A/N: So, I had written a huge chunk of this and I really disliked the order of it. So I scraped it and you get this instead. There's a whole buttload of time jumps here. Sorry about that...hopefully you can figure out what happens and when. Enjoy.

Next update: unknown, but probably in a week or so. i'm hoping to get back to my usual update schedule. Writing this story is like pulling fucking teeth for me, largely because I want it to be perfect and it ISN'T.

Again, sorry.

Is it really obvious to you guys how this is going to turn out? Let's play, who is Haru going to end up with, shall we?

XXX

"I'm not going to go to the therapist anymore," Haruka declared one day. They were sitting on the couch in their apartment in California. Makoto was reading a book for school and Haruka was reading an article about California wineries in a travel magazine. Haruka seemed to like California. Makoto had been concerned about bringing Haruka to yet a foreign country, as even Japan had become foreign to Haruka.

But, Haruka seemed happy here. At least as far as Makoto could tell. It was hard for Makoto to read this new Haruka. The new Haruka expressed his emotions explicitly, and as a result, Makoto found dealing with Haruka to be challenging for the first time ever. Previously, Makoto read the small subtle signs in Haruka's moods and determined the larger emotions that those signs expressed. Now, Haruka was far more expressive while being far more distant. He seemed to be the most comfortable with Makoto, but he acted differently toward Makoto. In general, it was hard on Makoto, but Makoto did his best to not express that to Haruka.

It had been selfish of Makoto to bring Haruka to California rather than leaving him in Japan. But, Makoto had to do it. There was no way that he could be in California while Haruka was injured in Japan. Makoto would have worried too much. He could barely focus on anything other than Haruka even with Haruka nearby. So far though, their life in California had been mostly pleasant.

Makoto went to class. Haruka went to the doctor. Makoto followed Haruka's appointments and treatments, and then, on the weekends, they would go to different places in California. Haruka was oddly comfortable on their road trips given that the accident had occurred in a car, but the doctors decided that it was best for him to spend time in the car rather than to develop a phobia.

Makoto didn't know how to answer Haruka's declaration. This was a troubling thing for Haruka to say. The doctors had determined and Makoto agreed, that Haruka's memory loss was not due to actual physical damage suffered, but rather to a psychological block. It was only natural then that Haruka would go to therapy. They continued to run tests, but if Haruka's memories were going to come back, it was going to be after he got over whatever psychological block he had.

"Nothing is happening," Haruka complained, "and I don't like the therapist."

"We can find you a different one."

Haruka shook his head, "I don't want a different one, they're all going to be the same. Hundreds of questions about the accident. Hundreds of questions about my life. Hundreds of questions about my feelings. None of which I know the answer to. You don't understand, Makoto, it does nothing."

Makoto sighed, "Haruka...he's trying to figure out what is causing the block. If you get angry, it's only going to make it more difficult."

Haruka frowned, "I'll go again, but I just don't think that it is doing anything."

"Well, you have to at least get a passing review," Makoto compromised, "if they pass you as stable, then you get to take classes. I think you'd like that Haruka."

Haruka nodded. That much he was certain about. Makoto had brought him some of his old books and while according to Makoto, his attention was drawn to different aspects of them, Haruka loved reading. He was sure to love school.

Makoto got up from the couch and began to prepare their dinner.

Haruka asked softly, "Do you think I'll ever get better?"

Makoto was glad that he wasn't facing Haruka though he was sure that it was possible for Haruka to notice how his body tightened before he responded, "Emotionally, Haruka, you'll have some permanent changes. Well, who knows. When your memories come back, you may emotionally go back to how you used to be…"

"Do you think my memories will come back?" This was not the first time that Haruka asked this question. He asked it enough times that if Makoto had not known better, he would have wondered if Haruka had difficulty forming new memories. But, Makoto knew, this was a question that formed from Haruka's desperation and frustration.

Makoto nodded, "I do."

But, as each day passed, his response came with less virility.

Haruka asked one more question, "Do you think the therapy will help?"

Makoto chewed on his lip, this one was harder for him to answer, finally, he replied, "I think that depends on you."

Haruka sighed, "I'll give it another shot then."

"You don't have to," Makoto answered.

This response surprised Haruka. He was still trying to figure out Makoto. Everyone was a stranger, but Makoto was the most complex for him to understand. He hadn't expected Makoto to be willing to let Haruka stop therapy, "It's fine."

