"And if you move your hand like this, then it means 'friend'." A lady with short brown hair said and she formed Otoya's hand into a certain shape. The red headed teen nodded in responce and he held his hand in the position he had just been taught.

That morning the usual nurse who took care of Otoya came in and said that this lady was going to teach Otoya sign language. At first Otoya wasn't too sure if he wanted to learn it, but after hearing that he would be able to talk with people that way, he decided that it would make sense. They began working right away, starting with numbers then moving onto the alphabet. Otoya had figured out the numbers easily, but letters were harder for him to remember. The way they were shaped confused him, especially since very few had anything to do with the letter that they represented. After practicing and repeating those a few times, the lady began to teach him simple words.

"Now then, lets repeat." She said with a smile and held up her hand to make the gestures. "'hello'." She waited for Otoya to mimic her movement before continuing. "'good-bye', 'you', 'me', 'us', and 'friend'."

As Otoya made the last gesture, the door to his hospital room swung open, with Syo walking in soon after. The blonde looked rather confused when he saw some lady sitting by Otoya's bedside and doing what looked like holding the other teen's hand, although she was actually just correcting the position of Otoya's fingers. "Um, did I come at a bad time?"

Otoya nearly snatched his hand away from the lady and waved them frantically while shaking his head, trying to tell Syo 'no'. He then scrambled for the sketchbook and pencil that he kept end by his bed and wrote a note on it.
'You're fine! So come in already!'

Syo smiled at the words, but followed them none-the-less. He closed the door behind him and walked over to the bed, on the opposite side the older lady was on. "So what's going on? Normally you only have nurses or me in your room."

'You've only come to my room twice...' Otoya held up the notebook with an amused look on his face.

"It's not like that matters." Syo waved his hand at the silent boy's comment. "Now hurry up and answer the question."

'I'm learning sign language'

The blonde boy raised an eyebrow when he read the page. "Sign language?" He asked, getting a nod in responce. "I guess that makes sense."

"Are you a friend?" The lady asked, jumping into the teens' conversation.

"Yeah. My name's Syo." Syo offered his hand to the lady, trying to be polite. He got a good look at the lady in the process. She had short brown hair, was wearing a dark gray suit, almost as if she was going to some sort of meeting or formal event. To some her up, the lady looked rather plain.

"It's nice to meet you Syo." The lady smiled before turning back to Otoya. "How about we end for today? I'll come back tomorrow morning though."

Otoya nodded and lifted up the notebook. 'Thank you.'

The lady nodded and smiled before picking up her purse and making her way out of the room. Syo watched as the lady left, and the moment the door closed he climbed over Otoya's bed, and thus over Otoya, before stealing the stool that the lady had been sitting on. "I don't know about you, but that seemed really awkward."

The red head shrugged. He didn't actually mind it, but he could tell that Syo must have felt a bit strange since he had come in at such an odd moment. Picking up the pencil, Otoya wrote down on the pad of paper. He knew that Syo would be reading over his shoulder, so he didn't even bother turning it around. 'So what's up today?'

"Hmmm." Syo crossed his arms over his chest as he thought about the question. "Not too much. My brother said he was going to stop by later today, but other than that... Nothing."

Otoya's eyes went wide. 'WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!'

"What?" The blonde asked when he saw the written down exclamation.

'You have a brother?!' Otoya's handwriting was more scribbled than usual, showing that he was rather frantic.

"You mean I never told you?" Syo asked scratching his head in mild embarrassment. He couldn't believe he forgot to mention it, but Otoya's reaction proved that he had. "I have a twin named Kaoru." He began explaining. "He's the younger twin and looks a lot like me."

Otoya sat and thought about it. Syo had a brother? And a twin no less. After a few more moments of thinking the situation over, the red head wrote something down on the pad of paper and lifter it for Syo to see. 'Can I meet him?'

"If you want to, then sure." The blonde teen nodded. He then stood up and began to fix the clips in his hair. Otoya had noticed ho the blonde would always pin a part of his bangs back, but he couldn't tell if it was for the style of it or it the just got in his way. Syo then turned and grabbed the set of crutches off the wall they were leaning against and turned back around just in time to help his friend stand up and get himself situated ontop of the metal supports. "You ready?" He asked, gaining a nod in responce.

The two teens then began to go through the halls of the hospital. This was Otoya's first time going to Syo's room, he didn't even know which ward it was in. All he knew was that Syo had soon led him into an elevator and pressed the button for floor 3. It almost surprised the red head that Syo would always come from so far away just to see him and talk to him, despite the fact that he could speak back. It warmed his heart more than anything though. He was happy to know that someone cared that much, and it made him realize just how close of a friend Syo could become for him. As if to interrupt Otoya's thoughts, the elevator door opened up and the pair immediately stepped out and into the hall.
Otoya noticed a few things about this floor. For starters, the walls were painted with a pale green stripe going strait through the middle of them. That, and there were more nurses and doctors around in this area than his own. He thought that maybe some new patient had just been brought in, or something like that. There were many posters on the wall too, which was completely different from the plain walls that Otoys had become used to. On his own floor, the only way to see decorations was to go the the nurses counter and look over at all the little items they kept to entertain themselves with between shifts.

