AN: Lol guys, I am SO delighted that you like this silly idea of a fic of mine, and I hope you continue to like what's to come. As you've gathered so far, this fic is gonna be VERY MUCH dialogue-based, and thus a little different, so… I hope you like ;) I'm not gonna do every single hour, we'll skip over some (you'll see), so all in all, I think we're looking at 8 chapters, here. Hope you're gonna stay along for the ride!

As always, I'm incredibly grateful for my beta, UglyGreenJacket, whose unlimited enthusiasm for my writing is probably the reason this fic exists in the first place.

Also, a few words on the medical program at Keio University's School of Medicine: Keio's "basic" medical program has a duration of 6 years, including clinical experience, ending in the degree of MD. After that, you do your residency at one of Keio's 34 teaching hospitals. You can, however, additionally enter a doctorate program to earn your PhD. Accompanying to your residency, you work on your research project for a duration of 4 years while already working in your field. It's pretty similar to the German model, so it didn't seem weird to me, but it's been pointed out to me that it can be a little weird from an American viewpoint. Thus, there you go.

Also, more notes on Usagi's school, as well as orphanages, in the end notes!

Second Hour

Right. A medical student. Could this guy be any more out of her league?

Usagi nibbled on her meiji almond chocolate. Mamoru had helped himself to one single Onigiri, that he'd been eating on for what must have been 72 hours, or so it seemed.

She knew this, of course – the medical bit – because Motoki had mentioned it, and also, because he'd driven the point home by scolding her and giving her a lecture on proper nutrition, when she had emptied the edible contents of her bag onto the linoleum floor of their temporary prison one by one.

Well, yeah, she knew she'd bought a lot. But her mind had been occupied with images of him, and thus she'd turned to comfort food.

Plus, now she was very glad she had all this.

Almond Crush and Blueberry Pocky boxes, Tomato Pretz, Macha Oreo Crispies, meiji chocolate, a couple anime edition crunkies, strawberry Hi-Chew, Sakura Pepsi, Grape Chocobi, Blueberry cheesecake KitKats, one very coveted Paripipo Avocado Cheese Potato Snack pack, Ramune, a few Qoo packs and, obviously, whole packs of dagashi. And a few leftover Onigiri, you know, those that she'd actually gone out for.

"So, have you decided on a specialty field, yet?" Usagi asked, buried behind food, her voice a little self-conscious.

"Um, I'm already doing my residency. So yes, I have," he said with a shrug.

She frowned, had she gotten it wrong? Wasn't he a student, anymore?

"I'm in Keio's doctorate program. I'm researching to earn my PhD," he clarified.

Right. Her eyes widened. Even more out of my league.

She nodded. And might have let out a tiny squeak. Yet, she still asked, "So, what's your research about?"

He shifted a little in his spot on the floor, his posture became a bit more rigid, as if she'd asked something highly personal, when really he must probably be publishing it internationally or something.

He cleared his throat. His voice sounded a bit raspy, when he answered.

"Um, my research topic is protective factors and beneficial treatment of long term memory loss in children caused by severe traumatic brain injury."

Usagi blinked. Right. Not even going there.

"So, you're a neurologist?" she asked instead.

He shook his head. "Pediatrician," he corrected, then shrugged. "But I've branched off into neurology enough to pull it off."

Usagi's heart gave off a rather irritating, disappointed throb. Sexiest man she'd ever seen, a postgrad student at bloody Keio… and he's a doctor treating kids? Man. The league was somewhere beyond the horizon.

"What was your seminar about?" he interrupted her thoughts.

It was her turn to squirm. Of course she wasn't embarrassed of what she did. Not at all. Not in the least. She loved her job, she knew how important it was, and she was good at it, but she knew what her society thought of her branch of work. They rather wanted to forget it existed.

"It was an advanced training course in dealing with aggression and violence in delinquent children," she said, rather matter of factly, and realized this time it was her giving very little away.

Her school had been a small institution in Ikebukuro and Oji, far from the prestige of legendary schools like Keio. She'd wanted to help kids, and in order to do that she needed to pass classes in communication, care work, educational studies… among else, thinking with a shudder about her welfare, economy and market principles class, which she'd flunked two times.

And, somehow, she had managed. Barely passing her classes, but she had; studying social work at Tokyo's University of Social Welfare – even within the minimum two and a half years, though only due to the reason that she had continuously kept her mantra that if she pulled through now, she would never have to see the inside of a school again… something that had basically kept her alive.

It had paid off, of course, she was good at her job. Brilliant, actually. She loved working with the kids, getting some of them out of these horrible living conditions, and some of them off the street. Sadly, though, her dream of being away from academia forever had massively backfired. Turns out, as a social worker, you needed to take regular skill enhancement trainings – which put her right back in classes.

And this is exactly how Usagi found herself, half a year into the job, at an all-day seminar for a new intervention program for delinquent kids, held in the conference rooms at Keio university library.

"Ah," he said, frowning a little, and Usagi sighed and decided to not beat around the bush.

