Chapter 4: Check Up: Egoist


So Dear Reviewers, I know that this story seems a bit dark. Ah, and that is why the genre is drama. But don't worry. Please hang in there with me and there will be a light factor appearing before too long. Dear MidoriTenchi90, I am sorry for being so cruel to Misaki, I will try and make him feel better later too. In the meantime, if you'd like to see him in a happier place, please check out my oneshot "A Thousand Words." So fluffy it will melt in your mouth.

Thank you for reading, I write for you as much as I write for myself. (Well, almost)

Sincerely,

Cerberus


The Uke Flu

Chapter Four: Check up


The nurse guided Nowaki back to a small examination room and invited him to take a seat. While the histrionics in the waiting room had not fazed her, Nowaki noticed a definite uptick in the woman's brow when he answered her question on what had brought him into the clinic. Still, she refrained from commenting and instead, simply took his stats and told him that the doctor would be with him shortly.

The doctor arrived not long afterward, a pleasant-faced, middle aged man named Suzuki. He gave Nowaki a slightly curious look as the two men exchanged greetings.

"Wait a minute," Suzuki's brow furrowed in recollection, "Kusama… Kusama, wait, you aren't by chance the one who made the initial Takahashi diagnosis?"

Nowaki blushed and found for a moment, unexpectedly, that he had difficulty meeting the other man's eyes. "Yes."

"Well, given that…" Dr. Suzuki eyed Nowaki. "I am a little surprised to see you here for medical advice. What seems to be the issue?"

"I need to have an Uke Flu test done," Nowaki said awkwardly.

"Well, usually it works best if you bring your partner in with you." The doctor winked. "You can't very well check for the Uke Flu without an uke."

"And what makes you so sure I'm not an uke?" Nowaki was suddenly hopeful that all his fears would prove to be unwarranted.

"Height rule for one." Dr. Suzuki seemed surprised at Nowaki's question.

"Height rule?"

"Ah, yes, there are other rules too, but they are a little more flexible. But the height rule, well… I'm sure you've noticed the general tendency that semes are physically taller and larger than ukes. And without wanting to offend you, Kusama-san, unless you are dating someone on a professional basketball team, I'd be hard pressed to imagine you finding an adequate seme, taller than yourself."

Nowaki considered this information. He did not know that many other same sex couples really, just Usami and Misaki, and Miyagi and the young Takatsuki, but adding this to what he had witnessed in the clinic's waiting room it seemed to make sense.

"Okay," Nowaki, felt a bit reassured, "but I'd like to still be tested."

The doctor looked at him in surprise. "Alright." Suzuki was willing to humor the tall man. "I'll tell you what." He handed Nowaki a urine analysis kit. "Go into the bathroom over there and give us a specimen.

"You can put it in the cupboard, it opens on both sides of the wall, and one of the lab techs will pick it up from the other side. The test is really relatively simple. We can have the results in about twenty minutes.

"In the meantime, you can tell me why you think you have the Uke Flu."

Nowaki took the kit and disappeared into the bathroom. He emerged a few minutes later and sat down in front of Suzuki and began his explanation.


It started right after he and Hiro-san had officially gotten engaged. Nowaki had overlooked the symptoms when they first appeared about five months ago for the obvious reasons.

The initial signs of the first phase, lasting about six weeks, were fatigue, abdominal cramps (sometimes severe), and a heightened state of arousal that would cycle over few weeks, lasting each time for a period of several days.

Nowaki could understand how he had misread these indicators. Being severely fatigued, though he rarely showed it, was a general state of existence for him in his profession. He'd continued working mostly night shifts and despite the completion of his residency, he still maintained at least two other jobs. He'd been doing this for so long; it was hard to get out of the habit of overworking, though this was one of the things that caused conflict with Hiro-san.

The abdominal cramps, well, first he had a very high pain threshold. Second, on the recommendation of their therapist, Hiroki had been attempting to take on a more equitable role in the household activities and the man had been cooking quite a bit. However, the culinary arts were not Hiroki's forte. Nowaki had for some time been silently attributing, somewhat unfairly, the bulk of his abdominal distress to his Hiro-san's meals.

Finally, regarding the issue of heightened arousal… Nowaki blushed slightly explaining to Dr. Suzuki, that one really couldn't get too much more heightened then his natural state. He was ready to go at the drop of a hat pretty much twenty-four/seven. So, whatever the increase, it had been negligible in light of his already existing burden.

Stage two of the Uke Flu, lasting about another six weeks, involved all the stage one symptoms with the addition of fevers, hot flashes, night sweats, and severe back pain.

With Nowaki's abnormally high body temperature to begin with, he seemed already in a constantly fevered state. Though there had been times during this phase looking back, when even the usually cold Hiro-san had complained and worried that his giant was running a fever because Nowaki's radiant heat had been keeping him awake. Hiroki had once even moved to the couch, saying he couldn't sleep "next to a blasting furnace."

He and Hiro-san had also recently moved into a larger apartment a few months ago: one with more room for the professor's books. Nowaki's back had really been bothering him after the move, but he had just assumed he'd pulled something, after carting the Kamijou library up the three flights of stairs to their new place.

So all the while, Nowaki was operating under his misguided assumptions for the reasons of his discomfort, he now suspected that MP3REG36 had been making its new and curious internal arrangements within him.

Now there was the third stage.

He was exhausted all the time. Usually congenial, he found himself feeling moody and weepy, which was completely unlike him. He had also been getting sick a lot lately. Fortunately, working the night shift, Nowaki's circadian rhythms were off, so he did most of his vomiting at the hospital. He was grateful for this, because it had kept Hiro-san from being aware of what had been happening.


