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Midorima followed a nurse down the hallway of the emergency department, simultaneously skimming the chart she handed him and listening to her summary with the ease of long practice. With the two other emergency physicians on his shift tied up with complicated trauma cases, it fell to him to try to clear out some of the backlog of less serious cases to give them all some breathing room.
“The patient is a twenty-seven year old male, presenting with a laceration to the left hand from a knife accident while cooking,” the nurse said as she hurried down the hall. “He’s otherwise in good health and has no known allergies.”
Midorima like this particular nurse – Sachiko, he reminded himself – she gave excellent summaries and never wasted time with unnecessary information.
Just before they reached the curtain partitioning off the room, she paused. “Midorima-sensei,” she began, but Midorima was already pulling the curtain aside, wanting to waste as little time as possible. When he saw who was sitting on the bed, he stopped dead.
“– the patient is Takao Kazunari,” she finished, a bit too late.
Midorima looked down at the chart he was holding and, sure enough, “Takao Kazunari” was written on the top of the page. Not for the first time, he cursed his tendency to focus on the details of the case and forget the person on the other side. It was a lesson they had drilled in medical school, but he had always struggled to apply it.
“Shin-chan,” Takao said from where he was sitting, trying to sound like his normal, carefree self. The effect was marred by the slight sheen of sweat on his forehead and the bloody dish towel he had pressed to his left hand.
“Takao, what are you doing here?”
“I was going to surprise Shin-chan with tempura for dinner tonight, but I had a little bit of an issue with the kabocha. I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said, looking a bit embarrassed.
“Technically, I shouldn’t be seeing you at all. Hospital policy strongly discourages treating friends and family,” Midorima said. “Sachiko-san, is there no one else who can take this?”
“Sorry, Midorima-sensei. Kinoshita-sensei has the trauma case from the car accident, and she has Tanaka-san assisting her. Nakagawa-sensei’s working on the other trauma case with Yamashita-san and Ueda-san. Moriyama-san went home sick a couple of hours ago, and Takeda-san isn’t comfortable doing sutures yet,” she said, listing the two other doctors sharing Midorima’s shift as well as their current group of interns.
Midorima sighed. When it rained in the emergency department, it poured, and the busy days always seemed to have more than their fair share of complications as well. “Normally, I’d pass your case onto someone else, but you could be waiting hours if I did that today. Since this looks like a fairly straightforward, low-risk case, I’ll make an exception and treat you now. You don’t have any potentially serious injuries you’re hiding, do you?”
“Not that I know of, Shin-chan. Just this stupid cut that won’t stop bleeding.”
“It’s still bleeding?” Midorima asked, switching immediately into clinical mode.
“It was last I checked,” Takao replied, then lifted the towel from his hand briefly. “Still is a bit. Not as much as before though.”
“How long has it been bleeding for?”
“A bit over an hour now?” Takao shrugged. “It was still bleeding pretty heavily after fifteen minutes, so I thought I should come in; I didn’t expect to see you though.”
“Do you feel lightheaded at all?”
When Takao shook his head, Midorima turned back to Sachiko, who was waiting by the curtains, and asked her to bring everything he would need for sutures. Then he washed his hands and pulled on a pair of gloves before sitting in the chair by Takao’s side. “Takao, I’m not going to do anything yet, but I want to take a look at that cut while we’re waiting for Sachiko-san. Can I see your hand?” he asked.
Takao nodded, removing the towel, and Midorima took a minute to study the injury. It ran along Takao’s palm at the base of his thumb and was still bleeding sluggishly. It was deep, he noted, but even and clean. “Can you move all of your fingers?” he asked.
Takao nodded and curled his fingers, then winced as the movement pulled at the cut.
“Do you have any numbness or tingling sensations?”
“No, Shin-chan,” Takao replied as Sachiko returned carrying various packages. Midorima laid a drape on the bedside table before arranging all of his supplies. Then he put another drape on the bed under Takao’s hand.
“I’m going to anesthetize your hand first, Takao. Once it’s numb, I’ll clean the cut and suture it. Okay?”