"I started working at Living Dreams this year," she said. He blinked at her, eyes startlingly intense, and she hurried to explain. "It's a Tokyo-based, nonprofit—"

"— organization that supports children in orphanages," he finished for her, voice a little low, eyes a little wide, and then cleared his throat uncomfortably.

Usagi shrunk back a little. "Did Motoki…"

He shook his head quickly, apologetic. "No, I just…" he shrugged, a little awkwardly. "I know them."

Ah. Right.

His next question was so intense it startled her.

"Why?" he asked – a little quick, a little pressing, a little too loud.

Usagi threw him a confused look. Was he one of those people who wanted to deny there was a problem with Japan's children's welfare?

"Why I work there?" she asked.

He nodded, a little breathlessly.

Usagi frowned, but obliged. "Um, well… as you'd know, children's homes here are very diverse. And totally overrun, with the government still only putting 10% of all kids in foster care. Many of our kids are victim to abuse and neglect, but the system that we have doesn't suffice in … filling that place. You should see some of those orphanages…" she trailed off, looked at the ceiling, and sighed. Trying not to get too emotional. "It's really…" she cleared her throat. "They are still being neglected. And I just… I wanna help. It's a very long way to fix the system, but, in the meantime… I want to give them someone who cares about them. Me," she shrugged.

She looked over at Mamoru. He was staring at her rather peculiarly.

It made her feel a little self-conscious. She gave a nervous laugh. "I mean, we can't all be pediatricians, right?"

This made him snap back into reality, or so it seemed.

"Well," he said, swallowing thickly. "It's not as if your line of work is any less important."

She smiled at that. A little relieved, though she didn't know where that was coming from. Why did she want his approval?

Still, she shrugged. "Requires plenty less brains though, which I'm frankly thankful for."

He snorted. "C'mon, you got through the Japanese school system," he said, in that 'give yourself some credit' tone, that Shingo sometimes used on her since he grew up and grew a conscience.

She grinned, and shrugged again. "Well, I'm not the smartest cookie in the oven. My grades were always horrendous. Barely passing. But, you know, I'm totally fine with that."

"Well," Mamoru said, "grades and being book smart isn't everything."

Usagi threw him a look. "... Says the med student who spends his Friday night studying at the library till closing hours, when it's not even exam period?"

He chuckled, and shook his head in a 'touché' kind of way. "Have you ever heard of the entrance exams of Oxford University in the UK?"

She gave him a rather bewildered look. "... Uh, no?"

"Well, they don't ask you typical questions questions ... well they do, but… they actually don't want you to know the answer."

"Eh?" Her nose fell into wrinkles, and he smiled at her, and then gave a little shrug.

"They'll ask you a question, but what they want is to see you form a hypothesis, and then afterwards they want you to formulate a way how to go about testing it."

Huh. Usagi frowned, and he leaned forward a little, the movement jostling his legs, stretched out in front of him, against hers. She noticed it almost with all of her body, and had to blink a little before she could follow his voice again.

He, as far as she could tell, wasn't phased at all by the sudden contact, instead, he inclined his face toward her even more.

"One example I read they asked was, 'Why do lions have manes?'"

Usagi gave him a blank look, shrugging. "And why do they?"

He shook his head dismissively. "That's not the point."

But Usagi broke into a slow, amused smile. "Oh, c'mon. I bet you googled it."

He pursed his lips, but couldn't contain the slow upward tuck of the side of his mouth. "Of course I did. But that's beside the point. Why do lions have manes?"

She threw him another look, but decided to play along, and straightening up as well, leaning forward, she pressed her lips into a prolonged 'Hmmmm,' as she thought about it.

"Well…" she started, but then broke off, again. Frowning.

But he simply leant back, and gave her time to mull it over with a smile.

"Well," she started, her voice entirely unsure. "Only the boys have manes. The lion boys. The girls don't."

He nodded. "That's true." Then he shrugged, still with that same smile. "What could that tell us?"

"Maybe it's like with the peacocks," Usagi said, frowning.

"Yeah?"

"The boys have the crazy feathers," she said, gaining confidence. "To woo. Maybe it's the same for lions."

"Mhm," he nodded, once again. "And how'd you go about testing that?"

Usagi sat up a little straighter, with a proud sort of frown. "Wait, was that right?"

He rolled his eyes, but couldn't contain the grin. "Beside the point," he said. "How'd you test your hypothesis?"

Usagi leaned back against the metal wall behind her with a slump. "Hmmm...," she made, furrowing her brows, and only continued after a moment. "Well, I could look if there are lions with less mane, and see if they have trouble finding mates?"

Mamoru smiled, the kind, slow type that made his eyes shine that went right through her, but this time made her blink.

"What? Was that wrong?"

He shook his head, chuckling. "No."

Usagi frowned. "Why are you laughing, then?"

"I'm not laughing," he said, eyes still twinkling in amusement. "I'm smiling."