"Haruka, I think you should do what makes you feel best, I just think you'd be happier back in class and to get to do that, you have to pass the psych eval," and with that, Makoto returned his attention to the stir-fry.

Haruka stayed on the couch, and tried once more to remember something. Anything, he thought to himself. He pictured Makoto's face, and tried to remember seeing that face in the past, anything.

But, there was nothing.

XXX

Haruka kept his distance from Rin for the most part. Occasionally, he'd say something to Rin, something which made it seem like Haruka was trying to engage Rin in conversation, but it was always awkward and the conversations never seemed to go the way that Rin wanted these conversations to go. Rin figured that this was because of the bullshit that Haruka had talked about after their one night stand, and how Haruka claimed that he hadn't wanted things to be serious, or whatever.

Tonight was one of the nights when Haruka spoke to Rin. They had a proposal for their final paper due. Rin had gone over to where Haruka was sitting to pick up the powerpoint slide printouts for their class. Haruka was seated close to where the professor laid them. Haruka looked up at Rin as he walked by, "I saw your post, were you able to decide on a topic?"

This made Rin almost jump. He had friended Haruka on Facebook back when they had to work together as determined by their professor, but he hadn't expected Haruka to be following his facebook posts. He was a bit embarrassed that he had posted anything about the class now, given that after their tutoring session, Rin was pretty sure that Haruka thought he was an idiot.

"Um yeah," Rin replied trying to remain cool. Duh, Rin thought, our proposals were due after all. Why are you asking something like that, Haruka? Do you really think I wouldn't have come up with anything to turn in?

Even so, Rin was surprised that Haruka had noticed the post, but he knew better than to read too much into the fact that Haruka had been looking at his Facebook page. They had five minutes before class began, so Rin tried to keep the conversation going, "It's a topic I think you'll find interesting," Rin smirked.

"Oh?" Haruka raised a brow.

Their class was on social issues and English, which made it pretty general. Students in the class were able to pick their essay topics based on whether they cared more about how social issues affected English education or social issues and literature. Rin knew that Haruka would probably go for the latter given that he was more of a researcher, but as someone who wanted to teach, Rin was more interested in the way that social issues affected education. Still, he knew that his topic choice would interest Haruka, "Yeah. I'm doing it about motivation."

Haruka remained uninterested, but Rin went on, "You know. People seem pretty motivated at the beginning of courses, but then, something changes and they get burnt out, but teachers re-motivate students and they get pulled back in again. I'm interested in that."

Haruka nodded slowly, trying to understand why Rin looked so determined while speaking.

Rin smiled, "It's the same in everything, don't you think, Haruka? I've thought a lot about what you said about our Relationships and Writing course," Rin paused and his voiced changed to mimic Haruka's, "'Attraction only goes so far.'"

Haruka's lips spread apart, and he started to say something, but Rin slammed his hand on the desk, "That's bullshit. And I'm determined to prove that when you want it, you can stay interested."

Haruka's cheeks felt a bit hot, Rin was such an interesting guy. Completely different than anyone else he had met. Even though he couldn't remember, he was sure of that much, but "Class is about to start, you should probably get seated."

Rin sighed, and he went over to his seat.

At the end of class, Haruka left before Rin could ask him about his paper. It was only fair that Rin ask, Rin thought, given that he had told Haruka about his paper.

He wasn't able to catch Haruka. The professor of the course spoke with him instead though, "Rin, I didn't receive your email yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing your proposal."

"Ah, yeah, I sent it just before class," he hasn't been able to get the sources out of the library until that afternoon, and he hadn't wanted to submit the proposal until he had the proper sources.

What the professor said next caught him completely off-guard, "I'm looking forward to what you write. I know you had a bit of a tough start in the course…"

Rin would have flushed, but the professor continued before he could react, "but, I've been really impressed with your homework assignments. You bring an interesting perspective to the course, Rin. You're very thoughtful in your work. I'm happy to have had you as a student."

That made him turn dark red. He was surprised that the professor felt this way. Sure, he did a lot of work on his homework assignments, but he hadn't expected her to notice that.

"I...I put a lot of work into the proposal," Rin managed.

She nodded, "Good. See you next week."

XXX

Things had changed during the course of the last few years. A shitton more changed in the last week. Everything had changed. Things were so different that Rin couldn't explain easily how he had gotten to the place that he was now. But, here he was. And it was exciting and terrifying as all fuck to be here.

