Work Text:
“Kougami, can we switch rotations? I'll pay you back. I promise.”
This is probably the worst thing that can happen. After twelve hours, the last thing Kougami wants is to take on an emergency room shift. But Kunizuka is good on her word. She always pays back for these favors, and Kougami could use a few favors. Being one of the newer doctors at the hospital, he doesn't get much time off. He gets stuck with all the shitty shifts. He's pretty sure he doesn't remember what his bed looks like anymore.
The night starts off fairly quiet. Kougami finds himself working with Akane, young and diligent and much better with patients than he'll ever be. They get a few people in, diagnose them, hand them off to other departments or send them home, and take the moments in-between to catch up with each other.
Halfway through the shift Kougami offers to get shitty coffee from the cafeteria. He heads down. The place is empty, and the shitty coffee in question comes from a shitty vending machine. Kougami cringes at the thought of actually drinking the stuff. It can't be good for his health. But his energy is flagging and he needs to stay awake. It would be terrible to fall asleep on a patient.
Hot paper cups in hand, he heads back up to the emergency department, where he finds Akane and a nurse fussing over a new patient. He can hear the terrible sounds of labored breathing.
“I tried to call you,” Akane says, turning towards him. She glances at the coffees in his hands and looks almost sad, but continues, “Male, late twenties, came in by ambulance for difficulty breathing and fever. We're getting him an x-ray. Talk to Kagari?”
Kougami sighs and places the coffees on the nearest table, grabs the patient's file from Akane and heads out of the department and down the corridor to the x-ray lab. As he walks he flips through the file. The patient's name is Ginoza Nobuchika, age 28, and has been suffering from a heart defect for quite some time.
He reaches the door to the lab and knocks a few times just to make sure Kagari isn't busy and hears, “Come on in!”
Kougami enters to find Kagari leaning back in his chair, computer screens filled with some sort of game, and a cup of shitty coffee in hand. He's oddly jealous of that coffee, so he throws down the file a little harder than necessary onto Kagari's desk.
“Oh, work!” Kagari snatches the file and starts looking through it. His eyebrows shoot up. “I can tell you what's wrong. Bet it's pneumonia, and I'm not even a doctor.”
“Yes, that's what we're thinking,” Kougami says, “but we need to be sure it's not anything else.”
“Ohhhh, like something worse?”
“Yeah, like something worse.”
“Now that would be--” He bites his lip, though Kougami knows that he meant to say “interesting.” Kagari takes a strange sort of pleasure in the weird things he sees as an x-ray technician, and he spent his first few months on the job pestering any doctor willing to talk to him about what various things caught by x-rays meant.
“So,” Kagari says instead, “is he nice?”
“I don't know,” Kougami says. “Tsunemori sent me here before I could talk to him.”
“Probably because you're terrible with patients.”
“What?”
“You're all like, I'm Doctor Kougami and I am the best doctor who will diagnose you perfectly and my, what an interesting disease you have,” Kagari says, waving his hands around for emphasis. He leans forward. “I mean, at least ask them how they are.”
“You're one to talk,” Kougami mutters.
“Kou-chan, that's only when I'm with you guys,” Kagari says with a wide grin. “When I'm with patients I have perfect bed-side manner. I'm so friendly.”
Kougami rolls his eyes. “Well, the patient should be here soon.”
“'The patient,'” Kagari repeats, grimacing. “The patient has a name, Kou-chan.”
“Goodbye, Kagari.”
He heads back towards the emergency department, but as soon as he steps into the corridor he sees Akane coming towards him, along with the two nurses pushing along the patient in a portable bed.
“He's free, right?” Akane asks.
“Yeah.”
“Good.” Akane opens the door leading into the x-ray room and allows the nurses and the patient entrance. Kougami catches a quick glimpse of the patient—dark hair, pale skin—before the door closes, leaving them both in the hallway.
“Everything okay?”
Akane looks a little flustered but she nods, brushing her bangs out of her face. “Yeah. I'm just surprised it's gotten this bad. He should have come in sooner. His lungs sound awful.”
“Oh?”
“We might have to intubate him.”
“He didn't come with anyone?” Kougami asks.
