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They win the fight against Claw. Teruki doesn’t know that anything has ever made him feel so relieved in his entire life. Ever since his parents left him, Claw has been chasing him, trying to get him, and evading them has been difficult and so very tiring. It’s like a weight off his shoulders when the fight is finally declared over. A decade long stressor of his, gone, just like that.
But the relief isn’t the only thing that hits him. He nearly doubles over when the adrenaline wears off and pain rolls through him. His head and stomach are the absolute worst, where he’d taken the hardest hits. The blood on his face is dry but the wounds it’s from are not healed. His nose and cheekbone are almost certainly broken and there’s blood in his eye. Something isn’t right about his vision and he thinks he’s probably concussed.
The pain in his stomach is sharp and is accompanied by a strong wave of nausea and an uncomfortably full feeling. He swallows it back and avoids hugging his middle like he so badly wants to, instead joining up with the rest of their little gang.
Reigen offers Shigeo and Ritsu a place to stay since their house is in pieces. The invitation is extended also to Teru, but he is self-sufficient to a fault and does not like the vulnerability that would come from licking his wounds in such a public place. So instead he carries Shigeo a ways before carefully dropping him onto his brother’s back, then takes his leave.
The walk home to his dark, empty apartment is excruciating. Normally he would speed it up with his Esper abilities, but he feels drained.
He makes it there, though, after a little under an hour of walking. Even without Esper powers he’s usually faster than this.
Fatigue is dragging him down, though he thinks it’s likely just standard tiredness from a long fight. Opening his door is difficult, as his fingers are shaking and he struggles to get a proper grip on the key, but he manages. He wants to collapse onto the couch the moment he lays eyes on it but he knows that if he does he will not get back up again and he’d like to get ready for bed first.
Teru heads for the shower, but taking his shirt off proves to him that lifting his arms above his head isn’t going to go well, so a shower isn’t likely. He’s grabbing a cloth to at least clean off his face when he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His torso is painted in red and purple, and mildly swollen towards his hips. His face doesn’t look much better, the whole left half of it swelling and bruised. The eye is red, or what little of it he can see through his puffy eyelids is.
He cleans around his injuries as best he can without hurting himself, and gets as much blood out of his hair as he can. He brushes his teeth and thanks his lucky stars that all of them are still intact within his mouth. You cannot regrow a tooth like you can heal a broken bone.
That is the best he can do. He’s too tired and he’s starting to feel dizzy so he abandons his attempt at self care and stumbles to his futon.
Teru knows he should not sleep when he surely has a concussion, but he barely has long enough to think that before he’s slipping away.
Teruki wakes up in a cold sweat. His mouth feels off and for a moment he can’t figure out what woke him, but only for a moment, because pain crashes through him, mostly localized to his stomach.
The nausea that had plagued him before, a low simmer ever since the fight had ended, suddenly boils over, and he barely manages to push himself up on his trembling arms before he’s vomiting. It’s hard to see in the dark of his room but still it is distinctly dark, nothing like what normal vomit should look like. The smell is fairly metallic, too, which clues him into it being blood.
He’s covered in sweat, shivering, and now he’s puking blood. Something is very wrong here.
Teru gropes for his phone, pushing the bloodied blanket off of himself and wrapping his other arm around his stomach. His vision is blurry and the light hurts his head when he turns on the screen, but he’s able to make out the numbers reading 2:19 in the morning. He opens the phone and, trying not to start crying from pain or fear or both, calls Reigen, the only adult he knows.
The phone rings for a minute, before it goes to voicemail, but Teru does not leave one, hanging up and re-dialing as panic floods his system. Still no answer, so he tries again, which finally gets an answer.
“Mm, hello?” Reigen croaks.
“R-Reigen,” Teru breathes, swallowing bloody bile as it rises in his throat.
“Teru? Hey man, are you alright? Nightmare?” Reigen yawns.
“No,” Teru replies, voice wavering. “Something’s wrong. I- I threw up and- and- it’s just blood. My stomach hurts really bad.” Reigen is quiet for a moment.
“I’m sorry, you threw up blood?” he asks, sounding incredibly alarmed.
“Uh-huh,” Teru says. There’s rustling as Reigen seemingly gets out of bed.
“Ok, tell me more,” he requests. He sounds like he’s trying to keep calm, but it isn’t working. His voice is too high pitched and thready. “What’s wrong with your stomach?”
“I don’t know,” Teru finally sobs, leaning over his crossed legs, but keeping the phone to his ear. “Last night it was hurting, too, and it feels- it feels full and heavy. I thought I was just nauseous because of the fighting or my head- but now I don’t know.”
“It’s alright, buddy,” Reigen attempts to placate. “I’m going to come over there right now, and once I do we’re going to the hospital. I think I know what’s wrong with you.” Reigen knows how Teruki feels about hospitals, and thankfully isn’t one to fight very hard about issues like this. He’s not going to force Teru to call for an ambulance himself, nor is he going to make him go on his own. Instead he will either take Teru, or he will call for help once he arrives. “Do not hang up. If you hang up or stop talking for too long I’m going to call an ambulance.”
“Ok,” Teruki whimpers. “I’m gonna throw up again.”
“That’s ok,” Reigen assures him. A door closes on his end and a few seconds later a car starts. “I’ll be there in a few minutes, and everything will be fine. Can you unlock the door?” Teruki doesn’t know if his legs will hold him but he tries, hobbling into the living room, pausing once to vomit over his floor again. It will be awful to clean all this up, but he can’t find it in himself to care right now, given that he could be actively dying.
“I got it,” he says as he manages to click open the lock before sliding down the wall beside the door. “It’s open.”
“Good, good,” Reigen praises. “I’m almost there.”
Reigen keeps talking to him for the ten minutes it takes him to get to Teru. Not once does he stop, other than when he expects a response, every few sentences or so.
Then, blessedly, he bursts through Teru’s door and immediately wraps him in a hug, already on the phone with 119. Teru sobs into his shoulder, frightened and hurting and so, so grateful that Reigen came to save him.
With Reigen at his side, he can’t even feel so afraid once he’s loaded into the wailing ambulance. In the hospital they are seperated, but only for a few minutes, from Teru’s perspective, as he’s immediately carted away to surgery.
When he wakes again, Reigen is there waiting.
With Claw gone, and Reigen here for him, Teruki feels safe for the first time in a long time.