Her lips fell into a pout, which made his lips lift up even more. "Well," she said, a little petulant, "did I get into Oxford, then?"

Still that same, aggravating smile, and otherwise nothing.

She sighed, as they fell once more into silence, and she shifted a little. Her pencil skirt cut into her thighs a little, the way she sat, and with a tuck she hiked it a little up her legs. Looking up, she found Mamoru's eyes at the hem of her skirt, and they flew up startled, a little wide, to hers, his hand immediately at the back of his neck with a blush. Caught in the act.

It was her turn to smirk.

She cocked her head a little. "So, wanna play a game with me?" she asked sweetly. "You know, we're gonna spend some time, here. Might as well get to know each other."

He smiled, stretching out his legs, and leaning his head back against the metal frame behind him. "What do you suggest?"

His legs once again brushed against hers, but this time she had braced herself for it and managed to not let it show.

"Never have I ever," she said, instead.

His brows furrowed. For a moment she thought he'd actually never heard of it, before he answered.

"That's a drinking game. We don't have anything to drink."

Usagi shrugged. "So what?"

"And it's childish."

She shrugged again, in a 'So am I' kind of way, and held up one of the boxes from her stash.

"We can do it with pocky?" she said, rattling the box a little with what she hoped was a persuasive, seductive smile but probably looked like she tried too hard.

He rolled his eyes and snorted, and her idea seemed to be immediately dismissed.

Usagi fell into a pout.

"It was a very humane answer, by the way," Mamoru said after a beat of silence.

Her head bopped up a little higher in surprise. "What was?"

"Your lions," he said, shrugging. "It said a lot about you."

She blinked. She hadn't counted on an explanation. "Oh?"

He fidgeted a little when sitting up and bending forward a little, toward her.

"Well, for one, you probably wouldn't have found out why lions have manes," he said with a shrug.

"What?" Usagi exclaimed, disappointed. "Why not?"

His eyes shone when he threw her a quick grin, before he once again lifted his shoulder in that nonchalant way and let it fall rather slowly. "Your study design was correlative," he said, as if it were obvious. "You picked already existing lions with less hair and compared them to the ones with a lot. You can't evaluate causation from that. Even if they did find mates—"

"So it is about the mates!" she interrupted him, eyes lowered.

He chuckled, shaking his head. "I didn't say that. But if it were, you can't test it that way, really. They might have less hair because they don't have mates, maybe the lionesses groom them, or maybe something else causes the lack of mane and lack of mate."

Oh. Usagi's face fell.

Mamoru hurried to continue.

"But..." he said, leaning forward hastily, cocking his head a little and looking her in the eye. "It says a lot that you didn't think of the alternative."

Usagi blinked, threw him a confused look, and he supplied, again with that shrug.

"Take a random bunch of lions, before mating, select half of those at random and shave their manes off in order to compare them to the remaining lion group with manes intact, and then see if they still find mates …" he said offhandedly.

Usagi's look must have been appalled, because Mamoru shrunk back a little even before she started exclaiming.

"WHAT?" she bellowed. "Those poor lions!"

Mamoru chuckled, low and deep. "Exactly. Yours was very humane, if slightly more ineffective. And also..."

"Yeah?"

"Your mating theory," he said, and his smile got warmer and his cheeks a tiny hue redder. "You think mane and lions, and think of mating. Family. Connection. A different approach might be to see it as a power advantage, or a way to give them benefits in battles. A competitive, aggressive way of seeing it that you didn't think of, either."

Usagi's answering frown was deep and thoughtful, and she took a moment before she replied, and with a tone someone would use to explain a particularly giant fault in someone else's argument.

"Ok," she started, eyes serious, "as someone with long-ass hair, I can tell you this for certain; long hair is not an advantage ever. Powerwise or anything."

His voice rumbled as he laughed, and shrugged again in that very adorable, boyish way. His cheeks turned even redder when he winked. "Maybe in mating and wooing, then?"

Usagi swallowed, and blushed as well. She kicked his leg a little, and his laugh vibrated across the small, metal cubicle.

But his eyes didn't leave her, and they kept shining in that very distracting way.

She pursed her lips. Tried to fight the color in her face, when she asked, "So, how about that game?"

AN: Usagi's school also exists in real life, and so does her program. If you wanna read (or look) up the very depressing situation of orphans and orphanages in Japan that I allude to, and which makes Mamoru's story so much more tragic: the term "Japan's Throwaway Children" has been coined for quite a while by Japanese society, and UNICEF Asia Pacific as well as Al Jazeera have made documentaries about it that are freely available.

I think it's very worth to keep in mind, when painting Mamoru's picture in fic, how extraordinarily hard he has it in life. Growing up in a society that values family ties so very strongly, where family and familiar bonds are what nurture and carry you through life so exclusively, where it's often frowned upon to really open up to anyone from "outside" – to grow up in this environment without having anyone at all?. Emotionally or to support you… That's friggin' heartbreaking.

Anyway, please let me know what you think?