[yst] [fic] At the Stars 6/?

[morphaileffect]

an extra-long chapter to make up for a whole week's dry spell.

in case anyone from ff.net is reading: thanks so much for the comments! it means a lot to me to know people are enjoying this story.



At the Stars
Part 6

After six weeks, Ryo decided a haircut was due.

Not for himself, however. He was quite content to keep his own jet-black hair shoulder-length. That made it easier to manage, as it seemed to insist on growing longer the more he cut it anyway.

The haircut in question was Seiji's.

The best place for it was in the greenhouse, not just because it was warmer and there was more light. The greenhouse was Seiji's domain. In it he felt and looked more comfortable, if not livelier.

So Ryo spread a couple of old newspapers over the narrow walking space and set up a chair. A minute later, Seiji had a dry towel slung around his shoulders, and he sat facing the Tokyo cityscape, all of serenity and trust while Ryo stood behind him, scissors in hand.

Figuring out what to do with Seiji's hair started off tougher than Ryo thought it would be. It didn't have the "bounce" that it did when he was younger, and was darker and thinner. In the past, Ryo was aware, it just sort of stayed up on its own. Now it had to look good even if it couldn't, and Ryo really wasn't a professional at making hair look good.

Thankfully, the task worked itself out. As soon as his fingers touched Seiji's hair, still warm and damp from the bath, he just sort of knew. There was no way to keep that swath of blond hair from falling over his right eye, so he wouldn't bother. The rest was going to be easy.

Seiji sat, back straight as always, with his hands folded over a notebook on his lap.

"Ryo," Seiji began, "when our armor went away... do you think our virtues went away, too?"

It wasn't such a strange question. What was strange was that it reminded Ryo of the first thing Touma said to him in Miyanokouji Bar.

"Nah," Ryo answered. "We were born with our virtues, so I don't think they can just leave us like that."

The answer did not seem to satisfy Seiji, so Ryo followed up with: "You still have your virtue, that's for sure."

Seiji chuckled softly. "You do, too."

This made Ryo smile. He never really felt he was being "benevolent" by giving up his time, money and energy to stay here - in fact, he had decided he was being selfish. He wanted to help, he needed to be present.

Besides - he was aware that Seiji was in a lot more pain than he purposefully showed. His friend's courage and his unique virtue, "grace," might have been all that kept his shoulders squared, and his day to day outlook devoid of the sort of bitterness that would have eaten any ordinary person in his position, from the inside out.

There was no way Ryo could turn his back on that.

"Touma sure does a good job of hiding his virtue," Ryo attempted to joke. "He's always off doing... something or other. Working himself sick, probably. What's so wise about that?"

Seiji fell silent.

While Ryo was brushing Seiji's hair back, the tips of his fingers briefly touched Seiji's lips. This wasn't the first time he'd touched Seiji's face, accidentally or otherwise, but he was always surprised at how dry his lips were, though they always seemed dry from a distance. Touch was different.

"I know." Seiji muttered after a while. "Touma really should go out and have more fun."

Ryo's brow knitted. For a reaction to a failed joke, that was delayed and somewhat unexpected.

"He walks around here like the weight of the world is on his shoulders," said the young man whose now-brittle shoulders actually did bear the weight of the world. "The bad vibes are killing my bonsai."

Ryo replayed the words in his head to check if Seiji sounded like he was joking. He didn't. Not in the least. However, all of his plants looked fine. Of course, what would Ryo know about bonsai.

"Ryo... do you think something can be done about that?"

At the time, Ryo had only shrugged the question off, saying something light about how it was impossible to get the bone-headed Touma to change his ways.

But he thought about what Seiji said.

He thought about it long and hard.

So the next time Touma stayed in, intent on spending the day sitting at the dining table, poring over his notes, Ryo walked up to him, hands on his hips.

"Touma."

Without even looking up, "What."

"You need a day off."

