure. It’s either everything or nothing with him. If he bites the bait, he’ll sink his teeth up the line and up the rod, even if by the end his mouth is coated in blood).
What was he thinking of again? Right, Kira – how to stop him, how to find him, where he is, who he’s pretending to be now. And the kid that was following his own father, suspicious, armed with a camera. More faces that means, probably, nothing. Kawajiri Kosaku sounds like the likeliest candidate to have bitten the dust. What did he need to do with that information, already? Why is this investigation so difficult? Kira truly is an elusive monster roaming in the shadows, just out of view.
(Rohan doesn’t stop to wonder why articulating a question has been so hard, lately).
There’s a pressure behind his eyes that won’t go away. It’s probably eye strain from staring at black-on-white for too long in a day. That must be it. That explains the ache that pulse in his head and makes it so difficult to focus. It comes with staying up for long hours, brainstorming, wondering where the next Stand user will be, what their abilities are. It’s nothing determination, coffee and pills can’t fix. It’s very much nothing new.
Besides, all-nighters are good for him. Being left alone with only his thoughts to ponder is a terrifying cumbersome thing, as sleep has never come easily to him, and his airways have taken a liking to irritating him whenever he does think of lying down, even if it’s just to retrieve something from under a piece of furniture. If a cup of coffee can help him not be pursued by a miasma of vague, painful experiences that one has willed oneself into forgetting.
For all of his morbid curiosity and never-ending quench for the unusual and macabre to depict, this is a hive Rohan isn’t willing to slam a stick into and see what happens. For once, the consequences of what that would have weight on his mind too much for the ink on paper to be worth it. It’s a foreign feeling to him, but he supposes even he would have to draw lines in the sand. (After all, he’s never murdered someone to depict a corpse).
He once again stares at this photo album and, once again, wonders why he can’t remember what he’s supposed to do with it. Did he take these pictures for inspiration? The child with a camera and smudged kanji by his face would be a good inspiration, following a man who might be a family member like he’d stalk a mystery. Does he, too, seek inspiration? To record the truth on camera so he can better depict it later? It could be a good character to add, even as a one-time sidekick, to his manga.
(It feels wrong, somehow, but Rohan’s brain can’t think of something else. A name sticks in the back of his mind, right next to the miasma shoved under the bed, and the stick is too short to reach it).
It’s weird, how despite all of that, he can’t think of an actual storyline to use with this new character. Usually, when a picture sticks out to him like that kid and his camera in the train station (or some other place – admittedly, he just read a note next to the picture, and the place itself hasn’t quite registered in his brain); so why is he coming up empty-handed today? What the hell is this?
(It’s difficult, when your brain is struggling to come up with a reason why your heating should be on at noon in the summer, to reason with artist’s block).
A cough ruptures his thought process and it takes him a second too long to realize it comes from him. Judging from past, recent events, it may be a Stand, so he readies a pen and Heaven’s Door. The house is silent, apart from the light buzzing of a bug he hasn’t found yet but has an irremediable wish to see splattered somewhere (if just to redraw that, it’s been a while); so he reasons once again. His throat is just scratchy from how little water he’s been drinking.
(Never mind that, when Rohan finally decides coffee isn’t a good enough substitute for hydration, it doesn’t fix the issue).
If not a Stand, then it must be the air. It’s stale and dry, because it’s dry outside and he doesn’t like the sound of the wind blowing through the windows. He does, however, like that of the wind almost shattering the glass, caressing the house as if about to destroy it. It’s great inspiration. It, however, doesn’t help with the heaviness in his chest and how sluggish his limbs are as a result.
Maybe he should go out. Some fresher air could give him back some of his inspiration, not to mention other people. He may loathe actually talking to them, but observing a human in their natural habitat is the best way to capture the sort of realism he’s so proud of. How could one not be? He’s basing himself on what he wants to depict, only allowing himself small liberties as to make the story flow better.
In slow motion, edges frayed like a good movie, and with a smirk on his face from having found a good idea, he grabs his sketchbook bag and goes out, key trembling a little between his fingers, and he once more doesn’t ask why. It’s obvious: he’s always drawing a lot, so his right hand is bound to get cramped at times. If anything, it’s a hinderance more than a thing to be concerned about, just like the dry-air cough and the rasp that exits his throat when he doesn’t let himself hack.
