The next day Kurama went to the doctor.

He sat in the examining room and the doctor came in and sat down on a stool.

"How have you been feeling lately, Shuiichi?" he asked.

"Fine." Kurama said and smiled at the skeptical look the doctor cast him over his chart. Kurama hadn't slept well the night before. He looked tired and too pale.

"I see..." The doctor made a note. "Your mother says you have been sick a lot recently."

"No." Kurama said and smiled. "Not sick, just....not well." He had already thought up the answers to these questions and besides, any tests that the human would run on him would show that he was healthy enough to run several marathons back to back.

"Is there a reason why?"

"School." Kurama said. He made it sound like an obvious thing.

The doctor still seemed skeptical.

"School. Yes. Your school is very competitive, Shuiichi. And I hear you make excellent marks."

"I try to."

"I see." There was something to the doctor's voice. He didn't believe Kurama. "And...is there anything else?"

"No...nothing."

"I see."

Kurama kept the frown off his face. He decided he would never visit a doctor again.

"Well. Let's get started, shall we?"

"Alright."

The doctor began the battery of tests of the ears and eyes, nose and throat...then he pulled out his stethoscope. He set it against Kurama's chest. "Breathe." he said.

Kurama breathed.

"Hmmm." said the doctor.

"Again."

Kurama did that, too, but this time, when he breathed something popped in his chest and he doubled over, clutching at his shirt. "Shuiichi?" the doctor said, touching his shoulder. "Are you alright? What happened?"

"Nothing." Kurama said.

The doctor regarded him with naked suspicion. "Take off your shirt, please."

Kurama didn't even pause. Early that morning, he had used a plant to conceal the wounds across his body. If he wasn't so tired he wouldn't have had to do that. He would have been one move ahead of the doctor the whole time and would never have let anything show. Kurama really needed a day off.

The shirt came off.

His belly was smooth, no scars from the various swords that had slashed and pierced and gutted him so often as of late. His chest as well.

There was no evidence.

The doctor continued his tests and at the end, as he walked Kurama and his mother to the door of his office said, "No phsycial problems. Amazingly healthy. The young are so lucky that way."

"Yes." said Kurama and thought that he wasn't really all that young at all.

"Shuiichi?" the doctor called as his mother left through the doorway.

"Yes?"

"Although I found nothing, I can't shake the thought that something is wrong. After all, we are more than physical beings, there is something beneath everything that if upset can shift our health and our lives out of balance...."

Kurama smiled. "Thank you doctor." he said and turned and walked out of the office.

Perhaps human doctors were more astute than Kurama gave them credit for.

He wasn't sure whether or not that was a good thing.

...to be continued