Two weeks later, here is the next instalment! This was originally completely different but once I was nearly finished and ready for publishing 1 week ago, I got angry with myself and deleted over half of it on re-reading. Hopefully the wait is worth my little tantrum

I realise I have been rather lax with using honorifics at the end of names (i.e. I haven't bothered with them at all) and that is unlikely to change in this story, but hopefully it will in future stories.

So without further ado, lights, camera, disclaimers...action!


Jyou's POV

Humph. Saturday night, and I was stuck on the night shift. 31 years old, top of my class, and the most distinguished diagnostician in Asia. I was paid well, given a good office and yet in all my years of medicine one thing has not changed. I still worked appalling hours.

How on earth was I supposed to be at the top of my game and using my many splendored talents if I was stuck in a darkened office with my only sustenance being mounds of instant coffee? I stretched and yawned widely, my eyes drooping in defiance of the stacks of paperwork laid out in front of me. No, as a specialist hospital, at least one senior doctor had to be on the premises at all times and it was my lucky night.

Grumbling, I picked up one of the many discarded mugs on my desk. I took a moment to run a finger over the wood of the desk – ebony wood, like most of the highly furnished office. I smiled widely. Although the hours often felt intolerable, the work tiresome; the luxury was nonpareil. Not that I was uppity about it. No in fact I had been known to help many a friend out in their hour of need; I wasn't tight with my money. I could never be arrogant, I didn't have it in me, but I was not above grinning at my own success from time to time.

That grin was soon lost in another yawn. Remembering the coffee cup in my hand, I strolled over to the kettle and flicked the switch, as if working purely on clockwork. Blindly, I grabbed a spoon and the jar of instant coffee, applying a liberal scoop to the bottom of my mug and topping it off with boiling water, triumphantly removing the kettle from its holder, not giving it a chance to complete its bubbly fanfare. The boiling sounds died away in disappointment as the dark granules were dissolved in the steaming liquid.

Development of a practically asbestos mouth seemed to be part of the profession, considering the number of cups of coffee I guzzled down in a day, for the burning hot beverage didn't even faze me as it hit my lips and attempted to sear my throat. No sooner had the mug left my lips however than my pager beeped enthusiastically at my hip. In an almost unconscious manner, I tipped my head down and pointed the pager upwards. I read the words that scrolled across the screen, as shock coursed through my system.

Not hesitating, I slammed down the mug and bolted out my office door, shaking the blistering liquid from my hand as I sped towards the elevator. On reaching the metal doorway, I mashed the control panel with my burning hand, impatience and anxiety fuelling the localised anaesthesia in my extremities. I dashed inside the empty box and jabbed at the ground floor button with fervour, angrily noting how long it took elevator doors to shut.

I ground to a halt, resting against the back wall and pinching the bridge of my nose. I needed to breathe. My head was buzzing, a whir of emotions. Feeling came flowing back to my hands and I grimaced at the pain the coffee had caused. Never had I expected I would have to deal with one of our own in such a critical condition. I mean sure the odd few came to me with the occasional medical query but this. Phew, this was something else. I had to be at the top of my game, no excuses. This was my highest priority. Daisuke had had a seizure, a 26 year old with no medical history to speak of. There were a million different reasons as to why that wasn't good.

A short ding from the elevator told me the doors had opened already. I snapped my eyes equally as open and darted around a group of bewildered patients and their visitors, aiming to complete the last leg of the race in record time.

"Talk to me!" I demanded, white lab coat flowing behind me as I flew down the corridor towards the approaching stretcher, family and paramedics. And there I saw him. His limp, unconscious figure was unusually unnerving, making me hesitate slightly with a shiver down my spine. A thick atmosphere had been cast on the area, clouding clear thought. My emotions were vying for a complete takeover of my body and perhaps they would have won if not for the approaching paramedic snapping me out of my reverie:

"26 year old male slipping in and out of consciousness after a tonic-clonic seizure, symptoms range from three days previous: headache, nausea, vomiting and fever. Pulse is steady but pupils are sluggish." I fell in toe with the stretcher as we burst through the door of the emergency room, carving a path through the patients and nurses as my brain went a mile a minute thinking of several different ideas. I pointed to the nearest available private room.

