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All things considered, fasting for three days isn’t that outlandish.
It sounds bad on paper, sure, but from the cursory research Tsukasa’s done, it’s nothing unheard of. Apparently people even do it for the health benefits. Tsukasa doesn’t look into it much further than confirming that it shouldn’t have any long-term effects.
Where things get a little hairy is the exercise in tandem with the fasting. The Phoenix Stage training regimen is nothing short of brutal, even when he’s in top shape. But, he’s quick to remind himself—even this is only a fraction of the struggle Rio had to go through. He has to do at least this much to get close.
“At least,” he emphasizes to himself, massaging his temples. The hunger pangs were at their worst on the first day, but they eased early into day two. He doesn’t even really feel hungry now, just faintly ill, with a dull headache that pulses with every movement.
“Finish your stretches,” one of the senior Phoenix Stage members calls. “We start running in five!”
Tsukasa lets out a slow, measured breath, staring ahead at the trail. It’s a crisp, sunny day for Phoenix Wonderland, one he’d say is a perfect day for running in any other circumstance.
Ten kilometers.
“How are you feeling, Tsukasa-kun?”
Tsukasa glances up, pulling himself out of one last stretch. Rui stands in front of him, unreadable, with Emu and Nene hovering behind.
His smile comes automatically, ready to reassure, but he takes stock before answering. “Better than yesterday, if you can believe it. I think I’m getting used to it.”
“Hm.” Rui’s eyes flick up and down, but he doesn’t seem to find anything out of place. “I wouldn’t recommend going the full ten kilometers, Tsukasa-kun. I know you want to try running while you’re like this to imitate Rio, but—”
“Rio didn’t get a chance to slow down or rest,” Tsukasa interrupts.
“Rio is also fictional.” Rui crosses his arms, body tense even as his expression softens. “I’m letting you do this because I trust you to know your limits.”
“You know I need to at least try.”
Rui frowns. Tsukasa squints. Rui squints back. Nene and Emu glance between them, then at each other.
The tension is broken by one Seiryuin Sakurako, passing by from behind Rui. “Good morning, Wonderlands x Showtime,” she greets, voice high and clear without a shred of morning drowsiness. “I do hope you can keep up with us today as well.”
“If that’s a challenge, consider it met!” Tsukasa fires back, puffing out his chest. “We’ve handled everything you’ve thrown at us thus far!”
He glances meaningfully at Rui as he says it. Rui narrows his eyes, then looks away. Is that a victory? It’s hard to tell.
In any case, Rui doesn’t try to stop him as they line up to start their run, physically or otherwise. When they’re surrounded by other Phoenix Stage members, they can’t freely talk about Tsukasa’s fast. At least—they better not. Would Rui specifically bring it up, out loud, to have the others gang up and force Tsukasa to rest? Certainly not, right?
Tsukasa nervously gives Rui a sidelong glance and does a double take when he finds Rui meeting his gaze head-on.
“Pace yourself,” is all Rui says. Innocuous enough to most. Tsukasa’s shoulders relax, and he offers a confident nod.
Running is running. If you break it down to just the feet hitting the ground, the steady breaths, then it’s not so complicated, even on an empty stomach. It’s not until about halfway into the second kilometer that the first dizzy spell hits him.
It’s not really so bad that he needs to veer off course and stumble around for something to lean on. He just does so because he’s never felt anything like it. He’d imagined acute, starved dizziness would feel like stepping off the teacup ride, but it’s a lot more...sick feeling than he expected. Palm planted on the bark of a nearby tree, he gulps down air and tries to capture the feeling. Tries to nail down the hazy, undefined sensation, build a port he can sail into when needed.
This is new. He can work with this.
“You alright?” someone calls behind him. He jolts.
“Sorry!” he shouts automatically. “Shoe got untied!”
“Alright,” the cast member says. His name escapes Tsukasa at the moment. “Stay hydrated, yeah?"
