Disclaimer: Don't own, never will.
"Mr. Kiryuu. Mr. Kiryuu, please wake up."
Zero jerked his head up, blinking rapidly to clear his vision. His eyes landed on a young nurse looking kindly at him. Zero rubbed away the sleep from his eyes before returning his attention back to the nurse.
"Awake, Mr. Kiryuu?" The nurse smiled kindly at him. "Your brother's fine now. Did you call your parents or guardians yet? The doctor would like to speak to them."
Zero stared coldly at the nurse. "I want to see Ichiru."
Startled by Zero's frigid disregard of her questions, the nurse tried again. "Sir, your brother is fine. The doctor would like to speak to your parents or guardians about Kiryuu Ichiru."
"Which room is he in?" Zero furrowed his eyebrows, annoyed that she would not let him see Ichiru.
"P-pardon?" The nurse blinked as her smile began to fade.
"I said 'Which room is he in?'." Zero stood up suddenly, knocking the nurse back a few steps. If she would not show him where his twin was, he would go find Ichiru's room himself.
"He's in room 208. But Mr. Kiryuu! Wait!" The nurse called after Zero, who had started walking into the hallway after the nurse had told him the room number. "Mr. Kiryuu! Your parents – !"
"They won't come." Zero interrupted sharply. Why would they? His parents were dead and his relatives abandoned the twins. Of course, it's not like the nurse, or anybody else for that matter, would know. They were outsiders. Outsiders had no right to stick their noses in the Kiryuus' problem.
The nurse ran after him, "But sir, then you would have to see the doctor as Kiryuu Ichiru's family member."
"After I see Ichiru." Zero insisted. If only the pesky nurse would just shut up. She was like a fly buzzing around his head. Zero's mood just got fouler. He had enough on his plate already.
"Sir! Mr. Kiryuu! Please – "
"That's fine, Misaki. I can take it from here." A man walked around the corner, pivoting on his foot to swing around and face them. His white coat fluttered lightly, accenting his motions.
"Doctor … " Misaki looked at both men skeptically before turning and heading back towards the reception area to tend to other newcomers.
The doctor watched the nurse until she disappeared from his view before turning to Zero. Zero squirmed a little internally under the white coat man's gaze, but kept up his outer appearance of being unfazed.
The man smiled, "Kiryuu Zero, was it?"
Zero did not respond.
He continued anyway. "I am Fukui Kazuya, your brother's current doctor, and yours if you wish."
Zero mumbled something under his breath resembling "I don't need a doctor." and straightened up to look at Fukui head on.
"I want to see my brother." Zero repeated once again.
Fukui smiled and waved it off, "Yes, yes. We will go see him later. However," Fukui's face became serious, "the fact remains that I still need to discuss about your brother with you."
Zero stared at the doctor for a moment. He could tell that this argument was not going anywhere and neither of them was going to back down.
"You …" Zero started. He seemed to want to say something, but he could not express it in the many words he had on his mind. One of them was Ichiru.
Zero narrowed his eyes, unwilling to lose this stalemate, but he had to admit defeat, if only for Ichiru. Zero relaxed his stance, but his eyes remained guarded.
He walked up to the doctor with heavy steps, clearly unhappy. In an attempted to regain some of his masculine pride, Zero tilted his head up in order to look down on the doctor.
"Well? Spit it out. The faster we talk, the faster I can go see Ichiru."
Fukui's smile popped back onto his face. Stepping to the side, he motioned for Zero to follow him.
"Come; let's go to my office. I'm sure you would like your brother's privacy to remain confidential."
Zero sat in a white chair set to the side of Ichiru's bed, his hands clasped together propping up his head. Zero stayed quiet while watching Ichiru sleep. His eyes were watching Ichiru, but they were unfocused. Zero thought about the talk he just had with Dr. Fukui.
~flashback~
"I'll be straight with you; I'm not too sure what your brother has." Fukui faced Zero from behind his desk.
"I thought the nurse said Ichiru was fine." Zero replied sharply, his body tensed in his chair.
The doctor sighted through his nose and leaned back. As he thought out his next words carefully, he spun his swivel chair counter clockwise until he faced Zero again.
"Well, she is telling the truth," Fukui finally said.
"But, that's – "
" … or what she believes to be the truth."
This made Zero pause. Eyeing the doctor carefully, Zero approached this new knowledge with caution.
"What do you mean by 'or what she believe to be the truth.'? There's something you're hiding from her and me, isn't there?"
Fukui smiled mischievously. "You're a smart one, aren't you?" Zero didn't look impressed. Fukui coughed nervously under the cold glare of the silver haired boy.
