Disclaimer - Not mine. Except the bits that are.

My first properly multi-chaptered fic!

Chapter 1

It was like something out of a bad sci-fi movie. Misaki sat in front of the television and watched intently as the newscasters fumbled for a way to explain the pandemic in simple terms. Quite often they failed, and instead staggered through the medical jargon on their teleprompters with slightly terrified expressions. When they turned to a doctor, there was a distinct sense of relief.

The doctor was a balding middle-aged man with a pair of glasses he kept having to push back up to the bridge of his nose. He didn't look comfortable in front of the cameras, but once talking about his subject he loosened up considerably.

"What's this?" Usagi-san leant down to drape himself over Misaki's shoulders, a mug of coffee in one hand. His hair tickled Misaki's ear and the smell of his shampoo drifted around lazily, a spiky mint scent that mixed well with the coffee.

Misaki stole the mug and sipped gingerly – it was as thick and hot as molten tar and black as night, the way Akihiko liked it – before Usagi-san grumbled for his coffee back. "That weird disease in Russia's started to spread world-wide, and everyone's panicking." He pursed his lips as one of the newscasters asked how dangerous the syndrome is and the doctor coughed nervously.

"We don't… erm… quite know yet," said the doctor, "Certainly there have been no known fatalities yet… And many of the cases resolve themselves within a month of presentation… But we cannot… um… be sure yet."

"You are not sure?" The male newscaster leant forward with a stern expression, which the doctor matched with one of his own.

"With such a disease, one with such high infectivity, it pays to hedge our bets. We cannot put aside the possibility that there will be complications – certainly the effects it has on the body are wide-ranging and quite severe. But as of yet – there are none seen."

Akihiko hummed thoughtfully and slurped his coffee right beside Misaki's ear.

"Don't be disgusting!" the younger man reprimanded him automatically, before a thought struck him. "Aren't you meant to be readying that new chapter for Aikawa-san? She's given you an extra three days to get it done this time."

"It'll be ready," said Akihiko vaguely, "At some point."

The day was bright and crisp; Misaki strode happily from the subway station, following the trail of students also heading into university. He had escaped Usagi-san's protective clutches and got the train in, begging the man to spare Aikawa-san the trouble this time and get his chapter done on time. It was possible it might even happen – the man had been working on his general difficultness, this time by improving his behaviour rather than sullenly worsening it. The ranges by which he had been missing deadlines recently had shortened impressively; he was only a few days off now.

Tōdō was waiting at the picnic table they had claimed as theirs, re-reading one of the Kan mangas with a preoccupied expression. Misaki took a short detour via the cafeteria to buy them both a bottle of cola, and then joined him at the table.

"Takahashi!" The law student put his manga down and accepted his drink gratefully. "When's your first class?"

Misaki checked his phone, frowning at the already present text from Usagi-san, proclaiming his love and telling him to have a good day. "In half an hour. It's the Demon Kamijou too…"

They both shuddered; even though Tōdō wasn't in the Demon's class, the man's reputation was legendary throughout the university. Misaki was used to the bone-chilling terror the professor's name conjured in his soul though, so he recovered first and asked why Tōdō wanted to know.

"They're having a meeting about the Russian Syndrome in one of the science department's lecture theatres, and I was kind of hoping someone would go with me." Tōdō shrugged. "It's not until lunchtime though, so maybe you would be able to?"

"Yeah, sure," said Misaki. The Russian syndrome was the new thing to worry about, and he liked to know all the information he could get about the things he was meant to be worrying about. Plus the results weren't as gruesome as most pandemics – they were actually quite cute at times. "I didn't know you liked that sort of thing?"

The law student thumbed through a few pages of The*Kan and trailed a finger down the inside of the book's spine. "I don't normally, but this seems like a big thing, you know? I like to be informed about stuff like this, just in case." He paused and then added, "And I think one of my lecturers is going to use it as a discussion point next time we have class with her." He rolled his eyes and sunk down until his chin was level with the table top. "She's on my case to participate more in the class discussions, so I want some good ammo next time."

They agreed to meet outside Misaki's literature classroom and parted ways; Misaki trotted to his lecture hall quickly; even though he was fifteen minutes early, it never paid to be complacent with the Demon Kamijou.

His lecture was on the finer points of Charles Dickens and ran over by nearly half an hour. He had just had enough time to sprint across the campus and struggle through a steady stream of students heading into the science buildings in order to find Tōdō. His friend was waiting patiently even though he was late, and grinned brightly when Misaki skidded to a stop next to him.

"Do you want to get your breath back, or do you want to get seats?"

Despite the fact Misaki was completely out of breath, and his shoulder bag had nearly throttled him as he ran, he said, "Seats." They joined the crowd filtering into the science building.

Misaki had never been in here before, and he was kind of impressed. The literature building was a bit ratty and smelled heavily of dust and old books, while the economics rooms were tucked at the end of the maths departments and were constantly enveloped in clouds of chalk powder, even though they'd been using whiteboards and projection screens for the better part of a decade now. In comparison, the foyer to the science building was open and airy and full of white tiles and expensive looking screens. They headed up a set of stairs with a view across campus from the tall plate glass wall, and entered the swankiest looking lecture theatre Misaki had ever seen.

