Work Text:
I.
The coffee machine in the break room is broken.
In the big scheme of things, this should be nothing but a nuisance, a mild displeasure. The inconvenience of not being able to sip on a poor-quality red tea served on a soggy paper cup. Tonight, though, it only seems to aggravate the building feeling at the pit of his stomach: a mix of anxiousness, anger and sadness all at once.
A girl in her teens, fresh out of high school, getting ran over on her way home. Her wounds had gotten her landed on a stretcher before Suguru’s eyes, which determined the wounds were not really all that bad — weren’t it for the fact that most of them had gotten infected. No amount of saline solution could clean the wounds properly, the abscesses not even worth draining. Suguru knew right away the infection had already spread through her bloodstream, and her feverish gaze looked at him with terror when he delivered the news.
Her pain had been agonizing and heart-wrenching, tears staining her long lashes as they rolled down her chubby cheeks. There was nothing Suguru could do with his limited resources to treat her, and so her suffered stay in his ward had ended when the nurses entered to take her away yo the ICU with urgency in their steps.
Suguru wants to bang his head against the useless coffee machine. The reports still sitting in the pocket of his coat —AMANAI, Riko; derived from ER to ICU suffering from sepsis in her bloodstream. Given ciprofloxacin prior to being transferred (…)— waiting to be signed weighs him down like his shoulders were made of lead. He sighs, resigned.
“I better get used to this.”
It hasn’t been long —barely a few months— since he started working at the ER and, though he trusts his abilities and is proud to help people in trouble, he has to admit it only gets more difficult. Like climbing a wall that gets rougher the higher you go. Most people can be helped on the spot, but other patients worsen and deteriorate before his very eyes. Deriving them for surgery or ICU is painful and soul-sucking, even more so than the long hours working endless shifts at the hospital. Suguru Geto is a doctor: he is good at what he does, he likes what he does, but even then there are cases that keep him awake at night.
Why on earth should such a bright young girl have to go through this because of the recklessness of another man? How is this fair? Why can’t he just detach himself from these issues like other doctors do?
Now, nevertheless, Suguru’s bun is messy and strands of hair fall from it. His eye bags have gotten deeper and his face seems stuck in a perpetual frown. He is definitely not having a good day. And again, how is this any fair?
“Used to what? This old thing breaking down?” A sardonic laugh echoes behind him. “Happens every other Tuesday, it’s better to run to the convenience store down the block. They have those sweet cream rolls there that just hit the spot.”
The rambling filling up the empty space of the room past the smell of antiseptic and the bothersome neon lights startles him enough to take a step back from the machine. He turns around to come face to face with a dark pair of sunglasses and for a moment Suguru wonders if it really is a good idea to wear those here.
He’s about to say something when the man before him beats him to it, laughing airily.
“Looks like someone’s having a rough day, huh?”
Oh, so a jerk determined to make fun of him. Exactly what Suguru needs right now.
“I’m not in the mood to be teased, you see.”
“Oh, but I’m not teasing. Just very observant.”
“Not observant enough to read the room,” Suguru scolds him, followed with a pointed ‘tsk’ sound that makes the other’s gaze follow him curiously. Like he’s one of the specimens in the lab downstairs, or one of the patients in the ICU that need constant attention.
No, wait, nothing about that. If Suguru thinks too much about that he’s not sure he will be able to keep down whatever’s in his stomach. Being exposed to this all —the ugliest parts of humanity, the aftermath of vile acts— slowly chips away at him, and he wonders distantly if the satisfaction of helping the weak get better is balanced with the insurmountable feeling of defeat dragging down his shoulders.
“So, whaddup?” the man insists. His shiny, piercing blue gaze fixated on Suguru’s face, almost studying it. He has very intelligent eyes, but even despite that, Suguru thinks he’s not eloquent at all. “Who did you lose?”
A heartbeat goes out of rhythm inside his chest. “What?”
“Well, you’re here all sulky, so I guessed accordingly.”
“I work ER, if a patient is too seriously compromised they no longer depend on me. Most I can do is confirm the death.”
