Thank you for continuing to read this story. Please feel free to read and review. If you see anything I need to work on please just let me know. I'm honestly trying to improve on my writing skills.

Also, I know that when I write chapters they really aren't very long. Sorry about that. I just try to do my best and however long that is is the length of the chapter.

Chapter 4: A Whiter shade of Pale
"When I make a promise I do everything I can to keep it. My momma used to say a promise has to be kept no matter what."

Well that's all fine and good but the real question was where exactly to begin? Did he have any family to contact? Any friends? Was he new to Tokyo just like she was or was he actually knowledgeable about how to make his way around this huge city?

She certainly didn't.

Well, thinking about it certainly wouldn't do any good. First things first! After Ryuichi had once again fallen asleep on her couch, she began to search through his large box of things. The first things Narumi found was soggy clothes and a toothbrush. She sorted through everything one item at a time nothing seemed to be of any real use though. There wasn't even a business card of a friend or an associate of his.

After about an hour of careful searching through his box of stuff, she threw his laundry into the dryer. Basic needs first, she reminded herself. Then she headed back out front to make breakfast for them both.

When she saw him sleeping on the couch, something didn't look quite right, and she stopped to take a better look at him. He was asleep but it wasn't a very restful one. He was tossing and turning, and his cheeks were a pasty white color. His eyes cracked open very slightly and he stared at her with a blank look upon his face.

Narumi reached out and put the palm of her hand against his forehead.

He was definitely running a fever. She took the quilt he had thrown off of himself in his sleep and bundled him up tight in it, while he resisted.

"Too… hot…" Ryuichi weekly protested.

"Don't throw it off again, you need the warmth!"

She went into the kitchen and started a kettle of water for some tea.

"If it's not one thing it's another." She muttered. Well at least things were definitely not boring around here. Not even a little bit. He really did need someone to look after him.

She pulled out a bottle of Tylenol out from the cupboard, and carried that and a pot of tea out into the main room. She forced him to swallow his medicine as well as a couple of cups of tea, before tucking him back under his blanket.

"Thank you." Ryuichi whispered weakly through his already cracking lips.

He looked so terrible, like he was about to fall apart, yet his eyes held a steel behind his cute façade. Like he was unwilling to completely fall apart. Whatever could have happened to force him into being this strong on the inside?

The more she thought of it the more sure she was that he had to have grown up early in life. Few people ever held that kind of strength in them, and the few that did usually had to have had it for a long time for it to show so clearly.

Narumi thought back to her elder brother Touya, and how he had always acted. He'd almost single-handedly held their family together and had immerged from it a very strong young man. Though, a part of him afterwards was extremely child like. Touya had said it was because he had never been allowed to be a child while he was growing up, so he had simply wanted to make up for the lost time.

Was this, Ryuichi-san, the same way as her brother Touya? Something inside her said that he was. That he had to be the same or he wouldn't have survived.

Still…

Her mind began to wander back over the events of the night before, and she new she was an idiot. She should have made sure he had warmed up completely. The light t-shirt and shorts she had loaned him had definetly not been enough.

Narumi didn't have enough of an understanding of him yet but all the signs were there. He'd been so quite and serious like he wasn't feeling well, him climbing into bed with her. He was probably more after a bit of extra warmth than anything else. She should of known he was coming down ill.

She berated herself as she cooked him some chicken broth. How could she have not noticed!

Either way, she had to make sure her visitor was as well as possible by tomorrow morning. After all she did have a class to teach.

Chapter 5