Disclaimer: The only things that are mine are the plot and all the characters that didn’t used to be seishi. ^_^

Warnings: Meeeeelodrama? Dumb chapter title? Can anyone think of another one?

Notes: Hi, everyone! Again, I’m really glad you’re enjoying this new fic. ^_^n Heehee. I hope this chapter’s okay. Kumagoro says: "I wish Ryuichi could get help in a place like this!" ^_~

"How are you feeling today?" asked Myojuan from the big armchair.

Ryuuen had his back to him, sitting in his own chair facing the window, as he had been when Myojuan had first encountered him. He hadn’t received much in the way of greeting, and felt a sudden fear that the response he’d evoked the previous day had been nothing more than a fluke. Ten seconds…fifteen…twenty passed, and his heart sank…but then the boy gave a small shrug, lowered his head, and started to fiddle with the toes of his sock.

Thank you.

"Not good?"

No reply, once again, and he decided that he was never going to get his patient to talk from halfway across the room. Myojuan stood slowly, stuck his black Bic Metal Point pen behind his ear, gathered up his notes, and moved, as unobtrusively as possible, to sit on the bed. It wasn’t a very comfortable bed, he noted, but more of the cheap college dormitory variety. He supposed the hospital’s funds were probably directed elsewhere, to pay for the electric bills for all the shock therapy going on behind closed doors. Or for Jello. There was enough Jello in the place to build a life-scale model of the Taj Mahal.

"Didn’t you sleep well?" he tried again, returning his focus to something relevant.

Ryuuen continued fiddling, eyes lowered. His brow was slightly furrowed, and he took a sharp breath, as if meaning to speak…but then relaxed, apparently changing his mind. Myojuan waited patiently, aware that something was going to come sooner or later…and sure enough, after only a few moments, the boy inhaled again.

"They wouldn’t let me look at the stars last night," he said, still frowning, bottom lip stuck out in a slight, affronted pout.

"Oh?" said his doctor. "Well, that wasn’t very nice of them. Why not?"

Another few tentative breaths. "I woke up…and the things were in me." With a jerk that was somehow graceful, he brought his right hand up, then over to the crook of his left elbow. "They wouldn’t take them out. And…I can’t move to see the sky when they’re there."

IVs, he’s talking about. "Well, you know," said Myojuan gently, taking in the pained face—He’s really upset, that he didn’t get to stargaze—"if you’d start eating properly, they wouldn’t have to put the things in. And you could get up whenever you wanted."

Ryuuen let that sink in, discomfort evident in his expression, and finally shrugged again.

Myojuan had gone over this anticipated first meeting in his mind several thousand times the previous night. How to begin? How to behave? How on earth was he going to dig out this problem that seemed so deeply rooted within this boy? The textbook answers just didn’t seem to fit; and besides, he didn’t want to see Ryuuen as just another textbook equation. He was different. He was…personal, somehow, and Myojuan couldn’t begin to explain why. Far from willing to start psychoanalyzing himself, he chalked it up to instinct, which had always treated him well in the past, and left the issue behind. Tama had listened to his low, pensive musings as patiently as any good feline, but had not provided much in the way of feedback. The conclusion he had reached, as he lay in his bed and stared up at the ceiling in the wee hours of morning, was a rather self-evident one: just be patient and gentle, and work with what arose between them. He could always attempt something else, if this method found him at a dead end. It seemed the safest way to go.

With the memory of this vow fresh in his mind, he took the line he had offered and pressed steadily toward an answer.

"Why can’t you eat anything?" He kept his voice non-confrontational, just the slightest of nudges in the direction in which he hoped to go.

Ever so slowly, Ryuuen moved his arms up to hug himself tightly around his chest, still not looking up. His face was contorted into a tiny grimace, as if debating what answer to give, or whether to answer at all.

"I…it makes me feel sick," he mumbled earnestly. "When I…eat things, it…I always feel like I’m gonna throw up."

"Always?" Myojuan said gently.

A slow nod.

He let the silence linger for a moment before saying, "Would you try eating just a little bit, if it meant you wouldn’t need the ‘things’ at night? Do you think you could?"

"…I…" Ryuuen hugged himself more tightly. "I don’t know why…why I remember you, but you don’t remember me."

Myojuan blinked at the boy, feeling the weird sense of personal connection once more. He didn’t remember seeing Ryuuen before, not ever in his life. But somehow… somehow… His words were haunting. With some effort, he managed to remind himself that he was the doctor in this case, and managed to proceed logically.

"What is it that you remember?"

The young man braced his shoulders as if raising a protective barrier around his frail body, and turned his head away.

"…Ryuuen?"

He shook his head firmly, almost violently in comparison with the muted movements he had allowed himself before. Myojuan opened his mouth to smooth over the offensive question somehow, but then, unexpectedly… "You wouldn’t believe me."

"Why do you say that?"