There was a long pause. Touma's gaze continued sweeping over the papers in his hands. Ryo waited patiently until the tall young man hunched over at the table nonchalantly answered "No I don't."

"You need a haircut," Ryo insisted, undaunted. "And a new set of clothes. And fresh air."

"I showered and shaved this morning, mother. That's about all I have time for, thanks."

Of all the things that got on Ryo's nerves about this particular old friend, his calm stubbornness probably took the cake. It came out of being smarter than everyone else and therefore right more times than was healthy, Ryo supposed. Touma grew up rude out of necessity.

But if Ryo was able to stomach the smarm as a youngster, he could certainly take it now.

"Fine, if you're not going out..."

Tilt. The backrest of Touma's chair tipped back and his feet left the floor.

Ryo wasn't a wildlife photographer for nothing. He might have had a lean body, but he had enough muscle for his job - strong arms for wrestling offended lionesses or startled bears, for example. These were the arms that he used now to drag Touma's chair away from the dining table, and out to the significantly brighter and more spacious living room.

Touma sat rigid, with nothing but his papers to hold on to, while he was so brazenly relocated.

As soon as his chair's front legs dropped to the floor with a light thud, he demanded "What are you doing?"

Ryo didn't answer. He went to work rummaging for various items around the house. Touma shrugged and decided Ryo's bouts of irrationality were in fact none of his concern. He continued reading the papers in his hands.

Then something fell over his field of vision.

It took Touma a second before he could snap out of the haze of formulae and determine that it was, indeed, a tablecloth over his head.

Touma struggled, but even as he did, Ryo wrapped one side of the tablecloth around his neck with expert speed.

Touma's face was freed. So he could better see that there was a tablecloth tied around his neck like a cloak, obscuring the papers he had been reading.

"What's this ab - HEY!" Touma cried. Ryo was coolly relieving him of his eyeglasses and study material in a few fluid motions.

Then Ryo vanished behind him, and there was an ominous snip-snipping sound.

"Hold still or I'll cut your ear off. On purpose."

"Do you even know how to hold that thing?!" Touma tried to turn his head, but Ryo's hand on his temple kept it in place. Whatever it was, wherever Ryo had gotten it from, it sounded sharp.

"I've had to cut my own hair ever since I was a kid." A loud sigh of exasperation, designed to dissipate his friend's edginess. "Will you just hold still!"

Grumbling, Touma settled in his seat, crossed his arms over his chest under the tablecloth. He made it a point to look grumpy all throughout the process, not that it made a difference. It was pointless to argue with the guy with the scissors.

It didn't take Ryo long to figure out what to do with Touma's hair. The first time Ryo saw Touma again in Shinjuku, one word that came to him was "overgrown." Too much hair covering the back of his neck, falling over his eyes. The hair wasn't long or well-kept enough to look effeminate, but neither was it especially shabby.

That appearance might not bother anyone who had just met Dr. Hashiba Touma - it gave him all the affectation of a busy urban eccentric. But for someone who knew this particular busy urban eccentric as a youngster, and had become used to a much neater version of him... it needed a little trimming.

Just a bit later, Ryo was done. He would have to vacuum later to clean up the bits of hair that had fallen to the unprotected floor, but the inconvenience didn't even occur to him. He stepped back and admired his handiwork.

A number of heavy years had also fallen from Touma's shoulders.

With the hair on the back of his head cropped close, and the bangs in front kept reasonably long, it seemed Touma could hold his head up more easily. He took one look at the hand mirror he was given, then he glared unimpressed up at his impromptu hairdresser from underneath a switch of blue hair falling over the bridge of his nose.

Glare and all, the familiar haircut made him look quite his age. And quite fetching as well, if Ryo could say so himself, especially with the sunlight and the view of the city behind him, making his features look darker.

"We're done," Touma dryly announced as he extricated himself from the confines of drapery. "Can I go back to work now?"

A simple haircut had done wonders for Seiji's mood. But for some reason, Touma still emanated stress (and crankiness) afterwards. It seemed more aggressive methods were called for.