“So, you derived a patient to surgery or ICU or whatever, then,” comes the answer, way too nonchalant. Then, a bright glimmer of a smile that looks way too out of place in this sterile room. “I wasn’t aware we had a new face around! You are…?”
Credit where credit’s due, that man’s smile is disarming. It’s genuine and warm from the inside out like a singular ray of sunshine amidst the winter sky, adorned by twin dimples on his cheeks. It’s painfully honest, cheerful and full of mirth, and even when Suguru wants to force himself to be charmed his bewilderment towards the situation wins over in the end.
“Did you even listen to what I said?”
The man pouts, he squints. Reads the name-tag hanging from his white robe.
“Suguru Geto, okay. Suguru. You should go outside for some fresh air, really, if you think some—“ he glances at the unusable coffee machine “—lame excuse for a drink will help you out with this then you’re so very wrong. How long have you been in the field?”
What a sketchy guy, that man. Suguru follows the steps of his dress shoes, carefully pacing around the room, the sound of the soles on the linoleum floor echoing with each movement.
“I didn’t give you permission to call me by my first name,” he settles on instead. “And not much, though that’s an assumption you probably already made.”
“Sure,” a shrug. “Well, Suguru, then let’s make this fair. I’m Satoru, neurosurgeon, been here for a few years already. I can help you out with whatever, maybe give you a tour — you know where the neurology department is, don’t you?”
On the upper floor, he knows. Almost as if mimicking the structure of the human body, where the brain sits atop it all, reigning every move, feeling, every small gesture. Suguru examines Satoru, now in full. Despite his unruly white hair, he appears to be pretty much his age, and that alone is sketchy enough. Is someone his age good enough to perform such duties? Shouldn’t he still be in formation? How was he left to his own devices so quickly?
Suguru has many questions brewing inside his own brain right now. He wonders if Satoru could get rid of them, then, one way or another.
“Yes, though thankfully I haven’t had the pleasure of stepping in it.”
“That’s a fun answer! Though I would be much more entertained with someone like you around there. Everyone is sooo much older than me, and so outdated too. They should just retire and leave it all to us, don’t you think?”
“Is that why you come to this break room, then?”
“Bullseye! If I wanted to talk politics with men over fifty I’d just watch the news. I’d much rather be here offering you a piece of advice from a tenured veteran.”
“You don’t look like a veteran. You just called fifty-year-olds hags.”
“Well I do feel like one, and let me tell you something.” The tone drastically changes, and the man’s —Satoru’s— smile turns into a way more serious affair, something that Suguru things would have taken him apart if he were to be in a different headspace. It feels like he’s being dissected and properly inspected. “If you don’t get your shit together before long you ain’t made for this job.”
His first reaction to those words are: I know.
Suguru wants to help people. That’s why he changed majors halfway through, why he went into healthcare, why he wanted to work at the ER. He knew it would be hard, that it would get harder even after all his practice with or without supervision, and he knew not to take these matters personally. But he also knows he’s human and that he needs to get himself to toughen up, for otherwise this venom running through his veins will become too much to bear.
He knows and yet, why is he so angry? Is it that true that truth just simply hurts when said out loud? Or is it just the air of condescendence that lingers between them, that space that seems insurmountable and that he hates, like he’s experiencing a setback just for having feelings? Is it really that wrong to care? Is it really wrong for him to feel like punching someone because a girl is severely hurt and this man he just met wants him to just breeze past it?
Suguru scoffs, clenching his fists.
“That’s a dick move. I can’t believe someone who went into this craft can be this level of coldhearted.”
Satoru arches a brow in what seems to be confusion, as if he wasn’t the one being sketchy or demanding the erasure of traits inherent to human behaviour. Suguru understands then: he’s just the archetypical asshole with enough smarts to do the job, but no heart pumping inside his chest. That disgusts him even more so than some of the things he’s seen in his ward downstairs, makes him scrunch his nose harder than a wound going into sepsis ever has. Probably a young heir from a family of doctors, likely of the same field of expertise, that didn’t really know what to do with his life and simply decided to follow suit with mommy and daddy’s job.
