Disclaimer: Okay, here we go. Wish me luck.

Hiroki: Only if you say the disclaimer.

Chey: Fine, I own nothing.

Nowaki: Wow, no arguing this time.

Chey: Yup, I'm trying to focus, for once.

Junjou Egoist: Act Seven Part One

Nowaki was waiting for Hiroki in the station. He leaned casually against a pillar, trying to pretend he wasn't desperately eager to meet his Hiro-san. He needed to focus on something else and decided to try a game that some of the other doctors played when they were bored. Being bored in a hospital but it, on those rare occasions, they played "Try to Guess the Disease". On patients they knew, it didn't work, but they occasionally did it in the waiting room, making up random, ridiculous diseases for the people to have.

The other doctors thought it was fun, anyway. And Nowaki was really bored. He cast his eyes around and they landed on an old man with a cane. He tried to think of first a suitable disease, arthritis, and then a ludicrous disease.

He couldn't think of one. He didn't want to think of one. His eyes slid to another person. A women in her forties. She sat on a bench, reading, her hand wrapped firmly around her purse's straps as it rested on the bench beside her. She could have any number of things. He just didn't want to give her any. It felt like he was condemning the woman. What if she walked into the hospital next week with the same diagnosis he'd made up? His blue eyes slid away to a teenage girl on the arm of a teenage boy. Both were dressed in street clothes and the girl was clinging hard to the boy's arm. She seemed perfectly healthy, as did the boy.

Nowaki sighed. This was not only not fun but also not distracting. A train whirred into the station and whirred out revealing a crowd of people. Nowaki straightened. His eyes scanned through. There. He spotted the other man, a messenger bag slung carelessly over his arm. Nowaki waved but Hiroki didn't see him. He was standing, frozen, in front of the woman on the bench.

She had looked up from the book and was staring intently back. Nowaki suddenly realized how similar the two looked. She had the same build, cheeks, brown eyes and floppy, chocolate brown hair. Hiroki's mouth worked furiously for a moment. Nowaki saw the woman mouth his name but he turned and hurried in Nowaki's direction, not even seeing his lover until the man stood in front of him. He stopped and looked up.

"Move," he rasped.

"Hiro-s-"

"I said, move." Hiroki brushed past him without waiting. Nowaki glanced back at the woman. She was standing now, one hand limply holding her purse, the other clenched at her chest. Her eyes looked completely forlorn. She felt Nowaki's stare and looked at him, questioningly. Nowaki bit his lip and turned away to chase after Hiroki.

He caught up on the street level. Hiroki was walking fast but Nowaki's legs were longer and he wasn't trying to hide the fact that he was running. "Hiro-san!" he gasped, catching him on the shoulder a block away from the station. "Who was that?"

"Who was who?" Hiroki snarled.

Nowaki got in front of him. "You know who. That woman."

"No one," Hiroki replied, dodging around Nowaki once more.

Nowaki turned again. "Was that your mother?" he called.

Hiroki stopped. Nowaki couldn't see the pain that rippled across his lover's face. All he saw was Hiroki loosening his shoulders as he prepared to bolt. Nowaki lunged forward but it was too late. The bag banged heavily against Hiroki's side and back as he ran but he couldn't bring himself to care. All he wanted to do, right now, was run as fast as he could.

Run from his past and run from his present and run from his future. He just wanted to run and leave it all the hell behind him.

Nowaki let him go. He would be back and, hopefully, he would be ready to talk.

…

It took hours for Hiroki to get back. His stamina from years of martial arts training may have waned since he gave them all up after being kicked out of the house, but his adrenaline more than compensated for it. By the time was well and truly winded, he was in a neighborhood he didn't know and the skyscrapers of Tokyo proper were far off.

"Damn it," he muttered. He turned around started slowly back the way he had come. It took an hour before he found a subway to take him back home. It wasn't the right line but it would get him close enough. He sat down on the train after waiting another ten minutes and let his legs start to shake from overuse. He began to notice that sweat was saturating his shirt, pants and socks.

The moment he got home, he was taking a shower. Hell, maybe he'd go to a bath house if there was one on the way. He wasn't sure. Twenty minutes later, he was blinking at the sun and walking unsteadily. He scoffed at himself. Here it was, broad daylight, and he was walking around, looking the drunken fool. He ran fingers through his sweat soaked hair and started off, moving slowly, but surely.

He opened the door to Nowaki's apartment. Nowaki was studying charts and drinking coffee. He leapt up from the table at the sight of Hiro-san's exhausted state. "Hiro-san!" he cried.

"I'm fine," he said, holding out his hands to stop the other man from touching him. "I just need a shower."

Nowaki licked his lips but nodded. Hiroki nodded back and gave him a smile too. It was the exhaustion, he told himself. It was making him hysterical. It was. The smile didn't leave his face as he abandoned shoes, bag, shirt and pants before closing the bathroom door.

When he opened the door in a towel and smelling better, he found a pile of clothes on the floor. He grabbed them and shut the door again to get dressed.

Coffee was waiting for him when he sat across from Nowaki. "It's a long story."

Nowaki smiled, wrote something on a chart and set it aside. "I've got the night off."

Hiroki's mouth tightened. He sipped his coffee, made just the way he liked it, and took a deep breath.

To be continued…

Chey: I just like to be dramatic now. Review if you want to hear my completely made up backstory.

Hiroki: I can't believe you're doing this to me.

Nowaki: It's better than Shinoda.

Hiroki: It's Shinoda.

Nowaki: You really wanna go down this path?

Hiroki: …No. Not really.

Chey: Review if you love me. Or if you don't. I'll just pretend you love me. Or because I'm really really sorry for taking so long to update. Job hunting literally sucks out every ounce of creativity. I haven't written a word in eight weeks until tonight, and I sincerely apologize for that fact.

Thanks for reading!

~Cheyanne