Ryo just got an idea. He moved back behind Touma's chair.

"Nope." Strong tiger-taming hands pushed Touma down by the shoulders, keeping him in his seat. "I told you not to move."

Ryo's fingers rhythmically applied a gentle pressure on Touma's shoulders, in a way that suddenly made Touma feel rather naked and then wish for the tablecloth back.

"What are you doing," he asked again.

There was no answer. Anyway, it was a stupid question. It was all too obvious what Ryo was doing.

And it was only too clear that Ryo wasn't going to let him go back to work so easily. Touma let out a long, loud sigh. Ryo's hands worked until the muscles on Touma's neck and shoulders gave in, loosening and yielding as commanded.

"How did you - " Touma began, and it came out as a groan.

"Bali."

"Ah."

There was no way for Ryo to know what that "Ah" meant. Ryo didn't even know there was such a thing as Balinese massage when he went. It couldn't possibly be common knowledge, could it?

Their work on the shoulders done, Ryo's hands made their way down Touma's back. Ryo had never actually done this to anyone else before, and it was hard with the cloth in the way. He wondered idly if he could persuade Touma to ditch the stupid shirt, since he was home anyway and nobody was watching.

It didn't seem as if Touma was that used to receiving massages, either. He put up with everything with a grudging sort of tolerance.

But Touma did flinch when pressure struck a spot on his ribs. "Not so hard," he snapped.

...Okay. Ryo had forgotten that Touma had been flung backwards against wooden furniture six weeks back. But that couldn't possibly still be hurting. Maybe he was just ticklish there.

Well, Ryo was steering clear of the ribs just in case. At least he had some confirmation that Touma wanted him to continue.

With the clothes on, there was very little of Touma he had access to. He decided to attend to Touma's arms instead, one after the other. Right one first.

The palms of Ryo's hands were rough with years of exercise and working outdoors, and he wondered if Touma was okay with them touching his bare skin without some sort of liniment, at least. But when his hands made their way down Touma's lean right arm down to his wrist, there was no complaint.

In fact, there wasn't much of anything. Ryo looked over and saw Touma's eyes were shut.

From behind Touma and his chair, he elevated Touma's right arm and started working on the hand. Ryo had never noticed before how Touma's hand was long-fingered, with the joints large and pronounced, compared to his own. The palms of his hands were rough, too, and there were ink and chemical stains on some of his fingernails, which Ryo somehow felt were permanent.

And Touma's skin was cool. Then again, most people had skin cooler than his, Ryo was aware. Seiji's was even cooler. His hands must feel like fire to the people he touched.

Just then, Touma's head lolled in his direction, interrupting his thoughts. A second later, he heard Touma softly snoring in his ear.

Ryo had to bite his lips to keep from laughing out loud. He slid the arm he was holding around his own shoulders. "Come on," he said.

Ryo had pulled Touma up to his feet before Touma realized he should be awake. "Huh?" he blearily responded.

"Let's just get you to bed first, then you can go back to sleep."

Touma's head dipped in what could have been a nod, before he entrusted most of his weight to Ryo. Though he was tall, he was never very heavy; Ryo bet he could even carry Touma in his arms back to the room he and Seiji shared, although that would surely prompt some awkward conversation later.

Ryo didn't expect to feel what he did when Touma leaned against him. He felt trusted with something deeply private - something no one else even had the right to guess at.

On impulse, he wrapped his other arm around his friend's waist.

The plan was to half-carry Touma back to his bedroom, and half-let him sleepwalk there. But Touma's semi-conscious self found a suitable long couch and, being difficult by nature, decided it had other plans. Touma's arm slid off Ryo's shoulder and the young man tumbled onto the couch gracelessly, making a muffled crash.

Ryo sighed. In Bali, he'd ended up asleep too. As well as buck naked and smelling like sandalwood on a stranger's bed, but at least he woke up invigorated from head to toe. He hoped Touma would wake up the same, although Ryo wasn't able to do much with him, and although it was probably hard to wholly relax on a couch.

