Chapter Text
Returning to medical school after leaving the hospital is a struggle. Shin has forgotten things that he's sure, based on his notes, he used to understand, and he has to work twice as hard to retain information. He gives up his part-time job and haunts his professors' offices, fear clawing at him as his grades plummet.
He learns a lot about brain injuries. He learns that he hates the dry and distant way journal articles describe these despised new constraints on his mind. He gets better, at an aggravatingly slow pace. His academic advisor encourages him to keep a journal so that when he becomes a doctor he'll have the reminder of how frustrating—and terrifying—it is to be a patient, and how it feels to struggle to write his own thoughts down.
He carries the phrase when you're a doctor in his thoughts like a talisman. Gradually he stops having headaches, exhaustion, and gaps in his knowledge. Second year is still spent adjusting, but by third year he has hard-won confidence in his abilities. His grades are nearly back to what they used to be, though they never recover completely.
He finally feels like he has space to breathe, and the ability to pay attention to the parts of his life he triaged to deal with later. He learns Sakurako has a new boyfriend, Yutaro is dead set on being a pro soccer player, and Yuriko is the best at jump rope in her class. He starts tuning back in to the flow of his parents' and grandparents' lives, their painting classes and friends' health problems, workplace gripes and beloved TV dramas, shared grievances with the cost of living these days. He realizes it's been months since he hung out with Asuka, although when he invites Asuka over he waves off his apology.
"Shu and I were in Bulgaria," he says, throwing himself on Shin's bed and letting his slippers carelessly drop to the floor. "And Türkiye again. You want to know something? My dad still plans for me to take over the shop one of these days, I'm applying to graduate programs, and now I have very strong opinions on Brutalism. Life is weird. How're you?"
Shin pulls his knees up as he settles into the comfort of his desk chair and is tempted to not answer, or to create a diversion by asking what Brutalism is, but that seems unfair. He tells Asuka about school—"congratulations on not flunking out," Asuka says, and then: "no, seriously, you did good"—and his family, showing him pictures he took at birthday parties, soccer games, and sports day. He confesses that sometimes he walks past the cement stairs on the way home from the supermarket and hates them for fucking him up so badly.
"You're always so intense," Asuka says, propping his head on one hand and picking at the comforter with the other. "It's okay to not be perfect. Cut yourself some slack." He looks past Shin at his bookcase, squinting like he's trying to read the titles. "Did you remember anything about Akira-san yet?"
Shin shakes his head. "Nothing." He hates justifying the intense label, but he has no one else he can talk to, and he's being slowly driven crazy by his own thoughts. Before he can stop himself, he blurts out, "You know what's horrible? Not knowing if I'm a virgin or not. I assume I forgot my first kiss, and everything else? Gone. I don't even know if I'm gay, or bi, or what to say if anyone asks."
"Just like who you like," Asuka says, he sounds bored, as if he's annoyed he has to explain something so basic. "If they like you back, tell them the truth. A good person isn't going to judge you for getting hurt." He rolls over, hanging his head off the edge of the bed to look up at Shin. "Shu and I are going to Pride in Tokyo. You should come with."
Shin thinks about it, and finally decides why the hell not. He needs to hustle to get all his schoolwork done before Pride weekend, but he tells Asuka to go ahead and reserve three seats on the train. Asuka tells him he'll need four thousand yen for the hotel room, too, but breakfast is included.
They arrive at lunchtime, swept from the nearest train station by a rainbow-colored crowd to the park. On the train, Asuka instructed Shin to check out as many hot people as he can, to figure out who he's attracted to and why, which Shin thought was ridiculous until they arrived. It's nothing like the local festivals Shin grew up taking his brother and sisters to: he's never seen so many people in one place, not even during tsunami drills.
They grab colorful tacos from a kitchen car and wander through the booths to the central stage, and Asuka ends up with his arm around Shin to steer him bodily, because he's looking, trying to figure out if he has a type: muscular, cute, older, younger, beard or no beard. He's tried watching porn, but after the accident his libido crashed for ages, and even now he doesn't find the actors relatable. But the people at Pride are normal people he can see himself hanging out with. Or dating, or more.
Shu and Asuka make their apologies in the late afternoon and run off to St Mary's Cathedral, something about the sacred quality of light, promising to be at the hotel by check-in. As dark falls, Shin follows the flow of Pride revelry out of the park and through bookshops and bars; loses his shirt, gets a blowjob, gets a new shirt and face paint; gives a blowjob, gets tipsy, is doused in glitter on a dance floor; and finally slinks into the hotel room at half past one, leaving footprints that shine on the carpet. Asuka and Shu are sleeping naked on one of the beds; Shin showers, puts on a yukata from the closet, and drops into drunken sleep.