What a nightmare. Those kids were the ones Suguru hated most back in med school: the kind that look at you from over their shoulders, head held high in prepotence and voice as loud and annoying as their huge ego. In comparison to him, the guy that switched late because he decided his former degree was not for him and came from a family of no-name jobs, they were something akin to royalty. A shame Suguru has never been the type to let himself be stepped on by others, a sardonic smile forming on his face.
A beat of silence passes, broken only by the sound of ambulance alarms outside. They’ll call him in again shortly, rinse and repeat, and he’ll just have to swallow the anguish and guilt until he’s done for the day.
“Suguru, I’m—“
“‘Sorry?’Is that what you were going to say?”
“No,” Satoru says, resolutely, holding his angered gaze.
“Then I don’t want your shitty advice. If I can give you one of my own then care a little more, or else you’re also proving you’re not suited for the job,” he says.
And then he leaves. He hasn’t even gotten that lame coffee he wanted, and his hands still shake with the organic warmth of Riko Amanai’s hold as she writhed in pain rather than a steaming hot paper cup. He scoffs. Of course an asshole had to ruin his shift even more. Suguru thinks of his gleaming yet impassive blue eyes and the reminder of them makes him shudder.
Yes, he has the volition, the determination to get through these situations. He’s suited for the job, has always been since he graduated top of his class. He knows what he wants to do with his life, and it has nothing to do with whatever a random guy says to him.
Still, Suguru is human — and truly, despite the way his hands tremble, he takes pride in that.
II.
Neon lights adorn the parking lot, empty at this ungodly hour. Only a few cars remain, alone in the misty night, when everyone is asleep and only some suffering relatives have remained alongside the hospital’s residents. Well, those, and the unfortunate doctors who have the pleasure of working a double shift for the night.
The small flame emanating from his lighter illuminates the inside of his car, the warm, lovely yellow a striking contrast to the sterile lights coming from the hospital. Blue and cold like ice, like drizzle, like Satoru’s eyes. Suguru sighs and melts on the driver’s seat, only to be startled by a hand knocking on the glass window. The lighter scapes his grasp for a millisecond, and the light leaves him as the flame leaves only a residual warmth in his wake.
“Careful there, you’ll burn yourself,” a silky voice tells him when he finally gets himself together enough to open the window, chuckling. He huffs, half-relieved half-annoyed.
“Someone decided to scare the shit outta me,” he says.
“I wanted to ask for a light,” she says, tucking a lock of auburn hair behind her ear. She has delicate features, but the eye bags staining her undereye purple gives her position away quickly. When they first met, she was already like that, so Suguru doesn’t really know what to comment. “I didn’t know you smoked.”
“That’s because I don’t,” he says, shrugging. “I used to. Besides, I think carrying a lighter around might come in handy.”
Shoko laughs airily. “If you wanted to befriend me then just say so.”
“Who said I wanted to?”
“Who wouldn’t? You’re a loser sitting inside his car during his break. Come out and give me some company.”
“Sure.”
It’s chilly outside and Suguru mildly regrets leaving his coat behind inside his car when he hears the door click shut, but he makes no move to retrieve it, feeling like the cold will do good to him. Reboot his system or something, maybe keep him more alert. Shoko Ieiri’s hands look pristine as she nimbly takes the lighter from his hand and places a cigarette between her red-stained lips all in one swift motion.
When he first met her, he remembers envying the way her hands did not shake in the slightest, unlike his. She had laughed about it, airy and decidedly not preoccupied as she talked about developing a nice tolerance to substances such as coffee. She’s the resident forensic pathologist, the only one for the time being, because the other two quit after a few years, not withstanding the… gloomy line of work they were in, in lack of better words. Suguru shrugs now same as he did upon learning the information. Good for them, if that’s what they wanted.
“Come on, say something. You look jittery, and it’s making me itch for a smoke.”
“You’re smoking as we speak.”
As if on cue, she lets out a puff of greyish smoke. It blends with the night mist perfectly.
“I just called you sketchy and you decide to focus on that.”
