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When Midorima’s shift ended, he went to his locker and changed out of his scrubs like usual. Then he taped his fingers and packed his bag like usual; however, instead of leaving like usual to walk either home or to the subway stop, he diverged from his routine and stopped at the triage desk at the entrance to the emergency department. Takao had texted him earlier in the day and asked him to wait for him at the hospital after his shift.
Midorima didn’t know what had prompted the sudden change in routine, but he humored his boyfriend and waited. He hoped Takao would arrive soon, though, since he could feel people staring at him, or, more precisely, at the large Hello Kitty plush he was currently holding. It was his lucky item for the day, according to Oha-Asa, and he always listened to Oha-Asa, even if it led to him standing in the middle of the emergency department holding a mutant, mouthless cat plush – he found the creature a bit creepy no matter what other people may say about its cuteness.
He heard a couple of voices behind the desk commenting on his strange possession, and he turned to glare at them. They were new interns, and they clearly hadn’t learned all of the rules yet since one of the ground rules in the emergency department was that you never commented on Midorima’s lucky items. Not that that stopped everyone from trying to see his lucky item for the day before he could shove it into his locker every shift - that particular activity had become something of a departmental pastime..
Just as Midorima finally managed to intimidate the interns into silence, he heard someone yelling his name from outside the hospital. He turned to see Takao standing by the front door with…
He blinked to make sure he wasn’t seeing things, but no, his boyfriend was in fact standing outside next to their old rickshaw.
“Shin-chan!” Takao yelled again, and Midorima suddenly wished he could disappear into the floor. He could feel everyone looking from him to Takao in complete shock. Very few people in the hospital even dared call him by his first name, nevermind a nickname.
Trying to look far more composed than he felt, Midorima strode across the hospital foyer out to where Takao was waiting. “Takao,” he hissed, adjusting his glasses, “what are you doing!?”
“It’s Shin-chan’s birthday today,” Takao replied, as energetic as ever, “and it’s way too hot and humid to walk home comfortably, and the trains aren’t much better in this weather, so I came to pick you up. Since it’s your birthday, I won’t even make you play janken to decide who pedals.
“Come on, Shin-chan, what are you waiting for?” Takao asked when Midorima didn’t move. Takao was never one to give up, so Midorima climbed into the back of the rickshaw, trying to look as collected as possible, an effect that was marred slightly by the sudden twitch in his eye. He wondered how he hadn’t found this embarrassing back in high school.
He could still feel people watching him as Takao pulled away from the hospital, and he knew he was going get a lot of questions during his next shift. He tried to appreciate the humor of the situation - a doctor from one of the busiest emergency departments in Tokyo getting a ride home from his boyfriend in a rickshaw, which he was currently sharing with a mutant cat plush - but it was lost in his overwhelming desire to disappear. He wasn’t normal. He had accepted that long ago, but he didn’t like drawing attention to it. Takao, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be capable of feeling embarrassed; he did what he wanted and didn’t care what anyone else thought. Midorima wished, not for the first time, that he could be more like Takao.
He half-listened to Takao as they crawled home through rush-hour traffic. Despite his embarrassment, he smiled as Takao described wanting to make the perfect birthday for his Shin-chan. Takao hadn’t been teaching that afternoon, so he spent it pulling the rickshaw out of storage, getting it ready to use, and doing everything else he thought was necessary to make a birthday perfect.
When they finally arrived home, Takao made Midorima wait in the genkan while he put some final finishing touches on his surprise. When Midorima was finally allowed to enter, he found two bowls of his favorite cold red bean soup sitting on the kitchen table on top of a green tablecloth. Between them sat a homemade carrot cake topped with a chocolate pineapple.
Midorima smiled. He didn’t like surprises, and he really didn’t like people noticing his eccentricities, but he loved his boyfriend and loved that his boyfriend would put in so much effort to try to make his birthday special.
“Oha-Asa said that Cancers would be reminded of the importance of people close to them today today,” Midorima said as he sat down. He had never been good at expressing gratitude either, but that was okay too, Takao was good at translating, so he just planted a kiss on Midorima’s head before cutting slices of cake for both of them.