Akane shakes her head. “I looked up his emergency contact, since there's one on file, but when we called we were informed that the contact has died, and hasn't been changed yet.” She lowers her voice, frowns. “The contact was his father.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Akane sighs. “And he's not in the best state of mind to ask him who else we can contact. He has history here, so it won't be hard to treat him. He just probably shouldn't be alone.”
Kougami stares at her. Sometimes Akane thinks of things he never would, focused as he is on treating each patient's physical symptoms. Now is one of those times.
“It can't be good for him to not have anyone,” Akane continues.
“No,” Kougami says. “Probably not.”
They head back to the emergency department to await other potential patients, and Kagari gives them the results of the x-ray half an hour later. “Congratulations,” he tells them, “it's pneumonia.”
Ginoza Nobuchika gets admitted, which means he's out of their hands for the night. And the rest of the shift is just a slow, steady slide until morning.
*
“I need you to look after Room 302,” Akane tells him two days later as she rushes past.
“What's room--” Kougami starts, but Akane only shouts, “Emergency!” at him and then disappears around a corner, flanked by several nurses.
Kougami sighs and heads to Room 302. He's gone into plenty of situations knowing less (like, not even knowing the room number) so he's not feeling out of his depth. It's just that he'd been planning on checking on a few other patients, ones that he's been dealing with for a few days. Having to explain the situation to a new patient is not really fun. Especially if the patient doesn't understand why their doctor has been switched.
The door to Room 302 is ajar, and Kougami walks in. He finds the patient file and stands at the end of the bed, opens it, and sees the name: Ginoza Nobuchika. It looks familiar.
He reads on, and the information all seems like something he's seen before, but he can't quite place it. He gets the important stuff committed to memory—medications being administered, the fact that this patient has just come off being intubated, a pre-existing heart condition that most likely is the cause of the severe pneumonia he was admitted with.
And then a raspy voice cuts into his thoughts. “What are you doing here?”
Kougami blinks, realizes that he's just been standing there without actually acknowledging the patient himself, and looks up from his file.
The patient in question is blinking owlishly up at him from the bed. His eyes are glassy with fever, there's tubes in his nose supplying oxygen, and IV in his arm. He's thin, pale, with dark hair that brushes his chin.
Kougami recognizes him from that brief glimpse a few nights ago. Emergency room. The guy with the dead emergency contact. The one Akane said should have come in before his illness got this bad.
“Hi,” he says. “I'm Doctor Kougami Shinya. I'm going to be looking after you,” he pauses, because Akane could be back in the next five minutes or she could be tied up for the next two days, “for a bit.”
“Doctor,” Ginoza repeats, and Kougami has to strain to hear him. His brow furrows. “You're...not the doctor from before.”
“That was Doctor Tsunemori,” Kougami explains. “She had to deal with an emergency.”
“Oh.” He sounds disappointed.
Kougami can't help it. He asks, “Oh?”
“I would like Doctor Tsunemori back,” Ginoza says.
Don't be difficult, Kougami wants to say, but he bites back that response in favor of the more patient-friendly one: “She will probably be back soon. But I'm a perfectly qualified doctor. We work together.”
“You're rude,” Ginoza says, slowly, like he's struggling a bit to get the words from his head to his mouth. “You stood there and didn't even say hello. Tsunemori says hello.”
He must be really drugged, Kougami thinks, or really ill. Or oxygen deprived. Which reminds him...
“I need to check your vitals.” He finds what he needs on a table near the bed, but as soon as he nears Ginoza, the other man jerks back.
“Don't touch me,” he says.
“I'm just going to listen to your breathing and take your temperature,” Kougami says. He doesn't think he's brandishing his stethoscope like a weapon but several people have told him that he does. He tries to make himself look more gentle, but he isn't sure if it works.
“I can't have strangers touching me,” Ginoza mutters.
“You're in a hospital,” Kougami points out, “and your file says that you've been here plenty of times before. You've had plenty of strangers touching you.”
“I don't like it,” Ginoza says.
“Well then,” Kougami says, leaning forward and pushing the fabric of Ginoza's hospital gown back to expose his skin, “we all have to do things we don't like. Life's unfair like that.”