“I didn’t take it as you calling me sketchy, whatever that means. A pretty subjective observation, coming from a woman such as yourself.” She gives him a look, that look with the eyebrow arched up, almost threateningly but also lighthearted. “No nonsense, I meant,” he hurries to add, feeling vaguely pressured.
“Precisely,” she shrugs. “I would have assumed you’re more entertaining, but you’re just sulking. I think that’s a bit childish — what gives?”
“If you wanted someone entertaining then why come to the guy sulking in his car?”
“My smoke buddy dipped, he has surgery in the morning, so he better get some hours in if we want the patient in tip-toe shape,” she exhales another round of smoke. “Or else that poor woman might just become my patient instead. Besides, I forgot my lighter upstairs and you had one with you.”
Suguru thinks it’s the way she says it, so casually, that sends a shiver down his spine. He decides to attribute it to the chilly night breeze instead, out of pride as those words still ring out in his mind. One day, he’s certain, one of the people rushed into his ward will become Shoko’s patient. He doesn’t like the prospect of that, but he needs to make peace with it, for it is an inevitability.
Does that mean he should be just as casual about it? That he should not care? They’re talking about human lives, after all. He decides to ignore it for the time being.
“Oh, so I’m a replacement, huh? Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“At least you’re not Gojo scolding me for getting my nicotine fix. He’s boring and annoying, so I guess you’re equally matched.”
Suguru exhales a puff of condensed air in a poor mimicry of Shoko’s vices.
“Satoru’s a friend of yours.”
“Went to med school with the guy. Met him yet?”
He chuckles sardonically. “Asshole.” A pause. “Sorry, but I mean it.”
“I take that as a ‘yes’. You’re not the first one to say that, so I won’t take offence. Neither will he, by the way, he’s used to it by now. What did that idiot do now?”
“You’ve heard about the girl that got into the ICU this week, right?” She nods. “I derived her there. As you would expect, her condition had me a bit shaken up, since she’s a child.”
“Right.”
“Then this guy comes in and tells me if I can’t keep my cool I’m not suited for this job,” Suguru scoffs. Shoko’s presence is quiet and warm by his side, and suddenly he feels like he can pour all of his frustration into the open air. She doesn’t seem like a woman who judges, rather, she seems selective with the things she cares about. “Can you believe that? How can he be so cold when talking about other humans? It could be him on that surgical table tomorrow, would he like that?”
“Guy’s a weirdo, he’d probably be into that,” she says, non-committal.
Dark brown eyes look up at the sky, the stars reflecting on them. It’s a pretty sight, warm and somewhat melancholic. It’s nothing like the mischievous glint or the icy blue of Satoru’s eyes, the cold that threatens to consume him from the inside out since the moment they first met. It’s like staring into them would make him fall into the void, voice frozen in that vast cerulean space.
“I thought you’d take this seriously.”
“I’m being serious about this,” Shoko huffs, putting out the last remains of her cigarette and immediately taking a pack from her pocket. With her renewed nicotine fix back on her lips, she tilts the pack towards him in polite offering. He declines. “Gojo’s just like that, I guess. Too painfully honest.”
“You can just say he’s a dick.”
Shoko gives him a look. This one, in hindsight, is definitely non-threatening, not even one of mistrust or suspicion. Suguru thinks it’s odd, how she can be so disinterested in him trashtalking her friend to her face. Then again, what is also odd is how she can just brush that off on the pretense of him being honest.
“Having no filter did not just become the new trend to follow, did it?”
“So that’s what you think,” Shoko laughs. “Ah, then this will be so fun for me.”
“What? Scolding him for side-eyeing me whenever he sees me down the hall? Tell him I noticed, by the way.”
That makes her smack her forehead with her palm. “Oh, he does that? Damn… Well, I don’t like these kind of talks, so tell him yourself.”
With a ‘tsk’, Suguru takes his lighter from where it had been securely held by her dainty hands. He fidgets with it for a minute, the matte black a contrast to the silver ornaments. It feels cold to the touch, almost an oxymoron in itself, because how can something feel cold when it can produce so much warmth?
“You said I was boring for not giving you a topic of conversation. Now I do, and you don’t like it.”
