Life's Lullaby
Diagnosis

Disclaimer: Blada blada blada... um... I no own D. And Spr1te Zer0, my buddy, owns FeiZero and all members of it. I partially own Emiko (who's based off me). And I own, Jin (based off my sis), Chado (based off my bro), and Sei (based off Spr1te).

Blah is English, or Spanish... whichever...
Blah is Japanese
Blah is a flashback...
Blah is part of Spr1te's story... Check it out! It has our AU in there...

Gold eyes blinked away sleepiness as Ryoma finally woke up from his deep slumber. Sitting up, he stared at the ceiling for a while, thinking, 'That's not my ceiling…' When he averted his eyes from the dull color, the first thing he saw was a monk. But not just any monk, a perverted one – one reading a magazine, pages full of half-naked women, naked women.

Normally, one would be alarmed at seeing a perverted monk, expecting a monk to be more… interested in other matters, but to Ryoma that was normal. Leaning back, he let himself fall back onto the comfy white sheets and pillows. As he glanced over at the clock that was ticking away happily in the room, he noticed that it was one in the morning. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to fall into a deep sleep… again.

When Ryoma got up for the second time that day, the first thing he saw was a pair of worried blue eyes staring back at him. The owner of the eyes mewed and licked his face. Ryoma grabbed his cat and sat up. Looking around, he could not see anyone in the room except his mother, who was still asleep, and was about to lie back down again, until a figure jumped out from under the bed, screaming and making a ruckus. Any other person would have jumped back and screamed, but Ryoma was…Ryoma. He just stared at the figure and muttered, "Baka Oyaji."

Nanjiroh stared at him and for a second, Ryoma thought he could see a flash of concern, but it was gone as quick as it came… which was pretty fast. Nanjiroh turned towards his wife, "Saa… If he is well enough to insult me, he's in good condition."

Rinko stood up, now fully awake and pushed past Nanjiroh, quite comically. "That's what you said last time, and he ended up unconscious!" She turned to Ryoma, her voice changing automatically to a concerned tone, "Ryoma, are you okay? Do you feel fine?"

Ryoma turned his head, wishing he had his cap to pull down, "Hai, hai." Pleased with the answer, Rinko stepped out of the room, dragging Nanjiroh by the ear, as he was reading yet another non-PG13 magazine, whining about the pain. Nanako giggled lightly and followed them out. Ryoma sighed at his embarrassing family and turned his attention back to his precious cat. He could remember when he got Karupin…

Ryoma laid peacefully on the green grass of his front lawn, cap pulled down before someone came along…

"Ohayo, Ryo-kun," a cheery voice called out. Before Ryoma could step out of the way, a slender girl had already glomped him. So he lay there, in pain from the surprise attack, wishing the girl would disappear already. Almost reading his thoughts, the girl huffed and pouted as she shifted on his back, "Mou, Ryoma. You're so mean. I can't believe I even brought something for you." He winced as the girl pulled out a colorful plastic hammer and bonked him on the head. "That's your punishment for being so mean to me," she explained as if it made sense. As she finally got up, poor Ryoma could see whom his not-so-mysterious "assassin" was.

The girl stood at average height for a 17-year old, her dark hair adorned with violet streaks. She wore light low-rise blue jeans and a simple tan sleeveless tee-shirt. A black wristband hugged her wrist tightly and she carried a red tennis racket and a cardboard box.

Before she showed Ryoma his gift, she examined him, making him turn around in circles before her. "You know, for a 13-year old, you're pretty short… You haven't grown at all since the last time I've seen you."

"You saw me last week, Emiko." Ryoma spoke quietly and curtly.

"Yea, but you've gone long enough without a growth spurt…" Emiko stated rather rudely. "So, do you want to go play a tennis match?" Her expression changed quickly as she jumped up and down, anticipating the boy's answer.

"Yadda."

"Mou! You really are mean, Ryo, I'm not going to talk to you," with that, she stuck out her tongue and pulled down her eye at Ryoma. Seconds ticked away, not even counting up to a minute before she spoke again, "So, do you wanna wait for everyone else then?"

"I thought you weren't going to talk to me," Ryoma stated, now closing his eyes on the green grass, letting his cap deflect any sunlight coming towards him.

"I said that? Hmmm… " Emiko rubbed her chin in frustration, trying to remember what she had said a minute ago. "Do you like chocolate, Ryo? 'Cause I hate chocolate… with a passion… a burning one… yea…"

"Shouldn't you be at school with everyone else?" Ryoma abruptly questioned, scared of what would happen if he didn't stop her rant before it had the chance to start.