Right. Good idea. Hopefully it will trick him into feeling full. He uncaps his water bottle and takes several long gulps.
...He’s just hit a little over 3 kilometers when it occurs to him that that was a bad idea. The sun that seemed so pleasant before suddenly bakes him, the sensation of too much sweat on his skin and too much water in his stomach too uncomfortable to ignore. It’s not just the sun that burns, but the stares of the people running alongside him. Some only spare a glance, others a comment—you’re slowing down, Tenma—but it grates, to the point that he just gives a short nod and no verbal response, jaw clenched tight. He rounds a corner and drifts towards the shade.
“Holding up?”
Tsukasa twitches. Nene jogs into step beside him, and he can picture her worried frown without even needing to look.
“Yeah,” he bites out, then summons the dregs of common courtesy he can manage. “How about you? You were pretty...pretty tired after the first—first day.”
“I’m keeping up so far. I can’t get too tired only a quarter of the way through.”
A quarter. Tsukasa’s stomach sinks.
“...Um, I think you should take Rui’s advice. You look—” she cuts herself off. Tsukasa can fill in the blanks. “Well, it’d be really bad if you fainted. If the other cast members give you a hard time about it, just say you got a bad leg cramp or something. I’ll cover for you, so—”
“It’s okay,” Tsukasa interrupts. Attempts for a smile. “I’m fine. I’ve already gotten s—gotten some ideas on how...on how to improve my acting.”
Nene hesitates. She looks like she wants to say more.
His pace picks up without his conscious input. Usually he likes to have all eyes on him, but not like this. Not when it’s because he’s falling behind. It’s not until Nene shouts a don’t push yourself! that he realizes he’s broken into a run.
For a blissful moment, it feels like he’s hit a second wind. Distantly, he thinks he may have to apologize to Nene later, but it’s so nice to just run without worrying about constantly taking stock of how his body feels, if it’s good enough to keep going. So many sensations he’d love to just ignore. The heat, so hot he wraps around to cold, a shiver traveling up his spine—fuzziness at his fingertips and toes that trickles up his limbs, heavy as rock—stomach pressing out then up like it might fall out his mouth—
He, tilts—
Some other distant part of his brain calmly assesses the terrain and veers him, remote-controlled, to a copse of trees just off the trail. Another part, as if an outside observer, notes: Ah. I’m about to throw up.
He doesn’t even have time to think about it. He stumbles behind a tree, hopes to God he’s out of view, and all the water he’d drank comes straight back up.
For a second he just. Stares.
His first thought: I haven’t even eaten anything?! What is there to throw up?! How is this even possible?!
His second: Well, obviously, the water!
His third: That COUNTS?!
Fourth: Oh, something’s happening—
He must fall, because he’s suddenly on the ground, with no memory of sitting down. He just threw up but he doesn’t feel any better. He feels just the same, even worse, but now there’s nothing else to bring up, and he’s so, so hot, like he has minutes before he dies if he can’t cool down—
“Tsukasa—oh my God.”
Tsukasa flinches and scrambles upward on the pure, animal instinct to hide. His vision blacks out, so completely that he can’t even see who’s talking to him. Something clasps his upper arm and sears through it.
“Nnnnnnno,” he moans. “Don’ touch.”
It immediately lets go like he burns to the touch, which he surely does. He falls back down against a tree—hopes it’s not the one he just threw up against—
“Tsukasa—okay, okay, oh my God—here, have some of my water.”
Tsukasa whips his head away. “No—j-just threw up.”
There’s a silence. Tsukasa blinks. Blinks again. Oh, it’s Nene standing in front of him. That’s—not good, but could be worse.
“Threw up?” her voice is high pitched, almost like Emu’s. He blinks one more time to be sure. No, it’s definitely Nene. “That’s—that’s really bad. Okay. Shit. Just hold on.”