In the morning, Askua waits until Shu goes down to grab food from the breakfast buffet and then demands that Shin tell him everything. He's wide-eyed with scandalized delight as Shin relates what he did when left on his own (Shin raises his eyebrows and looks pointedly at Asuka and Shu's ravaged bed, condoms and lube left out on the nightstand). Asuka asks if Shin's figured out his type. Shin is fairly certain now, but he has to be snarky and ask Asuka if he learned anything about himself over the weekend.
"I think if Shu could do it in a church he'd die happy before the police could even arrest him," Asuka says, with a nearly straight face. "He'd go straight up to heaven." He puts his palms together and raises his eyes toward the ceiling like some trolling cherub. Shin hits him with a pillow.
*
Shin is very fuzzy on the parts of high school when Sakuma-sensei—Takayuki—was his homeroom teacher, but he's Shu's uncle, so they end up knowing each other as part of the same social circle. Takayuki's a good listener: much like Detective Columbo, he understands a lot more than he lets on, and he gives excellent advice. He once told Shin that he's a student he is proud of, which Shin's sure he tells all his students, but Shin'd just confessed his struggle with Neurology. He'd needed to be seen and validated, and Takayuki understood that.
Takayuki decides to marry his long-term girlfriend the June after Shin graduates, and suddenly Asuka and Shu are always busy with wedding plans. Shin met Akane, Takayuki's fiance, at one of Shu's birthday celebrations. She looks like she walked out of a fairy tale: Shin can picture her more easily dancing in the forest than visiting wedding fairs at five-star hotels. But her parents apparently have a vision for their daughter, and Asuka is the only one who can talk them down from champagne towers and five outfit changes. He exhausts himself keeping the guest list down to twenty-five on each side and vents incoherently at Shin over LINE.
So Shin's surprised that Shu asks him out for coffee especially to apologize for not inviting him.
"It's really not an issue," Shin says. "I'm busy with work, and why would they invite me, anyway? I'd have gone to your wedding," he adds, "except you didn't tell anyone until you returned to Japan."
Shu tilts his head as if he doesn't understand; being Shu, maybe he doesn't. "I told you, it wasn't planned."
"That's what you choose to think." Asuka tends to get his way in his relationship. Shin has no doubt that he researched the laws for gay marriage in every country they visited, just in case.
"Takayuki doesn't want you to feel hurt." Shu takes a sip of coffee and savors it. Shin waits. "Akira-kun is in the wedding party. They're friends." He winces as he hears himself say that, as if implying Shin's not as good of a friend, but he gets it. Takayuki's known Akira for fifteen years, and Akira's never forgotten him.
Shin rubs his temple with the heel of his hand; he doesn't have a headache yet, but this could kick one off. "Can people stop fixating on the crush I had when I was a kid? I know the man exists, but we're strangers."
He had pictures of Akira on the digital camera he bought before his accident, so he recognizes him when they pass in town. Akira's hair color is always a surprise—pink once, dandelion fluff blond for a while—but he has a distinctly expressive face that always shutters completely when he sees Shin. It's infuriating, especially since despite himself Shin understands his former attraction. If he has a type, Akira is it, the cute and helpful boy next door with a ready smile for everyone (except Shin).
"Whatever used to be here," he continues, tapping his head with a bit too much force, "is gone."
Shu has his hands wrapped around his mug, and he pulls it close to his chest like it's a baby bird he found, helpless and delicate. His eyes are on the table, but then he raises his gaze to look past Shin, out at the shop's courtyard garden. "I told Takayuki that. But he wanted you to know. So I told you."
Shin nods. The weird thing about Shu is that while he can be frustrating, it's impossible to be mad at him. "Your duty is done. So tell me about what you're up to. You and Asuka."
That makes Shu look even sadder, somehow, but he rallies and talks about renovations they're doing to the house they bought from Akira's grandparents: modernizing the bathroom, fixing a leak in the roof, adding an additional vegetable plot. Shin nods along and asks leading questions. Shu and Asuka's house is always conversationally useful like this. While it looks like the next typhoon will knock it down, Shu has a baffled respect for how its traditional Japanese architecture is as strong as the reinforced concrete city hall.