Chapter Nine
The next morning Hiroki woke up first. Immediately, he saw Nowaki sleeping on a chair. His feet were propped up on the foot of the bed, and his head hung limply to the side. Hiroki sighed. The younger man couldn't be comfy like that. The chairs were wooden and hard, and simply too small to accommodate Nowaki's huge body.
Hiroki had offered to move over so that they could both sleep on the bed, but Nowaki declined. You need your rest, he had said, I'll only disturb you if we're together. Stupid Nowaki. Hiroki knew that he would never sleep well when Nowaki was so clearly uncomfortable. Besides, the bed was big enough to squeeze two on it.
He, himself, felt fine. Not the fine that you reply when a friend asks how you are feeling, but literally fine. He flexed his arms and legs. Everything was in working order. Of course, if his pancreas was failing he wouldn't know it.
"Hey, Nowaki," he said, shaking the man awake, "It's morning."
The man grumbled awake and began to rub the sleep out of his eyes.
"What time is it?"
Instead of waiting for an answer, he glanced at the clock. Ugh. 6:30am. What was his Hiro-san doing up already?
"Hiro-san, you should be asleep. You need as much rest as you can get."
"Nope, no more sleep for me."
Nowaki started to protest, but Hiroki cut him off before he could say anything. "Seriously, I slept most of yesterday and all of last night. If I don't get up and do something I'll go crazy."
The tall man stood up and stretched. His back and neck hurt, like they'd been compressed overnight. He groaned as the muscles and bones expanded back to their normal size.
"Nowaki, you shouldn't have slept in the chair."
His only reply was to lean over the bed to stare into Hiroki's eyes. Not the normal kind of stare, his I'm-going-to-fuck-you-as-soon-as-we're-not-in-public stare, but an inspecting stare. He took Hiroki's eye and opened it to look at from different angles. His hand was swatted away.
"Come on Nowaki, don't do this."
He sighed. "I can't help it. You are everything to me. I just… I just need to make sure that you are okay." He took his face in the palm of his hands.
"If I'm going to die, I'm going to die. There's nothing you or I can do about it."
Nowaki visibly sunk, which softened Hiroki's tone. "Please, we don't know what's going to happen. Can't we just enjoy each other's company?"
Again, no answer.
"Fine, if you insist upon being this way, then I'll just go ask the doctor what the test results on my organ's say." He tried to rip his IV out, but found that that it was harder than it looked to remove the tape which held the miniscule tube in.
"Hiroki, no." A forceful hand gripped his forearm where he was going to work.
He only glared up at the younger man. First, he was sulking, and now he's being all controlling.
"Don't. You can't leave."
"I can't leave? I don't remember anything saying that I can't leave."
"Just don't!" Nowaki's voice was louder now with his frustration. "Don't go, Hiro-san. Don't go. Please, don't leave me." He sunk down to his knees and palmed his face.
Hiroki could deal with Nowaki's angry side, though it didn't come out often. But this other side, the one where he was broken, Hiroki didn't know what to do. He was not soft and tender by nature, and this overt display of raw emotion made him uncomfortable.
"Nowaki," he began, rather awkwardly, "it's okay. You don't have to be scared." His hand found the top of his lover's hair and began to rub it soothingly. Nowaki looked up to gaze into Hiroki's eyes. "Really, I'm not afraid to die if that's what's going to happen." His eyes gazed off into a corner as he recited a line from a poem, "'Death be not proud, though some have called thee, mighty and dreadful, for though are not so.' Death happens to everyone at some point or another."
Nowaki's face took on a look of pure intent. He stood up and declared, "I will not let you die, Hiro-san!"
"Well, for starters, we can go check the test results," Hiroki said, mirthlessly. "They are supposed to be in today. If my organs didn't get hit with whatever chemical residue was in the air then I'm good to go home." He swung his arm in a jolly manner to accentuate his point.
"I don't want to know. I don't think I could bear it if you got radiation, or whatever they are calling it."
In the end, Hiroki convinced Nowaki to go to the office for the results. The younger man didn't want Hiroki to leave the bed, so he went alone. The professor only listened in order to placate Nowaki. If the man wasn't so fragile right now, he never would have followed Nowaki's "orders."
o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.
He held his breath before knocking on the door. This was the moment, the moment when he would know if his Hiro-san would be okay or not. He raised his fist to rap on the door. On the down stroke, the door swung open to reveal a startled Doctor Yamamoto.
"Oh, good morning Kusama. I was just about to go visit you. We got the results. They are rather inconclusive."
This man was just the kind of doctor that Nowaki didn't like. The kind of doctor who was completely detached from his patients, caring nothing about them or what would happen to them. He was just in it for the money that his job brought in. It was despicable in the worst sense. Whether the results were good or bad, he didn't care. He was only concerned about his flat-screen TV and formidable paycheck.
Oh, well. Nowaki dealt with this kind of man every day during work, he could deal with one more. "Inconclusive? What does that mean?"
"It's difficult to explain. I will tell you, though, that the results are not entirely negative. Actually, not negative at all."
Nowaki felt the breath that he had been holding for the last twenty-four hours expel in relief. God, what was this feeling? Elation? No, that wasn't right. It was something much stronger than elation. Elation was just a fleeting emotion. This ecstasy was more permanent, more lasting. The joy from his relief filled him up until there was no room for anything else in his body. His Hiro-san would be okay.
"But there is still something we need to be concerned about."
Nowaki stilled.
"This is what we are inconclusive about… His organs weren't impacted, but there were other side-effects."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that something is wrong in his body, something is growing." Nowaki's heart skipped a beat. A tumor? Cancer? "I don't want to worry you. This 'something' isn't necessarily bad. It's just unknown right now."
No, the "something growing" is not a baby, although I have decided to make this mpreg, if only because I am sick in the head and need something to write about. Just thought I'd say that. Although I think that puppyfacetwo is the only one who actually reads this. But that's okay. I know that what I write is a little boring sometimes. But I am not majoring in creative writing for a reason: it is not my forte.