Tsukasa holds. He blinks and tries to look up at the sky. The leaves cover the sun, but sunspots still cover half his vision. His body jolts violently enough that the bark digs uncomfortably into his back, and just like that, he can’t stop shivering.
“Pick up, pick up, pick up,” Nene is muttering. Tsukasa tries to look around. What is he supposed to be picking up? “Oh thank—Rui, Rui I’m sending my location get over here right now something’s wrong with Tsukasa.”
“What?” Nene speaks so fast that Tsukasa, sluggish, isn’t able to process what she’s saying until the very last word. He drags himself back to clarity. “Wh—don’t call Rui. He’ll tell me I told you so.”
“There are worse things that could happen right now, Tsukasa,” she replies tersely.
Which—true. He hadn’t meant to say something so childish. He tries to take stock again, note everything he’s feeling so he can bring it into his performance later—but things in his body are blending together with his head, there’s something wrong in both of them that he can’t get straight—
“Oh, good, that was fast,” Nene is saying.
“I was trying to stick close, just in case.”
It’s Rui. To the untrained eye, he looks impassive, almost bored. To Tsukasa, he knows the something went wrong and I’ve got two minutes to fix it before the next scene starts face. No time to panic, not a drop of wasted energy.
Ugh. And he’s the problem to be fixed. How humiliating.
“Tsukasa-kun,” Rui says, dropping to his knees. He puts a hand on Tsukasa’s shoulder, eyes searching his face. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Uh.” Even though he’s the one it’s happening to, he’s suddenly drawing a blank on how to describe whatever this is. Rui’s eyes flicker to where he’s grasping Tsukasa’s shoulder; even pinned between Rui’s hand and the tree behind him, he can’t stop—“’m shivering.”
“He sped up and went ahead of me,” Nene reports, taking over. Tsukasa battles the simultaneous relief of having someone else deal with it alongside the feeling of being tattled on. “I saw him suddenly go off into the trees. When I caught up to him he said he threw up.”
“Okay.” Rui sounds, for all the world, calm and controlled. “You’re shaky and nauseous. Are you having any muscle cramps? Severe ones, not just soreness?”
Tsukasa just stares. This isn’t a hard question. But he...it’s hard to tell what...
Nene speaks up again. Her voice shakes. “Rui, is this—should we call an ambulance or something? He seems—"
The calm expression on Rui’s face flickers. His hand tightens on Tsukasa’s shoulder. “Tsukasa-kun? Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” he can answer, because that’s an easier question. Mindlessly, he reaches up and grabs Rui’s hand. Feels like completing a circuit. “Uh, no—no cramps, I think, I...I just don’t feel well.”
Rui nods. Without taking his eyes off Tsukasa, he says, “Nene, there’s a vending machine back the way we came. Can you go and grab anything with sugar in it? Like juice, or soda should be fine.”
Tsukasa’s head drifts down, as if he’s being pulled. He suddenly—suddenly, feels like he’s going to float up and away, going to lose something important—his grip tightens on Rui’s hand, he’s gonna slip—
“You’re alright. Breathe. I think your blood sugar just dropped.”
He sinks, drifts, turns his head and shuts his eyes against the spinning. “Sorry. I’m—I’m all sweaty.”
“That’s alright. You’ll be okay, Tsukasa-kun.”
He shakes and shakes. His heart aches where it pounds against his ribs. His stomach hurts again, twisting when he suddenly thinks of food, of Saki’s omelets and steak from the diner of the apple pies Honami leaves behind after visiting
“Ssssorry,” Tsukasa gasps, before sitting up and retching up water, splattering to the ground between his legs.
“Okay.” Rui sounds somewhere very, very far away, hand too-hot and freezing on his back, “Okay, that’s alright, just—just get it up. Nene will be back in a minute.”
“Sorry,” Tsukasa repeats. He’s outside himself when he says “Sorry, just. Feel like I’m gonna die.”
