"Rise and shine." Kaoru's voice rang throughout my room as he switched on the lights. "Time to get up."

I groaned and shoved my face in my pillow, using the eye I didn't have covered to look at the clock, seeing that it was 6 a.m.!

"Why are you waking me up this early?" I whined as I shoved my face deeper in my pillow. "Haruhi isn't supposed to be here until 8."

"Yeah, but I know you and if I woke you up around 8 you'd just fall back asleep like you're doing right now." He pulled the covers off of me. "Get up!"

"I'm up!" I growled as I slowly sat up. Rubbing my face tiredly.

"Make yourself look pretty and take your medication before coming down for breakfast. I want you down in thirty minutes, alright?"

"Whatever mom."

Kaoru rolled his eyes at my comment before turning to leave my room. "I'm counting down now."

Once he left, I just let out another tired groan and flopped back down on my bed, but just when my head hit the pillow again I heard Kaoru yell. "Get up!"

God, today was going to be a long day. I just knew it.

…

Forty minutes later…

I slowly made my way downstairs where Kaoru handed me a serving of eggs and bacon that the chiefs had made and sat down across from me. I looked at him as he watched me eat.

"What are you even up this early for? I know you're a morning person but this time is ridiculous even for you."

He just shrugged as he took a sip of his coffee. "I couldn't really sleep last night. So I decided just to stay up when I woke up around five."

That didn't seem right. Kaoru rarely had an issue sleeping unless he was sick or he had a lot on his mind that was bothering him.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"Well, usually when you can't sleep something is wrong and I know something is so don't say it's nothing. So what's up?"

He sighed, knowing that he couldn't avoid the conversation but before he could answer mom walked into the kitchen with a bright smile on her face. "Oh look, mom's awake too!"

"Good morning boys." Mom greeted as she entered the kitchen. Why were all these people so energetic this early in the morning?

"What are you doing up?" Kaoru questioned mom as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

"Don't you remember?" Mom sat down at the table with us. "My big fashion show is this weekend. I have to go to the studio for last minute fittings and promotional photos."

"Aww crap." Kaoru pinched the bridge of his nose. "I completely forgot about that."

"It's ok honey, you've been so busy I don't blame you for it slipping your mind." She comforted with a small smile. "You don't have to go if you just want to rest."

"No, I'm already skipping the fashion show because of an interview and I know if I don't go you won't have enough male models to model your designs."

"Just be sure to put a lot of makeup on him to cover up the dark circles under his eyes and he should be fine." I made a comment as I looked at another bite of my food as Kaoru glared at me.

"Like you have room to talk."

I just playfully stuck my tongue out at him and he laughed before nudging my shoulder. However, when everything Kaoru had said finally hit me. He was over working himself because of the state I was in and it was obviously wearing him down. I've never seen him look this exhausted since when my addiction first got out of hand. Maybe that's why he couldn't sleep last night...because of me.

…

After breakfast, Kaoru and mom left shortly after as well as dad who was heading to work. So, for the next hour I had the whole house to myself. Well, besides the maids that were cleaning. I tried to take a nap on the couch to let the time pass much faster, but with sleeping almost all day yesterday and the coffee in my system it was almost impossible. My withdrawal pains soon came back not long after, they weren't as bad as usual, but they were enough to be bothersome so I took my medication even though I didn't want to feel like a zombie all day.

When eight o'clock finally rolled around, there was a knock at the door. Which told me Haruhi was here. I could hear her chatting with the maid that let her in and led her to the living room where I was still lying on the couch.

"Good morning Hikaru." Haruhi greeted me when she saw me.

"Morning." I huffed as she sat on the couch across from me. "What's on your little schedule for us to do today?"

"Well," she took out her planner from her bag and opened it. "First on the schedule, we have a small therapy session between the two of us to see how you're feeling. Then we do an activity to keep your mind busy. Since you can't leave your house yet, I thought we could take a stroll around the estate. Then we'll have some lunch and then you can have a few hours of free time. Then lastly, we do another activity before I'm off for the night."

Alright, that didn't seem too overwhelming. When I was inpatient we would literally be doing something the second we woke up to when we go to bed. The other nurses were somewhat the same way or the complete opposite where they literally let me do whatever I wanted. This one was a mixture of the two of them I guess, but she was going to make sure I at least had my mind occupied.

"So," Haruhi started as she clicked her pen. "How are you feeling today Hikaru? By how you're not snappy this morning I can tell you're in a far better mood than yesterday."

I hummed a short laugh as I looked up at the ceiling. "I guess I feel ok. My withdrawals kicked in about an hour or so ago so I took medicine for it, but other than that nothing has happened to change my mood."