Ginoza stares at him, and Kougami realizes that maybe that's a thing doctors shouldn't say to their patients. “Sorry,” he adds, half-hearted. Ginoza opens his mouth, but Kougami presses the stethoscope to his skin. “Breath in.” Ginoza breathes in, and his breath hitches, turns into a cough. Kougami waits for the episode to pass before trying again.
The next few minutes are spent in silence. Ginoza's lungs don't sound great, but they don't sound horrible. He has a low-grade fever, but that will probably be gone by the next day. His biggest problem is that he's probably tired.
Well, that, and the heart failure thing that seems to be lurking in the background.
Ginoza's heart does sound terrible, but there's not much Kougami can do about that at the moment.
“You're not going to die,” Kougami says, and Ginoza gives him another shocked look. “I mean, you're fine. You're not fine because you're here, but you're getting better. I'm...going to see...I'll be back soon.” And then he rushes out of the room.
This is why he doesn't like it when patients talk to him. Because then he says things that he shouldn't say.
An hour later he has to check on Ginoza again, because Akane is still tied up with her emergency thing, and he walks into the room to find a tray of uneaten dinner on the bedside table, and Ginoza shivering under the blanket.
He heads over and tries to pull the blanket off, but Ginoza clutches it tighter. “Go away,” he moans.
“I need to check on you,” Kougami says.
“I'm not going to die,” Ginoza snaps, and Kougami winces.
“No, but you don't look good.” He places a hand on Ginoza's forehead, feels a sheen of sweat, but otherwise, the skin is cooler than before. He sighs. “I need to listen to your breathing.”
“When is Doctor Tsunemori coming back?”
“She's not,” Kougami says. He almost regrets it, but he's also still trying to make Ginoza budge so he's a little short-tempered.
Ginoza glares at him. “I'm not moving.”
Kougami sighs. “Why not?”
“There is nothing wrong,” Ginoza says. “I feel better. This place is just cold. I want to sleep. I haven't been sleeping well these past few nights and I hate hospitals, and every hour someone comes in to check something.”
“You haven't eaten your dinner,” Kougami points out.
Ginoza raises an eyebrow. “Would you eat that?”
Kougami glances at the tray of food, which looks extremely unappetizing. He usually tries to bring meals from home, or from places that aren't the hospital cafeteria. “No,” he admits. “Anyway, you know how this works. Why bother fighting me?”
“I think you know why.”
“I'm just being honest with you,” Kougami says. “Why does no one appreciate my honesty?”
“Because,” Ginoza says, “you act like I don't have feelings. At least Tsunemori thinks I have feelings. And she says hello. Asks how I am. Basic human decency.”
“Fine. Hello,” Kougami pauses, trying to remember his patient's name.
“You forgot my name,” Ginoza says.
“No,” Kougami says.
“I'm sure you can tell me what's wrong with me, though,” Ginoza adds. He sounds bitter.
Kougami sighs, because it's true. He can. “Look--”
“Tsunemori makes me feel like I'm not just a heart failure,” Ginoza mutters. “She knows my name.”
“I'm sorry,” Kougami says, and it's the first time that he's actually felt guilty about it. Maybe it's because Ginoza won't look at him as he says this. Maybe it's the anger in his voice. He's not just complaining to be a pain. He sounds genuinely hurt. “I'm not good at that sort of thing like Tsunemori is. It's not that I don't care. It's just that I want to fix whatever it is that got you here in the first place. And sometimes I forget about all the other stuff.”
Ginoza's expression softens a bit, and he shifts so that Kougami can listen to his breathing. For a few moments, neither of them say anything.
Then Kougami remembers his name. “Ginoza-”
“I don't like hospitals,” Ginoza says at the same time. Which jumpstarts a thought in Kougami's head.
“Do you live with anyone?”
Ginoza frowns at him. “What?”
“You have a chronic medical condition,” Kougami says. “I'm asking if you live with anyone who can take care of you.”
“No,” Ginoza says. “I've been taking care of myself and it's been working out well.”
“You're in the hospital.”
“I'm not dead.”
Kougami pinches the bridge of his nose. “That's not—please tell me you have someone out there. Because your emergency contact is--”
“I have a dog,” Ginoza interrupts, paling a bit. Kougami stares at him. “His name is Dime and he's very well trained. If I have any problems he can find help, or help me get to a safer place.”
“Ginoza--”
“It wouldn't be fair to expect anyone to take care of me,” Ginoza says.
“What?”
“I don't want to be a burden. People have lives.” Ginoza isn't looking at him. He's looking past him, his mouth set in a thin line.
Kougami doesn't know what to say. He feels a strange urge to hug Ginoza, an urge which he hasn't really felt with a patient yet. This is probably that thing that people talk about when they talk about doctors getting too emotionally invested in their patients. Akane has always walked a fine line between being friendly and being professional.
And Kougami has stayed as far away from that line as he can. Perhaps not intentionally, but now he's thinking that perhaps it would have been better if he'd just checked Ginoza's vitals and left.
The silence is interrupted when one of the nurses pokes his head in and says, “Doctor, the patient in Room 307 is asking for you.”
Kougami sighs and straightens up. “I'll be back later,” he says.
Ginoza turns away from him. “You don't need to do that.”
“It's my job,” Kougami says. Maybe it's not the best thing to say, but he doesn't have time to think about it.
He walks out of the room.
*
The problem with really investing in a patient is this: Ginoza has wormed his way into Kougami's head and won't let go.
Kougami keeps checking in on him, and although their conversations are short, Kougami makes sure to ask how he's doing. Ginoza seems to appreciate the gesture. Things never get quite as heated as they did the other day.
The thing is, Kougami wants to help. Because even when Ginoza leaves the hospital, the problem won't be fixed. He'll be sick. And he won't have anyone. And he should.
The emergency contact issue bothers him a lot. Ginoza hasn't listed anyone new, and Kougami is starting to think that it's not because he doesn't want to, but rather because he can't.
He has a dog, but a dog isn't enough.
Maybe it's just a whim, or maybe it's because Kougami literally has no life and no one outside of the hospital, because he only ever goes home and sleeps and occasionally goes to buy food somewhere, but he heads to Ginoza's room to discharge him with a slip of paper in his hand that definitely isn't an official hospital form.
Ginoza is dressed in a green sweater that looks too big for him, and there are glasses perched on the end of his nose that Kougami hasn't seen him wear before. He looks up at Kougami and tugs on one of his sweater sleeves and says, “I'm going home.”
“Yeah, congratulations,” Kougami says, and Ginoza raises an eyebrow so he adds, “I mean that. I'm not being sarcastic.”
“Oh. Good.”
“But I wanted to talk to you about something,” Kougami says. “Your emergency contact.”
Ginoza's expression closes off. “I'll call to have it changed.”
“I think I can help you,” Kougami says, and he hands Ginoza the slip of paper.
Ginoza takes it, reads it, and his eyebrows scrunch together. “What—what is this?”
“My number,” Kougami says. “I can be your emergency contact. It's convenient, because I'm already here.”
“That's ridiculous,” Ginoza says.
“I was thinking about what you said,” Kougami tells him, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his white coat, “and you're the only person who's really stuck with me since I've started working here. And I think I'd like to get to know you. Not in the context of the hospital, but as a person.”
“But this is your number so that you can be contacted in case I'm sent to the hospital,” Ginoza says, holding up the paper.
“Yeah,” Kougami admits, rubbing the back of his neck, “but I also don't like you not having an emergency contact.”
“You really want to get to know me?” Ginoza asks.
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Ginoza pockets the slip of paper. “Kougami Shinya. I will call you.”
“Great.” Kougami smiles at him. Ginoza manages a half-smile back. Close enough. “I'll see you around then?”
“Yeah.”
Kougami nods and walks out of the room.
His face feels hot. He might be blushing. He walks down the corridor and realizes that he's forgotten what he meant to do next.
He has a sneaking suspicion that Ginoza only said yes to get him out of the room. That Ginoza might never call.
But he hopes he will.
*
He does.
Well, he texts. Which is close enough.
It's also one word. “Coffee?”
Kougami sends him times when he's free, and Ginoza responds with a set time and a place, and throughout this whole exchange Kougami can't help but grin at his phone. And then something whacks him on the back and he nearly stumbles into a metal cart full of surgical tools and whirls around to find Akane grinning at him.
“Who're you talking to?” she asks.
“What?”
“You look so happy,” Akane says.
“I'm just making plans,” Kougami says.
“Outside the hospital?” Akane's eyes light up. She has her own friends outside of the hospital, but she's spent months trying to convince Kougami not to be a complete workaholic. Even though she's one herself. But, to her credit, she is a workaholic with non-work friends.
“Yes,” Kougami says. “It's not a big deal.”
“It is a big deal. I'll buy you coffee to celebrate.”
Kougami grimaces, because he knows she means the shitty cafeteria coffee. “That's not really a celebration.”
“I don't have time to leave,” Akane admits.
Kougami sighs. “It'll have to do.”
*
He meets Ginoza on a rare Sunday off in a cafe near a large park. It's a lovely spring day, and the sun is out, and they've chosen to sit outside. There's a Siberian Husky under the table, and when Kougami sits down with his coffee he can't help but ask, “is that yours?”
“Of course,” Ginoza says. He looks better than he did in the hospital, but there are still dark circles under his eyes, and he still looks too thin. “This is Dime.”
Dime sniffs Kougami's knees. Kougami scratches him behind the ears. “Hi, Dime.”
“I have a rule,” Ginoza says, picking up his own drink but not taking a sip. “I'm not a patient outside of the hospital. So we're not talking about my illness. This is the last time I'll bring it up.”
“Um, okay,” Kougami says. He supposes that's fair. As a doctor, it's the first thing Kougami would think to ask about. “So, how was your week?”
“Good,” Ginoza says. “I've neglected my plants for a while so I had to spend some time bringing them back to health.”
“Plants?”
Ginoza hums. “I have a few small plants around my apartment. They're fairly easy to take care of.”
“So you water plants in your spare time?” Kougami says with a grin.
“I do a lot of things in my spare time,” Ginoza says. “Or just my time, since I seem to have a lot of it.” He grimaces. “I take a lot of walks around the city. I read--”
“Read!” Kougami latches on to this. He was a voracious reader before medical school swallowed him up. “What?”
Ginoza looks a bit taken aback by Kougami's enthusiasm. “Non-fiction mostly,” he says. “Russian literature. Do...you read?” He asks it with a lilt of amusement.
“Yes,” Kougami laughs. “Science fiction. There's some great science fiction that I can recommend. It's probably less depressing than Russian literature.”
“Russian literature feels less cold,” Ginoza says.
Kougami stares at him. “Russian anything is cold.”
“Their literature is full of emotion,” Ginoza insists.
“Depressing emotions.”
“That is better than no emotion,” Ginoza says, “which is the impression I get from science fiction.”
“Allow me to prove you wrong,” Kougami says, and they spend the next half hour talking about books, with Kougami promising to lend Ginoza some of his favorites. Ginoza agrees to read them, only if Kougami agrees to read some Russian literature. They part with promises to meet the following week for an afternoon walk in the park.
The week passes quickly, like all weeks, mostly because Kougami is too busy and too sleep-deprived to really notice something like time. But for once, he feels like there's a world outside of his hospital, because he texts Ginoza and Ginoza responds, and they don't talk about patients or long shifts or the latest weird thing Kagari's seen on an x-ray (that last one, though, Kougami thinks he might share at some point because he can't resist and who wouldn't want to know what weird things show up on x-rays?)
They talk about Ginoza's plants, and Kougami's borderline pretentious taste in literature, and dogs, and how Ginoza's been attempting to learn a second language (English) and the news, which Kougami hasn't watched in forever, so Ginoza becomes sort of like his newsfeed, filtering out the uninteresting things and leaving Kougami with a general picture of what normal people talk about.
So it feels like he hasn't really been completely separate from everything like he usually is by the time his day off comes. He meets Ginoza in the park, and it's another nice day, and he has two books tucked under his arm and he notices that Ginoza also has two books, which he's holding to his chest.
They exchange books and then head down one of the paths leading away from the city roads and Ginoza says, “How was your week?”
Kougami hesitates, unsure whether it's okay to talk about the hospital. Ginoza seems to pick up on this.
“You can talk about your job,” he says with a small smile. “I just don't like to talk about my problems. Feel free to tell me about everyone else's.”
Kougami laughs and says, “Well, in that case, let me tell you about the emergency room shift I had the other night. This guy came in with a, erm, sex toy stuck up his ass, and our x-ray technician could not stop laughing, but that wasn't the terrible part. The terrible part was when we pulled it out and...”
After Kougami finishes the story, Ginoza looks horrified, and he mutters, “maybe you shouldn't talk about your job.” But he's also trying to hide a grin, so Kougami doesn't take him seriously.
“There's some things med school doesn't prepare you for,” Kougami says. “You'd be surprised at the number of weird things people put in their bodies. Anyway, how was your week?”
Ginoza is attempting to stifle his laughter, which he manages with some success. When he calms down, he stops walking and says, “Can we sit?” He sounds breathless, looks slightly more pale, and it sets off warnings in Kougami's head, but Ginoza doesn't look worried, and Dime, who apparently can sense trouble, seems calm, so they find a tree to lean against and set up there.
It doesn't escape Kougami that the silence that follows is because Ginoza is trying to catch his breath. He tries to ignore this, because he knows Ginoza doesn't want to talk about it, so he searches for other things to talk about.
But he can't help but worry.
“Are you--”
“I'm fine,” Ginoza says, smile gone. He coughs lightly into his hand.
Kougami nods. He looks around for a distraction and notices that there's not many people in the park. “It's pretty empty,” he says.
Ginoza's lips twitch. “It's the middle of the day, on a Thursday. Most people are at work.”
“Oh.” Kougami had lost track of the days. “Right.”
“It's nice. Quiet, on weekdays.” Ginoza holds up one of Kougami's books. “A good time to read.”
“You don't want to talk to me, do you?” Kougami jokes.
Ginoza smirks. “Your voice would spoil the atmosphere,” he says.
Kougami grabs one of Ginoza's books. “Fine. Then I'll leave your atmosphere unspoiled.”
He flicks the book open and starts scanning the page. A moment later, he feels something rest on his shoulder and he looks to see Ginoza leaning against him, also holding an open book.
“Are we actually doing this?” Kougami asks.
“Stay still,” Ginoza says.
“Are you using me as a pillow?”
“Mmm,” is Ginoza's response, and Kougami shrugs. He can think of worse ways to spend an afternoon.
It's quite comfortable, actually, Ginoza a pleasant weight against his side, reminding him that he isn't alone. He glances over a few times to watch Ginoza's eyes scan the words, slowly, as if he's carefully drinking everything in, before he turns the page. He finds himself wanting to watch Ginoza read rather than wanting to read, so he does.
After a while Ginoza glances up at him. His eyes widen when he sees Kougami looking back.
“Were you watching me reading?” Ginoza asks.
“Was I?”
“You were.”
“Oh.” Kougami attempts a shrug. “You looked really...” Content? At peace? He isn't sure which wouldn't sound weird. “This is...I like this. With you.”
“Reading,” Ginoza repeats.
“Just being here,” Kougami says. “With you.”
Ginoza's lips part as if he wants to say something, but he stalls when he notices how close Kougami is.
“What are you doing?” Ginoza asks, his voice gone quiet.
“I don't know,” Kougami admits. “This is the first time in a long time I've really gotten to know another person.”
“You must have terrible luck,” Ginoza says, “considering it's me.”
“Not at all.” Kougami closes the distance between them, and presses a soft kiss to Ginoza's lips.
The kiss unbalances Ginoza, who reaches up and grasps Kougami's shoulder to keep himself from falling over. They pull apart, Ginoza searching Kougami's face.
“I don't have a life,” Ginoza tells him, and Kougami knows what he means.
He shakes his head. “I thought we weren't supposed to talk about that.”
“I didn't think this would happen,” Ginoza says. “I--”
Kougami cuts him off with another kiss.
It takes them longer to part this time, and when they do, Ginoza's face his flushed and he's breathing a little harder than normal, and Kougami's skin feels warm and his heart is beating faster.
“This is very unprofessional,” Ginoza mutters.
Kougami laughs. “I've never wanted to be less professional in my life.”
*
“I'm dating the pneumonia patient,” Kougami tells Akane one day over lunch.
Akane sighs. “This is why I don't send you my patients, Kougami.”
But she's smiling.
*
“Kou-chan, I hear you've been doing the do with the patients. Naughty, naughty!”
Kougami has the urge to knock Kagari's chair over. If Kagari gets injured, at least they're in a hospital.
Upon seeing his murderous expression, Kagari laughs, loudly. “Oh, Kou-chan, word gets around fast! So who is it? Is it someone I know?”
“You don't know anyone who comes here,” Kougami says.
“Is it ass toy guy?” Kagari asks, wiggling his eyebrows.
“No.”
“Because you know he's up for it.”
“No.”
“I guess being a doctor has its benefits,” Kagari says, grinning widely.
Kougami stares at him. “I wasn't dating them when they were in the hospital.”
“So you are dating a patient.”
Kougami decides to avoid Kagari for as long as possible.
*
“I have an irrational fear that I'll lose the people I love,” Ginoza confesses one night when Kougami stays over. “I've always had it. And then my heart started failing, which should have been the end of it, because if anything, people would lose me before I would lose them. But my father left when I was young, and then he came back a few years ago, and then he died.”
That night, Kougami holds Ginoza close.
The thing is, Kougami fears losing Ginoza. Ginoza may have a future, he's on a heart transplant list, and he's young so it's likely that he'll survive to both get the transplant and live through the surgery, but the wait is long and he also might not.
Kougami tries to ignore it, because Ginoza doesn't like talking about his illness, but as they get closer, Kougami notices how Ginoza is breathless after walking short distances, or after talking a little too long. How his voice gets hoarse easily. How he looks tired all the time and how every time Kougami wakes up, Ginoza is already awake.
Those things, he could probably ignore if he was really trying. They're small details that a lot of people might not notice. Kougami, as a doctor, is trained to see them.
But then there's the bigger things. Ginoza retching into the toilet after dinner because sometimes he just can't keep food down. How when they stand up to leave the park after lounging in the sun, Ginoza sways and falls and almost passes out in Kougami's arms, and then insists that they don't need to go to the hospital because he just stood up too fast and wasn't thinking. Ginoza's nails turning blue because he can't get enough oxygen.
And Ginoza always says, “I'm fine.”
Until one day Kougami breaks and snaps, “No, you're not.”
Ginoza gives him a hard look, his hands balled into fists. He's kneeling on the floor of the bathroom because he couldn't hold down lunch and Kougami can't help it, he's worried, and he hates seeing Ginoza like this because he just wants to fix it. That's his job.
“I've gone this long without dying.”
“That's not—”
“This is going to have to be fine until I get a new heart,” Ginoza tells him.
Kougami has never felt more useless. It's hard to hear, because Ginoza is right. This is something that can't be fixed right now. This is something Kougami, with all his expertise, can't cure. They're both stuck waiting.
“I wish I could do something,” Kougami says.
Ginoza narrows his eyes. “You're an idiot.”
“What?”
“When I was in the hospital,” Ginoza says, standing up on shaky legs, “you were upset because I didn't have anyone who cared about me.”
“Cared for you,” Kougami corrects him, quietly.
“So you gave me your number,” Ginoza continues. “You got to know me. Not as your patient. It might not be the way you're used to helping but you are helping. Because it's just been me and Dime for so long,” he swallows, “and I didn't think anyone would see me as anything other than a burden.”
“Gino--”
“And maybe it was pity,” Ginoza says, “but I like to think that you spend time with me because you like me as a person.”
“I do,” Kougami says, moving forward and enveloping Ginoza in his arms. Ginoza is slightly taller, but he rests his head on Kougami's shoulder. Kougami can feel his irregular heartbeat, hears his shuddering breaths. It isn't his definition of fine, but if this is going to work, he's going to have to adjust his perception of what fine is.
“Good,” Ginoza says, muffled by Kougami's shirt.
“And you're right,” Kougami says. “You will be fine. You are fine.”
And in that moment, Kougami actually believes it.