He chose a row halfway up and sidled along until he reached an arbitrary point. He sat down and discovered that the myriad of pink and purple seats might have looked comfortable and ergonomic, but they were mostly ergonomic at the cost of comfort instead. He tucked his bag under his seat as Tōdō pulled a notebook out and tried to wrangle the little tray attached to the seat arm into a half-decent position.

"It's good to see the bio students getting the same shit set-up as we do," said a student in the line in front of them. "I'm sure these seats aren't set up for human spines." She shifted uncomfortably and glanced back to smile at Tōdō as he turned the table the wrong way and tipped all of his belongings onto the floor. "Pull it up and towards you," she advised, fluttering dark eyelashes and leaning down to pluck his pen from below her chair. Tōdō smiled back and did as he was told – the table swung into a slightly less awkward place, while Misaki watched in amazement that his friend had managed to attract a pretty girl just by being a klutz. When Misaki was clumsy only Usagi-san found it endearing.

More people filtered into the theatre – filling the couple hundred seats easily, and a few settling on the stairs. Misaki looked around but didn't recognise anyone, not even the lecturer, who strode across the floor, took one look at the microphone and scoffed. When he spoke it was like listening to thunder, and he stood in the middle of the floor, glaring at them all from under impressive eyebrows.

"So!" he barked. "This is the lecture on the Russian Syndrome. I see some faces I don't recognise, so the rules to my lectures are as follows – no interrupting, talking or toilet breaks, all question at the end, if you break the rules, I verbally eviscerate you."

"I love Professor Hideki," whispered the girl into front of them, leaning forward on her little table. "Too few people use the word 'eviscerate' anymore."

Thankfully the professor didn't notice the immediate breaking of his rules and crossed to the little podium at one side of the stage. A presentation popped onto the screen and the man snatched up a controller.

"Let's get this over with," he grumbled, and the lights flickered off.

"The Russian Syndrome, or re-aging syndrome, or whatever else it's been dubbed by the idiots in the media, appeared in Vladivostock four months ago. Initially authorities thought it was absolute nonsense, but by the time they had forty sufferers – one of whom was a senior doctor – they began to sit up and take notice.

"By this point, though, it was appearing across Russia, in Eastern Europe and a few cases had been spotted in Alaska. China was mostly unaffected, as still is for the most part, but I'll deal with that later. Happily, a few of the sufferers were already beginning to recover, so it was fairly obvious that while this is a virulently contagious disease, it is not necessarily fatal." He grunted and flicked onto another slide, showing a pair of pictures of a girl, dancing in a garden, and then a young woman, bending down beside a dog. "The effects are frankly astonishing, even to an old sod like myself. This is Mrs. H, a half-Russian woman living in Tokyo who arrived at my clinic with Russian syndrome. To the left is a picture of her when she was 5, to the right is her 4 months ago."

Another slide. The 5 year old girl was perched on the edge of a hospital bed looking pale and scared, a Japanese man holding her hand tightly and looking utterly baffled.

"This is what she appeared at my clinic looking like. The Russian syndrome is not known as the de-aging syndrome for nothing." Despite his earlier threats, the professor looked pleased at the murmurs that run around the room. "There are no mental differences, no other changes, aside from this major physical reversion. We estimated that she had lost thirty years or so of age physically, but she remained fully in control of all her memories from the past thirty-six years and acted the same as she had done the day before when she 'de-aged', as it were.

"As far as other symptoms go… Patients often report headaches and an anxious, twitchy feeling for a couple of weeks before the change occurs. Some say they have decreased appetites and nausea as well, but those are less common. The patient remains at their decreased age for a couple weeks normally, and then appears to revert without any physical trauma. There have been some reports of more than one strain developing, which attacks the brain, but there isn't enough information on that yet for anyone to be sure. Keep an eye out for news on it."

The next slide was full of complex looking pictures and diagrams and words Misaki couldn't even begin to understand. Beside him Tōdō scribbled like a mad thing, but Misaki couldn't bring himself to pay attention and starts to plan his meals for the rest of the week. Still, he managed to pick up bits and pieces, such as the syndrome was caused by a virus, which had been isolated and probed mercilessly in some American laboratory, and that people with European descent were most at risk and that the ethical issues involved were myriad. He actually heard Tōdō perk up when that slide appears, and tried to focus so he could maybe help the man, but the lawyer talk melted his brain.

All around, the other students were typing and scribbling notes with much the same fervour as Tōdō. As the professor turned to them for questions, Misaki slunk down in his seat and tried to not to look too unintelligent.

My word! Whatever could happen? Have I dropped enough hints yet? Was there enough exposition in this chapter for you?

And don't worry, things will be better explained when we come to it, hopefully cushioned by some fun and interesting stuff! I've put too much thought into an imaginary disease, when there are so many real ones I should be learning about.

Next chapter – we'll head up a rating for some light smut. Do stay around.