Chapter 4

All the while a distant siren had been drawing near. Now all of a sudden there was silence, and abruptly the door was flung open as two paramedics rushed into the pub.

"Where's …oh."

The two uniformed men dropped down beside the still form.

"But I know him!" the younger one cried out. "He's in my General Studies' course, History of Art!" (Pjotr nudged Alexej, "did you know Takato's in medicine?")

Professor Asami addressed the paramedics tersely. "Pulse and breathing stable so far, no physical trauma that would explain his sudden loss of consciousness," he inclined his head, "and he wasn't injured later, since this young gentleman", indicating the stunned looking blonde Russian, "had the presence of mind to catch him before he could hurt himself falling down."

The elder paramedic acknowledged this information with an approving nod, never missing a beat in his routine. Carefully (in case there was a spine injury after all) they turned Fei over, then picked up pace, ripping open his black leather jacket, cutting apart, after only the slightest consideration, his tight fitting printed body shirt ("what's that…?" at the star-shaped gun-shot scar under Fei's left clavicle). Takato placed monitoring pads on Fei's bared chest, hooking him up to a cardiac monitor. The older paramedic shoved an iv needle into Fei's right wrist and fastened an oxygen monitoring clip on his index finger. A spiked green line sprang into life, beeping regularly. "Should we intubate him, Kirishima Sensei?", Takato glanced over at the monitor, "oxygen saturation seems ok…"

"I don't know…", Kirishima was performing a rapid series of arousal tests and trying to insert a short plastic tube into the Chinese' mouth, "doesn't respond to voice, touch, pain, but some protective reflexes seem intact and he's reacting to a goedel - tubus ….strange ….glucose levels?"

"…are ok, 72, neither hyper- nor hypoglycaemia…oh Misha! Hi!", Takato recognized his Russian classmate, "is Fei drunk?"

Yoh answered for Mikhail, "certainly not. He drank just one small whiskey. Hardly ever drinks…alcohol intolerance."

"Ok, yeah, we just covered that…not uncommon in Asian populations…" Takato mumbled, becoming somewhat self conscious as he noticed two more classmates, Alexej and Pjotr.

"Does anybody know whether he's got a chronic disease? Diabetes, epileptic seizures, heart or kidney disease? Drugs?" his elder colleague continued, unperturbed.

"He's completely healthy physically", Yoh said.

"How well do you know him?"

"Very well. I've known him for years. And he … hasn't done drugs."

"Ok." The elder paramedic straightened up, addressing the room.

"What happened exactly?"

Everybody spoke at once, ogling the young Asian's naked torso, more revealed than covered by the monitoring pads. The fluorescent lighting reflected off smooth shimmering skin and threw the Chinese' subtle abdominal muscling into sharp relief. Only a faint hint of gooseflesh and rather pointed dark nipples gave any indication that being half naked wasn't the dress code of choice down on the pub floor.

"It was a brawl - "

"But he didn't appear to have been hurt all that much - "

"And I can confirm he drank only one shot of whiskey, other than that only soda ever since he came here", Akihito added, "hi Takato, by the way".

"Oh, hi Aki", Takato lifted his eyes from his patient for only the shortest of moments, "you here, too?" the beeping faltered, and he automatically readjusted the monitoring pad next to the star shaped old wound. "Yeah…you told me you were doing a bar keeping stint. Hey, have you got any idea perhaps what's ailing our sleeping beauty here?"

There was a short lull. The traffic outside the bar was droning in a steady hum. "Wonder what's keeping that dratted ambulance doc", the elder paramedic was muttering, checking his walky-talky. "But so what, we'll just take him in anyway, in a minute…"

"He clutched his thigh!" Mikhail broke out suddenly. "He couldn't have been hit there, but he was clutching his thigh as if it really hurt before passing out." He covered his eyes with his hands briefly to recall that highly charged moment in detail. "It was the left one! Fei was clutching his left thigh, and he collapsed almost immediately afterwards."

The paramedics exchanged a look. The older one nodded. Takato hesitated, looking slightly embarrassed. "Oh, come on", Kirishima grabbed the sturdy clothing shears from his younger colleague, "no time to be squeamish." He immediately began cutting away at the close fitting, stylish blue jeans, starting from the unconscious Chinese' left hip, taking care not to hurt him, but never noticing he was slicing through the fabric underneath, too. The artificially faded blue cloth fell away from a smooth, sculpted thigh. The young Asian's leg was angled out in an unstudied, relaxed arch. His androgynous face was turned aside, as if in trusting recline, the full lips dimpling innocently at the corners of his slightly opened mouth.

This might have been the pose and face of a beautiful, athletic girl…but along with the rough blue jeans stuff some silky black micro fibre material slid off, too.

And, finally, here was the proof for what his classmates had known, but sometimes couldn't bring themselves to believe completely.

"So he is a boy, after all."

(to be continued)