Kokoro: The cost of victory

Kokoro threw up into the toilet bowl for the millionth time in a row, retching up the contents of yesterday’s dinner and today’s breakfast. She had noticed the first signs of trouble when she woke up that morning with an egregious headache.

It was a pain unlike any other she had experienced before. She sat up from bed to go get some water, but quickly closed her eyes and winced in pain as the ache in her head intensified. It was as if the inside of her skull was threatening to crack open.

She had remained seated on her bed for a while, waiting for some relief before she tried doing anything. And when it felt like the pain had subsided, she reached for the neural link resting on her bedside table, and got ready for school.

But it didn’t stop there.

***

The next time it happened was at school. She was practicing with Maiko Mai and the rest of the dance club in the gymnasium. They were rehearsing for the debut concert of music and metal, which was coming up in less than three weeks. The event was something she had promised her fans following her first ever livestream. People were asking the organizers of the Tokyo music festival to let her audition, but choosing to revoke her interest since the government wasn’t fully on her side yet, she decided to hold a free concert of her own.

As the girls danced, she was able to match their steps beat for beat. They all moved in sync with one another, spinning, shifting, and sliding when the music demanded it. The scarab walker on her back was practically one with her body at this point, allowing her to perform quick, fluid motions however she wanted. But after a few additional moves, a sharp pain suddenly shot through her skull, just like the one from that morning, causing her to lose focus and stumble out of sequence.

“Hey Kokoro, you okay? What happened?”

The girls had immediately rushed to her aid.

“Yeah, are you alright? Should we take a break?”

Still laying on the ground, she hissed in agony as some of the girls tried to help her up. Her head was pounding again, and it was as if the room was spinning.

She eventually got to her feet, but did not rejoin the group in practice. The girls had forced her to take a break, and she was now seated on her wheelchair, the neural link removed from her head so she can massage the sides of her skull. The room still felt like it was swimming, but it was no longer as bad as when she had on the crown shaped device. However, when she tried wearing it again, that was how she ended up continuously vomiting into the toilet bowl in the first place.

***

The next morning Kokoro noticed things weren’t any better. In fact, they only seemed to have gotten a lot worse.

She woke up with a fever. She was cold. She was shivering uncontrollably, but her skin was blazing hot to the touch. Her entire body was trembling from fatigue, and goosebumps traveled up and down her body from her internal temperature imbalance. She was sweating uncontrollably, and her head continued to hammer on the inside. She couldn’t tell why she was suddenly feeling this way, but she knew she needed to see a doctor.

***

After visiting the hospital and getting a checkup done, Kokoro was now seated in her wheelchair as she waited for the results, while a nervous and angry Tomomi was busy pacing around in front of her.

“And how long has this been going on huh?”

Tomomi stopped and turned to ask Kokoro, with her brow furrowed in anger. Since Kokoro was no longer wearing the neural link or the speaking aid, she pulled out her phone to type in a response.

“For a while now. And I have been able to manage it with some pain killers. But they aren’t working anymore.”

“Obviously!” Tomomi exploded in anger. “Have you seen your face K? You are getting paler by the day, why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

Kokoro’s heart dropped in an instant at Tomomi’s words. Suddenly, she didn’t need her results to know that whatever was going on with her, was something very wrong.

Ever since she came out to the world about her true identity, she had been able to pursue her dreams on a whole other level than she had ever imagined. She sang a lot, danced a lot, and even had collaborations with some of the biggest celebrities around.

But then, she started to get tired.

At first, Kokoro thought it was just normal fatigue from constantly performing. She practiced dancing with Maiko Mai every day at school, she went on dates on the weekends with Taro. She even took on more work at the orphanage since she could move around now with the help of the scarab walker. But it never quite felt like ordinary exhaustion.

For one, it took her body longer to recover from most simple activities. She could also no longer keep the neural link on her head for more than ten minutes, or she risked inviting a splitting headache. Her hands and feet now sometimes tremble without warning, causing her to either fall or drop whatever she was holding in that moment. She was losing control of her body, and she had deliberately avoided visiting the hospital in fear of what she might find. In fear of the truth.

“Miss Takahashi?”

Kokoro turned her head in time with Tomomi to find a hospital attendant staring back at them.

“The doctor will see you now.”