Tezuka

Needless to say, I was back at the school in record time. I quickly ran to the locker room and hid there, panting on the bench.

"God...that was the most traumatic event of my life." I sighed, allowing the bench to support my elbows as I rested my head in my hands. I had no idea what I was going to do now.

Just then, I heard the door being pushed open and a shout from the doorway. "Tezuka!" I glanced up to see the regulars standing there, Oishi looking at me worriedly.

"Where were you? The teacher flipped out when she couldn't find you. Did you feel ill? Was that why you weren't paying attention in class? Are you better now?" They had all moved into the room. They locked the door so that the rest of the team had to wait until we had finished talking. They all stared at me, waiting for an answer. I suppose I couldn't keep it from them; they all deserved to know. This would definitely change how they thought about me.

"I went to see Fuji-kun..." They all stared at me and I watched their facial expressions change.

"You did!"

"Is he okay?"

"You got to see him?"

"How was he?"

"Is he gonna be okay?"

"Why did you go?" All of them asked me different questions at the same time. I looked up at them calmly.

"I'll tell you. Okay...It's just..." I sighed loudly, "I went to the hospital...and snuck in..." They all looked at me like I had just said Hell had frozen over and Satan was moving to Earth for a new home.

I needed to see him... I mumbled the story again, more to myself than to them. "I went down a hallway, found some white rooms...one of them was blue, and it had Fuji's tennis bag in it. I continued until I found another hallway with a bunch of doors. At the end of it was...Fuji. He...he was hooked up to a bunch of machines...and he was asleep, and it was just...unsettling." I fixed my gaze on the lockers in front of me. "It was like a science-fiction movie where they were doing experiments on him..."

I looked around at the shocked members.

"I sat down, talked to him a little, then I got up. Next thing I know I had a doctor screaming at me and I ran all the way back here..." It was awkward telling my team that I had done something so delinquent. I was supposed to be the compassed, emotionless captain. Straight A student, good at sports, good in school.

I was sneaking into hospitals.

I stood up and looked around the clubroom. At anything, anywhere that could give me something to focus on other than the faces of my teammates. "Now...let's go practice." I turned and headed out to the tennis courts. As I opened the door, the other members filed in and changed.

Later after practice, I was starting to head out when the regulars approached me.

"Tezuka-buchou...we were wondering...maybe we could stop by the hospital to see if we could see him yet?" I looked at them. I suppose, since I had already seen him...we could stop by, just to find out...

"I suppose we could do that then..." We started off walking towards the hospital. It wasn't really a long walk, but knowing what lurked ahead made it seem harder to deal with. At any rate, I started to tense up as we walked past the old hospital, which indicated we were almost halfway there. The others continued to walk without hindrance. Clearly they forgot that I had just been here, and caught while I was at it. I desperately hoped that the guard hadn't called the cops or something.

Soon we had arrived, and the others were walking up the steps. This was just going to be awful, I could tell. Kikumaru-kun pushed open the door and we all walked in. The room was still creepy, and the lady was actually at the desk this time.

Maybe because they were afraid that someone else would be sneaking in.

She looked up when we came in. I lurked in the corner, not wanting to be seen. "Hello, how may I help you?" She spoke to our rather large group.

Inui replied, "We are here to find out if we can visit Fuji-kun." He glanced up, the light reflecting off of his glasses. The lady clicked a button and glanced at her computer screen,

"Oh, you're in luck! His room has been moved!" She smiled at us. I knew what room he was in - he was in the blue one. She wrote down the number anyway and when we turned Eiji was practically running to the door. We were all finally going to see Fuji.

And legally.

Fuji

When I woke up again, I was in a different room. It was blue, and my bags were on the ground. I noticed that one of the bags had some of my clothes in it. All of this reminded me of something I had been told in one of my 'lapses' (what I call when I wake up and am told something but I am only awake for a total of three minutes) At any rate, the doctor had said I had become a test subject. My mother had signed a form saying she didn't mind. She wanted me to be back no matter what. I curled up on my side and pulled my knees to my chest. I had the IV drip in my arm that sent the stupid virus repressor into my blood every 15 hours. I had discovered a while ago that when it was dripped into your system you got a horrid feeling in your stomach. It was really disgusting; I was stuck with some mutant TB. And I had found out I am a hermaphrodite. You would have no idea how bewildering it felt. I was a test subject: they would be constantly taking my blood and doing tests on me. God, life was horrible and I was seriously thinking that I just didn't want to deal with it.