The sunlight is much brighter than he thought it was when he was indoor, curtains giving him sweet relief from the almost blinding rays. From the blurry masses of insignificant faces, he can sense some insistent stares, eyes that linger on him for a tad too long. If he squints, he can even distinguish lips flapping to form words he cannot hear. Not that the conversations interest him. If it comes to that, he can always use Heaven’s Door to get it anyway. As long as nobody else knows about it…
He doesn’t quite know where he was headed, however, if he was even heading somewhere in the first place. Maybe he can just let his mind wander around, let decide what it wants to pick up on; and from then on he can decide what to do with the inspiration it provides him with.
It’s immensely rare for people to walk into her quiet little street, so when Reimi hears footsteps coming towards the mailbox, she gets a little excited. Of course, it’s always one of the people she’s already met here, Stand users, people who now know her story and that of Arnold’s; but it only makes it better, to have people who care enough.
She owes today’s visit to Rohan, who’s all alone, a bag lying by his side in the shape of a sketchbook, and she wonders why he’s here. Has he come to ask for information? For inspiration for his manga? For help? She remembers him waltzing into the alley when he apparently had a strange thing stuck to his back and he talked to it – or alone, she isn’t quite sure, even now – so is he in danger? He doesn’t seem to be, with how slow he’s walking…
Then she greets him and is only met with a vacant stare, like Rohan-chan’s just seeing through her, and it alarms her like nothing has in quite some time.
Even when he was a child, Rohan never had a vacant gaze. His eyes always focused on something, scrutinized it, a fizzle of curiosity always shining, be he tired at night or fully energized during the day. He didn’t need any stimulus for it to surface too, just being able to see, and sometimes, she wondered if the boy she was babysitting didn’t have some sort of third eye that she couldn’t see but let him know so much more than he was supposed to.
He’s kept this quirk as an adult – in fact, it’s only intensified, she thinks. When she saw him again after all these years, it was the first thing to jump to her attention, that keen eye that focuses on everything, especially the little details. A true artist to his core, even through the way he lives in the world, keeping a strangely cool head as his own friend was about to be devoured by the demon of the alleyway. This is Rohan-chan, the boy she saved fifteen years ago and would save again in a heartbeat, from Kira or from anyone else.
She may still be getting used to how different he is from the lively child he was when she was still alive, so much taller than her now, but she knows he shouldn’t be walking in her direction with a vacant stare and a confused look on his face. He always looks focused on something, even when he’s disinterested, she’s come to discover, and she doesn’t doubt it’s because he’s thinking of something new, fresh and vibrant, his next big idea, his plans for the near or far future.
It worries her, how absent he is, like his body is in one place but his soul is somewhere else, both wandering around aimlessly. Arnold is sitting right next to her, his tail swinging slowly. The air is heavy, but perhaps not as heavy as Rohan’s breathing – now that she can hear it, it worries her even further.
“Rohan-chan?” She asks, hoping she can at least catch his attention. Maybe he’s simply deeper in thought than usual?
He slowly turns around, gaze trailing behind, and a lump forms in her throat. Oh, Rohan…
“Oh. It’s you,” he says, voice raspy and so much lower than usual.
“Are you…” The question weighs on her tongue, so she puts a hand on her chest and steps forward. “Are you okay, Rohan-chan?”
“Yes.”
He doesn’t move nor elaborate; and as much as she wants to believe him, but something in her screams she cannot.
“You seem to be deep in thought. What’re you thinking of?”
For a moment, she forgot it could be about Kira. That’d explain the oh so dark rings under his eyes. She knows something of the mental strain of pursuing an uncatchable threat.
“What I’m thinking of…”
His voice twists and breaks, erupting into a cough that lasts a while too long, and a realization dawns on Reimi: she’s been here before.
After the child she was keeping an eye on refuses eating more than a quarter of his plate and complained about the TV being loud, a realization dawned on Reimi.
“Are you sick, Rohan-chan?” She asked, keeping her voice low.
“No, I’m not. I don’t wanna be sick, so I’m not sick, Reimi-chan.”
He coughed again, louder this time. She walked up to him, right behind his chair.
“Lemme feel your temperature, okay?”
