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windfighter · 1 year

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Can you tell I don't care about football?

The title isn't even a title. I just really don't care about football and this is the second??? third??? time I use it to hurt this blorbo. Enjoy x3

Prompt: Blurry vision | Support | ”I think I need to sit down”

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Kouji stumbled. The world spun around him, out of focus. His head hurt. The air was thick and heavy and hard to get into his lungs. His heart banged against his ribcage. Quick beats like a woodpecker. An arm wrapped around his waist.

”You okay?”

Kouichi. Kouji leaned against him, blinked. Okay wasn’t… the right word.

”Think I’m sick”, he mumbled.

He waved a hand infront of his face. He could see it, but the edges were blurry. It probably meant something.

”World’s…”

He didn’t quite find the words to explain. Was too tired. His heart beat too loudly. Why did he come along to the park to begin with? His body tilted forwards and he didn’t have energy to fight it. Kouichi tugged at him, tried to get him to stay standing. It wouldn’t work.

”...think I need to sit down”, Kouji said.

Kouichi tugged at him again. Turned around a bit. Kouji had no idea what he was searching for.

”Alright, let’s get you seated down”, Kouichi said.

He took a step. Kouji tried to lift a foot, but his knees buckled. Hit the ground. Kouji’s head spun worse. He leaned forwards, hands against the grass. Closed his eyes. He could hear the others come closer as well. Izumi, Junpei, Tomoki and Takuya. He opened his eyes, but they didn’t want to stay open.

Why had he come along to the park?

A hand was placed on his shoulder, someone shook him. Sounds were starting to be just as blurry as his vision.

”Let’s get him lying down”, Junpei said. ”And get some water into him.”

Lying down sounded nice. Kouji leaned to the side, let gravity do the job of pulling him down. Hands turned him over, put him on his back. He blinked, but his eyes still didn’t want to stay open.

”Takuya, go get your bag”, Kouichi said.

Soft steps as Takuya ran away, returned. Something soft was placed under Kouji’s legs. The bag. They pulled his bandana off, put a wet towel across his forehead. His head slowly started cooperating again.

”Sorry”, he whispered.

”You have a fever”, Kouichi said.

Kouji wasn’t sure how Kouichi knew, but he nodded.

”You woke up with a fever”, Kouichi repeated, ”and decided that playing football sounded like a good idea.”

Kouji frowned. When Kouichi put it like that it made him sound like an absolute moron. He opened his eyes. The world was in focus.

”I didn’t think it was this bad?” he tried.

”You almost fainted”, Junpei said. ”That’s pretty bad.”

Kouji rubbed his eyes, yawned. Tried to sit up. Takuya put a foot on his shoulder.

”You’re not getting up until we’re sure you’re fine.”

Kouji felt small where he was on his back, with Takuya, Izumi and Tomoki towering above him. At least Junpei and Kouichi had the sense to sit down. He turned towards Kouichi.

”I’m fine, promise.”

Fine was an exaggeration, but the air didn’t feel as thick any longer. Kouichi looked at him, put his head in his hands and shook it.

”Fine, sit up if you want to.”

Takuya took his foot off Kouji’s shoulder, took a step back. Kouji stayed on the ground. He took a shaky breath. Tomoki sat down.

”Are you thirsty?” he asked.

”I’m not helpless”, Kouji answered.

”No, but are you thirsty?”

Kouji snorted. His throat felt dry.

”A bit”, he admitted.

Tomoki disappeared out of Kouji’s field of view, rummaged around in the bag under his legs. A bottle was placed in Kouji’s hand and Kouji took a few sips out of it. The water was cool despite the sun shining on them. Kouji closed his eyes and put the bottle on the ground again.

”...call mom or dad?” he asked.

He wasn’t helpless but his head still felt a bit weird and he wasn’t sure he could muster the words to explain to his parents what happened. Kouichi squeezed his shoulder, took the phone from his pocket. Kouji listened as Kouichi explained what had happened. Someone took the towel from Kouji’s forehead, rewetted it and put it back. They talked quietly, Kouji didn’t listen. He was almost drifting off.

”Mama’s on the way”, Kouichi said. ”How are you feeling?”

”Tired?” Kouji suggested.

He put a hand on his chest, massaged it. His heart felt like it was trying to escape through his ribcage. Kouichi frowned.

”Is it pneumonia?”

Kouji shook his head.

”Heart’s still racing”, he said. ”It’s uncomfortable.”

”Are you having a fucking heart attack?!”

Kouichi’s suddenly louder voice made Kouji’s head pound again. He clenched his eyes shut and shook his head.