I buried my head into my arms, humiliated enough to revert to a fetal position, and screamed loudly, trying to vent my frustration out.

Which was a stupid idea since it lead to coughing and hacking and pain, and eventually coughing out blood. Once I started to feel something come up my throat I had to sit up and grab the bucket that I had for when this happened. Or if I needed to be sick, or apparently if I needed to pee. I wasn't allowed to move yet. Fun, the doctor told me he would be around to change it every hour or so. Couldn't have it smelly, could we. Or I could push a nifty little button if I needed him to remove it, or if I wanted food, or if I wanted a magazine, or if I just wanted to annoy the poor doctor for my own pleasure.

Anyway, whilst I was coughing up blood into my oh so familiar bucket friend I happened to notice a bunch of faces staring at me through the window at the end of my room. Some faces I would rather not see staring at me whilst I hacked up blood. There stood the entire regular team, watching me as I sat there, shocked. (I was pretty sure a stray trail of blood was dripping down my chin.) A doctor approached them and said something I couldn't understand, then opened the door letting the crowd in. Thanks doc, let's not ask the patient if this is the best time to be seeing someone.

He walked in behind them and took my bucket. Goodbye Bucket... He then grabbed some cleaning tissues and wiped away the trail of blood on my chin.

"Fuji-kun..." I looked up, then down at the floor. I blamed this on the doctor - he would pay. He'd better be prepared for a never-ending assault of buzzing from his favorite test subject. Eventually, though, I had to look back up at my friends, no matter how reluctant I was.

"Hi everyone..." The doctor had left, thankfully, and I thought in a small corner of my mind of many ways to torment him.

"FUJI-KUN I MISSED YOU!!" I looked up just in time to lean back to avoid a flying Eiji. Who had decided he wanted to hug me. He ended up half lying on my bed, face pressed against the wall.

"Eiji-kun! You have to show restrictions!! Fuji is sick!" Oishi, no doubt reprimanding the pouting Eiji, scolded. Ryoma was silent, as well as Tezuka. The others were asking if I was okay.

Well, actually, Momo and Kaidou were fighting...

"I'm fine...for the most part..." I sighed and sat up a little straighter. Tezuka looked at me at the same time I glanced over at him. I have to admit, for some reason I felt something weird that made me open my eyes and shiver,

"Fuji, are you cold?" I looked over at Oishi.

"Oh no, I'm fine..." There was an awkward pause.

"This is a nice room you get though...did they paint it just for you? All the others are white..." Kawamura spoke up for the first time.

"I'm not sure...I only just woke up a few moments ago..." This whole event was getting really awkward.

"Ah...I have to go! I forgot, I promised my mother I would go straight home to help her clean!" Oishi looked around at the others and then at me.

"I'm sorry, Fuji...I'll come see you again later. It was nice seeing you..." I nodded and he turned to leave. Now that it was only down to a few people three of them sat down on the couch across my small room the other three sat on the floor. Tezuka grabbed the computer chair and, pulling it closer to the bed, sat down on it.

"Can you tell us what happened?" I looked down at Inui - of course he wanted to know, and I wasn't surprised to see him sitting there with his notebook open and a pen ready. I wasn't sure I wanted to tell them all of it, especially not that...

"Well...I suppose you could say I have a mutant form of the virus called Tuberculosis... You end up coughing up blood and other fluids that get in your lungs...I think I looked it up once...well, um, the medicine they have for it isn't affecting it much...just repressing the actual threatening virus from spreading...or something..." I looked at them all weakly. I clearly had no future in the medical field. I think I explained that horribly, and it had something to do with bacteria, not a virus. Oh well. Inui could correct me if he felt like it.

Everyone stayed silent for a few moments.