He looked around at the boxes in the apartment and sighed. Well, those would have to wait for tomorrow, he thought. He went into their kitchen, and discovered a note from Nagisa, "Excited for our first day? Let's get a nice dinner and celebrate tonight. Then, we have to actually unpack. XO."

Rin smiled. It was a little weird that this had happened with Nagisa, and that it had happened so quickly, and they were moving so fast. Though, he knew that it was different for Nagisa. It was hard for Rin to believe that he had actually quit his job and moved to California with Nagisa. All in the span of a week. It was hard to believe that they were actually here. Traveling 5000 miles does that to you. When you go far enough away, it seems like you go nowhere at all.

It was even harder for Rin to believe that he was going to be getting a Doctoral degree at the prestigious Stanford University. He closed his eyes and shook his head. The words that Nagisa said in the bar in Shinjuku last week played over again and again in his head, "I applied to go back to school. And...I talked to some of our old professors and they remembered you. They may have filled out applications for you too. I didn't get in, but Rin...you did."

It had been their Social Issues and English professor who had recommended Rin for this program. She apparently had insisted that it was exactly where he belonged. That's what Nagisa said. He had been that memorable as a student for her. That alone was impossible for him to believe. He let out a big sigh.

And she seemed to be right, at least Stanford thought so. Here he was. He was going to be a student at Stanford in their English doctoral program. Here he was living in an apartment in California with Nagisa. His sister was subletting his apartment in Tokyo. He closed his eyes for a minute and checked once again to make sure that it hadn't been a dream.

Our first days...he thought. It was Rin's first day as a doctoral student. Meanwhile, Nagisa was about to have his first day teaching at a community college. For Nagisa, this was living the dream. For Rin, this was...well, Rin wasn't sure. Back when he was a Master's student, Rin thought that he had everything about his life figured out. Nagisa was the one who seemed lost at the time, but now everything had worked out for Nagisa. It had taken some time, but Nagisa was living out his dream. And what about Rin? He was in a doctoral literature program now and for what?

Well, if nothing else, I've got somewhere around four or five years now to figure out what I'm going to do. Rin sighed again. Then, he noticed the pancakes that Nagisa had made. They were in shapes and letters, "I 3 U" was written out several times. Rin bit his lip. He wasn't used to this new relationship with Nagisa. But then again, he had been enjoying himself with Nagisa. Both of them were relatively experienced, and they knew what they enjoyed, so Nagisa was at least in his top ten. But, this was a bigger deal for Nagisa than it had been for him.

Really, nothing in his life was in his control anymore, it seemed.

Rin ate the pancakes, and then he grabbed his orientation packet. He had gone to orientation the day before, and now, he was about to have his first day of classes.

XXX

Nitori spent a lot of time trying to get Rin's attention during their class. Anytime there was group work, Nitori insisted on being paired with Rin, which somewhat annoyed Nagisa, who was used to being partnered with Rin in the rest of their classes. There were other reasons that it annoyed Nagisa, but Rin didn't learn about those until later. As for Rin, while he liked the attention Nitori gave him, it put him in a difficult position. Rin was always afraid to look across the room and see how this made Haruka react. This was made worse by the fact that Rin was certain that if he were to look, Haruka would be having no reaction at all. And that annoyed Rin.

Beyond his concerns about Haruka, Rin felt like he had to be overly cautious in every interaction with Nitori, because in his mind, if he didn't, he'd be leading Nitori on. Nitori was less interesting compared to Haruka. Haruka was a complete mystery for Rin.

For the moment though, he didn't know how to handle Nitori exactly. On the one hand, he knew that if he continued to sleep with Nitori, not only did that seem dangerous for the sake of the Nitori, who appeared to be a bit more interested in Rin than Rin was in him, but it would also make it difficult for anything to happen again between him and Haruka. Rin looked across the classroom at Haruka, and sighed. Haruka wasn't interested in being with him anyway, Rin knew this. Finally, Rin decided, "I'll let it go, I'll let it go until the end of the semester. When I graduate, if Haruka isn't around, and if Nitori is still by then, then we can try something."

XXX

Rin sat down in the classroom and was wide-eyed looking around. He sent a quick text message to Nagisa to say that he was sitting in his first class, and that he hoped that Nagisa's first class went well. Rin looked around the seminar room, trying to find a familiar face from the orientation who he could talk to. He talked to some girls, and they laughed. Everyone was younger than him in the program, but that didn't bother him. They enjoyed talking to him and asked him a whole bunch of questions about Japan, many of which were seemed like odd questions to Rin. They weren't rude exactly, but it's always odd to answer questions about your own culture, because you don't think of it as different, and you don't usually think about your culture as much as other people from different ones do, so their questions are just generally odd.