“No nonsense,” she grins, teasingly. She has that mischievous glint in her eyes now that reminds him of white locks of hair and broad shoulders down the hallway. “Right?”
“Am I being nonsensical now?” He mutters, more to himself than to her. He meant fot it to match her teasing tone, but the words come out feeble and almost get lost to the breeze.
“Not really, but you sound like it. Your lack of nuance is childish,” she says, more serious now. “I guess they really don’t teach these things in med school, but you know. Practice makes perfect or however that goes.”
Not knowing really what to say next —because, really, did she have to bother go all ambiguous on him all of a sudden? Perhaps spending so many hours around people who have long parted this world is starting to affect her brain a little. Will he end up like that, too? Is that what she means? How does he lack nuance, when if anything, they’re the ones asking to shed away his feelings?— Suguru’s mouth gapes open like that of a fish, hoping a suitable sentence decides to magically appear.
Predictably, it doesn’t. Not that Shoko seems to be paying much attention to him, texting someone on her phone. When she checks the time, she throws the cigarette on the pavement and steps on it with the sole of her heel.
“I better get back to work. I have an autopsy to run, that shit will take me until sunrise,” she announces, pocketing her phone and patting his back. As if he wasn’t way taller and bigger than her. It feels condescending, but alas, she is his senior here. “I’ll tell Gojo to stop ogling you, that freak.”
“Alright, have a good night.”
His own weight —mental or physical, he’s not quite sure yet— drags him back to lean against his car. He’s alone on the parking lot, again, staring at the way Shoko’s lips left an imprint of red on the butt of her last cigarette. It’s cold, now, and it will be still cold inside, it always is. Suguru thinks, then, of that cold gaze of his.
Satoru’s hard, cold, blunt. His words are brash disguised as lighthearted and yet, Suguru feels like he doesn’t get them, an air of ambiguity surrounding them akin to Shoko’s. He sighs. He wonders if he’s always like that: if his hands are also as icy, if his breath can break through the awful nightly breeze. If he always looks as ethereal as a falling snowflake, or is he more like slipping and falling onto the tiled floor of the hospital lobby.
“What a weirdo,” he says, but he has no clue who he’s talking about anymore.
Suddenly, the fact that he might not meet Satoru’s eyes from the distance when going around his day feels odd. He had grown used to it, to that shudder down his spine that announces his presence, and it should feel like a weight will be lifted off his shoulders — except it doesn’t. Why doesn’t it? Why doesn’t he feel more at ease, less on edge?
Why do Satoru’s words keep playing inside his head if he has already made a choice? What is he not getting? And why is he feeling like he’s missing some weird innuendo that only he is not privy to?
The breeze ruffles his bangs, softly despite the low temperature. A caress.
He looks down at the lighter in his hands, and retreats back into the safety of his ever-warm car.
III.
“Suguru! What a sight for sore ey— oh, yuck. Are you not putting any sugar in that?”
Dumbfounded, Suguru looks down at his black coffee. Then, back at the man standing before him, only a few centimetres taller and with definitely a wider grin that vaguely reminds him of the Cheshire Cat. Suguru smirks then, concealing his confusion with a much more potent feeling of amusement.
“It’s not my fault you can drink coffee like a regular person.”
“Mind you, glucose is a great stimulant for brain activity,” he says, matter-of-factly. “I try to keep myself alert.”
“Every single time I’ve seen you off the clock you’re munching on candy. You’re trying to give yourself diabetes at this rate.”
That makes Satoru’s face contort in a smile that is, for once, not one of mischief or amusement. It borders somewhere between relief and curiosity, and Suguru has mixed feelings about that. A few seconds of silence, almost imperceptible, befall them. The breeze entering through the window messes with his bang, and he thinks Satoru looks good like that, soft and mellow as he towers before his partly-obscured eyes.
Nobody makes an effort to address the elephant in the room, the several implications he has just laid bare with the hope of maybe getting something, anything.
Because they have seen each other off the clock, several times, perhaps coincidentally: but only after Riko Amanai died.