"Will you...be able to play tennis? I mean, once they have a medicine for it, right? Since they have the repressor could you play again soon?" Momo asked me carefully.

"I'm not too sure, I would have to ask the doctor. I really want to play, I miss it. By the way, how is practice going?" I smirked at the looks on their faces.

"Ah, Tezuka, you really shouldn't push them so hard, ne?" Tezuka looked at me and remained silent. Something was up with him. I knew it.

Soon, everyone was getting ready to leave and some were already leaving my room. Ryoma was the last to leave. He gave a final glance back -

"Mada Mada Dane..." Then he turned and left. Seeing all my teammates had really made me feel better. They were my friends, and I had been starting to get lonely...you don't really notice things like this until you end up finding out you have a possibly life-threatening illness that has no cure. It was strange though, having them all there. They were acting strange around me, like they had to walk around egg shells. It made me feel like a child again, perfectly honest. I sighed, looked up again, and was promptly shocked. I was looking right into Tezuka's face.

"Ah, Tezuka...You haven't left yet?"

Tezuka

The whole time I was in that room, I had been watching Fuji. He seemed pale and fragile. I imagine he hadn't looked in a mirror lately since, well...he was Fuji, but seeing him sitting there on that blue bed...he looked so skinny, so sick. It just made me feel sick. I wanted to reach out and hug him, then force a few pounds of food down his throat. This whole thing was very puzzling and I had no idea what it was, but the feeling was starting to annoy me.

"Kunimitsu..." Fuji looked at me funnily,

"I want...you to call me Kunimitsu..." I didn't know how he would react. I had just told him to call me my first name. Not many of us used first names, though we called Ryoma Ryoma sometimes... Then he smiled at me vaguely, which sent a strange feeling to my stomach.

"Syusuke," Fuji responded. I smiled briefly at him. We soon lapsed into silence. I didn't know what to say so I decided to tell him about my quests earlier that day,

"I was here earlier..." I glanced up to look at him, "I...well I snuck in, because they wouldn't let us see you...and I just needed to..." I paused. That sounded odd. It sounded really odd.

"You were worried about me? Enough to sneak into a hospital?" He was smirking at me in amusement again, which made my stomach flutter. What was this?

"Yes, you caused me to resign myself to delinquency. If I get arrested you're paying the bail." I hadn't noticed that I had smiled while saying it, but his eyes opened and a wide smile spread across his face.

"You're smiling." I blinked and must've frowned, because he did too, which made me rather upset.

"Ne, Tez- Kunimitsu...why are you still here? I mean, is there any special reason you wanted to stay?" He was looking at me expectantly, as if I was supposed to say something. What it was I wasn't sure, so I just told the truth.

"I'm not sure...I just didn't want to leave you yet..." I suppose he was satisfied with the answer because he leaned against the headboard, smiling. I must say though - him saying my name...it made me feel really happy. This was weird. I probably should've left, I needed to think about what I was feeling. I stood up carefully, looking down at Syusuke,

"I should probably leave." Once again, my body was moving before I had processed what was going on because when I figured it out I had my hands resting on the bed and my lips were connected with Syusuke's. I pulled back quickly looking startled, he looked just as startled as me. What had I just done?

"I...um...I'm sorry! I'm going to go...now..." I quickly turned and left the room. What was wrong with me? I had never acted this strangely around anyone before. I ran all the way home, once there I quickly moved past my grandparents, ignoring their questions.

Once I got to my room and slammed the door, I moved over to my bed. I sat down on it and put my head in my hands.

"What have I done..." I mumbled to myself,

"I kissed him...I kissed Fuji Syusuke..." Oh god, I couldn't. I mean...he was a guy...I was a guy...but it would explain what I've been feeling. I shook my head and lay down on my bed; I needed to think about this more. Figure things out... what was I supposed to say to Syusuke?

"I kissed him..."

Fuji

I stared, wide eyed as he ran out the door. The Tezuka Kunimitsu had kissed me. I continued to stare for a few moments before moving my hand to my lips. I sat there, just staring like that, then I smiled and lay down in bed.

"I was kissed by Kunimitsu." I found this day to be highly productive and now I could hardly wait until the next time my entire team visited me.