(Ryo found himself wishing he'd managed to outlast the embarrassment and ask around for massage lessons while he was in Indonesia. If only he'd known at the time that the skill would come in handy...)

He made sure all of Touma's long limbs were safely on the couch, before he moved off to get a blanket. When he returned, Touma had shifted position and was on his back, an arm over his eyes.

Ryo found himself staring. It was difficult to believe how young Touma looked while he slept. With his eyes thus obscured, and with his hair cut as neat it used to be, it was as if Ryo was looking at the Touma he used to know: the gangling teenager who spoke with an old man's confidence, but bantered with his friends like any ordinary kid when his guard was down. Who ate like a horse and liked high places and enjoyed playing practical jokes. And slept like a log.

The scar on Touma's lower lip had all but completely faded. Without thinking, Ryo reached out to touch it with the tip of his index finger.

He remembered just in time to be careful, lest his touch was too heavy. He was still a bit numb at the wrists from earlier.

Touma's lower lip was warm. And soft. It almost surprised him.

And it reminded him of Seiji's lips, so hard and dry to the touch, so different.

Convincing Touma to leave the house for a day out was a natural step two. It wasn't so much that Touma had started to relax more around Ryo after the haircut, although that much was apparent - Touma reasoned that he'd already lost one whole day because Ryo put him to sleep. What was another day more.

"You need more rest anyway," Seiji told him. His thin fingers absently played with Touma's bangs, and Touma allowed them to. Oddly enough, when it was Seiji touching any part of him, he didn't mind. "It's just for a few hours. I'll be fine alone."

Though it seemed to Ryo that Seiji sounded a little distant, just then. Pensive. Even more than he usually was.

So, with great reluctance, Touma allowed himself to be dragged out. It was still better for Ryo than him resisting the idea with everything he had.

"Where do you want to go?" Ryo asked him. Touma's glare was sharp.

"You're the one who wanted me out," he retorted. "Where do you want to go?"

All right. Ryo had said Touma needed new clothes. That, plus the fact that they couldn't be away from Seiji and the apartment for long, meant they were simply headed downtown, at the Ginza.

Ryo had wanted their first stop to be a game arcade. Touma, as could be expected, said no. They argued about this when they left the car (Touma did have a car: a modest and functional thing that he used to get around... but he didn't take it out when he and Ryo met in Shinjuku, because he'd wanted Ryo to know how to commute to and from his apartment. For all Ryo knew, he wasn't kidding about that). And this argument turned out to be the first conversation they had upon hitting the sidewalk of the shopping district.

"Aren't we too old for video games?" Touma eyed his friend sidelong.

"Too old?! You're just 25, you know."

"24," acidly. "You're 25."

Ryo rolled his eyes.

"Senior citizen," Touma muttered. Ryo whacked him lightly upside the head, then pretended not to have heard anything.

Ryo still remembered how as a teenager, Touma would refuse video games at first, calling them childish and a waste of time... but place a keypad in his hands, push him down in front of a TV, and he'd turn into a killing machine. He'd liked shooting games especially. Maybe he still did.

Remembering Touma as a kid brought a smile to Ryo's face.

In fact, Ryo had found himself thinking of the younger Touma a lot lately. Even when they were boys, Touma was always the self-assured one - except when he was faced with emotional or social dilemmas. Then life found him flustered and in denial about being annoyed. He wasn't so awkward now, but Ryo found that he missed that awkward boy. It made him vulnerable in an endearing way, and maybe Touma should be vulnerable more often.

He wondered if Touma took the time out to think of their younger years as well. Of him, especially. He wanted to know how Touma remembered him.

"Earth to Ryo."

"...Huh? What?" He had been staring at something in a display window. A telescope? What were they doing standing in front of this thing?