”I’m too young for a heart attack”, he said with a laugh.

”Young people can get heart attacks too, especially if they decide to work out when they have a fever.”

”Really feel like you’re scolding me now.”

He pushed himself into a sitting position. The towel fell to the ground next to him. His head spun, but not as bad as earlier. He put his hands in his lap, kicked the bag to the side. Took a few deep breaths to try and get his speeding heart under control. He hadn’t expected it to get this bad.

”It’s not a heart attack”, he repeated.

Kouichi opened his mouth to protest. Kouji was so tired. He leaned forwards, put his head in his hands.

”No, really, it’s not. Mom’s taught me the signs in case dad would get one.”

Kouichi sighed. Moved closer and sat down right next to Kouji.

”...okay then. Think you can walk to the parking lot?”

Kouji hesitated. Maybe. The thought of standing up sounded like a chore. He put a hand on the ground.

”Have to”, he answered.

Because he did, didn’t he? Mom wouldn’t be able to carry him there and he wasn’t helpless. Just a little sick and tired. He got his feet under himself, pushed himself up. The world spun. His head exploded. Someone wrapped an arm around his waist and put his arm over their shoulders.

”Easy there.”

Takuya. Kouji’s legs trembled. But he wasn’t falling back down. Success? He leaned against Takuya. Takuya laughed.

”Need me to carry you?”

”Don’t think I’m that sick”, Kouji said.

Kouichi stood up, grabbed Kouji's hand and pressed two fingers against his wrist. Kouji blinked, stared at him. There was a frown on Kouichi’s face.

”If you can carry him, please do”, Kouichi said.

He let go of Kouji, shook his head. Crossed his arms over his chest. Kouji rolled his eyes.

”That’s almost as high as your exercise pulse.”

”I have been working out”, Kouji said.

”Yeah, but it’ll usually be normal by now.”

Kouichi had that irritating know-it-all voice he got when he knew better than Kouji. Kouji rolled his eyes again and tried to take a step. Takuya followed, but Kouji’s legs didn’t quite want to carry him, his lungs didn’t quite want to get enough air. His chest hurt and his pulse sped up. He clenched his hand around Takuya’s shirt. Why did he get out of bed?

Takuya laughed, took a better grip around Kouji’s waist before leaning down. His other arm behind Kouji’s knees and the world tilted. Kouji stared at the sky. Well, this was stupid. The whole situation was stupid. He put his head on Takuya’s shoulder, released a frustrated breath.

”Just this once”, he said.

”Just this once”, Takuya agreed.

Kouji closed his eyes, counted his heartbeats as Takuya walked. Way too high, but he wouldn’t admit that if he could avoid it. Mom would know what to do. He pressed a hand against his chest. Next time he was sick he’d just stay in bed until he was better.

Yeah, no, that was a lie. He wouldn’t and he knew it.

Takuya stopped. Kouji blinked, looked around. Already at the parking lot. Takuya let go of Kouji’s legs, lowered him onto a bench. Kouji rubbed his eyes, leaned forwards. His head pounded to the beat of his heart and his stomach was starting to protest as well.

”How…” he started. Swallowed. ”How do I look?”

He hoped it didn’t come across as flirtatious. That Takuya wouldn’t answer in a flirtatious manner. He needed to know.

”Like death walked over you”, Kouichi answered.

”Yeah…”

Kouji pulled his hands across his face. Leaned back and closed his eyes. He felt like it too. He heard a car pull up, the door open. What sounded like mom’s shoes against asphalt. A hand against his knee, Kouichi’s awkward greeting. Kouji opened his eyes. Mom. She looked at him, grabbed his hand. Put two fingers against his wrist in a gesture he wasn’t supposed to notice. She frowned and Kouji agreed.

”Hey”, she said. ”Ready to go?”

She didn’t mean home, he could see it in her eyes. But they didn’t need to worry the others. He nodded, reached for Takuya. Takuya pulled him up, held him as he stumbled to the car. Mom opened the door to the passenger seat and Kouji sank down in it. Buckled up before leaning back, closing his eyes and listening to his heart pounding in his ears.

”Can I come with you?” Kouichi asked.

Their voices sounded far away, from the other side of an iron door. Kouji leaned the seat back a little. He was starting to feel dizzy.

”I’m sorry, Kouichi. Not this time. We’ll call you later, I promise.”

”From the hospital”, Kouji slurred because his brain was an asshole and decided to let it slip.

He really wasn’t feeling well. Cartoonish noises left Kouichi, or maybe it was just Kouji’s brain playing trick on him. Someone closed the door on his side, he couldn’t tell who from behind his closed eyelids. The darkness was nice though. Soft. Silent.