"Well, here we are." Syo said as he approached a wooden door. A large '3240' printed on a plastic plate by the door. The blonde then opened the door and led the way inside. Syo's room was just about the same as Otoya's, except maybe a bit larger and it had an extra couch in one of the corners. The same amount of machinery seemed to be in the room as in Otoya's, although some of it was different and unusual looking. It was also messier, Otoya noticed. There were comic books scattered on top of the bedside table, what looked like a collection of CDs and an MP3 player were placed on the bed next to a CD player, the oh so recognizable coloring book was opened up to a half finished page on the table by a jacket and bag that were flung carelessly ontop of the chair across the room. "Kaoru said he'd be over soon, so I guess we just hang out here for now. That cool?"

Otoya nodded and made his way over to the room, making sure the door closed well behind him. He stood for a moment, a bit bewildered because he didn't really know where he could sit. It wasn't until he saw Syo clearing off some of the stuff on the bed and sit that the red head decided to rest his crutches against a near by wall. He then limped his way over to the bed, where he then flung himself ontop of the mattress. He landed half hazardly with his legs still hanging off and his feet touching the ground, although barely. His stomach was ontop of Syo's lap.

"You ok?" Syo couldn't hide the ammusmant in his voice as he helped pull Otoya onto the bed better. The boy in question nodded, a smile printed on his face. "What do you want to do? Music? TV? Coloring book? All three?"

Otoya thought over the options. He then lifted both of his hands, holding up one on one and three on the other.

"Music and coloring it is." Syo said. He organized his CDs into a pile and handed them to Otoya. "Go ahead and pick one."

Otoya nodded and took the CDs. He looked through them as Syo grabbed the coloring book and crayons and began finishing up the unfinished picture he had probably been working on before. There were six CDs total, each for a different band. To his surprise, Otoya actually recognized all of the titles, with the exception of one. He looked over the odd one out. The cover had splashes of bright reds, yellows, and pinks in the shape of what looked like a tree. There were thirthteen songs on the disc, all with rather interesting looking titles. After looking a bit longer, Otoya realized that it was classical music. When he opened the box, he saw a little summary about the artist on the inside of the cover. It was a man who played all sorts of instruments from piano to trumpet. This CD in particular was all strings. Otoya found it interesting that Syo would have something like this, especially since most of the other discs were of rock bands. Deciding that he wanted to give it a try and see what was so amazing that someone like Syo, who pinned his hair back and colored with crayons, would listen to classical music, Otoya reached over and tapped the blondes shoulder. Wen he got his attention, he handed the CD to Syo.

"Okie dokie then." Syo said with a smile. He reached over Otoya and fiddled with the CD player as he set up the disc and played it from the beginning. He then handed the other teen a few crayons as an invitation to join him in coloring the superhero fight scene.

The music was a very pleasant sound that seemed to fill the room nicely. It wasn't too loud or too soft, and kept going as the boys went from picture to picture to try and find a new one to work on. Itoya found himself really enjoying the songs from one to the next. From time to time, he would hear Syo humming along, which meant that he probably listened to this artist a lot.

There was a knocking sound on the door, followed by the voice of a boy. "Syo, I'm here." In stepped a teen who looked almost exactly like Syo. He wore a black suit, as if he was some sort of business man, and carried a plastic bag in one hand.

Both Syo and Otoya looked up from their coloring book. "Oh. Hey Kaoru!" Syo waved to his brother and turned off the CD player. "How have you been?"

"Are you sure you should be asking me that?" Kaoru said with a slight frown. "You're the one in the hospital after all."

Syo simply shrugged before feeling a tug at the sleeve of his teeshirt. He looked over to see Otoya pulling at his shirt with his head coaxed to the side. "This is my brother Kaoru." Syo explained, then turned back to his twin. "Kaoru, this is Otoya. I met him here."

"Nice to meet you." Kaoru smiled and held out his hand to Otoya, who took it and shook it lightly. The read head was almost surprised at the resemblance between the two. He had known that they were twins, but for whatever reason, it didn't cross his mind that thy ould be identical. If it weren't for the fact that Syo pinned his hair back, Otoya probably ould not have been able to tell the two apart.

"So how long are you staying for?" Syo asked his spitting image. "Are you gonna have diner with us."

"I'm only here to deliver some stuff from Mom and Dad." Kaoru then handed the bag that he had been holding to his brother. "I'll definitely be here on the big day though."

Otoya coaxed his head to th side when heard this idea of some super mega important day that was apparently coming up. He didn't really know what that meant. Seeing as they were in a hospital, it could mean a number of things. It could be his final treatment, his discharge, or something completely non-related.

"Don't tell me Natsuki still plans on coming." Syo grumbled. He had an aggravated look on his face that only made his brother giggle.

"Of course he is." The second blonde replied. "You're lucky I told him he wasnt allowed to bring cookies or a cake or something. We don't need you having stomach problems as well as heart ones."

Large red eyes widened in panic. Otoya grabbed onto Syo's sleeve and pulled at it, making sure he had the other teen' attention. One the blonde turned to ace him better, Otoya lifted one hand and placed his flat palm over Syo's heart. He looked him in the eyes with a near tearful look in his own, his eyebrows slanted down to show the sheer worry on his face.

It didn't take a genius to tell that Otoya was probably scared out of his mind upon hearing that his new friend had been hospitalized due to problems with his heart. So Syo was radially able to figure out what the silent boy would have tried to say. With a gentle smile on his face, Syo decided to explain his situation to the red head. "I was born with a heart condition that makes me really sick at times. Lately, it's been getting a lot worse, so I'll be having a heart transplant in a few days. But trust me," Syo made sure that he was looking Otoya straight in the eye, and that he had a good and honest smile on his face. "I'll be just fine and good as new once I'm done."