Schizophrenia

by aishuu

Note: Written for the blind go challenge on livejournal.

At the hospital, he tells the doctor about what he saw. The doctor listens carefully, and then holds a conversation with Hikaru's mother just outside of his room. Hikaru's not stupid just because he's a kid, and he realizes he's in deep shit when they start talking about medication and therapists.

They send him home a week later with a prescription that makes him sleepy and dizzy. His mother worries, but his father acts uncomfortably around him. Hikaru has never been an ideal son, but all of the sudden he's an embarrassment. Shame swells within him, and he uses the shame to give himself strength to ignore what he's seeing.

The ghost, which he keeps telling himself is a figment of his imagination brought on by stress, doesn't understand why he just won't play Go.

Olanzapine. 20 mg twice daily by mouth

He doesn't like the woman who assumes the role of his psychiatrist. Yoshino-sensei's always asking how things make him feel, and he's lippy and sulky and dammit he just wants her to shut up.

His hands are shaking slightly, but he can't control it. She tells him the side effect will go away, but all he cares about is that it's hard to play sports when your muscles betray you. The medication makes him feel not-himself, like he's viewing the world through a pane of slightly fogged glass. He just wants to get off the stuff, but his mother is watchful and makes sure he takes both doses every day.

Hikaru is careful to keep his eyes on Yoshino-sensei, and lies when she asks if he has seen anything unusual. He's too young to understand that she has thirty years experience and can tell when he isn't being honest.

Behind him the hallucination listens with pursed lips, but thankfully keeps his mouth shut.

Flupenthixol. 1 injection per four weeks.

Hikaru's fourteen the first time he tries to kill himself.

He plans it carefully, ignoring the fearful protests of his hallucination. He waits until a day when his mother has traveled to his aunt's, and then he draws himself a bath. He downs every pill in a bottle of sleep aid, leaving him with a dreamy feeling as he picks up a razor and steps into the tub.

His wrists hardly hurt at all, and for the first time in years he looks forward to a sleep without stupid board games or aching sorrow. The figment of his imagination is screaming as him, fluttering about helplessly as Hikaru shuts his eyes. He leans into the water of the tub, wondering if he would die by drowning, blood loss, or from drug overdose. One of the three is sure to work, but he half-hopes he drowns. It would serve that ghost right.

He hadn't anticipated that his father would come home early from work. When he wakes up two days later, he's in a psych ward and the bandages on his arms are silent signs of his failure.

Pimozide. 6 mg twice daily by mouth.

He's out in a month, but his whole world is different.

Secrets aren't kept well in a middle school, and he spends the first week of his return overhearing whispers. He's tagged as a head case, and few of his former friends want to be seen with him. Akari makes some tentative, clumsy overtures of concern, but he blows her off and she doesn't try again.

Hikaru never takes off his long-sleeved school jacket, and dreads the inevitable advent of summer uniforms. He's not ashamed of what he tried to do, he's just ashamed that he failed and there's no way he's going to get another chance anytime soon, not with his mother hovering over him anxiously and the thrice-weekly "check ins" with Yoshino-sensei.

Sai – it's better to actually address him by name than to just curse about "the hallucination" – has been quieter than in the past, but not a week goes by when he doesn't make some wistful remark about how playing Go might make it all better. Hikaru's patience wears thin with Sai, since the whole fucking mess is his fault in the first place. Whenever Sai starts talking about Go, Hikaru snarls and waits for the sick feeling of remorse to sweep through him.

Now that he's officially crazy, Hikaru doesn't bother to not talk at Sai in front of others. He snaps at the ghost whenever Sai says anything, even the times he tries to help on history tests. Sai won't – can't – leave, but Hikaru still won't let him have his way. That just angers Sai, and the two get into terrible fights. One day Hikaru finally snaps and throws his lunch tray at the ghost, temporarily forgetting that Sai is incorporeal.

Etrafon. 40 mg daily via IV.

Hikaru lies in bed all day, too tired to move. They've removed the restraints, but he can't work up enough feeling to care. The nurses come and go at irregular intervals, but he's learned to tune them out. He's learned to tune everyone out, since he's insane anyway and what he thinks doesn't matter.

At the foot of his bed, Fujiwara no Sai cries, muttering an unending stream of apologies and begging for forgiveness. He hadn't meant this to happen, he says. He just loves Go and wanted to keep playing, and he didn't mean to ruin Hikaru's life.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry...