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Adam didn't notice the letter for three days.
It had sat on his kitchen table in a stack, mixed in with promotional mailers, coupon packs, and other important documents, waiting for him to get to them. To be fair he hadn't been home almost at all over the last few days, he had a major surgery coming up and he had spent every waking moment preparing. Pouring over files, looking at x-rays, reviewing the patient's records, he didn’t let a single detail escape him.
He felt worn thin, even more so than usual, but he tried to not let it affect him. However, every time he visited room 42 and saw his patient, a sweet little girl named Julia, he was filled with determination again. He knew logically that he shouldn’t become too emotionally invested, every surgery had its risk regardless of how well he prepared for it, but he couldn't help but see his own sister Laura whenever he saw that small body curled under the covers in her hospital bed.
It had been years since Laura walked out of the hospital, scarred, but stronger than ever. But still, it tugged at some painful part of him to see someone so young, still innocent, suffering like that. The world was unfair, but he did what he could to make it just a little better.
It was only after a 16-hour surgery, a 12-hour nap, and a long shower that he got to it. What stood out to Adam was the handwritten address on the front of the letter, he took one more sip of his coffee, before tearing open the letter and skimming it over.
Oh.
He blinked. He wasn’t expecting Lance to write to him personally. He thought he had a good rapport with the other man, they did understand each other's situations more than most could, and he thought the other was witty and kind-hearted. But they weren't in touch too much, Adam being so busy and Lance living across the globe in a totally different time zone. It was, however, still nice to hear from him. The letter was pretty straight forward, asking him how he was, updating him on his life so far, inviting him to Japan-
Adam froze. Wait, what ?
He looked over the last few lines and clear as day there it was. He picked up the envelope he had discarded before and turned it upside down, out tumbled a pair of tickets. First-class, non-stop flight to Tokyo from LAX. Adam blinked.
Against his better judgment, his mind began to whirl. After the surgery was a success yesterday he theoretically could take a few weeks off. They were going to have an audit in his department, nothing that he needed to be there for, but that gave him up to two weeks off while his pipeline was lightened to make time for inspections. He could take some of his files and his laptop with him, go through what he needed to remotely, and Andrea from HR did owe him that favor from last Christmas party so he was sure his request for time off would be fin-
He slammed his mental brakes so fast he almost jerked forward physically. Wait, stop . He was getting ahead of himself. He had not been back to Japan in years, he was sure things were different now. Even after all this time, he felt a quiet pang. Adam sighed. He couldn't. He knew that, but traitorously his heart still hurt a little more in his chest. He took another sip of his coffee and finished off the letter.
I'm sure you are crazy busy, but if you could it would be great to see you again. No need to worry if you can't make it, the tickets will be void if you don’t use them anyways. If you can, consider dropping by, but you probably already know what you want to do.
-Lance
Adam paused, his memory was hazy but the last line felt familiar. What did he want to do? Adam hadn't considered that for a long time. He knew what he needed to do, what was right to do, but what he wanted? He didn't even know what that was. He sighed, draining his coffee he put the mug in his sink and tucked the tickets back into the envelope. He didn’t toss them, leaving them in the undecided pile on his kitchen counter.
It was two days later when Laura found them.
"What are these?" Adam looked up from the couch and his eyes widened when he saw her flipping through Lance's letter. Before Adam could say anything she continued.
"You should go," she said, glancing over the tickets that were included.
"I can't," Adam said, trying to make his voice stern. But Laura just shot him a skeptical look, it never did work on her.
"Why not?" She asked.
A thousand reasons jumped to the front of Adam's mind. Because he was busy, because it was last minute, because he couldn't bear to go back. But before he could say anything, she sat down on the couch next to him. She fiddled with the letter in her hands, without looking at Adam.
"Is it because of me," she asked, and Adam's heart just broke.
"Of course not," he said, and he meant it. In a thousand different lives, if he had the same choice he would have always chosen to come back to her. Not just because he couldn't abandon his own family, but because he would have never been able to live with himself if he didn't do everything he could to help her get better.
But Laura just looked at him, lovingly, fondly, and just a little sadly.
"Adam, I'm not ten years old anymore," she said, voice firm. "I love you, and I can never repay you for taking care of me and raising me, but I can handle myself now. You saved my life, you can be a little selfish and live your own too." Adam pulled her close as she started to sniffle, but she just shoved him lightly.
"No way, you're not allowed to comfort me," she said huffing, wiping her tears away she crossed her arms and grinned at him.
"You're going to Japan, no ifs, ands, or buts." Adam opened his mouth to argue, "None. Period." He closed it again.
He put up resistance at first but Laura was a tornado when she needed to be, and two days later she was dropping him off at the airport.
"I talked to Andrea, you have two weeks off for now but she can easily put you down for a couple of extra weeks if you need," Laura said, and Adam blinked. If Laura and Andrea joined forces he was worried he'd never make it back to American ever again.
She helped him check-in and before long they were hugging goodbye. It was so weird since she had been discharged they had scarcely spent a week apart. It still felt wrong leaving her to go halfway across the globe, but he knew he couldn't hold on forever, she was growing up.
"Take care of yourself while I'm gone," He said, a little choked up. She just squeezed him back harder.
"Back at you." She said, giving him a bright smile, and waving to him until he disappeared into security.
The flight was long but infinitely more comfortable in first class and before long he was touching down in Tokyo. He was a bit jet-lagged but felt surprisingly good. When he exited the airport he spotted Lance easily, waving him down he came to meet him, glancing over at the unfamiliar man at his side.
"How was the flight, Adam?" Lance asked brightly, pulling Adam into a hug.
"It was fine, thank you again for the tickets by the way," he said, before turning to the man at Lance's side.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Adam," He said, a little nervously, the other man was dressed sharply in all black and his eyes were piercing as they stared Adam down. Extending a hand Adam shook it, feeling the other man's vice-like grip close around his fingers, glancing down Adam couldn't help but notice the edges of a tattoo peeking out from under the other's shirt cuff.
"Keith," The other man said, voice low and rumbling with just a hint of an accent. A man of few words he sees.
Before long Adam has his bags loaded into the car, and settles in the back seat, watching Lance and Keith chat with each other in rapid Japanese. He did know a good amount of the language from when he used to live here, but he's gotten rusty. But still, he can make out a few words.
" Play nice, okay?" He hears Lance say, Keith, returning only a huff in response before Lance turns and smiles back at Adam.
"Welcome to Tokyo!"
There have definitely been changes over the last eight years, but much remains the same and driving through Tokyo feels like a journey to his past. The sprawling city, with its glass towers that extend into the sky, piercing the heavens, illuminated by neon and pulsing LED screens, is alive. If LA felt like a bustling city, then Tokyo was on another level, dense and bursting at the seams it was so full of sights and sounds that Adam almost felt overwhelmed. But before long they were driving away from the busy boulevards, turning to more upscale and quieter neighborhoods. They pull smoothly into a parking garage, and before long they're taking an elevator up to the top floors.
During their journey Lance talks, asking about what he's missed since leaving California and updating Adam on his life, and he does the same as well. Keith mostly stays silent but does chime in occasionally. Adam does find the other man a bit intimidating though, especially with how intently he seemed to be apprising Adam. It's hard to reconcile the awkward but heartfelt man from Lance's story with the sleek and subdued individual in front of him.
They finally arrive at the apartment and Lance and Keith give him a short tour before leaving Adam to rest a bit on his own in the guest room. Adam had wanted to just get a hotel room at first, he was already indebted to Lance due to the tickets, but Lance had just waved him off.
"We have room anyway, and don't worry about the tickets. We travel tons for work, and those are just from points anyway so you don't owe me anything." Easily said, but Adam still felt a faint gnawing of unease.
Flopping back in his bed, almost a little peeved about how comfortable it was, he thought over the last few hours. He had a sneaking suspicion that Laura, Andrea, and now even Lance were in cahoots. Part of him was slightly annoyed that they were so aggressively attentive, but another part of him had the self-awareness to know it was necessary to even get him on the plane.
Adam knew he was a workaholic, a bleeding heart, someone who put everyone before himself which left him burnt out and hollow. He always had been, and it was what got him through the difficult years. Through the death of his parents, raising Laura, and putting himself through school. But now that Laura was out of the hospital and in university, and he was a respected professional in his field, he almost didn't know what to do with himself.
He sighed. It was a little pathetic, was he so pitiful that his kid sister, co-worker, and university friend were all banding together to make sure he didn’t die alone in his apartment? Not wanting to answer that he closed his eyes, and before long the jetlag and exhaustion caught up with him.
While he was on break Lance and Keith still had work. He had free reign of the apartment, and city, which he explored at his leisure. Lance's hours were more flexible, so he acted mostly as Adam's tour guide those first few days, with Keith tagging along occasionally, a quiet, still shadow hovering at Lance's elbow. At some point though Adam began to notice that he was a bit of a third wheel. They were visiting some local landmark, Keith joining them today, and while Adam took some pictures of the landscape to show his sister and prove to her that yes, he was having fun and not working , he noticed the two of them on their own. Adam of course knew about their relationship, but the past few days he didn't see much of them behaving like a couple first hand.
However, now they were in their own world. Talking quietly, heads bent together, Lance said something, gesturing out towards the horizon before Keith reached out and caught his hand. They interlocked fingers and Lance grinned, Keith looking down at the other man, a soft expression in his eyes and a rare smile on his lips.
Adam couldn't help but feel a pang of longing. Being back in Japan was wonderful, but it brought back memories. Memories he thought had healed over, leaving only scars, but yet why did they still hurt? From then on he mostly ventured out on his own, not wanting to impose further on his hosts. His Japanese was passable, and he was a grown man with a workable sense of direction. It was one such say, after Keith and Lance had long since left for work, that he finished off some work and decided to head out on his own to visit some places before it got dark. However, his plans flew out the window the second the elevator doors opened and he was greeted with an unfamiliar, familiar face.
For a second they just stared at each other, both frozen, before the door started to close between them. They both panicked, Adam quickly jabbing the elevator button and Shiro slamming a hand on the door to keep it open. It dinged, before opening again, and Adam was met with the face of his ex-fiancé again.
"I didn't know you were back in Japan," Shiro said breathless and eyes wide.
Adam can feel his defenses come down in an instant, he wanted to curse, even after all these years, he was still so weak to the other man.
"I didn’t know I had to notify you when I stepped back in the country." He tries to make it come out light and careless, but instead, he sounds nervous and short even to his own ears. Maybe he was feeling the years of their separation, it used to be easy and now it was so painfully hard.
Shiro blinked. But before he could say anything, the doors began to close again. Adam made a split-second decision, fuck it , and slid past them before they could close, standing beside Shiro as the elevator slowly descended.
"Ah, sorry," Shiro said, before rubbing awkwardly at the back of his neck. The silence stretched out between them for a second too long. Adam was growing tired of the tension, letting out a huff he shook off the clinging strands of his nervousness and uncertainty. A leap of faith, he owed Shiro that much at least.
"Hey, it's fine. Actually, if you're free we can head over to a restaurant, I'm pretty hungry and we can take some time to catch up." Adam felt his speech quicken and by the end of the sentence, the words fell out of his mouth in a semi-jumbled bundled. Shiro blinked at him again, and Adam felt a flush rise on his cheeks.
"Ah," Shiro could feel his mouth opening and closing, but he struggled to push out a coherent sentence. "Sure."
Smooth.
But Adam looked relieved. As the doors opened to the ground floor he turned back to Shiro with a small smile.
"Let's go?"
Shiro just nodded, not even bothering to try words.
"I can't believe this place is still open," Adam said, a slight slur in his words. After they had finished a quick meal, Shiro not wanting the night to end so quick had suggested they head to an old dive bar in the area. Adam pouted at Shiro over the rim of his glass, and Shiro had to do everything in his power to not fall headfirst into the other's eyes.
"I remember, this is where we met," Shiro said, a little bashful. He remembered seeing Adam for the first time, the beautiful foreigner, eyes a swirl of gold, green, and grey.
Adam glared.
"You're forgetting the part where you were bleeding out and I had to perform emergency surgery right here on this dirty bar top." As if to highlight his point he slams his half-empty glass down, Shiro tries his hardest not to laugh but he's sure he's failing miserably.
"I can't believe this place wasn't shut down after that, don't they care about health code violations?" Adam said, continuing his mini-rant. Looking over at Shiro again he frowns, catching the other man's suppressed laughter.
"And you," Adam said, pointing an accusatory finger right at Shiro.
"I'm surprised you didn’t die of an infection. All I had to use was a sewing needle and vodka as a disinfectant!" Adam said, shaking his head. But looking back at Shiro the other man didn't look anywhere close to properly chastised. Instead, he had a dopey grin on his face.
"I survived because you were such a great surgeon," Shiro said, utterly sincere. Adam blinked mouth opening and closing a few times, before turning and waving down the bartender.
"I need another drink."
Adam woke up with a headache and the sun shining in his eyes. He groaned sitting up, fumbling for his glasses on the bedside table he heard the door open. A second later he looked up to see Shiro standing over him, hair mussed in a crumbled T-shirt, handing him a tall glass of water.
"Thanks," Adam said, voice hoarse with sleep.
He drank it all while Shiro stood awkwardly at the side of the bed. When he was done he looked at the other man quizzically. Patting the empty spot beside him he looked up at Shiro.
"You can sit down, you know." He said. Shiro blinked, before stumbling forward and sitting down clumsily. They sat there in silence for another second, Adam toying with the empty glass in his hands. It was Shiro who spoke first.
"Ah, just so you know we didn’t do anything." He sputtered out, cheeks warming with every word.
Adam just stared at Shiro.
"I know," Adam said with a huff, trying to cover up his own reddening cheeks.
"You are almost painfully chivalrous, that hasn't changed at all," Adam mumbled out.
Shiro shot him a small, bright grin.
"Oh really, anything else that's stayed the same, or changed for that matter?" Shiro said, smile turning a little teasing. Adam pursed his lips, two can play at that game , he thought.
"Your tattoos, you've gotten more of them since last time we saw each other." And feeling bold, probably more than his disheveled appearance should allow, Adam traced a finger over Shiro's exposed forearm. He heard Shiro exhale above him. A second later a large warm hand surrounded his, he looked up meeting Shiro's gaze.
"You used to like them I remember," Shiro said quietly.
"But you didn't get them for me did you," Adam said with a sigh.
"Did you want me to get one for you," Shiro asked, challenging him.
"I didn’t want you to do that, not that or anything else," Adam said. He didn't want Shiro to change for him, didn't want him to quit the gumi for him, didn't want him to wait for him. But he also couldn't live that life.
He remembered, when he woke up in that hospital bed all those years ago, Shiro had been asleep at his bedside. He hadn't left him for even one second, and Adam knew he was loved. He had cried then. Because it would have been easier if Shiro didn't love him, or if he didn’t love Shiro back just as much.
Shiro had woken up and wordlessly taken Adam into his arms. Shiro must have known what was going to happen. The accident, the phone call. The knowledge that this life of theirs was coming to an end. Because no matter how much they loved each other the world around them still couldn't let them be together.
It was getting too dangerous, with Shiro taking charge of the gumi, things were too unstable and they had enemies everywhere. And Adam, he needed to finish medical school. His sister was waiting for him, a tiny body curled up in a hospital bed. If he died, she would be alone in the world. So Adam had left. He wondered every day if he made the right choice. But the day that he walked to collect his diploma, the day he left the hospital with his sister's hand in his, those were the days he knew that he made the right decision. But that didn’t make it any less painful.
Shiro seemed to be able to read his mind, pulling him close. Comforting him, driving out the worries and what-ifs.
"You didn't have to ask me to do those things," Shiro said into his hair.
"I would've done the same regardless." Adam closed his eyes, sinking into Shiro's quiet words.
"The truth is, I have the same selfish desires." Shiro felt his throat closing up. He knew he wouldn't have been able to give up the gumi, just as Adam wouldn’t be able to give up on his sister. He would never have asked that of Adam, and Adam would have never asked that of him. Something had to give, and it had been them.
"But," Shiro said, pulling back he reached up and cradled Adam's face in his hands. Adam's eyes fluttered open, arms raising to wrap around Shiro's waist. Gold, green, and grey.
"I hope," Shiro swallowed, suddenly nervous. His heart pounding almost painfully in his chest.
"That what we want right now is the same," Shiro said, voice tight. Adam looked at him, and Shiro felt himself falling just as hard as he did when they met.
"What I want is you Shiro," Adam said, a watery smile breaking across his face as his tears overflowed.
They met in the middle, kissing softly and slowly, rediscovering each other. Falling in love all over again.
Adam didn't notice the letter for four days.
To be fair he didn’t know anyone knew he was in Tokyo, or that anyone was planning on sending him anything, though he figured Andrea had something to do with it. But eventually, Shiro noticed the large, heavy, official-looking envelope mixed in with his spam.
He hand handed it over to Adam who had curiously torn it open. He blinked. Quickly skimming through it he felt his jaw drop.
Dear Dr. Ward,
We heard you have recently found yourself in Tokyo… an offer from the sister hospital of UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital… right here in Tokyo… you can begin as early as…
Adam kept reading, but the words stopped really registering. Unbelievable. Lance, Laura, Andrea, did he have to add the board of directors of the hospital to the list? He couldn’t believe this was happening. Shiro seemed to have noticed him go quiet, walking up he looked over curiously.
"What's going on," He asked. Instead of answering Adam just threw his arms around the other man.
"I can stay," Adam said, almost in disbelief.
"How long," Shiro said, tentative hope rising in his own voice. Adam pulled back and smiled at the other man.
"As long as you want me here I guess," he said with a laugh. Shiro looked shocked for a second before his own face broke out into a smile.
"Forever," he said, and they kissed right there. Standing barefoot together in their sun-soaked kitchen.