"Set him up in there. Nurse, get a cooling blanket and monitor the patient closely. Start an IV fluids wide open!" I stopped and pulled Jun back by the arm, looking her in the eye, "Has he said anything?"

"Just one thing," she replied, flustered, "don't tell Ken."

Ken's POV – a few hours later

Tick
Tock
Scribble
Scratch
Tick
Tock
Tap tap tap

'Ugh,' I grumbled to myself. Why was it that in one of the most important moments of my life, the most mundane of noises became annoying to no end? I sat silently, opposite my professor, trying my best to focus on the conclusion of my essay without being distracted by any external noise. I was so near the end, I just needed a few more lines, but they had to be perfect.

I looked up and saw the ornate clock happily chirping away in the corner. 9:50 – 10 minutes left, there was plenty of time. I would always have opted for the earlier time for my exams and since I could choose the exact time this time, I chose 7am because the earlier I worked, the better I tended to be. My eyes wandered across the shelves of books that lay before me – hundreds, even thousands of pieces of literature full to the brim with palaeontological and palaeoecological studies just begging to be opened, to be read. Why oh why was I made to do the exam here of all places when I knew all the help I needed was in black and white all around me.

Well, that was of course not entirely true. To get a doctorate you needed to do a dissertation – a sort of research project of your own of something completely new in the field. I had been studying palaeontological relationships between the different species of the Triassic period of life. In front of me was a paper filled with essay questions on said dissertation, its relation to other aspects of science and its impact on modern science. I think it's riveting anyway. What was I doing? Oh yes! The exam!

I picked up my pen again and concluded my essay on my research's impact on modern theories of biology. I had developed several new theories on ecology and animal behaviour – yeah, I suppose that would be a good conclusion. I sighed as I replaced the pen, picked up my answers and slumped down further in my seat. I looked over my answers with glazed eyes. They were bound to be right; I was Ichijouji Ken after all.

That's what Daisuke would say anyway. I smiled a little, but that soon turned into a furrowed brow at the thought of him. I had turned on my mobile that morning expecting to see the flashing texts icon. In fact, my phone was blank, no messages at all. Not one of the digidestined had sent me a good luck text. At first I was angry, then a little sad upon relating it to my post-Kaiser days whereupon I had no friends, or at least I thought I didn't. However the digidestined had changed all that at the time. So why no texts? Not even from Dai!

I grumbled, running through the people in my head. Takeru and Hikari had a day off and a lie in, so I expected a text from them when I got out. Miyako and Iori always go for a jog together at 6am so they should have texted me. Taichi had no chance of getting up early but Koushiro was always up prompt for his computer programming on a Friday morning so he would have texted for them both. Sora, Yamato and Mimi could be excused for being in a different country of course, but Jyou was working through the night – he had no excuse whatsoever. Then there was Dai, why on earth would my own boyfriend not have texted me?

At this point the sadness had turned into confusion and a little bit of worry. I sat there churning the worst case scenarios through my head (as I usually did in these situations) and imagined one of my friends dead or dying. Nothing else would make Dai forget to text me. However he had been ill recently so perhaps he was just tired and it was too late to text me when he got up. Yeah, that'd be it.

So why had no-one else text me?

I sighed again at that darker voice in my head, always assuming the worst yet always pointing out the obvious. It had been that voice that taunted me, mocked me and aggrieved me – the voice that was so harsh, so true – The Kaiser's voice. It was the voice that Daisuke had beaten away, that he blocked out. I smiled knowingly as I remembered the days before we professed our feelings to each other. Whenever I got near him, the voice became muffled and unintelligible, but it still found a way of poking through now and then. However, he made me feel that that was the exact part of me that I didn't want to listen to anymore. Daisuke helped me, healed me...loved me.

I remember the day with such crisp detail I could have mistaken it for yesterday. It was quite a while after the defeat of Belailvamdemon, about 3 years actually. Our feelings had long been growing, but due to his stubbornness and my shyness, neither had the guts to make the first move. However, if there were bets on at the time as to who would be the boldest, whoever held the remarkably good odds that it would be Daisuke would have won.

I remember the flurry of emotions I had held that day at his house, in his bedroom, his scent surrounding me, guarding me from the voice. I had felt awkwardness, sadness, hope, shyness and anxiety as he sat in front of me and talked with a shaky voice, with those being quickly replaced by joy, happiness, excitement, lust, love and the tiniest dash of fear as we admitted, hugged, kissed, talked some more, kissed again, touched and...er...ahem...yes...

