Naota went in a little early. He’d slept like the dead, woken up in a nice warm bed with a hellishly sexy boyfriend, had an incredible hot shower, drunk some coffee, put it on the timer for when Haru woke up and went in, hunting down the last few books he and Haru had decided [...]

Naota checked Shinji over one more time, just to be sure he really was okay and then left the room, quietly closing the door behind him and collapsing against it. The sessions were getting worse. Shinji’s muscles were finally waking up, which was a good thing; it had to happen or Shinji couldn’t get better. [...]

Kippei was relieved that Rien was there to stay with Shinji when he couldn’t be there, even if he felt a little uneasy about it, sorry for both of them at getting stuck with each other because of him, but Rien at least didn’t seem to mind too much and he couldn’t really tell if [...]

When visiting hours came around the next day, it was Rien’s head that poked around Shinji’s door, smiling cautiously as if he weren’t entirely sure of his welcome. “Hi Shinji,” he said warily. “Can I come in? Kippei will be here…mm, later.” Quite a while later, in fact, and Rien was hoping he did the [...]

Shinji woke to light streaming in the window, a glaring counterpoint to the pleasant, cool air running down the back of his throat. He stared at the place where it hit his hand, heating it and he frowned, concentrating hard, lifting the limb and dumping it casually across his stomach where the sun didn’t reach [...]

Sada clung to Ashi’s hand tightly but didn’t look away, watching in mute, wide-eyed horror as the nurses helped Doctor Hanataki pull a fat tube out of her brother’s throat and then shoved smaller ones up his nose instead. She watched the way Shinji’s fingers dug into the sheets like spiders, veins sticking out clearly [...]

Naota set the alarm early and groggily got out of bed, kissing his lover on the forehead and heading for the shower. He was not surprised when he was still the only one awake fifteen minutes later. He didn’t bother with breakfast at four in the morning and instead set the timer on the coffee [...]