...they should probably have called an ambulance.

The engine roared to life and the car shook. Kouji pressed a hand against his mouth, then let it fall down. He was drained. Mom squeezed his knee, or was he imagining, and then the car jerked as mom pressed the gas pedal down. Kouji slid against the window. It was cool, released some of the ache behind his forehead. He sighed.

If whatever was wrong didn’t kill him, Kouichi would.

#windy writes #whumpril2023 #digimon frontier #kouji minamoto #kouichi kimura #takuya kanbara #the others are there too but they barely do anything #sick kouji #it was nice to write some actual whump today :3 #although I enjoyed a break to write non-whump as well #but I'm a little bit better so we're back on out bullshit #I still have a fever and am coughing but my nose isn't constantly running #it has entered the hell-stage where it's just blocked and I can't unclog it at all though help it sucks #anyway kouji can have little a whump as a treat to me :3 #sorry frontier-tag you'll never get rid of me ^^'#unless you block me I guess #you probably already have #honestly valid we're all in charge of our own internet experiences #anyway to the few who hasn't blocked me I hope you enjoyed this disaster :3 #this story inspired by a friend from loooong ago telling me about a person who died after he had gone to the gym with a cold #if you're sick please take it easy and rest your bodies #see you all later today (it's already tomorrow in sweden) for another disaster I guess!

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m1serere-n0bis · 4 years

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Anyways. I don't care what the rest of you all have been doing during this but I have been trying to listen better and pray more.

For those of you who don't think that's "enough"... Sorry but I don't owe public opinion shit. The only person I owe an explanation to is God. I don't owe anyone information on what I'm doing in private. I don't owe anyone information on what I am/am not supporting financially or otherwise. If your personal opinion is that I'm not making adequate use of my voice or platform then that's rough buddy, but my voice is not the one that needs to be heard right now and also what platform? As a society hyperfocused on social media ESPECIALLY NOW DURING THIS PANDEMIC we have to come to terms that we all have lives outside of it and we don't "owe" each other ANY information about that in spite of what our culture tells us. Like if this is what "community-based policing" means, I can already tell you I hate it and it's oppressive.

For those of you who think this is a political power play, I would say those concerns are valid but there IS a REAL problem that will still be there when all the political pandering and posturing is done. And we need to fix it. Part of the reason I haven't been hyping what everyone has been telling me to hype in the name of activism is pretty much this:

Do I think it honestly matters which political party is in charge for changes to happen? No, because I do not trust the SAME GOVERNMENT BACKING THE POLICE to take the money THAT IS STILL TECHNICALLY IN THEIR POSSESSION and funnel it into the communities that need it in any way that will actually address the racism inherent in the system. HOWEVER, that doesn't stop me from listening to what my brothers and sisters in Christ are telling me are their experiences not just in a society that is supposed to have progressed past racism but in the BODY OF CHRIST itself. Because it's there, everyone. Yes, it's not overt. Yes, not everyone is actively engaging in it but if we are truly One Body then we owe it to each other to make reparations for sins that aren't ours. It's what we've been doing for the child abuse scandals, is it not? The majority of us were not involved but do we not still carry the burden of that sin simply because we're Catholic, because one part of the One Body committed this massive hurt?

So anyway. The goal of this post is not to make anyone feel bad and it is not an invitation for people to pile on me because I haven't vocally supported x, y, z. This is an invitation to listen and to pray... which should always be the first step, EVEN WHEN THERE IS AN IMMEDIATE NEED FOR ACTION. (Maybe ESPECIALLY when there's an immediate need for action.) And holy shit are we not good at that or what? 😂

1) Fr. Mike Schmitz' homily this week was an invitation for us to listen to God and let Him tell us who He is because only by doing that can we see the image and likeness of God in each other. We've lost that in our wishy-washy prayer lives that inevitably end up with us trying to force God into an earthly construction in which He doesn't belong. We try to tell God who He is because the world is too noisy for us to hear Him tell us about Himself. And that inevitably trickles down into us trying to force each other into boxes before recognizing the human dignity instilled by God in all of us. The internet feeds into that by making us faceless virtual entities, thus making it that much more difficult to recognize our humanity. I can read faceless stats for days but if I don't have ANY CONTEXTUAL IDEA where those numbers are coming from, they're empty. They're easily manipulated into whatever whoever is selling me them wants me to think of them if I don't have someone LIVING THOSE STATISTICS giving me context. Right now the media wants us to feed on the controversy surrounding BLM movement without telling us that these communities have been MARCHING IN THEIR COMMUNITIES FOR YEARS AGAINST THE VIOLENCE THEY INFLICT ON THEMSELVES and it is the same media blackout as any March for Life. The media doesn't care unless they have drama they can use to stoke more division and that's the tea.