He suddenly became aware that Touma had, in fact, been spewing trivia about this thing for the past minute or so, but he had been lost in his thoughts and therefore incapable of comment. Touma had worked in an astronomical research lab before he got his medical degree, so of course these sorts of gadgets would interest him.

Touma tried to look irritable, but a smirk reached his lips and ruined the impact. "Just as spaced out as you were as a brat, I see." He slapped the back of his hand lightly against Ryo's chest. "Pay attention. At this rate, a suit of armor falling from the sky could come crashing down on your head and you wouldn't notice."

Now that was more like it. Ryo raised an eyebrow.

"If it's from the sky, it's your armor." He started walking ahead. "Then I'd know who to kill."

"Oh like you can kill me." Touma caught up with him in just a few strides. "You're hopeless without someone to keep your head on straight."

"Yeah? You're so smart, why'd your armor fall from the sky."

"Because someone needs to keep your head on straight! Pay attention!"

Ryo was paying attention. This senseless talk was Touma's guard going down even more. He made a mental note to remember the shop and the brand of telescope they had been looking at earlier. At least as an omen of how things looked like the day was going to go well, after all.

So they didn't go to the arcade. Instead, they ended up shopping for clothes and walking and talking for hours. Not that Ryo had any complaints.

...Although Touma could have taken more time actually trying clothes on, instead of grabbing the cheapest things he could find and announcing "This'll do!". If Ryo hadn't been there, Touma would've amassed a whole wardrobe's worth of white sweaters just because they were on sale.

Most of the clothes they had bought ended up being for Seiji. At first it was all right, but the longer it took, the more Ryo discovered that it unsettled him.

...Why was Touma buying so many outdoor clothes for Seiji? Was Seiji actually going to be able to wear them?

But he wasn't going to voice it out. He wasn't going to make a big deal of it, as long as Touma seemed to be enjoying himself.

And while Touma seemed to know Seiji's taste in clothes (as well as his body type and measurements) quite well, it seemed he wasn't as adept at choosing clothes for himself. Good thing Ryo was there, then, at the very least to gently inform him that tweed was no longer in style.

"Well, how would I know? Seiji knew things like that for the both of us," Touma began, but didn't continue. He clamped up after that, as if he had said something he shouldn't have.

Ryo very kindly let him know that Seiji would be horrified to see him wearing a tie-dyed vest, even if it was 50% off, and pulled the multicolored monstrosity out of Touma's confused grip.

Shin should've been there, Ryo said to himself. Shin had the sort of snark that shamed a person into dressing well. He still remembered when Shin had accompanied him to a shopping trip once, and had introduced him to the ins and outs of his own body shape, all the while mocking his color coordination skills and saying in so many ways that he completely understood if fashion was a foreign concept in the mountains of Yamanashi.

But maybe channeling Shin was enough for this excursion. This was their day, Touma and his. He had to be enough for making sure that Touma did not feel left to his own devices.

Touma was a veritable chatterbox if he was comfortable with you. Ryo could barely keep up with all the things he wanted to say, but when he sensed that Ryo was genuinely interested in something, he slowed down and took the time to explain.

Nightfall found them in a cozy restaurant a few hundred feet off ground level. Ryo had just finished eating, so he simply sat sipping his wine, listening to Touma meticulously dishing out the weaknesses of the Japanese healthcare system. Normally Ryo wouldn't be interested in such things, but this was important to them both.

Ryo said something in agreement with what Touma had just said. Touma listened quietly, then in the end simply said, "Hm."

"...What?" Ryo blinked. Had he said something stupid?

"You agreeing with me." Touma turned his attention to his glass of white wine. "It's kind of cute."

Cute? Was that the sort of thing old friends said to each other while discussing healthcare...?

Maybe old friends who'd had a bit too much to drink, Ryo said to himself. Although Touma was just on his first glass, and definitely looked sober. Ryo was just on his first glass too, but what was this warm feeling creeping up the sides of his neck and face?

