Summery: Ryoma Echizen has lived his life with an illness that has left him with nothing but tennis and his cat. This has been his reality since he was small and he doesn't think it will ever change. When he moves to Japan however, things start changing alright. Thanks to one Yukimura Seiichi who can't seem to mind his own business.

Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis and I made up the illness I gave Ryoma. Please do not sue/hate me, thank you.

Chapter Two: Quiet Curiosity

I see him watching me sometimes.

A sad looking boy no older than 10 years old, with black hair that shines green and the most amazing pair of large golden eyes I have ever seen (Probably the only pair of golden eyes I've seen...). He's sort, thin, and the first time I saw him I mistook him for a girl. Also, I think someone keeps hurting him because it seems as if whenever I see him he's injured in some way or another.

He never enters my room. But once a week like clockwork I see him standing there in the hallway outside my room staring in with those large golden eyes of his. He doesn't move to come in, speak to anyone, or do anything much really. Just stands there watching me with this hurt longing expression on his face. The few times I've tried talking to him his eyes go wide as if he hadn't thought I noticed him and he hurries away like a six year old caught doing something wrong.

Sagamoto-sensei laughs when I asked her about him.

"That would be Ryoma-kun. He's a sweet child really, but his head's a little messed up. Just go with it OK Seiichi-kun? He's the one I'm trying to get to talk to you after his appointments." She had replied which only made me more curious about him. Why would she want him to talk to me? Was it possible that he had the same disease they think I have? "No, He doesn't have Guillain-Barre though he does have something similar. But I can't tell you what it is due to patient confidentiality so you'll have to help me with my mission." I must be slipping, I hadn't realized I said that last question aloud.

That's what I liked about Sagamoto-sensei. She cares about us. Don't get me wrong, the other doctors do to, but with her you could tell this was more then just a job. Sagamoto-sensei genuinely only wanted to heal people in anyway she could. Doesn't make me like my situation any better but at least she wasn't one of the people harping at me about if I should have the operation or not. (And as my doctor you would really think she had an opinion on the subject.) Though she probably doesn't want to actually say anything about it until it's actually confirmed that I really do have the disease. Smiling I had agreed, but a few weeks later everything seemed to go downhill.

He talked to me.

Well, he didn't really talk to me, more like glared and hissed at me like a cat from the doorway, but it had seemed like it was a start at first...before his words had registered in my brain.

"You think you have it so bad don't you?" He accused me suddenly after having watched me silently for about ten minutes. He was injured even worse today than usual and, while he always looked vulnerable to some extent, he seemed even more so today than usual because of it. A bandage was over one of his eyes and his right hand was wrapped. I couldn't tell how far up the injury went since he was wearing a hoodie even though it was a warm day out (from what I could tell anyway) and the gauze disappeared under his sleeve. However, it was concerning since we were in a hospital and yet he was bleeding through the bandage. Was it just me or did anyone else here notice the spot on his cheek that looked as if make-up had been hastily applied to just that one area? I had been discreetly watching him while pretending to read one of the books Ka-san had left me before her lunch break ended. Ryoma-kun, as I had just found out he was named, tended to stay longer when I appeared not to be noticing him at all. Still, the sudden break in routine startles me and I look up at him fully, smiling at him despite how rude that had been. After all, Sagamoto-sensei probably wanted me to talk to him for a reason if she was working so hard for it to happen.

"Whatever do you mean Boya?" I ask, turning on the charm that seems to never fail in keeping my team in line. But he isn't one of my teammates (I wonder, does he even play tennis?) and if anything it seems to make him angrier.

"Che! You have absolutely everything anyone could wish for and yet when something even a little wrong happens you're all 'poor me', it isn't the end of the world you know." With that he spins on his heals and walks away. My knuckles are white from gripping the book so hard and my body is shaking slightly with anger but my mind is to shocked to really do anything.

He stops his ritual after that, and for some reason I miss his visits after only a few weeks. Though what shocks me the most is that when it is declared that I really do have Guillain-Barre syndrome it is his angry words that keep me a float. Not the sobs of Ka-san and Mi-chan. Not the silent support of Tou-san, Gen, Jackle, and Yanagi. Not Nio's jokes, Akaya's anger at the world, Marui's cakes, or Renjii's statistics. Not even Sagamoto-sensei's assuranses that people have survived the condition and similar versions of it that were considered much worse in the eyes of her field...

...But Ryoma-kun's accusation.

The accusation that in the end was the true deciding factor of me accepting the surgery, from the boy I would hear nothing more of until after the Kanto tournament.

Hello Everyone! I hope your summer is going well and that you like Willing My Death so far. My promise of finishing two of my stories before I start yet another one still stands and is actually half way done since I finished Unnoticed a little while ago. I shall once again state that Ryoma's illness does not actually exist as I made it up myself. Thank you for all of the reviews, comments, and suggestions so far and I hope that you will continue to show your support in the future. Until next time...

...Bye!