Emiko grinned cheerily, "I should be, but I got bored during math. Anyway, Ryu, Taro, and Maho skipped, so only Rante and Sei are still in class… what goody two shoes." She turned her head up to the sky, and the two stared up at the clouds together. Emiko watched as a butterfly flew away and sighed, "I wish I was a butterfly… No one ever suspects the butterfly…" At this, Ryoma scooted away from her until he decided that he was at a safe distance. "Ryoma, I'm bored…. Do you want to go to the shooting range?"

Ryoma stared at her strangely before replying, "I'm thirteen…"

"So…?" Emiko replied, not understanding the point of what Ryoma was trying to tell her.

"I'm underage and so are you."

"So…?" Poor Emiko could not keep up with the brainwaves with Ryo.

"You're seventeen and you're supposed to be one of the top students at your school, figure it out." Ryoma refused to tell Emiko what he was talking about.

"Oh… ohh! It doesn't matter, since Chado works at the shooting range, he can get us in." She grinned, almost sadistically at Ryoma, thoroughly freaking him out.

"And risk his job?" He would do anything to get out of this…

"Meh, it doesn't matter. It's not like he enjoys his job anyway." Emiko spoke as if her brother's job was nothing, which it was. Chado worked at a shooting range part-time, but always came home whining that it was boring.

Emiko and Ryoma sat in silence for another few seconds before the brown box that Emiko brought started growling and jumping. Emiko didn't notice this happening, for she was too deep in thought, but Ryoma did. So he poked her and pointed at the box, "What's in there, anyway?"

Emiko gasped as she remembered the box she had brought with her, "Whoops… I guess I forgot to put holes in it…" She reached over to the box, and picked it up. She then handed it to Ryoma, "Here, open it. It's your going-away present." Ryoma proceeded to open it, staring warily at Emiko's seemingly innocent smile. He took a deep breath and pulled off the lid, waiting for whatever was inside to eat him…

But all that stared up at him were confused blue eyes on a whiskered, furry face. He continued to stare at it until he spoke up, "It's a cat."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious for telling me what it was. What do you think about it?"

"I like cats…"

"Of course you do, that's why I got it for you. Even though I, myself, hate cats… with a passion…" She continued to ramble on until Ryoma stopped her.

"Domo." He mumbled.

"That's it? No hug or anything? That's all I get? You're so inconsiderate…. And I spent so much money on that stupid cat…"

Ryoma just stared on blankly, at Emiko's strange tendencies to be schizophrenic, "You're rich, you can afford to spend a lot of money."

At this, Emiko perked up, "Yup! I'm filthy stinking rich!" She stated with a grin, "But only you and Sei know that, and I'd like for it to stay that way." She used her index finger to poke him on the head before offering him a hand. When he stared on in confusion, she simply stated, "Everyone is coming here in about a minute, we should get up and greet them at the gate."

Ryoma could never figure out how she knew these things, so he ignored the hand and lifted himself up with his new cat. Emiko blinked and followed Ryoma out of his backyard with her tennis racket…

A/N: Alright, people. I'm stopping you guys in the middle, 'cuz last time, this author note seemed to work. This is extremely important. Originally, I hadn't really thought of the idea of Ryoma getting together with anyone, 'cuz you know, he's really going to have enough time to have a relationship while he's dying... Anyway... so, one of my reviewers wanted a yaoi pairing, which I'm totally for, so, ima (haha... how fruity) let you guys choose the pairing. There are, of course, certain restrictions... I'll only put the ones I want or am considering right now, but if there's a pairing you really want, then maybe I'll put it up. But, I absolutely abhor (ooh.. big word) the Momo/Ryo and Inui/Ryo pairings... Here are your choices:

Tezu/Ryo
Fuji/Ryo
Eiji/Ryo
Ryo/Kev
Ryo/oc (The OC would be a cold guy, colder than Ryoma... and hot... yea... definitely... Could be made as someone of his past. If you want, you can leave suggestions of the OC's personality.)

Um... can't really think of much right now... Oh, and yes, Ryoga will play a bigger role in this story... he'll come in sometime...
Reviews make me happy and motivate me to write... Wanna leave me one:-D cough how 'bout 500? cough hah... just kidding... but maybe at least 20? >blinks innocently...

Ryoma sighed, Emiko always was a bit of a schizophrenic… Her brother wasn't much of a "normal" person either, whatever you could call "normal." Both got bored very easily… You could usually see them skipping classes, hanging out at some café or just laying down in the grass. Emiko's sister seemed to be the only one who wasn't crazy. Ryoma was lucky to have her as his doctor, he could trust her to take good care of him. She, at least, didn't get bored of college or medical school, or he would be dead by now. Emiko's brother was currently working at a shooting range, and an underground weapons shop, though he was actually looking for a job in a band.