"No one ever does." The small voice was resigned, wavering but not hysterical. Accepting. Weary.

"How do you know I won’t?"

"Call me Nuriko. Won’t you?"

"Ryuuen…"

"Nuriko." The pale face turned and tilted toward him; shimmering eyes peered, yearning, into his own. "…Please?"

This was an interesting turn of events. Hoards of different diagnoses—identity crisis, multiple personalities—bloomed in his mind like violets, and the textbooks he had hated so passionately in graduate college announced self-righteously that he should play along or lose the battle. And he wasn’t about to lose. He would not allow that. Not with this one.

He sighed. "Nuriko…"

A slight whimper made its way through the trembling lips before they were pressed closed in a tight line, and Ryuuen closed his eyes tightly, tiny silver droplets gathering and clinging to his eyelashes. He brought an unsteady hand up to hide his tears, pushing the heel of his palm gently beneath the eye closest to his visitor. The shaky emotions he had displayed in the past few days, Myojuan knew, were mostly a result of malnutrition and stress, and by all rights, he should have been able to distance himself behind the medical explanation. But the tears still tore at him, still frustrated him, because at that moment, he could do nothing to stop them. And he wanted to stop them, more than anything in the world.

"Nuriko," he repeated—was it a nickname?—"try me. Just try me; you might be surprised at what I would believe."

Another violent shake of the head. "You won’t, you won’t, you won’t. You think I’m crazy…everyone does…"

Abandoning his notes on the bed, Myojuan circled around to kneel in front of Ryuuen’s chair, trying to face him straight on. There’s never a problem can’t be solved if you face it straight on…according to his father, that was, and it had always proved true in the past. Literal or figurative, it didn’t seem to make a difference.

"Listen," he said. Gently…gently, or he’ll shatter like the mother-loving Glass Menagerie. "I don’t think you’re crazy. I do not. But if I’m going to help you, you are going to have to trust me."

"But you’re not you anymore!!" The sudden, frantic vehemence of the words, choked with sobs that could no longer be repressed, astounded the young doctor. "You said you were, but you’re not! You said you were, but I know you’re not…why don’t you remember? Why??!" ….And the rest, if there was any more left unsaid, was lost in a torrent of tears, catching in the narrow chest in painful hiccups, unbridled agony.

There was not even a moment of hesitation before Myojuan reached out to the boy, took him by the shoulders and pulled him tightly against his own chest. There was no more fear that a touch could injure this little bird with the clipped wings, no more self-conscious concern that such personal, emotional instincts would be seen as something twisted and dirty. All he knew was that, more than anything now, Ryuuen needed contact with someone real, someone warm, someone stronger than he was. ‘Just enough’ was nowhere near enough, and he knew that now. The child needed all that he could get.

"Shhh," he whispered, cradling the shaggy head against him as Ryuuen’s arms locked around his waist, small fists curling into his pale green shirt. "Shhhh, it’s all right…I told you, didn’t I; you’re not alone. You’re not alone. For as long as you’re here, I’ll be here with you. No matter what you say, I won’t leave you."

And he meant it.

That boy needed to cry. Probably the best thing that could have happened, Myojuan thought; nature’s exorcism, a good cry. And hell’s wounds, did he ever make the best of it, poor kid.

It lasted for well over ten minutes; but if Myojuan were any judge of emotion, he could have sworn that, by the end, the anguish had turned to relief. Which was excellent, since that meant his actions had been successful. When there were no tears left to be shed, and the quiet embrace had done all it could, Ryuuen pulled back slowly to stare at his protector with solemn, swollen eyes. A slight flush of embarrassment spread across the pale cheeks as he swiped at the wetness on his face.

"All right?" Myojuan inquired.

Ryuuen nodded, making a valiant but shaky attempt at a grin.

"Do you think you’d like to tell me about the things that are bothering you?"

Slight hesitation.

"Maybe tomorrow?"

Biting his lip, the boy gave a careful nod, his expression almost apologetic.

"That’s all right; that’s fine," Myojuan assured him. "You need time to think about it, to figure out how to explain things, am I right?"

This time, the nod was quicker, grateful.

"Of course you do…of course." He tucked a lock of straggly hair behind Ryuuen’s left ear with the tenderness of a concerned father. "Do you think you could eat something? Something small, like…a piece of bread, maybe?"

The violet eyes trailed off to the side in thought, until finally, nibbling at his lower lip, he looked up again and moved his head in accord.

"Good boy," said Myojuan warmly, pleased. "You need to keep your body healthy, you know, so I can concentrate on what’s up here." He tapped Ryuuen’s forehead lightly with his index finger, receiving a small grin for his pains. "I’ll tell the nurse to set you up with some bread and butter…and good bread, too! Not the crummy store-bought kind that everyone is so fond of." The grin deepened slightly at his sarcasm, and he offered a wry smile of his own.

