His Lie in April - 四月の彼の嘘 (Shigatsu no Kare no Uso) (COMPLETE)

What's Missing/Speech Therapy

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I apologize for there being so many chapters here (as I said, I rarely write fanfics). We're almost to the point where the story will COMPLETELY diverge from the original. Hang tight..... because you're going to be in for quite a ride here! Don't forget to comment and vote! Thanks!

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Three days later, Kousei Arima woke up once again. However, since this blow to the head was more severe than the previous one, and in what would be an early indication of his possible illness and demise, Kousei found that his speech had slowed down. He also noticed his hearing was only at 75%, and that his sight had deteriorated a little, and was at about 80%, although his glasses, which were, surprisingly, not broken in the accident, were still of somewhat of a help to him. Additionally, his fingers and knuckles were slightly chapped, as were his lips, he had a lost a fairly good amount of weight and was skinnier than before as a result; he had become slightly paler as well. "What.... is going.... on?" 

This wasn't the only thing that had changed about him since this accident. The male doctor told him "Mr. Kousei Arima, your head was impacted on a metal signpost..... while you are doing okay at this moment, you are conscious and all, I must regretfully inform you that parts of your brain will not function the same way again, given how they were fairly badly impacted. Try moving your left arm." Kousei lifted up his left arm. He moved it fairly slow. "What.... What's... missing about... me.... doctor?" 

The doctor told him "Your prosthetic foot. It was badly destroyed by a car." Kousei was shocked. "Oh.... dear god! NO! What..... why?!" The doctor informed him, "Fortunately, however, we will have a new one ready for you within a few days. However, you will have to stay for at least two more days, so we can operate on you. It's nothing major, but it's to help you fix what happened to your brain." Kousei nodded and said softly "Oh... okay."

Meanwhile, Takahiko Arima and Hiroko Seto convened together at Hiroko's residence, and talked over the phone with the medical staff tending to Kousei. Takahiko said "OK, what's going on with my son?" 

The doctor replied with "Mr. Arima and Ms. Seto, a few weeks ago, as you know, Mr. Kousei Arima was involved in a freak accident where his left foot was severely damaged, and before that, he was hospitalized with shortness of breath and passed out in front of quite a few people. When we first admitted him almost a month ago, we did some tests on him both times to see what kind of disease he had. You did mention that his mother, Saki, was hospitalized by this disease and eventually died from it. Well, I have some tragic news. Your son has tested positive for what appears to be Friedreich's Ataxia. At first, we thought he had ALS, but even with the positive test for the Ataxia, we're not ruling out that possibility yet. Both of the diseases we just went mentioned are currently incurable, so we can only do so much to try and prolong his life. It is in the early stages but given how he's suffered two blows to the head already, another one will probably accelerate those symptoms, and possibly his death, and at some point, he will lose his ability to walk, eat, and his speech, hearing and even sight could be further affected more severely with time, I am afraid. This, on top of the PTSD he also has. What happened to him a few days ago was bad enough; as parts of his head and brain were impacted quite badly, and it's already started to affect his speech and his reflexes a quite a bit. We will have him undergo a minor surgery in his head to fix him up, at least try and improve his mental faculties, but as we said, we can only do so much at this time." 

Both of them looked on in shock over this development. Tears flowed from Takahiko's eyes over this news. "Oh, my god.... First Saki, now Kousei? Damn it, this is terrible! I want my son to be with me as long as goddamn possible!" Hiroko, while trying to keep a brave face on things, was equally devastated. "It will be alright, Takahiko...." She said as he hugged Takahiko. She then had a word with the doctors over the phone. "So, you will operate on his brain tomorrow to correct some of the problems he's had?" The doctor said "Yes. He will survive this operation, most likely, but other than that, we're not sure what the long-term outlook will be for him after this." Hiroko nodded. "Okay..... we'll be sure to tell him about all this at the appropriate time. Thank you for keeping us up to date."

Later that day, before the operation, Kousei, dazed as he was being bathed again and shaven, broke down into tears. "I.... can't believe it..... my life..... may.... never... be the.... Same. Will... I ever.... be... okay.... again?" One of the male nurses wiped away his tears forming and stopped shaving his face momentarily. Again, this was done, as Kousei's reflexes were slowing down now, to make sure he didn't cut his face shaving, either accidentally or otherwise. "It will be okay, Mr. Arima. I know how you feel.... What you went through was just terrible. We're here to help you, remember that." Kousei stopped shedding his tears momentarily and said "Thank... you." The male nurse that wiped away his tears continued to shave his face.

Even later, the still-dazed Kousei had a speech therapist come in to help him get his speech back to full power. The speech therapist, a male, had an electronic tablet in hand for him containing speech therapy software. "Say this word- baseball." Said the speech therapist. "Base....ball." Kousei said. The tablet then said, "Today is Friday." "Say that now, Kousei." "Too.. daay.... is.... Friiday." The two worked together for the next hour and a half that evening, trying to get Kousei to speak at normal speed again. It was an uphill battle for him; he still spoke noticeably slower than before the second accident.

While Kousei's operation on May 6, would be a minor one, little did he know, once he found out about his condition, his life would be irreversibly going in a downward direction, and his feelings of hopefulness would give way to that of hopelessness, despite and being unloved. He would try and do his best to hide his true motives from his friends in this limited time he had left existing, so as to not let them down. Kousei was starting to feel like he was on an unstable fishing boat, and that he had this sinking feeling that sharks would come up and eat him underwater. It was an overwhelming feeling.... a feeling he could not escape.