He couldn't possibly be blushing. Although Shuu had warned him once that since he was a non-drinker, his face had a tendency to flush red with the first real rush of alcohol in his system. That must just be it.

Touma was distracted by a thought, and frowning down at the wine glass in his hand. In the meantime Ryo looked around uncomfortably. He found two finely-dressed young girls at another table staring in their direction and whispering to each other, faces aglow with giggles.

Great. An audience. He probably just blushed a bit more. Ryo desperately tried not to look at anyone else for the time being, Touma included.

He cleared his throat. "You know, Seiji's still writing."

He felt Touma's eyes on him suddenly. The mention of Seiji's name out of the blue had a tendency to produce that effect.

"When he's able," Ryo continued. "He asks me for a pen and that notebook he's always scribbling in. Never shows me what he's working on, though."

"He wants to bring that Sengoku-era story of his to a close," Touma explained. "Sometimes he writes, in the middle of the night, instead of sleeping. I've been trying to tell him to leave off it and focus on getting better, but he's impossible." His voice had just shifted gear to "neutral" again, Ryo noticed. "He says he doesn't have time."

Ryo shouldn't have opened up the topic. Should've agreed with something else that Touma had said.

"Maybe he has a point," Ryo ventured.

"No," Touma said coldly. "No, Ryo, he doesn't. He'll get through this. And then he can finish his story."

They weren't going to fight about this. Ryo had to physically restrain himself from saying something contrary, because it was already clear that Touma was upset, or was in denial about being upset.

But another glass of wine more and he was sure he was going to cave. It seemed he and Touma only ever mentioned Seiji in each other's presence if it was to report on how Seiji was doing and to talk about how to better care for him; this was the safe way to talk about him. But when certain issues were brought up, and the walls went up around Touma again, Ryo felt the desire to break down those walls bubbling up inside him like molten lava.

Do you see what's happening to Seiji? Really see? When was the last time you were home and with him long enough to stop writing in those damn charts and ask him how he's doing?

Those were unfair questions. Touma and Seiji shared a room, and what did Ryo know about what happened behind closed doors? Maybe Touma didn't just study or sleep or eat at home, maybe he talked to Seiji too. Maybe he spared a thought for how forlorn Seiji looked whenever he left for his next errand or appointment. Ryo just wasn't around the two of them together long enough to notice.

"Ryo," Touma said, voice devoid of hostility, after a very long pause. "There's actually... another way."

"Another way?" Ryo repeated dumbly. What was Touma talking about this time?

Touma rested his elbows on the table and linked his hands before his face, the way he did on that day when his friends came together at his apartment and thought about how to help.

"I've been trying to focus on medicine... to cut the disease down at the root, so that Seiji can go back to living normally, just like the rest of us. But all on my own, medical research takes much too long, and the longer it takes..." Touma found it difficult to continue, so he simply ended it there. "...the longer it takes."

Ryo met Touma's gaze head-on and tried to read every emotion there. The only one he could pick up on was a reluctant sort of honesty.

"Some time ago, you asked me why I never contacted you. It wasn't just because Seiji didn't want me to. That other way I mentioned... it's..."

Ryo waited - but the longer he did, the less Touma seemed inclined to continue talking. And waiting was never Ryo's strong suit. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table as well. "What is it, Touma? Tell me."

Touma seemed to withdraw from Ryo's nearness. He sat back and ran a hand through his hair. After a sigh the expression his face shifted from "beleaguered" to "distant."

This wasn't how Ryo had hoped the day would end.

"Forget it." Touma signaled for the bill. "It's late. Let's just go home."

The apartment was dark and quiet when they got back. Seiji must be sleeping, Touma whispered to him.

"Tadaima," Touma still said softly at the door. Ryo had long ago recognized it for a ritual, though he had never figured Touma to be one for rituals.

Touma abandoned the shopping bags in Ryo's care, while he took his shoes off and made his way to the bedroom. Dutifully, Ryo hauled the bags to the couches at the center of the room, then started segregating them by which closet they were going to end up in.