Takao nodded again, somewhat more tightly than before, and waved his uninjured hand at Midorima, who grabbed a syringe and the bottle of anesthetic from the table before turning away from the bed. He was careful to keep his body between Takao and the needle as he drew up the anesthetic.
When he turned back to the bed though, Takao caught sight of the syringe in his hand and paled.
“Takao, are you all right?” Midorima asked, concerned.
“Is that all going in my hand?” Takao said, his voice rising. He never took his eyes off of the syringe.
“Hopefully,” Midorima replied, putting the syringe down out of Takao’s sight and taking hold of Takao’s hand to examine the cut again. “That way you won’t feel it while I’m suturing.”
“It’s going to hurt, isn’t it, Shin-chan? It already hurts, and then you’re going to stick a needle in it, and it’s going to hurt more,” Takao whined, subconsciously trying to pull his hand out of Midorima’s grasp, and Midorima could tell his boyfriend edging towards panic.
“Stay with me, Takao. It’s a tiny needle and it doesn’t have to break the skin since it’s already broken, so you should barely feel it at all. The anesthetic is going to burn for a few seconds at first, but that will pass when it starts to take effect,” he said, trying to be reassuring.
Takao nodded and tried to relax, biting his bottom lip. When Midorima reached for the syringe, however, he tensed again, his breath hitching.
“Takao, close your eyes,” Midorima ordered. “I’ll let you know what I’m about to do, but keep your eyes closed until I tell you otherwise.”
Takao squeezed his eyes shut but let Midorima reposition his hand. He reminded Midorima of some of the children he had treated.
“I’m starting the anesthetic now, Takao,” Midorima said, adjusting Takao’s hand slightly. “It’s going to sting, but I need you to hold still for me.
“Take a deep breath in…And let it out,” he ordered as he started the injections.
Takao winced. “It stings, Shin-chan,” he whined, fidgeting on the bed.
“Sorry. Bear with it,” Midorima said absently, focusing on what he was doing. Takao squirmed and hissed, but he kept his injured hand fairly still. About halfway through, though, his free hand started creeping over towards where Midorima was working. Midorima quickly looked up and caught Sachiko’s eyes, and she came to the bedside and took hold of Takao’s uninjured hand.
“Squeeze my hand, Takao-san,” she said.
Takao did and almost immediately flinched at an especially sharp sting. “Gentle, Shin-chan!” he hissed. “That hurt!”
“I am being gentle,” Midorima said flatly. “You’re over halfway done. Think about something else.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Normally I tell people to talk about themselves, but I already know you, so that seems redundant,” Midorima said. He had never been good at this. “Introduce yourself to Sachiko-san or tell her about your day or something.”
“Sachiko?” Takao said. “That’s a pretty name. Shin-chan has a friend from back in middle school who’d call you Sachikocchi.” He smiled to himself. “And I know someone who’d say that sounds like “acchi kocchi” and make a pun out of it somehow. He’s always making puns; it runs in his family. We teach together a lot now, but we started off as rivals, back in high school. We were both point guards, but for different teams, and we had similar skills – my Hawk Eye and his Eagle Eye. I always thought mine was the cooler of the two; after all, who wouldn’t want to share a name with a superhero-”
He flinched and squeezed Sachiko’s hand as Midorima did something that stung. “Shiiin-chan…”
“Sorry, almost done. Keep going.”
“Anyway, Izuki and I thought we were pretty good with our eyes, but Shin-chan here had another friend who was absolutely terrifying. He had the Emperor Eye, and our eyes were useless against it,” Takao began, but he changed the subject as soon as he realized what he was saying; Shūtoku’s loss to Rakuzan, or more specifically, Midorima’s inability to beat Akashi was still a sore subject for the doctor. “He’s mellowed out a bit since then, or so Shin-chan says. He’s come over for dinner a few times when he’s been in the area, and I still think he’s terrifying; you feel like he’s in your head and knows what you’re thinking before you do. I’d never want to be his opponent in a shogi game; he’s unsettling enough when he’s theoretically relaxing. I still don’t know how you survived being his vice-captain for all of middle school, Shin-chan.”