“I told you, I’m not sick…!”
Still, he only tried to swat the hand on his forehead away. Just as she thought, he was running warm.
“Oh, Rohan-chan… It’s okay, you know? You don’t have to pretend with me. I’ll take care of you.”
Head hanging low, he nodded and followed her to his unofficial bedroom in her house.
Perhaps he hasn’t changed as much as he thinks he has.
“Are you sick, Rohan-chan?” She asks once more, keeping her voice low.
“No. I don’t have time for that.”
He proceeds to cough again, louder, wetter. She walks up to him, right by his side, and tries to do the same thing she did back then. However, this time, his answer is a blade.
“What don’t you understand when I say I don’t have time for that?”
He only weakly tilts his head to avoid her hand, so it lands on his cheek instead of his forehead. The result is still the same.
“You’re running really warm… Are you sure you’re not sick?”
“How is that proof? You’re dead, so everything must feel hot to you.”
“You’re not denying having a fever, then, are you?”
Rohan bites his lip in response, gaze finally half-focused on something, even if it’s out of frustration.
“What’s even, to you?”
His aggressive tone doesn’t bite, she finds. It’s not because it’s all bark; on the contrary, Rohan is actually trying to bite. The issue here is that his teeth just don’t sink into her like he wants them to. It may be affection, it may be affliction; whatever it is, she’s concerned, because neither resemble him much.
“Why aren’t you staying home, Rohan-chan? You look really pale.”
He looks at her like she’s just said some very bizarre thing.
“Well, obviously I’m here because…” His gaze gets lost. “Because…”
If Rohan actually was right when he said she couldn’t judge temperatures accurately, it doesn’t mean Reimi can’t rely on other clues. Just like him on a normal day, she can observe things – and what she’s seeing right now is him struggling to say coherent.
“I really think you should be lying in bed with a warm drink,” she tells him as she puts a hand on his shoulder, heat radiating from the light fabric he wears, shivers jolting under her palm.
He’s unsteady on his feet, which she only realizes when he accidentally steps on hers; not that his lack of reaction would’ve given it away to her.
“And I think I should be drawing.” He coughs again, phlegm rising in his breath, and Reimi puts a second hand on his other shoulder before she can think about doing it. “Let me go.”
It sounds like a whine – or, it’d have sounded like one if she didn’t know him better than that. If he really wanted her to let go, then he’d moved out of her range.
“No, I don’t think I should, Rohan-chan. You look like you’re going to—”
His eyes almost roll back into his skull and there is her breaking point: without waiting for any sort of reply, she wraps his arm around her shoulders and walks to a safer spot.
“…to pass out.”
No answer. Dread pools inside her chest.
“Rohan-chan?”
His eyes are closed.
The air is cold against his entire being, although the most affected spots are his naked arms, where his hair is risen and his skin shivers. It’s in the middle of summer, isn’t it? Why is it so cold, then? Was he so engrossed in whatever it was that he was working on that he forgot to turn on the heater? To put on a layer? That wouldn’t be out of the ordinary or even weird to begin with.
(His head pounds and pounds, but too used to it, Rohan writes it off as just another day of hard work on his search for Kira).
Speaking of forgetting and working, he must’ve dozed at some point, because his hands are empty. On second thought, he also can’t remember what he was even working on, or where in his house he even was. He seems to be lying, which is odd. Why isn’t he sitting at his desk…?
When he opens his eyes, eyelids heavy despite the cacophony of heartbeats echoing between his ears, he realizes two things: this isn’t where he was supposed to go and, on a much worse note, he’s lying on the ground with his head on someone’s lap, a hand that absolutely isn’t his in his hair.
“Oh, you’re awake! You scared me, you big dummy!”
This is Reimi’s voice. Why is lying on her lap? When did he get here, and how, and most importantly; why? Why is he in this mess to begin with? Why isn’t he working on manga planning or, oh, he doesn’t now, tracking down her killer?
“Why are…” A cough erupts from his throat, which he quickly finds to burn.
“Shh, don’t force on your voice… Everything’s fine…”
He tries getting up, because he shouldn’t be here, let alone lying down on the ground, but his limbs fail him, and he’s sent into another coughing fit that simply can’t end too soon. If that wasn’t humiliating enough for someone his calibre, the delicate hand that gently pushes him down, whose force he somehow cannot fight off, would be.