He couldn't get very far with that, however.

"Ryo."

Something in the tone of Touma's voice got Ryo dropping the bag he held and racing to the doorway - where Touma already stood, eyes bright with fear.

"He's not breathing."

It all seemed to happen in a rush. The next thing Ryo knew, he was bundling Seiji up in blankets, then he was easing himself into the back of Touma's car, Seiji still in his arms. Touma was issuing hurried instructions in his calmest possible voice. Then Ryo blinked, and he was running down a hospital corridor with Touma, watching uselessly as Touma whispered words of encouragement to a very still and ashen form on a gurney being rushed by people in white from the emergency room to surgery.

Then the doors were shut. And he and Touma were alone in the waiting room.

Then all the calm that drove Touma on earlier had fled him.

Ryo took a seat beside him. Though the hospital had eventually acknowledged Touma's qualifications as a medical doctor (it was hard to make them believe it, with Touma looking as young as he did), Touma was still refused entry into surgery. The best he could do, before he was confined to the waiting room with Ryo, was to advise the physicians scheduled to attend to Seiji's post-surgery care, with information about Seiji's medications and other routines.

He was very, very insistent that after surgery - if it was successful - Seiji had to be in a private room with a window, and that the shades had to be open.

It all happened so fast, Ryo himself had a hard time processing it. The people at the hospital did not know Seiji OR Touma at all. Seiji had no records at this hospital, which was the nearest good one to Touma's apartment, and while some of the doctors had heard of Touma by name and could confirm his identity, none of them knew him personally.

Was this really the first time Seiji had entered a hospital in this part of Tokyo? Did that mean he had been under Touma's care all this time?

"This shouldn't have happened," Touma said under his breath. His face was in his hands. "If I'd only been home - "

"Don't." Ryo laid a hand on his shoulder.

Touma stood, not so subtly shrugging Ryo's hand off as he did. Ryo found himself sitting up straight, his gaze focused on Touma's back as if everything important in the world was going to take place there.

"You," Touma said to him, without looking directly at him. "Did you change the dosage of the active drug two days ago, like I told you to?"

"Yes." Ryo's eyes widened. "What are you saying?"

"His bronchial passages shouldn't have stopped up." Touma's hand brushed the hair back from his face repeatedly in broad strokes; a nervous habit. One he did not lose himself enough to display very often. It kept falling back over his eyes anyway. "I increased the formulation of the active drug to make sure of that specifically. If you didn't change the dose, or if you'd forgotten to give it to him this morning -"

"I didn't," Ryo said loudly, getting on his feet. They were the only two people in the room, but even if they weren't, Ryo wouldn't have cared.

Touma seemed as if he didn't much care either. His eyes were hard and bright.

"Ryo, do you know - do you even have an idea - how important it is for Seiji not to miss his medications?"

"Of course I do." Ryo stepped up to Touma. "I'm there, remember? I take care of him too. I know."

Seiji hadn't missed taking his medicines that day. Or on the days before. Ryo had seen to it. He might have missed some of Seiji's doses once, twice at the most, during his first weeks living in with Seiji and Touma - but since then it had become as part of his daily routine as it was Seiji's. Of course he knew how important Seiji's medication was.

"What do you know?" Screaming now, wild-eyed, mere inches and a lifetime away. "What do you know? I'm the one who's going to lose him, not you!"

Ryo felt his own heart stop when those words struck home.

What Touma was saying was terrible to hear.

It must have shown on his face. Touma looked at Ryo, and whatever else he might have wanted to say stopped dead before it could leave his throat.

The look on Touma's face. That cornered, helpless look. It made Ryo wanted to step forward and punch his lights out.

Or to pull Touma into his arms and call him stupid and tell him Seiji was going to make it.

But even if Ryo saw both scenarios clearly in his head, neither of it came true. Touma was faster than he was, always faster. He brushed past Ryo on his way out of the waiting room, in long, quick strides.

(tbc)