"Anyway, as I was saying, your brother isn't sick with a virus or an infection. Everything that's happened so far is actually caused by a special poison that isn't well known by the general public. Only certain people know of it, in fact."
Zero's eyes widened at the word 'poison'. How had Ichiru become poisoned? "So what's this poison and how do you cure it?"
"That's the thing," Fukui laced his fingers together and rested his head on them while looking at Zero. "I can't deduce which poison Ichiru has. There are many similar variations of this poison, but each has their own specific antidote. I can't just guess at which one to try or I might end up poisoning Ichiru myself!"
Fukui grabbed a spare pen that was lying on his desk and started to spin it with his fingers. "Well, any and all information about it is high classified. It will be hard to get it, but I can probably get a colleague of mine to have his poison analyzed."
"So do it then." Zero stared blankly at the doctor. No, he wasn't dumbfounded. Wait, Zero took that back. He was amazed how stupid and slow the doctor was.
Fukui arched his eyebrow knowingly. "Zero, this colleague is in America. The type of poison Ichiru has will dissipate if it leaves the host body for more than forty-eight hours. Any blood sample I try to send overseas will become useless to analyze. The only option I can do is to send your brother to America for a direct blood sampling. Are you willing to send Ichiru overseas?"
"America … " Zero muttered quietly to himself. He had though about his brother going abroad, but it never occurred to him that Ichiru would go to America because of a medical treatment and not because of an education or career advancement.
"Before you finalize anything about Ichiru going or staying, you need to know that this whole operation, analyzing and administrating the remedy, will be quite pricey." Fukui put down his pen and smiled gently at Zero.
"I'll let your brother stay in the hospital for a few days and you can discuss it between you two about Ichiru going to America." Fukui knew Zero would be a little hesitant sending his twin abroad. He had already arranged for Ichiru's stay ahead of time, just like he said to do if anything ever happened.
"By the way, I'm just a little curious. Your brother, Ichiru, where did he frequent the most? Perhaps someone at school had something against him or a customer from work … " Fukui inquired. He might as well start investigating for him. Someone had dared to defy his orders after all; to not harm the Kiryuu twins in any way, especially Zero.
"Ichiru doesn't work," Zero firmly stated. "I earn all the income. He just concentrates on school."
" … I see." Fukui murmured. "Well, why don't you go see how your brother is doing right now. I'll send for a nurse to see you there."
Fukui stood up and walked around his desk to help pull Zero up. With a gentle shove, he led Zero to the door. He quickly wished for Ichiru's quick recovery and Zero's good health before closing the door on Zero.
Zero scowled at the door intended for the doctor before walking down the hallway to find his twin.
"Weirdo." Zero muttered. He shoke his head slightly before approaching a nurse in hopes of getting positive results on his quest.
Zero hadn't heard the doctor make a private call to a certain man.
~end flashback~
Ichiru shifted slightly in hid bed, groaning softly as he tried to open his eyes against the bright lights. Zero snapped in attention as Ichiru attempted to sit up.
"Ichiru! How are you feeling?" Zero asked quietly, concern showing in his eyes.
"Ze-ro … ? Where … ?" Ichiru rubbed sleep from his eyes.
"The hospital, you dummy. What happened?" Zero huffed. Even though they were brothers, sometimes Zero felt like he was Ichiru's mother with all the worrying he did.
"Ehehe … " Ichiru rubbed his head nervously. "I kind of just remember coughing a lot and being dizzy."
"Stupid." Zero reached out to pinch Ichiru's cheek affectionately.
"Ah. Zero – that – kind – of – hurts." Ichiru said between the tugs on his cheek.
Zero laughed and let go of Ichiru's cheek. He ruffled Ichiru's hair before pushing his twin back into the hospital bed.
"Go get some rest, idiot." Zero murmured quietly.
"But – !"
"No 'but's. Rest."
Ichiru sulked before flopping back into his bed and rolling away from Zero. Silence overcame the room, leaving Zero to his thoughts once more.
A/N: Hi people! I'm really sorry about that HUUUGE break I took. I had a writer's block and halfway through the original third chapter, I decided I didn't like it and rewrote a big portion of it. (Doesn't that sound familiar) It didn't really help that VK wasn't story inspiring material during the recent Yuki-cest fest and hardly had any Zero appearances.
I apologize again, to you the audience and to Rose. I admit that chapter stories are quite challenge for me since this is my first one. I didn't quite expect it to be so difficult compared to one-shots. Again, I ask for your patience for this story, but I'll do my best to finish this story!
By the way, I wasn't going to post this chapter up yet and add more to it, but I concluded that if I didn't post it now, it wasn't going to up for a long time. So, enjoy!