2) Fr. Josh Johnson is on fire right now, everyone. Like him and Chika Anyanwu are two voices I wasn't listening to before that I'm thankful to be hearing now. If you're wondering how God can be good even in the midst of chaos, turmoil, and pain, this is it. If you're struggling to separate the Black Lives Matter Organization from the heart of the issue, this is how God is doing that. The Church needs to hear these voices. They have real experiences to share. They are part of the Body of Christ, and they are really hurting through these thousands of small cuts.

I would recommend listening to the Jeff Cavins Show episode Distance Amplifies Difference where he has a conversation with Fr. Josh. They both have tremendously unique WORDLY perspectives to bring to the table on the issue (Jeff Cavins is a white man but has children who are black and they live in Minnesota and are literally witnessing the heart of this first hand in the trenches, and Fr. Josh is the son of a black former chief of police) but ultimately discuss how we as a Church can work towards fixing it.

Fr. Josh and Fr. Mike's dialogue on Ascension Presents is also really top notch. I still have to finish watching it, though. 😅

I can't believe I wasn't following Chika before because as another single Catholic woman, I feel like I've found a sister in Christ experiencing the same ups and downs of Catholic singlehood (her Instagram Highlight was like HILARIOUS and also a truth 😂). Her family's small business got looted during the rioting but I believe they've since been able to shut down their Go Fund Me since people gave them enough support to get it back up and running. Anyways, I'm glad this amplification of black voices brought me to hers.

3) Fransican Friars of the Renewal Fr. Agostino and Fr. Pierre Toussaint discuss their hopes for the movement from their perspective as people of color and as servants of one of the poorest neighborhoods in NYC, the South Bronx. Their dynamic is great because Fr. Agostino is like a Gryffindor on fire and Fr. PT is like a soft-spoken, phlegmetic Ravenclaw. I understand that energy. 😂 (I'm also a phlegmetic Ravenclaw) One of my takeaways was Fr. Agostino's opinion that we can't just posture and leave it up to the government or orgs with ulterior political motives to make things right because he's seen firsthand how well THAT goes. However, all that means is that we as people of God have to dig in and do the work our own dang selves. They're also hopeful that this discussion of the police force being built on a foundation of racism will eventually lead to the discussion of Planned Parenthood being built on the same. They said that 42% of the pregnancies of the predominantly black and Latino population in the South Bronx end in abortion. 42%!!!!!!!!!!! If that is not a wake-up call that systemic racism is alive and well and we are abjectly failing women of color as a society Idk what is. But also their analogy that society is a MESS of a dilapidated house and we have to pick ONE place to start and stick with it if we really want to fix it up is also the truth.

4) Did y'all know about Our Lady of Kibohe? This is a Vatican-approved Marian apparition that appeared to three teenaged girls in Rwanda a little more than a decade before the genocide (which she warned them about). There is no one in Creation demons and Satan hate more than Our Lady, and there's no better weapon against them than the rosary. There has been a call from our brothers and sisters to rend our hearts and even if you don't see, think, or believe there is still racism within the Church, will you not pray for Mary and St. Michael to help continue keeping it that way, then?

Our Lady of Kibohe encouraged us to take up the practice of praying the Seven Sorrows Rosary. I tried it for the first time last week and I have to say, even with my super basic limited knowledge of black history in the United States, it was not hard to see how their suffering could easily be united to the sufferings of Christ and Our Lady.

I guess my conclusion is this: I have my own misgivings about blindly supporting any ol' cause that happens to be trending on whatever. The Black Lives Matter ORGANIZATION has a manifesto touting things that are contrary to the Catechism for SURE, but when my brothers and sisters in the Church are telling me they are in pain RIGHT NOW and saying, "Hey, listen... They're right about some things... These are the things and we've experienced it IN the Church..." then they deserve to be heard. We owe it to them to listen because they are a part of us. We need to expose these sins to the light instead of denying they exist or claiming to be past it. We ALSO need to be charitable to those in different parts of their journey. Is it FAIR to bear the burden of others' sins and make reparations for them? Heck no! But we do it. Jesus did it for us. We do it for our brothers and sisters in Purgatory. What's the difference for bearing it for our hard-hearted brothers and sisters on earth? Nobody is perfect but we all are made in the image and likeness of God and thus inherently carry human dignity.

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