Chapter 2: Diagnosis

My friends are no help with chapter titles, just for the record. I also feel accomplished that I used the word "plethora" in a Fanfiction.

Nowaki simply smiled, then turned his head away. His eyes were opened in wonder as he looked around the room.

"It's like… I've woken up for the first time."

His head swiveled back to Hiroki, and his face broke into the same brilliant smile he had on his face when he first woke up.

"Hiro-san… your face is so beautiful. When did you get here?"

"I was here when you woke up…"

Nowaki paused.

"Well yeah, I just woke up, and I'm looking at your face."

"You woke up a few minutes ago…"

"No, I just woke up a few seconds ago. There's nothing before that, I can't remember anything before. It's all new." Nowaki insisted.

Hiroki felt his blood run cold again.

"Nowaki…"

Hiroki was successfully pushed out of the room by a plethora of doctors and nurses. One pulled at the assistant professor's arm.

"Kamijou-san… we think we know what happened to him."

"What?" Hiroki asked, desperate for an answer as to why it seemed like Nowaki couldn't remember anything at all.

"There was a case in England very, very similar to this. The man's name is Clive Wearing, and after he woke out of his coma, he had no memory. The only thing he could remember was his love for his wife, Deborah. He didn't have the ability to create new memories either, and so his life reset every single minute. He always felt like he was reawakening. I'm afraid that Nowaki has this too; brain scans reveal that his hippocampus was destroyed almost completely. The hippocampus-"

"Is the part of the brain that stores and creates memory." Hiroki finished, whispering.

"But… he remembers me…"

"It seems that the one person that the patient loves above all else is the one thing they can ever remember, past language, basic instincts, and muscle memory."

Hiroki dropped to his knees, stunned. Nowaki really cared for him so much that he would be remembered even when all else was forgotten.

"He's already trying to tell us every time he 'awakens'. He also keeps trying to write it down. We'll give him a journal, keep him happy, but there's not much else we can do. He can't return to any semblance of his former life."

Hiroki stood shakily to his feet and walked towards the room, pushing the door open. The doctors and nurses had left during the time he was being informed of Nowaki's probable condition.

Nowaki turned his head at the noise, and smiled that same, brilliant smile.

"Hiro-san!"

"Nowaki…" Hiroki's voice trailed off as his eyes landed on the four entries in the journal that he had been given.

"I have woken up. It feels nice."

"I didn't really wake up last time, THIS is my real awakening."

"I have finally woken up for the first time."

And the last entry, the one that made Hiroki's heart throb with both love and pain, was written larger than the others.

"I love Hiro-san forever and ever."

What the hell am I going to do now? Hiroki thought desperately, meeting the cloudy blue eyes of his lover.

The next chapter will be the final one, and it will detail Hiroki's answer.