He regrets it as soon as he says it, knows it’s going to freak Rui out, but he can’t stop the words in his head from falling straight down through his mouth, like a stopgap that should be there has broken down.
“Tsukasa-kun. Here, drink this.”
Tsukasa focuses hard on looking up. Nene’s back, must have come back at some point—Rui is holding an opened bottle up to his lips. Tsukasa breathes. Smells like oranges and sugar.
The effort it takes to turn his head away is nothing short of herculean, takes every fiber of strength he has, his mind, muscles, and bones screaming at the irresistible scent.
“What—” Rui’s voice drops, confused. “Tsukasa-kun, come on.”
“Rio,” he grits out. He needs to gasp for breath after the single, short word. “Rio went. Th-three days. With—only water, for three days.”
“Tsukasa-kun, that’s all done! You can’t do that anymore!” Emu’s voice says. Wait—Emu?
“When’n Emu get here?” he asks, looking up again. How did he miss her the first time? Where did she come from? He holds his breath under another wave of cold, clammy panic.
“I ran into her on the way back,” Nene explains, arms crossed. “She has candy in her bag, and you’re eating it after you drink the juice.”
If only Tsukasa had a script. He feels like he’s in a performance that’s been off book for months, and is suddenly, impossibly, forgetting his lines. Something like:
Tsukasa
Look, I understand that this is scary, but I just need a minute. I shouldn’t give up this easily. I can take a break and switch to lighter workouts, but it’d be such a waste to stop here.
Rui
I told you I’d stop you as soon as this got dangerous, and you fainting and vomiting is firmly in that category. As your director...(Rui continues to move his mouth, but no words come out, as the lights dim and a spotlight focuses on Tsukasa.)
Tsukasa
(He turns, imploringly, to the audience). This is my dream, isn’t it? I know what I have to do! I have to take every inch I can get! If I stop here, I’ll have an incomplete picture of the role, and it’ll all have been for nothing! I can do this! Let me do this!
...But he can’t say it. All his strength is single-mindedly focused on keeping him upright. The words turn to ash in his dry mouth before they can even form.
“Are you guys alright over here?”
Tsukasa twitches. A vague, blurry figure jogs into view from behind Nene. Tsukasa tries to sit up straight, look at least slightly more presentable, but can only manage to roll his back against the tree, head too heavy to follow.
“Shit, he doesn’t look too good. Is—”
“Tsukasa-kun was in a hurry this morning and skipped breakfast,” Rui says, affectionately exasperated. Good acting. “Looks like it caught up to him. We’re just giving him some juice and seeing if he feels any better.”
Tsukasa Tenma should play along. Be present. A single skipped meal wouldn’t have him this out of it. He thinks like a ringing phone in another room; is anyone gonna pick that up?
“Here.” Rui offers the juice again. He’s smiling, but his eye contact is sharp as chipped ice. “Have some, Tsukasa-kun.”
He has no choice.
The juice tastes better than anything he’s ever had. So good it would bring tears to his eyes if they weren’t already there. So unfair. So, so stupid. Each sip, each swallow, wiping all his effort clean. This flavor won’t help him; Rio never got to taste it. All for nothing. All for nothing.
“My mother’s diabetic, so I’ve seen it before,” the cast member or whoever he is is saying. “I can go let the director know you guys need a minute and we can run through scenes without Rio for a bit.”
Can’t you make him go away? Tsukasa thinks desperately, trying to beam the thought to Rui’s mind. “Make m’stop looking’t’me,” he also thinks, except he says it out loud this time and not in his head.
Rui turns back to look at him, eyes owlishly wide in a way that would be funny to him at any other time.
“What’d he say? You alright, Tenma?”
“He said that’d be a big help,” Rui answers quickly. “Thank you.”
Tsukasa raises one floppy hand to press uselessly at his teary eyes. If he’s going to ruin all his effort, worry his troupemates, and disturb the rehearsal schedule, the least he can do is not cry about it. It’s a losing battle; if he doesn’t even have the strength to hold his head up or string together a sentence, then he doesn’t stand a chance in this. His next inhale is suspiciously loud and sniffly.