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True to his word, he made the nurse—Ruth, her name was; Ruth Gainsley—promise to make a special effort for decent bread. He filled out his forms in the small cafeteria, the doctors’ cafeteria, sipping Darjeeling Blend and going over all that had happened again and again, attempting to make parallels to cases he had studied in the past. He had nearly finished his first session evaluation when he spotted a small, lonely little figure in the corner; having believed himself to have been alone in the small room, this gave him quite a start. But as the stranger seemed to fairly blend into the wall, he soon shrugged it off, and nodded a hello.

Looking surprised—as if he’d thought he really did blend into the wall—the man raised a hand and gave a timid wave. "Doctor…Yamada?"

"That’s right," said Myojuan, motioning to the seat beside him. "Please, come join me. I’m anxious to meet all the other…employees here." He’d almost said "shrinks." That would have been a nice welcome.

The man approached him cautiously, and slid into the chair his new coworker had indicated. He was young, perhaps the same age as Myojuan—thirty years old, or thereabouts—with large, deep brown eyes and brown hair that looked like it had been slicked down, but still stuck up in parts.

"Y-you must forgive me for not alerting you of my presence," he said, contrite. He sounded British; by his accent, Myojuan would guess, from somewhere in the south of England. "I actually must be off in a moment or two, and I…I didn’t know which would be ruder: to not say anything at all, or to say hello and then rush off."

"Don’t worry," said Myojuan congenially. "Busy schedule. I can sympathize."

"You seem quite sympathetic," agreed his new acquaintance. "You’ve spoken to your young patient, after all. R…remarkable, really." He smiled shyly. "He’s, um…he’s been here a week, did you know? A…a week already, and nothing’s worked."

"Yes, so I’ve heard. I’m sorry, what’s your name?"

He looked horrified. "Oh!! I’m so…I’m terribly sorry. Barrington. But…if you’d like to know a secret, I don’t really like that…the last name epidemic, I mean. It’s impersonal. Dr. Lewis does it because it sounds official, I think, but I’d much prefer it if you’d call me Freddie."

"In that case, you can call me Myojuan."

Barrington blinked. "That’s…a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it?"

"So you’ve met with my patient? With Ryuuen?" Myojuan said, remembering what Lewis had told him the day before.

The small man nodded. "Oh, yes."

"And you didn’t have any luck?" In truth, the larger doctor had trouble believing that this timid mouse of a man could be a psychiatrist at all. But Lewis had said he was one of the best, hadn’t he?

With a shrug, his companion shook his head. "Well, it’s…it’s a delicate case, as I’m sure you know. It must be difficult for him; it’s a pity he has to be here at all."

Myojuan nodded his agreement, staring into his nearly empty Styrofoam teacup. A pity; yes, to put it bluntly and briefly. Poor child…

"It’s always a bit jarring, I’d imagine, and rightfully so," Barrington continued musingly, "when the label of mental disorder is stuck irrevocably upon those who are perfectly sane."

~*~

TBC…

Notes: I apologize for any melodrama you have found in this chapter. ~.~() Seeing as it is, once again, a little after 5:00 in the morning (something about this fic! Dude, I dunno…), it probably couldn’t be helped. If it bugs anyone, or if anyone **ahemahemcoughcough, RyuenKaze-chan, coughcoughgagchoke** has any suggestions for editing, I will gladly edit. ^_^ Anyhoo, thanks for reading! Have fun, everybody!

Mits: Hmm. You seem to be trapped in a chapter formula.

Me: Ehhh? ~.^

Mits: It goes Part With Ryuuen, and then Meet New Doctor. For the past two chapters, that’s what you’ve done.

Me: It was a coincidence! And I wouldn’t complain! At least I’m writing a fic about you!

Mits: --;

Nuriko: Do I get to kiss Hotohori-sama in this one??? **big puppy eyes**

Me: Ummmm, Iunno…we’ll see.

Nuriko: Pweeeeeeeeeeeeeease?????

Me: Go away.

Nuriko: g.g **runs to Kaze-chan for comfort**

Kaze-chan: **gloats** Ahaha, I got Nurikoooo!!!!

Ryuen: Uh-huh, and why, pray tell, did Nuriko not run to meeeee??

Me: Because you spell "Ryuen" with only one U. ^_~

Ryuen: Indeed.

Freddie: Erm, excuse me…I’m not a reincarnated seishi, ehhh, am I?

Me: No. You’re just cool.

Freddie: ^____^n

Kaze-chan: You realize, you’ve pretty much wrecked the mood of your serious fic with this silly script at the end.

Me: It’s five o’clock in the freakin morning!!!! I’m not responsible for my actions.

Hotohori: **appears randomly to smooch Nuriko, just because I have omnipotent author powers**

Nuriko: Ehehehehehehehe!!!!

Everyone Else: --;;

^_^ I’d like to thank the Coca~Cola company and whoever the heck decided to put caffeine in over-the-counter soft drinks for the above inexcusable spazziness.