The door creaked open and Ryoma snapped out of his small daze. He picked his head up to see Jin.

"Ohayo, Ryoma-kun," It was Ito Jin, Ryoma's doctor and close family friend, and the only one of her family that he could trust with his life.

"Ohayo," he mumbled out.

"Saa, you're still the grumpy little kid from New York, aren't you?" Jin smiled in affection for her patient.

"It's only been about one year…" Ryoma replied.

"Well, one year since you've seen Emiko, but about… three since you've seen me," She walked around the bed, grabbing Ryoma's arm, and doing all the necessary doctor procedures; checking heart rate, blood pressure, sugar, temperature, etc.

"How is Emiko anyway?" Ryoma wondered out loud about his schizophrenic friend.

"Well, she's been going to college in the morning and she says that she's bored since you're not with her." Jin giggled as Ryoma rolled his eyes.

"She's always bored… Is she still in Feizero?"

"Yea, with Taro and Rante. Ryuu and Maho left a few months after you came here. Maho wanted to sing and Ryuu is in a band now. He's in New York City now, supposedly, his band is on a tour there. I think they're called, 'Beck' or something… Anyway, Taro's the leader of Feizero now and Chado supplies their weapons and ammunition."

Jin frowned at this, she had never liked the prospect of her little sister in a gang and her younger brother also connected to it… "Well, luckily, Sei hasn't been dragged into the gang. She has a great mind, it shouldn't be wasted on a gang… She wants to be a journalist or novelist. So, Emi helped her out by buying her a laptop." Ryoma didn't bother telling her that Sei had been one of the founders of Feizero…

"I thought Sei already had one from Emiko." Ryoma pondered at this thought, Emiko was always buying Sei new things.

"Yea, well, she decided that her Dell Notebook was too 'outdated' so she bought her a Sony Vaio." She finished scribbling on a clipboard, "Well, seems like you're fine, but I still want to take an X-ray of your ribs just in case they're broken or fractured. I'll be back in a few minutes to bring you to the room. You're going to be confined to bed rest until then." Jin patted Ryoma on the head and left the room.

"I'm bored." Ryoma stated to the empty room for the umpteenth time. He sighed and called over Karupin, who had run over to a corner in the room and taken a light nap when Jin had checked up on Ryoma. He petted Karupin until the door opened unexpectedly for the second time that day and a nurse walked in. She walked over to Ryoma, rolling a wheelchair over to him. As she motioned for him to get into the wheelchair, he folded his arms and turned away, "Iie. I can walk." The nurse sighed, "No, you can't. Now get in."

"Yadda." He huffed and went back to glaring at the evil chair. After a while, the nurse gave up and allowed him to get up out of the bed, and walked him down to the X-ray room.

He met Jin there, and she helped him stand a couple of feet away from the X-ray machine. She took a couple of X-rays of his ribs, and then helped him to sit in a chair until the X-rays had finished developing.

"So, I heard you gave the nurse a little trouble…" Jin spoke up.

"Hn…"

"You know, you should listen to the nurses, they're just doing their job."

"Hn…"

She sighed, "Fine. Don't speak to me."

Half an hour later, another nurse emerged in the room in pink scrubs, holding a yellow envelope, "Here, these are the X-rays, Ito-sensei."

"Arigato, can you take Ryoma back to his hospital room?"

"Hai." The nurse helped Ryoma stand up and she led him back to his room, where he was tucked into his bed and left to die of boredom.

Jin pinned up the X-rays on a light board and turned on the fluorescent light. She studied the X-rays for a few minutes before turning the lights off and leaving the room. Outside of the room, she met Ryoma's parents and Nanako. "Echizen-san, Ryoma seems fine. He just has a fractured rib, so he needs to stay in bed and make sure that he doesn't move around too much." Both the Echizens breathed a sigh of relief as they heard the news, their son wasn't hurt badly.
Ryoma sighed and closed his eyes, hoping for at least a little rest, but that thought was soon stomped on and kicked at when a blur bounced into the room, capturing Ryoma in a death grip.

"Ryo-chan!" Ryoma didn't need to even look up to see who it was. The girl proceeded to rub her cheek against Ryoma's, smiling, her eyes closed in glee.

"Ohayo… Emiko." Unfortunately for Ryoma, his senpais on the tennis team walked in, witnessing the very embarrassing predicament that Ryoma was stuck in.