I jumped with shock as my professor signalled the end of the exam by slamming his large hardback book on the table with brute force. He stood up and I held my paper out to him, dazed as I tried to remove myself from the misty reverie I had stuck myself in. As my memories had taken me down the more lust filled road of our relationship, I had become unaware that the ten minutes previous had quickly elapsed. I stood up clumsily and bowed in the general direction my professor.

"Arigatou Senpai," I said respectfully as I hastily made for the door. On crossing the threshold, I leaped and grabbed my bag from under the nearby chair, scrambling through it for my phone. My heart sank however as I saw the phone had received no texts since the exam had started. I grumpily threw the bag on my shoulder and began to trudge out of the college with an obvious foul mood accentuated in each stride. And to think, I was worried I'd end up feeling crap coming out of the exam because of poor performance, not because of inconsiderate friends and boyfriend!

I was now more confused than ever as I exited the college, descending the grand steps leading to the road and my car. It just didn't make sense. If there was anyone who cared about my life more than Daisuke, I'd not yet met them. The anger started back up again, egged on by the voice now crawling its way out of my subconscious. How could everyone be so inconsiderate? I mean, didn't they care?

I growled, thrusting my hand into my pocket and grabbing for my mobile. Bringing it into view, I began punching Daisuke's number into the keypad. I was so absorbed that I only just stopped myself short from bumping into the person in front of me. It was my mum. Stunned, I lowered the phone and bowed to her.

"Mum, what are you doing here?"

"I need to tell you something," she replied. Her face was severe yet rather sad. I couldn't help but let the beast inside me rise up again. Not even she cared about the most important exam of my life! I'm not normally a self-centred person but I think under those circumstances my attitude could be excused. 'What could possibly be more important than me right now?' I thought, rather vexed.

For the next minute, she opened and closed her mouth like a fish. I couldn't hear any sound whatsoever. For after the first few seconds, my mind didn't register the words that she was saying. I couldn't believe it, I wouldn't...I didn't. It was like I had been thrust to the end of a long and empty corridor and the rest of the world was only a speck of light at the other end. I had gone numb, my face showing no emotion. Sound was noise and light was haze. Nothing was registering with me at all, as if I was weightless and in a vacuum. Shouldn't I have been dead if that was the case? I may as well have been to be honest, I certainly felt like I should be, like I wanted to be.

There was a reason why I absolutely abhorred self-centredness and this was why. How could I have been so selfish, so awful? How dare I doubt Daisuke? How dare I think he wouldn't care? Over ten years in a relationship with that brilliant, wonderful, amazing man and I assume the absolute worst. I'm disgusting. My poor little Daisuke gravely ill, lying in a hospital bed and all that I could think about was my bloody stupid test and how no-one cared about the whiney, skinny little boy everyone calls Ken. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I wondered what right I had to even have a test right at the moment that Daisuke had a seizure. He was ill, the signs were there! I should have just postponed the test; I'd have found a way.

A lifetime later, I was pulled out of the corridor and snapped back into reality by my mother part shaking me, part dragging me towards her car. The quick refocus into the real world induced a similar refocus into real emotions, and boy did the barricade come crashing down. An unintelligible noise escaped my mouth followed by a short gasp. Shock brought me to a standstill as I stood there in disbelief. My mother turned around with tears in her eyes as she begged me to follow. I quickly emulated her as tears started to form in the corners of my eyes. Grief, sadness and guilt all came crashing down me at once as I started up again, striding past mother towards her car.

As we got in, I sat there still numb as ever, barely feeling the vibrations as the car started up. I felt anger and jealousy towards the people walking past. How could they not be feeling what I was feeling right now? Motimiya Daisuke was lying unconscious in a hospital bed and no-one cared. A few minutes ago I didn't care either, I didn't even know and I was his partner – as I said, disgusting.

I sniffled slightly in my seat as my mother looked at me with wet eyes. And to think, that exam had been my top priority for weeks – selfish bastard. We pulled away from the sidewalk, beginning the longest and most agonising journey of my life.

'I'm coming, my love.'


Another chapter done! Reviews of all types are, while not expected, much appreciated.

S-S