“Tsukasa-kun? Here—candy!” Emu kneels and presses a wrapped hard candy into his palm. He can hear in her voice just how much he’s worried her. “Have that and you’ll start feeling better really soon! Okay?”
He should thank her, or at least nod. He stares down dumbly at his palm as it clenches into a fist around the small piece of candy. This time, his breath comes out in an unmistakable, impossible-to-hide sob.
His friends, from the silence, seem to be at a loss. It’s humiliating. He’s splayed out on the ground in front of people he’s supposed to lead, unable to reach the goal he set out for himself. Could he write a more pathetic scene into one of his plays if he tried?
“Tsukasa-kun.”
Tsukasa twitches. Rui, please don’t say look at me. Not like this. He really can’t.
“This, too, is your phoenix.” Warm hands fold over his, uncurling his fingers from the fist he held them in. “Have you failed, despite pushing your body to its absolute limit? Despite how badly you want this role? That helplessness is Rio as well, I think.”
Tsukasa considers. His eyebrows furrow. He doesn’t think he could deliver the climax right now—if he tries to scream like that he might pass out for real—but...
His next words are said in Rio’s boyish, pitchy tone.
“A phoenix feather,” he mumbles. He glances down at his palm. “They say that they...heal wounds...and clear fatigue...”
Rio would feel...overwhelming gratitude. And shame. Regret. For his actions...for the nature of his goal—but also love for the friend that gave him something so small, something so powerful...
“That’s right,” he continues, voice wobbly. “Because you’re...so kind...”
“See?”
It’s like he’s snapped out of a reverie when Rui speaks. Emu peers at him with wide, sparkling eyes. Nene has a small, relieved smile.
“...Mm.” He unwraps the candy in small, shaky movements. He pops it into his mouth and lets it roll under his tongue. “...Thank you.”
His stomach chooses then to growl spectacularly loud. He flushes, instinctively curling forward to try and muffle the sound. The earlier nausea has completely faded—he feels like if food was put in front of him right now, he’d black out and wake up covered in crumbs.
Emu’s eyes light up. “I know! I’ll go to Mr. Takiyaki Stand and ask him to make some of the biggest taiyaki he can! And stuff it full of—”
“Not a good idea,” Rui interrupts, apologetically. “Too much sugar could make things even worse.”
“There’s gotta be something we can give him, though,” Nene says, hugging her arms close to her chest. “He can’t rehearse like this.”
“Hold on, let me look some things up...”
As Rui pulls out his phone and starts typing, Tsukasa feels a burst of gratitude that they aren’t trying to get him to go home and rest. He’s already starting to feel better, like he’s coming off the longest headrush ever—losing an entire day of rehearsals would be pointless for his body, and detrimental for his dream. He shakily sits up, pushing himself away from the tree. He could probably stand up...the shakes have died down almost completely...
A gentle hand on his shoulder gives him pause. It’s Emu, who seems to search his gaze before giving a bright smile.
“You can do it, Tsukasa-kun! If anyone can, it’s you!”
“Yes,” Rui immediately affirms, eyes still glued to his phone screen. “Whatever happens, we’re here for you.” Then, distractedly: “Hmm...no seeds or fibrous foods...granola bar is out then...”
“I have some yogurt I packed to have with lunch. That should be light enough, right?” Nene peers over at Rui’s phone, studiously avoiding eye contact with Tsukasa. “And...uh...we’re here, y’know, so...don’t do reckless stuff.”
Tsukasa laughs, a bit more muted than his usual one, but no less warm. He finally sits up straight, steadied by Emu’s hand. Maybe—there may still be something he can do. Something to inch closer to that phoenix, but this time with his friends at his side.
“About Seiichi Amami’s show...would you all like to go see it together with me?”