(Somewhere in his fever-addled mind, Rohan realizes powerlessness scares him. The idea vanishes as soon as it’s come).
“Why am I… here?”
He coughs again, tearing his throat apart. He’s thirsty. He’s cold. His limbs are heavy.
“I’m not too sure why you’ve come here,” Reimi tells him in a soft voice, “but I’ve brought you to my garden so you can rest and go home once you’re able to.”
“Why am I on the floor?”
Her aura dissipates, only leaving the cold wind against his arms.
“You collapsed on me, Rohan-chan.” Her hand moves from his head to under his headband. “Your fever has only worsened since you’ve come here… You really should go home.”
That he agrees on: his work isn’t going to do itself all on his own. Now, if only his body did as well… but it just won’t work.
The situation is starting to get tricky. Reimi can’t leave this area at all and he can barely feel anything but his joints rusting over and the all-encompassing chills. His lungs burn and ache, to a point where breathing feels like a chore. It shouldn’t, right? What’s even happening to him?
(Is he doomed to die here? He doesn’t want to die yet! He has deadlines to meet and her own death to avenge!)
His breathing gets caught in his throat, triggering another coughing fit that lasts entirely too long. The following sensation of miasma rising up his windpipe and choking the back of his mouth isn’t new, because he can kind of remember that happening the previous days (how weird that he only notices now it wasn’t any sort of innocent sign), until it gets come out and doesn’t give him any sort of relief.
(The horror on Reimi’s rings a bell to him, albeit he can’t hear its chime).
“Is that…” She gasps. “Those red strikes, it’s blood!”
Is it a Stand? Please don’t tell him it’s a Stand, he can’t bring himself to summon Heaven’s Door, not when he can’t even lift his arms to get that soothing hand off his hair, off his face –
“No, Rohan-chan, I think you’re just very sick.”
She cradles him against her, slowly, so delicately he feels like a treasured glass statue, and he hates it, but he also finds relief in it, in being able to think of pushing her away from him so he doesn’t have to think about himself, how bad he feels, how dark his thoughts get, and the ghost coming towards them—
“What ghost, Rohan-chan? It’s just Arnold and the two of us.” The dog curls against him, as if to reassure him (he doesn’t need that, thank you but no thank you). “You may be seeing things…”
He lifts a heavy finger to point the shadow, “he… here…”
He coughs with each word, almost strangles himself with tied vocal cords. The shadow moves and slides along the walls, flickering in and out of existence, and as much as he blinks because his eyelids close on their own (how rude), he still can’t see anything but blur. His breath hurts.
“I’m sorry, but there really isn’t anything there… unless you can sense something I can’t?”
Is he hallucinating? Is that it? She cradles him closer, that’s all he knows for sure.
“Oh, Rohan-chan… We really need to get you some help.”
He wants to leave. He doesn’t want her to let go. He’ll be fine on his own. He’ll break apart if she stops holding him together.
“I’m here, don’t worry…”
His vision dims with each cough that struggles its way back to the surface. His tongue is coated with viscous iron. It hurts. That’s all he can think of: hurt and cold.
“It’s just fever chills. Let’s get you some help…”
He really needs to stop thinking out loud.
Reimi shifts him ever so slightly, and while everything continues hurting, it’s slightly easier to breathe this way, the back of his head against her shoulder. He doesn’t dare crossing her gaze, by fear of looking even weaker, when he truly shouldn’t be this pathetic. What even happened to his usually outrageous bravado? Why is nothing sticking today?
“I wonder how it got this bad,” she muses, her hand rubbing his arm. “Don’t you have friends who’d let you know?”
“No.”
“But… There was boy who was with you, when you first visited. Isn’t he your friend?”
His only friend is a high schooler who hangs out with other, obnoxious high schoolers. Koichi hasn’t visited him in a week or so and Rohan didn’t even ask him to. Deadlines, this sort of things.
“You seem so, so lonely, Rohan-chan…”
“I don’t need others.”
(Ha, what a hypocrite. Where should one even begin with, just to highlight that? The time Josuke had to save him from Highway Star or the fact he owes his life to the girl currently comforting him?)