“You start getting used to it after awhile, and he wasn’t nearly as irritating as the rest of the team,” Midorima said, grimacing as he thought of the immaturity of his middle school teammates.
“I’m done, Takao. You can open your eyes. I’m going to clean this out now; it looks like a clean cut, so it shouldn’t take long. Let me know if you feel any pain,” he said as he picked up a fresh syringe filled with saline.
“It feels weird, but it doesn’t hurt,” Takao said, watching Midorima now that there weren’t any needles involved. “You know, I’ve never really seen you at work like this, Shin-chan. You get the same look you get when you’re shooting one of your threes. The look that says things are going to go your way and you know it. You’re good at this.”
“Man proposes, God disposes,” Midorima said reflexively. He was trying to remain clinical and detached and not think about how it was his boyfriend’s hand he was currently turning into a pincushion, but it was difficult when Takao was being so…, well, so Takao.
It wasn’t long before Midorima finished cleaning the cut and opened the suture kit. “I’m going to start setting the sutures now. You’ll probably feel some pressure, Takao, but again let me know if there’s any pain. Close your eyes. Sachiko-san, I could use you over here.”
Takao closed his eyes and let out a long exhale; he looked far more relaxed than he had earlier. He focused on the feeling of Midorima’s hands on his. Midorima had never been comfortable with public displays of affection, and Takao thought that this or the various times Midorima felt the pulse in his wrist were his boyfriend’s equivalent of hand-holding.
Then the hands left his, and he shivered at the feeling of the suture pulling through his skin. “God, Shin-chan, that feels weird.”
“Focus on something else. You and Izuki taught a class this morning, right?”
“Yeah, for Kuroko. He apparently tried to teach his class basketball before, but they’re five, so they don’t have much of an attention span. Add in a teacher with a bad habit of disappearing when you least expect it, and really, going by Kuroko’s description, it’s a miracle no one got hurt. We didn’t bother with any of the rules today, but at least the kids had their balls going in more-or-less the direction they intended by the end. I know you’d hate it Shin-chan, but I love working with kids that age. It’s chaotic, but they’re still so easily excited by the littlest things. Kuroko got lucky with his class this year too; they’re a great group. We should invite him over for dinner sometime; we don’t see him nearly enough.”
“Not until your hand heals, Takao. You banned me from cooking for company after the cookie incident, and I don’t want you injuring yourself further.”
“You’ll make dinner for us tonight though, right, Shin-chan? I don’t care if things are a bit uneven or lopsided, and I’ll keep an eye on you to make sure you don’t forget anything important or mix up ingredients.”
“I could probably make curry,” Midorima said. “Did any of the tempura vegetables survive unscathed? If so, I’ll use those.”
“They should have. The kabocha is probably beyond hope, but everything else should be fine, and it’s already pre-cut for you. I was doing the squash last.”
“We’ll have curry then,” Midorima said as he finished suturing and started bandaging Takao’s hand. “You can open your eyes now; I’m just putting a bandage on it. It’s probably a bit overkill, but I’m going to splint it as well. I don’t want you pushing it and ripping out your stitches, especially now while it’s numb. You can take the splint off tomorrow night, but you have to be careful with that hand for at least the next week until the stitches come out.”
“I’ll be careful, Shin-chan.”
“Good. Go find a seat in the waiting room. My shift is about to end, and we can go home together once I finish. I shouldn’t be long.”
“I really am fine, Shin-chan,” Takao began, but Midorima just glared at him. “Fine, I’ll wait for you, but I should warn you, our kitchen looks like a crime scene at the moment, and I won’t have a chance to clean it up before you get home if I wait.”
Midorima’s expression didn’t change, and it wasn’t long before Takao gave in. “I’ll wait; I promise. Don’t take too long, Shin-chan,” he said, giving Midorima a quick kiss on the forehead before returning to the waiting room.