Tuesday morning rolled round, as it was wont to do, following closely on the heels of Monday. Tsukushi rolled out of bed, as She was wont to do, each morning of the week, allowing the contact of the cold floor with her bare feet to jolt her into full wakefulness. This didn't work quite s well today as usual, for she was sleep deprived from sneaking home late last night, in an effort to avoid Yuki, as well as from setting her alarm an entire hour earlier today for the same reason. So it can easily be appreciated just how bad a mood she was still in, by the time she arrived at the F4's residence. She hardly even noticed that she was an hour earlier than usual, as she ditched her jacket in the living room and headed for the stairs.

"Morning Rui."

"Go Away." The lanky man was sprawled across his bed as usual, shielding his eyes from the murky light filtering in from heavily clouded skies.

"And good morning to you too." She plopped own on the desk and glared at him. Today was not a day for testing her patience. "Do you think you could try a more civilized greeting for once? Like Hi, Doc, how are you? Good morning, perhaps? You know, the ritual exchange of pleasantries."

Rui just shrugged blankly, as if to say, "Who cared, who needed such effort?" Not he, that was for sure.

"Listen you!" Tsukushi rose to her full height, such as it was, and prepared to take out her frustrations on her patient. Not a good way to begin the day. Fortunately, her tirade was interrupted, unvoiced, but the sound of another voice yelling quite loudly, from somewhere down the hall.

". . . The Fuck? Tsukasa, What the hell have you been doing? . . . " Soujiro, for it was his voice, paused as if listening to a quieter answer. "We didn't need to know? We Didn't Need to KNOW?! Who gave you the right decide that? It concerns us, of course we have a right to know! You Asshole, This is our life too!"

Surreptitiously, Tsukushi and Rui glanced at each other, as if to acknowledge that his chewing-out would have to wait for another time, and cocked their ears, trying to catch the rest of the dispute.

"It's my money. I can do what I want with it."

"But It's my life! I don't want it touched by your dirty money!"

"What, you want to get screwed by the label? You want to talk to their lawyers? Get forced to be a mindlessly commercial product? You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd be a pretty boy again, you know. Whatever they want. Are you a little lap dog, Nishikado, are you? Yip! yip! You'd sing for them. For every little bone."

Soujiro's reply was merely an incoherently strangled curse as he launched himself at Tsukasa. Even from Rui's room, Tsukushi could hear the sounds of a thunderous scuffle ensue.

"Soujiro, Tsukasa, Stop it!" Akira had finally arrived on the scene. "Come on, Not again. . . ."

Rui rolled his eyes and looked back up at the ceiling. Tsukushi, meanwhile, frowned, having not heard the men argue like this before.

"They do this often?" She demanded at last, turning back to Rui.

"Enh." Rui shrugged unhelpfully, and returned to studying the cracks on the ceiling, and listening to the music playing in his own head.

"Useless!" Tsukushi stormed to her feet, "Acting like children! Everyone! Well all I fucking want is a little peace and fucking quiet! For just one day. Is that too much to ask?" In this house, that would have to be considered a rhetorical question. No matter. Tsukushi had had enough. She stomped down the hall, to Tsukasa's room where the fight was taking place.

She slammed the door open, exhausted fury blazing in her eyes. A second's pause, to take in the scene. Tsukasa, despite a bloodied nose, was plainly winning; he and Soujiro were grappling each other like enraged bulls, muscles straining, and veins bulging in their arms and necks. Occasionally, one or the other would lash out with their feet in an ineffectual attempt to destabilize the other. Tsukasa was much the stronger and would occasionally shake Soujiro roughly, or drop his hold for a split second to ram punches at his erstwhile friend. On the sidelines, Akira was sitting, a disgruntled spectator, at the computer. His attention wandered back and forth between the combatants, like he'd seen it all before, and to the monitor where solid blocks of text engaged his attention much more closely. At least, that is, until Tsukushi arrived on the scene.

"Stop It This Instant." Her tone blaringly strident above the grunts of the struggling men. Nevertheless, ignored by all but Akira, who covered his ears. "That's It!" Barely conscious of her actions, Tsukushi took three quick strides across the room, and lashed out. One swift jab to Soujiro's solar plexus, and a snake-swift kick to Tsukasa's gut, and the two men were felled, the breath whooshing from them. In the sudden silence, even Akira dared not speak a word against the little doctor's fury. "Right then." Tsukushi brushed her hands together, as if to clean them from their brief exertion. "I'm sick and tired of you all. You act like children. You make my life hell. You make each other's lives hell. I bet after this shit, you two weren't even going to be speaking to each other for the next month." She didn't even need to see Soujiro's shamefaced blink, Tsukasa's mutinous scowl, or Akira's amused smile to know she was correct. "I don't need this shit. You don't need this shit. I don't care what the hell you were fighting over, but you're damned well going to sit down and discuss it like adults. There will be no yelling, no sulking, no cursing, no violence, no drinking, no insults, or I will personally make you wish you'd never been born. You hear me? You need to learn manners. You need to learn interpersonal skills. I don't care if you say you already have them, they plainly don't work for shit. But you will deal, and you will find a solution, got it?" She flexed her knuckles menacingly, a surprisingly effective threat from a slight girl like herself. "You," glaring now at Akira, "Get Rui. I'm sure this, whatever it is, concerns him too, even if he pretends otherwise. And you two" eyeing Tsukasa and Soujiro, "Apologize to each other. Now. . . . Got it? Right. I'm taking the rest of the day off. Don't bother calling, I won't answer the phone. And don't even think about complaining about it. You have your group therapy assignment. Get to it."

With that, Tsukushi turned and stalked out the door, only allowing herself to slump exhaustedly once she was safely out of sight, "God, I feel like such a poser sometimes." She mumbled miserably to herself, "I hit my patient. I actually hit my patient. And I call myself a doctor." The yelling, that she could almost excuse to herself, but not really, not when she really thought about it. It wasn't fair for her to take her personal problems out on her patients, just because she was having a bad day. She knew that, just as she knew she had to have patience with these troubled men. After all, they'd experienced no less emotional trauma in their lives than she. But it was hard to like tem, hard to sympathize when they insisted on being so unreachable, so capricious in their actions and in their moods. And that is why she needed to take the day off, to sit alone and recover her perspective, so that she could forgive these men for being me. For being only human, and re-approach their problems with fresh perspective. To wipe out her own tainting bitterness and work more for them rather than at them. Perhaps she could find a quiet café, spread out her notes, sip tea and review what little progress had been made so far? Yes, a little solitude, a little quiet, no one hassling her, no one demanding her attention, just a problem to be solved, a therapeutic approach pursued.

Tsukushi thought she'd like that. With a little luck, maybe her hands would even stop shaking after a while. . .

TBC

---A very very short chapter, yes. but I'd rather get it out now, than attempt to write all that comes next in a reasonable time period and make you wait wait wait.---