"Is it true that there are people whose jobs are to push people onto the trains and squeeze more people in?"

But, at the same time, you've got to be able to laugh about the weird things in your own culture, and so Rin laughed and answered, "Yeah, it's true."

Another person spoke, a man, "I think our professor is supposed to be from Japan."

"Uh really?" Rin asked, a bit nervous to ask the question. He was having trouble remembering that he was in a super serious doctoral program now, and that everyone here had probably done research on the professors to figure out who they were going to do research with and so on. Rin was just interested in figuring out what he wanted from life, but he tried to cover up his lack of familiarity with the program.

"It's TBA on our schedules, but I heard that they assigned -" the guy started, but then the door opened.

Rin looked at the person who walked in with disbelief. Yep. We definitely have a professor from Japan.

The professor didn't even look at the class until he was standing in front of it. Then, his eyes met Rin's and the color disappeared from his face. Rin got out a notebook, mainly to make it look like he was going to be doing something productive. He knew that whatever lecture their professor was going to give them, he was not going to hear a word of.

As for the professor, he looked away, and adjusted his collar. Then, he moved over to the podium, he cleared his throat, and began.

XXX

Nagisa looked at his phone and smiled. At least one of the two of them was having a good day. Teaching adults in community college had been his dream, but this day was not going how it had when he had dreamt about it years ago.

Most people looked at Nagisa and thought that he would make the perfect preschool or elementary school teacher. But, the truth was that he preferred teaching adults. This was because he felt like progress for adults was more meaningful to the adults. Seeing how happy adults got over improvements in their writing and advancements in their education was meaningful to Nagisa. He truly believed that hard work paid off and it was nice to see that proven by his students.

Unfortunately, today was not going as planned. There had been some mistake in his contract, and while he had thought that he had been hired to have his own class, he was actually hired as a trainer. Being a teacher trainer was fine, except that Nagisa had not had much actual classroom experience. It is difficult to get teachers to listen to people that have not actually been in the field. This is true of every profession, and is especially true in teaching. Who wants to listen to someone tell them how to teach when they have less teaching experience?

Nagisa had apparently been hired because he was an expert in English language testing. This is what he had been doing in Japan. He hated testing, but he was good at taking tests and he was even better at designing tests. He had been hired fresh out of their master's program to do testing design. This was not what he had wanted to do, but he had massive student loans, and testing services paid well. It turned out that the community college who had hired him, hired him to fix their dismal testing system to better match those of the schools where students would be applying after they completed their time in community college and to develop a program which would train students how to pass these tests.

The job they wanted him to do was essentially to teach teachers how to teach to the tests. And if it wasn't bad enough that he would be doing testing work again which he hated, it was made all the more worse by the fact that he was going to have to deal with the fact that the teachers would have no respect for him.

Nagisa frowned. He was drinking a coffee while waiting for his meeting with the first teacher that he was supposed to observe. Rei Ryugazaki, the first name on the list was Japanese. Nagisa felt jealous of this guy. He was Japanese just like Nagisa, and yet, he was doing Nagisa's dream job, and Nagisa was stuck doing an even worse version of his past job back in Japan. He checked his phone again though, well, he thought, at least I'll be going home to Rin.

XXX

"Haruka…" Makoto could hardly believe his eyes. Haruka was here at Stanford.

Haruka looked at him with a pained expression. It had been an unbelievably long time since he had seen Makoto. Haruka had finished his Master's in Japan, and then shortly after that he was invited to do a short doctoral degree which built on his Master's at Oxford in England. And in the present, he had been hired at Stanford University to be a professor of English. His papers about romance and sexuality throughout the centuries had made him quite famous as a young scholar. Makoto had kept up with this, but he still hadn't expected that Haruka would take a job at Stanford.

Because of the silence, Haruka felt like he had to explain himself, "I really enjoyed my time in California. It's my favorite place in the world," I think, he added mentally.

It had been almost five years since the accident, and Haruka was starting to finally feel as though his present memories were sufficient. He was beginning to believe them to be his true memories and true thoughts. But, seeing Makoto always made him question that.

Makoto nodded, trying not to recall too many of their memories living together in California, "Haruka...I…"

Haruka shrugged, "It's fine, Makoto. I don't want anything from you and I don't want to put any kind of pressure on you. If you don't want me to be here, I'll try to find a different university in the bay."