I could see Haruhi writing down my answer in her notebook. She asked me a few more basic questions that I've answered millions of times before with other nurses for their daily checkups, but the next question she asked took me a bit by surprise.

"How did your addiction start in the first place, Hikaru?"

"Wow, already asking the big questions, aren't we."I scoffed as I looked back over at Haruhi as I looked back at Haruhi who just shrugged her shoulders.

"I won't know how to help you unless I know the root of how your addiction started."

"From my ex-girlfriend."

"And what did she do?"

"Introduce me to drugs."

Haruhi rolled her eyes. "We have to go into more detail on how she got you into drugs Hikaru. That's the only way I can help you." She prompted up her notebook on her knee to get ready for writing. "Tell me about her."

It's not like I didn't know that the question was going to be asked. All my therapists have asked it before, but they usually took time to get to know me more or ease it into the conversation because they knew it was a tough subject for me to bring up. Even though it felt like I've told it thousands of times before.

I let out a deep sigh before facing back up at the ceiling. "When I was eighteen and just freshly graduated from high school I got my first ever real acting gig for this T.V. show. It was a pretty decent part for a guy just starting out and while on set I got to work alongside this beautiful blonde actress. She only had one line, but we really hit it off and kept in touch after that. When we first started dating, it was great. I had never had a girlfriend before her so she was my first everything." I began fiddling with my sweater again uncomfortable as all these painful memories began flooding back.

"About four months in our relationship, things started to turn a bit sour. I got this huge movie role that skyrocketed my career while she kept only getting smaller parts. She hated that I was getting so huge and she was going nowhere. She began yelling at me all the time for no reason and began partying in clubs to relieve all her stress. I first didn't mind because after a night out she would go back to the sweet and caring girlfriend I loved being around. But after a few months of her partying, I soon began to notice that she was starting to act differently. Our relationship was very public and I knew that she enjoyed the attention, but I thought it was because she wanted to show everyone how much we loved each other, and it first was until she became fame-hungry. Everywhere she went with me somehow paparazzi showed up and if we were ever finally alone she had to update social media or do live streams while we were together. Even though she wasn't a famous actress like she dreamed of being…"

"She was famous because she was dating Hikaru Hitachiin."

I nodded and let a silence fall between us in hopes Haruhi could see that I didn't want to continue talking about this topic, but she knew it wouldn't bring us any closer to helping me.

"Then what happened?"

"With all the newfound fame, she began partying even more. It went from once or twice a week to almost nightly. When I tried and suggested that she should stay in so we could actually have a date night she would either argue with me, saying I was being too clingy, or leave halfway through the date, or she would pout the whole time through so she could make me feel guilty. One night I decided to follow her to the club and saw her party wildly with her 'girlfriends' completely wasted, or what I soon later found out was cross faded. I begged her to come home but it only seemed like she was taking it all as a joke and said she'd only go if I danced with her. I wasn't the clubbing type, but I didn't want her to stay there for her own safety so I did. Then after ten minutes or so of her drunkenly swaying with me to the music she kissed me, but it wasn't a normal kiss. She had put something in her mouth with me noticing and when she kissed me she used her tongue to push it in mine. Before I could react it dissolved. I didn't know what it was, but I knew it had to be a sort of drug and I panicked. I never did anything like that before, but she whispered in my ear, 'Relax, just enjoy the high.' So I did...and I loved it. After that day I began going out and getting high with her and experimenting with other drugs, which wasn't hard since her brother was a dealer."

"When did you realize you had a problem?"

"When I saw what it was doing to my family," I answered, my voice almost cracking at the end. "I really wanted to quit, but she just wouldn't allow me and that's when I realized that I didn't start doing all this shit because I enjoyed it. I did it because I was so scared to lose her, and that she didn't love me anymore...or that she never loved me at all. She was just using me because of my fame. I was too blinded by love to see it that even Kaoru and my family literally told me that she was just doing that. I refused to believe them. I only began realizing it after I almost overdosed, but by then…"

"You were already far too gone…"

I nodded and slowly took in a deep breath to calm down my anxiety as I tried to fight back all the past emotions I was feeling all at once. "Yeah, I couldn't stop. I needed them to function normally. But my real wake up call was then I almost overdosed a few years ago. I knew that I had to end the relationship, especially since she didn't even care I almost died. All she cared about was me giving her money for drugs or when would be out so I could take her to exclusive clubs again. Kaoru had to take my phone from me because I was getting so overwhelmed in the hospital it was making me even sicker. I couldn't take it anymore and when she called me so she could 'prove she was my girlfriend' to a bouncer I just snapped and broke up with her on the spot. Saying she never cared about me and was a fame hungry monster...and some other choice words I don't feel like repeating."