"So…" Suzuki looked up at the young doctor from the notes he had been jotting down. "How far along into the third phase do you think you are; if you do have stage three Uke Flu?"

"About eight weeks."

"You would know that because you were penetrated by your partner around that time?" The doctor's expression was skeptical.

"Is there another way one can get impregnated? I mean you can't get pregnant from just swallowing sperm. Right, Suzuki-sensei?"

Nowaki was shocked at himself, he almost sounded peevish.

"Oh, heaven's no," the older physician laughed. "If that was the case, it would be called the Seme Syndrome or something like that, instead of the Uke Flu. And as much seminal fluid as most semes ingest, the whole population would likely be pregnant by now."

Suzuki asked his next question cautiously, not wanting to offend Nowaki further. He was so used to rigid social roles the idea of switching things up was new territory for him. "Is this receptiveness on your part a common occurrence, Kusama-san?"

Looking at Nowaki's face, the doctor did not need the man to give a verbal response. He sighed, satisfied on some level that it was not. At least his whole world had not been turned entirely upside-down.

"Well, let me go see how the lab is doing with your sample and hopefully we can lay all your concerns to rest here in just a moment."

Suzuki stepped out, leaving Nowaki alone in the room.


Nowaki felt his anxiety rising. He knew Suzuki-sensei thought he was a giant loon, but still he had a deep feeling that the Flu physician was going to be shocked by the test results.

While waiting for the man to return, once again, Nowaki found himself in the absence of something else to think about, going over the same internal loop he had been struggling with for the last two weeks.

How had this happened?

How had this happened? Well, obviously, Hiro-san fucked me.

It wasn't as if this had never happened before, it just wasn't something that occurred that often. The circumstance of this seemed to occur generally about four times a year, like some strange Kamijou clockwork. In the past, when Hiro-san instigated it, both of them (Hiroki in particular) generally had had too much to drink.

The last time that Hiroki had gotten the urge to actually fuck him, however, it had not been on their usual schedule. It had been about eight weeks ago and oddly, at that time there had been no alcohol involved.

Their couple's counselor had assigned him and Hiro-san the task of some drama therapy. Hiroki had declared this ridiculous and had not wanted to do at all initially.

They were to undertake some reverse role playing, while at home, to try and obtain a better understanding of each other. Nowaki, after some serious coaxing, and a lot of puppy dog eyes, had finally gotten his older lover to participate.

While the exercise had not originally been intended to be about sex, once the scenario had started… well, things just kind of grew from there, eventually turning into a whole other thing… three times: which was for him and Hiro-san a breakthrough, though not, Nowaki was sure, the kind their therapist had anticipated.

Nowaki had never been, as some semes were, entirely opposed to being entered. In many ways, it seemed only fair that this should happen. And though he was very satisfied with his role as penetrator in their relationship, being on the receiving end (literally), he had to admit, was sometimes nice too.

Possessing Hiro-san, entering his lover's body, joining him, was always extremely pleasurable.

Being possessed, taken, claimed, was a completely different feeling.

Yes, though he would never openly admit this to another person, in those rare moments of being penetrated, Nowaki felt like he truly belonged to Hiro-san. It was his secret: it reassured him in a way that few other things did, because otherwise it was just so hard to get his lover to make any deep kind of declaration.

Nowaki suddenly wondered if it was this kind of thinking that made him susceptible.


Dr. Suzuki knocked and then re-entered the examination room. His face was grave and Nowaki knew without asking the results of his test.

"How could this happen, Sensei?"

The older man looked thoughtful. "Kusama-san, I'd like to ask you a few questions. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Do you like sweets?"

"What?" Nowaki was perplexed by the question.

"Just answer the questions, I'll explain in a minute."

"No, not really, unless they're from my Hiro… my partner."

"How about fuzzy things like puppies and kitties?"

Nowaki's face lost its anxious look for a moment and his countenance became rather dreamy. "Yes."

"Favorite type of music?"

"I don't really have one, I like most everything."

"Movies?"

"Anything but ghosts."

"Hmmm. I see. How about sports?"

"I like baseball, soccer, and basketball. Oh and watching professional wrestling."

"Because of the costumes?"

"No, because it's goofy."

"Kusama-san, who is older in your relationship?"

"Kamijou-san, my partner."

"Do you both work?"

"Of course!"

"Who makes more money?"

"Well, up until recently, Kamijou-san did, but that's because I was doing my medical residency," Nowaki admitted looking chagrined.

"Okay, just a few more questions," Suzuki said. "Who does most of the cooking and cleaning in your household?"

"Well," said Nowaki, suddenly feeling a bit defensive, "We share." After a moment of uncomfortable silence he added, "But I guess I sometimes have done more."

"And who initiates sex?" Suzuki's note scribbling was far more intense now than it had been before the results of the test had been made clear.

"I do, almost always." Nowaki's voice held a hint of pride.

"And who decides if you actually do it?"

Nowaki's head suddenly dropped. "Kamijou-san," he sighed.

"Kusama-san, last question." The doctor hesitated, then asked gently, "How many other partners have you had?"

Nowaki's head shot up abruptly. "None! There is no one else I could ever want besides my Hiro-san!" Nowaki said this with complete conviction so offended by the question he slipped and used Hiroki's special name.

"And you said you got engaged five months ago? How long had you been going out?"

"Almost eight and a half years."

"Well, Kusama-san," Dr. Suzuki tapped the end of his pen against his pursed lips before he continued, "I think I can tell you now, why you caught the Uke Flu."


Thank you for reading and reviewing! LionFish, you got your wish! Ashley T. Great to see you again!