"Emiko, maybe you should stop that, you're going to embarrass Ryoma…" A soft voice rang out in the room, causing Ryoma to thank Kami-sama for his blessing.

"Demo, Sei, I haven't seen Ryoma in…," she trailed off, trying to count the days on her fingers, giving up after a while, "FOREVER! I want to hug him until one of us dies or gets hungry… or has to go poopy." So everyone in the room looked on as the mysterious girl, now given a name, Emiko, joyously greeted Ryoma in her own strange ways…

"Oi, Eiji-sempai, do you know who these girls are?"

"I don't know, Momo… Maybe they're old friends of Ryoma-kun," Eiji whispered back, confused.

"Of course we are! Right, Sei?" Emiko beamed at the Seigaku regulars as Sei typed away on her Sony Vaio, not paying any attention to the conversation. "Sei? SEI?"

"Huh? Oh… yea… sure." Sei replied with a distant voice.

"What are you writing?"Emiko leaned over Sei's shoulder to read what she was typing on her very expensive laptop…

'The early evening was bleeding away, giving to a much darker sky, and Taro and Tojii were heading back to the hideout. They were just about to reach the door when Emiko burst out of the very loose door, nearly tearing the thing off its hinges.

She stopped, seemed to calm in a millisecond, and brushed back the oddly colored tendrils of purple and black hair. She smiled at them, and very politely stated to Taro,

"Your girlfriend was just kidnapped."

Silence.

Disbelieving, dead silence, while Taro's face was slowly darkening to an enraged, plum color.

"WHAT THE HELL?" '

"Are you writing about us?"Emiko asked incredulously.

"Yeah, sure yeah…" Sei continued to ignore Emiko while writing her story. At this, Emiko crossed her arms and huffed,

"You know I wouldn't have bought you this Vaio if I'd known you would pay more attention to it than me!" With that, Emiko grabbed the silver laptop and threw it out the window.

"Emi!"Sei rushed to look out the window and yelled at Emiko, "That had better not be broken! Go get it back!" She attempted to pull and push Emiko, to no avail. She stood her ground and looked at Sei blankly. After an awkward moment of Sei glaring at Emiko, Emiko finally yielded.

"Ok, ok… Sheesh!"To the horror of the Seigaku regulars, she calmly walked towards the window and jumped down the three stories. Sei stood in the room, tapping her foot and looking at her non-existent watch. The Seigaku regulars rushed towards the window to see if Emiko had survived the fall. To their surprise, she did.

They watched as she picked up the laptop and looked around to see how she would get back up into the room. She suddenly sprinted towards a tree, laptop in one hand and climbed up the bark nimbly with the other hand. She sat in the tree and yelled, "Oi! Can you move outta the way? Thanks!" Before anyone could actually get out of the way, she jumped… And landed on something soft… "Thanks for breaking my fall!" She smiled at the person, who turned out to be Tezuka. Ryoma groaned and buried his head in his hands as he saw what an embarrassment Emiko was.

"How'd you do that?" Momo yelled out to Emiko, surprised at the small show.

"It's not that hard…," She trailed off, grumbling, "Freakin' weirdos can jump a hundred feet into the air to do some fancy-shmancy tennis move and they think they can't jump out a window a couple feet high…," she scoffed at the thought.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing."

"Here you go." Emiko handed Sei the laptop, miraculously unscathed. "But you know, I could've just bought you another one."

"It would be different," Sei spoke as her hugged her laptop in the same fashion that Emiko had hugged Ryoma earlier, "This laptop has grown on me."

"Like mold? Ewww…" Sei glared at Emiko as she made fun of her special "bond" with her favorite inanimate object.

"Humph… You just don't understand a true writer." Sei pouted and went back to typing furiously away at her precious laptop.

"Riighht…" Emiko raised her eyebrow at Sei and turned back around to Seigaku regulars. "Ohayo! I'm Ito Emiko, an old friend of Ryoma! You guys must be Momo, Eiji, Taka, Oishi, Inui, Kaidoh, Fuji, and Tezuka! Ryoma told me all about you!" She spoke, pointing at each regular as she said their name.

Inui was the first to break the awkward silence, "Ii, data… Seems like this girl knows Ryoma well…"

"Hoi, hoi. Ohayo! A friend of Ochibi's is a friend of ours!" Eiji jumped in, shining his bright smile towards the girl.

"Hai! Eiji-sempai is right! Ohayo, you can call me Momo-chan!" Momoshiro waved at the bright girl.

"Saa, Ohayo. Yoroshiku." Fuji smiled softly at Emiko.