"How did she respond?"

"Not well, but I didn't care. She kept trying to contact me when I was in rehab but I blocked her number and even went as far as to file a restraining order because she would show up at my house in the middle of the night to try and get me to 'talk.' But after a few months, she just disappeared. Ichiro her own brother didn't even know where she went for a year until she finally contacted him that she wasn't dead. She was just out 'finding herself' or whatever. I didn't give two shits."

"Would you say that breaking up with her helped your recovery?"

"Yeah, it helped a lot actually. Because if I didn't I know for a fact I would most likely either be dead or far beyond saving by now."

Haruhi nodded and took a minute to write some more notes down. "Hikaru, can I ask you one questions and you have to be one hundred percent honest with me, ok?"

"Yeah, sure."

"If you had a wake up call all those years ago, then why aren't you trying harder to fight off the withdrawals. I get a lot of former addicts relapse, but it seems like now you're not even trying to get better."

I just shrugged my shoulders. I had to be honest, I wasn't fully sure why I wasn't fighting as hard as I was all those years ago. I care about my family and they love me, I have a career that many people dream of having. I have amazing friends. But for some odd reason, I didn't feel like fighting.

"I don't know." I honestly answered. "I don't know why I'm not fighting as hard as I did years ago."

"Well," Haruhi smiled confidently as she closed her notebook. "For the next few days, that's what we're going to try and find out."

…

Once Haruhi left for the night, I just immediately went to bed. Kaoru or my parents haven't returned home yet, but I was way too tired to stay up. Haruhi offered to stay with me until one of them got home, or well, she offered to Kaoru about staying, but he said she could head home since he was on his way home already.

I groggily woke up to the sound of my phone vibrating on my nightstand. I groaned and grabbed it, tiredly squinting at the screen until it unblurred to see that an unknown number had texted me.

'Come outside.'

...What the fuck?

'Who is this?'

The number then sent me a picture of a familiar black hummer that I've seen in the past before, I just couldn't remember where. I stared at it for a few seconds before it finally clicked. No way, could it really be...what the fuck was he doing here?

I got out of my bed and headed downstairs. It was around one in the morning so everyone in the household was most likely asleep, but I made sure to be quiet just in case anyone was still up before sneaking out of my room. I wrapped my sweater around myself as the cold early morning air hit me and left the front door slightly ajar as I made my way out to the gate. Where I was greeted by a familiar face.

"Ahh, there he is." The man greeted. I didn't know his first name, but everyone called him Sendo. I met him when Ichiro was doing a drug deal while I was at his house. He was an older guy around forties to fifties. Was most likely part of a gang, by the way, he always dressed with a bandana with whatever he wore and had tattoos from small ones on his face to his whole body that wasn't covered by clothing. We rarely ever talked, but when he saw me with Ichiro all those years ago he recognized who I was. He always tried to get me to buy off of him, making tempting offers that he had much stronger drugs than the shit Ichiro had, but Ichiro warned me about him. Saying the Sendo's were known for sometimes lacing the drugs they sell. So I never bought anything from him or his family. But how the hell did he get my number or my address?

"What do you want, Sendo?" I asked, not trying to hide the fact I didn't want him here.

He hummed a chuckle as he took a drag of his cigarette. "I heard that kid Ichiro dropped you from dealing with him. Said you broke code or something. Didn't know that you were hooked again."

"I'm trying to get clean" I scowled, but that only made him laugh.

"You really are an entertainer aren't you." He then walked up to the gate, making his stature more intimidating as he flicked his cigarette to the side. "Let's cut to the chase Hitachiin. It should be obvious why I'm here and I think we can help each other out. You've got money and I got drugs. So, let's help each other out here. I can see that the withdrawals are getting to you. So, what do you say?"

He pulled out a small plastic bag of white powder for me to see. Slightly swinging it around as if he was trying to tempt me like a hungry dog...and I hated to admit that it was working.

My eyes were trained on it and I could literally begin to feel my mouth begin to water as my withdrawals began going into overdrive.

"How…" I swallowed hard, trying to hide the temptation in my voice. "How do I know that you haven't laced it with anything?"

He dipped his pinky in the powder and put it up to his nose to inhale it. "See, it's safe. If it wasn't I wouldn't have put my own life at risk just for a sale." He held out the bag for me to take, a wicked grin on his face. "I'll even give you this bag for free so you can sample it. What do you say? Do we have a deal?"