~*~

"Miaka, I'm really not sure if we should--"

The girl waved a hand at him.  "Iie, iie--it'll be fun!  And, it'll let Ryuu-chan relax and stop worrying about this heart thing!  Taka thinks it's a good idea, too." 

They sat at the kitchen table, Saihitei in his usual spot by the refrigerator, Miaka and Taka on either side of him.  Able to hear, distantly, the rush of Ryuuen's shower water, Sai ducked his head; his eyes slid closed, masked by tufts of chestnut hair.  "It's not that I don't think he needs it," he offered in a quiet voice, "it's just that I'm...afraid.  It's silly, I know, but...but, it seems like as long as he stays in here, he'll be safe."

Something warm slipped over his hand.  He blinked, glanced up...and found Miaka's small fingers gripping his own.  "I know it's hard," she said, and he was surprised by the solemnity to her voice...and the maturity.  "When I was little, my dad had heart problems, too, and...we were really afraid.  The doctors wouldn't tell us things, and they kept running these weird tests that we just wanted to stop..."  She let out a soft breath, gave his hand a gentle squeeze.  "But, even while all that was happening, he never stopped living his life.  He kept going to baseball games and driving us to school and doing all the stuff he did when he was healthy.  He was happy because he kept doing those things--it helped him forget."

He closed his eyes.  He saw her point, of course--after all, what good was it if Ryuuen spent all his time holed up in his room, dwelling on these problems instead of living his life?  But...something very near to morbid curiosity drove him onward, made him open his mouth and draw breath to speak.  "What happened to him?"

Miaka's eyes snapped up to look at him, and the very real fear in them gave him enough of an answer.  "Ahhhh, that's not important, ne, Saihitei?"

The eighteen-year-old slumped slightly in his chair, bringing a palm up to press against his forehead.  The motion covered his eyes, hid the sudden mist of tears from his friends' view.  "I..."  He sighed.  "I knew someone with heart problems before, too."

He felt Miaka stiffen beside him, the fingers around his own going suddenly tense, but it was Taka who spoke.

"You told us Ryuuen might not even have heart problems, didn't you, Saihitei?  That..."  The dark-haired man glanced at his fingers, kneading together on the table top.  "...that there might not be anything wrong with him."

"W-Who did you know with heart problems?"  Miaka's words shook, just slightly, breaking into the calm rhythm of her boyfriend's own.  "Ne?  Saihitei?"

His voice was little more than a whisper, the hand pressed to his eyes no longer concealing the bubbling of tears as they trickled through the breaks in his fingers, dripped from the end of his chin.  "It was...a long time ago.  Before I met any of you.  Before...Ryuuen."

I could hear him breathing.

And then...it stopped.

How can it just stop?  How can someone be there one minute...and just...just gone the next?

It doesn't seem fair...

"My first boyfriend.  It was...only a few months after I realized that I was...that I preferred men.  He was older than me by a few years, and I...I cared for him a great deal."

Miaka's hands were over her mouth.  "How awful!  Was...was he okay??"

I could hear him breathing...

"We were watching television. Lying on his couch.  I...I had my arms around him, and--"

I could hear him breathing...

"...I could hear him breathing.  But, then, he..."

It just stopped.  It stopped!  How could it just stop?

He drew in a long, shuddering breath, took a moment to sweep the tears from his cheeks.  "He died.  It was...very sudden.  There wasn't a lot of pain, but..."

It just stopped.

He was only vaguely aware of the fact that the apartment had fallen eerily silent, that something was missing that had been there a few moments earlier.  It wasn't until he heard the slight intake of breath from far behind him that he realized that the shower had been off for several minutes, that Ryuuen...Ryuuen...

He drew the hand away from his face, turned with tearful eyes to face the man he'd pledged to spend the rest of his life with. 

He...he heard, didn't he?  God, he heard...

Ryuuen stood leaning against the doorframe to the bedroom, hair wet and hanging in damp tangles over his shoulders, body wrapped in a knee-length white bathrobe and little else.  His eyes were wide and stricken, and he looked as if he was trying to say something, but seemed to be unable to do much more than open and close his mouth.

Finally, Ryuuen gave up on speech, and instead left the safety of the doorway, crossed to the kitchen area, and halted in front of his boyfriend.  Saihitei gazed up at him with tear-filled eyes, feeling so weak and so drained that he, too, found himself without the energy to speak. 

But, it was all right, because then Ryuuen had lowered himself onto the edge of the chair and was hugging him tightly, slim arms wrapped around his chest, cheek to his shoulder.  "Sai," he breathed.  "Sai, I'm so sorry.  It must be so hard for you, to have to go through this again...I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault," he croaked.

He was vaguely aware of Taka's chair sliding back with a low screech, of the murmur of his friends' voices, retreating into the other room...and, then, there was nothing but the thud of Ryuuen's heartbeat, and the slow in and out of the smaller man's breathing, rising and falling gently with his own.

Don't stop, he prayed desperately, giving into the tears for the first time in front of Ryuuen.  Please. 

He buried his face in the soft violet hair, and the smaller man held him tightly as he cried. 

Don't stop.

~*~