"Fss… Ohayo" … Guess who.

"Are you alright? You didn't get hurt right?" Oishi fussed over her, making sure she didn't get hurt.

"Ano… eto…" Taka blushed, trying to speak when Fuji handed him his tennis racket, "OH YEAH! BURNING! GOOD MORNING LITTLE LADY!" Emiko chuckled at his horribly bad English.

"Ohayo," Tezuka stayed his icy cold self and Emiko frowned, "Oi, you need to be flexible in your face! Smile a little more!" Tezuka's hand twitched when Emiko decided to try to pull his mouth into a smile.

"Oi, Emiko. Stop bothering my sempais." Ryoma spoke up, blushing at how Emiko was embarrassing him in front of his teammates.

"Oh, so you decide to be nice to them but not to me! You should be calling me nee-chan! Waii! Ryoma es un tirano!" Emiko pouted, changing languages once again.

"Emiko, you're speaking in Spanish again…" Sei mumbled, without looking up from her computer screen.

Emiko stood there confused, until speaking, "Huh? I was… oh… Sorry! Hehe…" She scratched the back of her head, as the others sweatdropped…

The group continued to talk, or in Sei's case, type away, until Ryoma squeezed his eyes shut and grunted in pain.

"Oi, Ryoma. You okay?" Emiko asked softly, hoping that he wasn't in any real trouble. When he doubled over in pain, she fumbled with the call button, and pressed it continuously. In less than a second, a group of nurses rushed in, struggling to keep down the now convulsing Ryoma. One of the nurses proceeded to page Jin.

Jin sat at the table, sipping at her coffee, "I wonder how Ryoma is doing…" She looked down as her pager started beeping. "301…" Her eyes widened as she realized that 301 was the room Ryoma was in. She stood up, and ran to the stairs, up to the third floor, not bothering to bring her coffee. As she ran down the hall, she ran into a tall man, causing her papers and a few of her syringes to fly out of the pockets of her lab coat. She fell on her bottom, and winced, "Gomen!" She started to pick up all of her belongings and thanked the man when he handed her a syringe. He smiled, and said, "No problem." If Jin hadn't rushed off, she would have noticed the man pocketing a syringe and smiling triumphantly.

As she rushed in, a nurse walked over to Jin, informing her of what had happened. Jin pushed through the crowd of nurses and Seigaku regulars and pulled out a syringe of painkillers from her pocket. A nurse sterilized it and Jin tapped it to make sure that there were no air bubbles in it. She worked quickly, puncturing Ryoma's vein and pumping in the liquid. After a while, Ryoma stopped squirming around, and Jin wiped her forehead of sweat. She sighed, and turned to the visitors, "Gomen ne, demo, you guys are going to have to leave now. Ryoma needs his rest."

"Nee-chan, can't we stay a little longer?" Emiko whined at the doctor as the Seigaku regulars continued to stare wide-eyed at what had just happened.

"Iie. Anyway, don't you have to get to the college soon?"

"I can skip –" She was cut off as Jin pulled out a plastic hammer that squeaked when Jin bonked her sister on the head continuously, "Iie. You have to go to school. Now, leave!"

Emiko pouted at her "meanie" sister, holding her head in "pain", "Fine!" She grabbed Sei's wrist and pulled her out the door. Once she left, Jin turned back to the Seigaku regulars and smiled, "Gomen, demo, you have to leave also." The Seigaku regulars walked out of the room, afraid to face her wrath… and her plastic hammer…

Jin turned towards the nurses, "I'm sure you can handle things here. I'm going to go back to my lunch break." The nurses nodded and Jin walked out the door, heading down the hallway to the elevator. As she made her way to the cafeteria, she brushed past a man who seemed to be rushing out of the hospital. She turned her head back, feeling as if the man seemed familiar, but shook her head and continued on her way…

A/N: Thanks to my buddy, Spr1te Zer0 for editing and shtuff... Oh yeah, and I totally agree with her on the fact that not all 13 year olds are ditzy writers... we go to a "special" school... The teachers like to call it "intellectual"... Our teachers are so kick-ass... muahaha... oh yeah, just so you don't get confused, I'm 13 also... And I'm writing this stuff... (which I think is crap compared to Spr1te's stuff... you should read some of her poems... if she posts them...) Anyway... all you Inuyasha fans should check out her writing... I think she's written some CCS and Teen Titans... I think... hm... anyway, next chappie will also take a while, I apologize... Oh, and you guys who also read my Naruto story, seriously need to leave me a review suggesting ideas for the next chapter, or it'll never get off the ground...