Disclaimer: I don't own Junjō Romantica. This makes me a very sad panda.

Warning(s): AU, language, little author's note at the end.

A/N: I don't want to make this long but I feel that I have to take this time to make a warning. This is an Alternative Universe story and doesn't follow the original events of the manga/anime. While I will try my best to keep their personalities and the relationships the characters have with each other, other things have been changed. If you're not into AU's, then this is not for you. If you like AU's or if you want to give it a try then feel free to continue reading.

A/N: Again, this is for my partner in crime UnwrittenRhapsody. I don't think I would be writing without you. Rawr.

"Prologue"

He looked down at the medical files in his hand and he thought, not for the first time that week, that this was a very, very bad idea. His mentor and friend Tsumori had recommended him for this job since he liked doing private cases, but the fact that the patient's family had exhausted all other possibilities before coming to them left a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. If the medical files were any indication, the patient was the one refusing the therapy even though he had undergone all the necessary surgeries to be able to walk again.

"Oh what are you still doing here Nowaki, I thought you were already on your way to your new job. It's getting late and you have to make a good first impression," his mentor joked as he sat next to him at one of the tables in the hospital cafeteria. Tsumori helped himself to his coffee without asking and Nowaki slapped his wrist as he reached for his sandwich as well.

"First you get me this case and now you want to take my sandwich?" he asked, before taking a bite of his food.

"I'm sorry?" Tsumori asked before grinning, "Oh come on Nowaki, you're my best doctor and this family is promising a big paycheck. You need the money, you should be thanking me."

"Have you actually looked at the files? It says he has had three physical therapists in the last month, one which was attacked with a lamp and another who quit on his first day," Nowaki said, looking over some of the accounts left behind by the doctors before him.

"Minor details, Nowaki, just details. Can we skip to where it says they are willing to pay a lot of money?" Tsumori asked and Nowaki resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Anyone else would think it was his mentor who would be getting the money when in fact a private case like this meant all the money went to Nowaki.

"I just don't know if I am what they need. I treat children with disabilities, not adult men who throw lamps at their doctors," Nowaki answered.

"Have I ever lied to you Nowaki? Okay don't answer that. What I mean is, have I ever doubted your abilities as a doctor? The answer is no, so believe me when I tell you that you're perfect for this case."

Nowaki didn't say anything else. He had already accepted the job or rather Tsumori has accepted it for him. He was to arrive today at what would be his second job exactly at noon to meet the family and the person who would be his patient for the next six months. He was going to miss the extra time he usually spent at the hospital and the children but this would be good, at least he would get the money he desperately needed.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

At first, no one had understood why the ever cheerful Nowaki liked to spend his free time in the hospital cancer ward. His job as a physical therapist for children on the first floor ended at four in the afternoon and the next three hours were spent on the fourth floor where the cancer ward was located. Now he was a constant presence and the nurses would smile and giggle between themselves at how cute he was as he tried to make the children laugh.

There was a room he liked to visit in particular and that was where four children without parents endured their own treatments alone. Nowaki would try to be there with them during the week they received their treatment and would visit them as much as he could during the rest of the month. The recent budget cuts had already strained the medical and nursing staff which had resulted in leaving some residents on the floor undersupervised and because of this, Nowaki had taken it upon himself to look after the four little ones: Kai, Hikari, Midori, and Riku.

Sometimes after their treatment they weren't able to get up from the bed for a week and the pain they suffered made Nowaki cry inside, the best he could do was to offer them comfort through a bedtime story, a cold cloth against their feverish foreheads and soft words that he didn't even know if they were able to hear. Sometimes, but just sometimes, he wanted to give up.

But the next day the giggling nurses would see him walking toward the children's room again, stuffed animals under one arm, coloring books on the other and a smile on his lips. It was a hard task, but he never gave up.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

After his talk with Tsumori, he went to the apartment they shared to take a quick shower and change into his uniform. He drove to the address he had been given and he began to get uneasy as the houses passed him by, each one looking more expensive than the last.

When he finally arrived he stood for a few moments outside the elegant two story house, looking over the patio outside that was probably bigger than his apartment and the perfectly cut bushes that decorated it all around. Once again he thought about calling Tsumori to tell him he was going to call the patient's family to cancel. This was just not his type of case and by looking at the outside of the house alone; this was defiantly not the type of people he was used to dealing with. He looked down at the file in his hand again to ease his nerves while he tried to remember what he had read in the file about his patient, trying to convince himself that this was worth it.

Twenty nine year old male. Car had skidded on a frozen road and smashed into a tree, trapped in the wreck for hours until a car passing by called an ambulance. The initial surgery to save his live had taken more than ten hours followed by two weeks in the Intensive Care Unit where he was heavily sedated to stop him from feeling any pain. The second surgery to alleviate the pressure on his spinal column had taken only six hours and while it rectified most of the damage, he was left with intense pain in his legs. Physical therapy had been ordered but due to the extreme pain it caused, the patient gave up a few days later. His patient, Hiroki Kamijō, had decided to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

TBC

A/N: Okay, I know it's a short chapter but I wanted it to end there for dramatic purposes. Also because writing should be like sex. Start slow and built up from there. That might be a bad analogy. We shall see! (Next chapter will be way longer, promise.)

I will try to update as soon as I can but life. It sucks. This is also for you, Princess, thanks for harassing me to write!