Makoto shook his head that wasn't going to be necessary, "I got a position at MIT."

Haruka's eyes widened. Stanford and MIT were the best schools in the United States for the part of the brain that Makoto researched, and Haruka was well aware of that. In terms of research, they were probably about even, but MIT was historically more famous for the subject and had hosted more famous professors in the subject in the past. The fact that Makoto had gotten a position among them, was quite a feat, "Let me take you out to celebrate?"

Haruka had tried to say it like a statement, but he was confused about how to deal with this new situation and as a result, it came out as a question. A part of him had expected that if he went back to Stanford, things with Makoto would go back to how they used to be. Not that he knew what that really meant to Makoto, but in Haruka's mind they would go back to how they had been when Haruka had first woken up. Back when Makoto still had hope that Haruka would get better. Back when things were easier and they travelled around California and read together and things were easy. The fellowship at Oxford had been too good to pass up, besides, losing Makoto had been fresh then and Haruka was bitter, but now...now, he thought that it would be possible to work things out with Makoto.

Obviously, if Makoto was going to MIT, this wouldn't go the way that Haruka had hoped.

"Haruka...even if I weren't going to MIT, this is really too difficult for me," it had been years, but that much hadn't changed for Makoto at least. After all, it had been him and Haruka against the world for over twenty years when the accident occurred. When Haruka's memories disappeared, Makoto had held on. But as the time passed, and Haruka's memories stayed locked away, Makoto faded too.

Haruka's hand unconsciously went for his shirt pocket where he was storing a cigarette and his lighter. Realizing what he was doing, Haruka let his hand fall back by his side, but Makoto stared at the pocket. Makoto raised his arm and rested his hand on Haruka's shoulder, then he did something of a forced smile, "It's fine. I'm happy, and I'm happy for you."

It was Haruka's turn to smile, "I'll be here forever, Makoto. I know I'm not the Haruka I used to be, and I know I've forgotten how to love and I may not ever remember, but you...you're the most important person in the world for me. You have to know that."

"I do," Makoto answered. But, it wasn't enough. The person in front of him was too different from Haruka for him to be with, "but Haruka, I hope you move on from here." I have, but Makoto didn't tell Haruka that. Even now, Makoto felt like he was responsible for protecting Haruka. And he worked his hardest to do that.

XXX

Their class was dismissed and Rin could not remember a single thing that had happened during it. He sat at his desk dumbfounded, just as he had been when their professor had walked in the classroom at the beginning of class.

Finally, Rin began to gather the syllabus and all of his papers.

Rin didn't notice it at first, but everyone was gone. There was no one in the room, except Rin and the professor. They stayed in silence, until his professor spoke at last, "The admissions standards must have been pretty low this year to get you admitted here. That or you finally learned how to write."

Rin closed his eyes. So, Haruka remembered him, that came as a surprise, given that Haruka had basically disappeared after their graduation. Haruka had deleted his Facebook and no one had any information about what had happened to him. Rin figured that he was off somewhere in Japan doing research and being arrogant.

Rin never expected to see him again, least of all places in California. And yet, in other ways, having Haruka as a professor was par for the course of Rin's life. Naturally, Rin would go on a journey to find himself and wind up in a class taught by the guy who used to be a jackass when they were students together. Worst of all, the night that they shared together was something that Rin still thought about once in awhile. The mysterious Haruka Nanase. Rin smirked, "You'd never guess who recommended me."

But, Haruka didn't have to, after all, every one of the professors had to approve the students who were to be offered admission to the program. Rin apparently wasn't familiar with the process, and Haruka was not about to inform Rin that he had approved Rin's admission. Haruka had been impressed with the papers that were submitted by Rin's professors for his admission. That was supposed to be the only reason that he had agreed to Rin's acceptance. There was also their unfinished business. But, Haruka was determined to keep this professional.

Afraid of being too friendly, Haruka decided to change the subject rather abruptly, "We have to talk."

Rin nodded. He put the papers he had collected into his briefcase, and joined Haruka at the podium in the front, Haruka explained "Some other professors are aware that we were students at the same university in the same program, but they don't know anything else about that. I trust that you will recognize that this is my job and it could be rather problematic for me if our past -"

Rin cut him off determined to play it cool, "Haruka. It's been what? Seven years? I hardly even remember what happened."

Haruka nodded. And they parted. But, that night when Nagisa asked Rin about his first day at school, Rin kept the fact that his professor was Haruka Nanase to himself.

XXX