“Everyone needs someone else, even if it’s only sometimes. Arnold and I need the living to set Morioh free from its demons. I don’t believe this makes us any weaker of spirit, don’t you think?”
Oh, no, but that’s from circumstances, isn’t it?
“Being sick would be one of those, I think.” She frowns. “Actually, why are you so adamant on making me think you’re better than you are?”
Pride, mostly. Maybe a bit of fear too.
“Cuz I’m the best.”
That’s… not what he wanted to say. He’s never thought that – to that extent, at least. He’s one of the best mangakas the world has ever seen, and he knows his stuff, and he’s better than the people he hangs out with… maybe. He’s started to doubt that, recently. As much as it hurts to admit, he does owe things to others.
“If you say so,” she chuckles, before going back to frowning right away. “I suppose your condition would make it hard to answer the question…”
“Funny, from a ghost.”
Reimi doesn’t reply right away…
“I don’t want you to die early too.”
…but when she does, his boiling blood freezes.
Right. It’s his fault if she died when she did.
He isn’t certain of that fact, but it’s kept him up at night lately. Whenever he tries replaying that scene, or rather, whenever his brain decides the macabre he draws isn’t bloody enough, she scoops him through a window and gets stabbed right afterwards, her screams ringing in his ears and disappearing into the night. He runs, and cries, and scrapes his knees, and bleeds snot like she bled to death, and he’s found by policemen entirely too late to save anyone else.
It’s a silly thing to think, that it’s his responsibility. Of course he didn’t kill her, Kira did; but if he thinks about it, at night, when his hand cramps up and his eyelids slip down and he has to go downstairs and brew coffee again, it becomes his fault anyway. If she hadn’t thought of saving him, would have she gotten the time to get away? Why did he survive but she didn’t? Why is she not any mad at him for the price she had to pay so he could treat her like crap afterwards?
Why does he care? He doesn’t remember her. All he knows comes from newspaper clippings and tombstones and some old guy’s words. Why does any of this faze him so hard? Why does he feel sad and guilty over a thing he can’t remember? And what good idea did his parents have by hiding this entirely from him, never explaining why they uprooted him like that?
“Rohan-chan? Are you crying?”
Tears hazily make their way down his cheeks. Fuck.
“N-no.”
“But you are.” She smiles and, somehow, it brings him a sort of comfort. “Don’t worry about it. Arnold and I are going to fetch some help, and you’ll be fine again. I promise.”
Why does she insist on helping him and why is he letting her?
“…fine.”
He’s tired and a bed and warm arms sound good, so he lets his sobs take him over and his eyelids finally close.
A white sky greets him, along with underwater voices, and it only takes him a moment longer to identify what this place actually is. The feeling in his arm doesn’t exactly help the matter nor the impression he has of this being a pain in the ass to come.
Great, he’s landed himself in the hospital again.
“Rohan-sensei!” Koichi’s voice comes to him, just as he turns his head to actually see his friend. “You’re awake!”
“About damn time,” Josuke comments.
“Dude, you scared the shit outta us!” That’s Okuyasu. “That ghost dog had to bark at us so we could come pick you up!”
Great. Does he owe them his life again? (He doesn’t mind as much as he should).
“The doctors told us you had pneumonia,” Koichi explains. “It’s a cold that got worse because you overworked yourself, sensei.” He crosses his arms. “You need to be more careful! What if Kira had attacked?!”
“Will do, I guess.” Being on respiratory aid feels peculiar. He should jot that down for the near future.
“What? You’re not tellin’ us we’re wrong?” Josuke sounds too surprised. “Man, Reimi was right, you really are sick.”
“I’m… not enough of a fool to do that in my… current position.”
Speaking is a chore and so is dealing with that brat.
“We never know, with you.”
“Josuke’s right! You’re so unpredictable, man!”
God, his head is pounding… but it’s not their fault. Also, scolding them would take his breath away, quite literally.
“Guys, keep it down! Rohan-sensei’s not out of the woods yet!”
It’s warm, here – not just because he’s inside, tucked in a hospital bed, but also because of the people chattering loudly around him. Reimi might’ve had a point with everyone needing people at time, even if it’s just to serve as distractions.
Ah, he should go thank her once he’s out of this place…