Suguru is no stranger to death, and he knew it was a possible outcome for the young girl when he first derived her to the ICU. Still, the news left him uneasy and definitely made him run to the bathroom with the impending outcome of emptying his stomach as soon as he processed the news. He did not hear any more about her, though he guessed Satoru did, because that same day:
“So Shoko told me,” he had said, voice neutral. His blue eyes scanning him as they often tend to do. That ability of his that makes Suguru feel almost-vulnerable before him. “I see you’re doing better than I expected.”
As fate decided to have it, Suguru found Satoru in the local supermarket, the one closest to the hospital. He was getting the usual groceries —cleaning supplies, lots of sanitiser, instant soba noodles for dinner— while Satoru had his hand deep into several bags of gummy bears. He wondered if he could analyse their differences like that, too.
“How did you expect me to be doing? You said it yourself, it comes with the job. I shouldn’t care much.”
“That’s not what I said— was it? I told you to simply take the blows better, because this will happen again. You know that, right?”
Suguru’s grip tightened then relaxed around the handle of his cart. “Course I do, who do you take me for?”
“Well, you’re a good doctor, aren’t you?”
It was said with no bite whatsoever, perhaps simply a notation, like the translator’s note at the end of a page in that foreign book he’s reading currently. However, there was something in there that unnerved him: why was Satoru so insistent that he had to be good at this job, where did he see that potential? Worst of all, could Suguru meet his expectations? It’s true that he knows how to deal with loss, but he did care for Riko, he cares deeply for the status of those he tends to, whether he feels his chest swell in pride at their recovery of not.
And that comes with another question that, after all, might just be the trigger to every single crisis he seems to have whenever he crosses paths with this man: why does he care about Satoru’s opinion so much?
Instead, he had replied, with a witty tone to his words, “Why would you care?”
“Why did you assume I wouldn’t?” Satoru asked back, giving him pause.
It looked like all the words he had wanted to say got stuck inside his throat before they could become coherent, losing all momentum. It was before he even opened his mouth that a woman shouted “Dr. Gojo!” From the end of the aisle, teary eyed and grinning from ear to ear, wrinkles appearing on her face.
She gave Suguru the perfect chance to leave, and despite wanting otherwise, Suguru forced himself to take it. As he was leaving them behind he overheard the overexcited cries of the woman, beaming,
“Thank you so much for saving my husband’s life! If you hadn’t been there for him, I fear he—“
“Oh, but those what-ifs shouldn’t matter. Treating Mr. Yoshida was my pleasure,” Satoru said, soft and warm and in a voice Suguru wished was directed at him when he needed soothing. “How is he doing? Is the post-op treatment going well?”
The supermarket encounter was not the only one that took place throughout the following week, though it was the most unusual and the one that produced a weird warm sensation to blossom at the pit of Suguru’s stomach. He made a mental note to check for other common symptoms of anxiety, but he finds none, so he decided it must just be reflux acting up.
On Wednesday he was looking up ‘Satoru Gojo’ on google during his break. He was walking around the parking lot aimlessly, not really knowing what to do with himself. Too tired to even try to sit down but too jittery to do anything productive. His head felt like his brain had just melted and become all mushy. Ironically, his brain had unhelpfully supplied him with: “this the kinda shit people go to Satoru for.” Hence the idea to look him up.
Mostly. Probably.
Graduated from med-school top of his class only a few years before Suguru did —which tracks, considering he switched degrees—, coming from a family specialised in medicine, mostly dermatologists and prestigious surgeons, he conducted vast research in the field of neuroscience at the young age of twenty four. By twenty-six he had already been on the cover of several newspapers by having performed what the media described as “impossible” and “high-stake” brain surgery on several patients, specialising in the neurological oncology department. By twenty-eight he has become a renowned miracle surgeon having saved many from life-threatening brain tumours.
A rarity. An anomaly. A genius.
A genius who sees potential in Suguru to what? Be the same brand of good?
He had scoffed just thinking about it when he bumped into him. His shoulder clashing against Satoru’s own. He was eyes-deep into a report, bags under his eyes and cookie crumbles around his lips. Shoko trailed right behind him, complaining about “cutting their break short”. She probably didn’t get to finish her second cigarette.
Satoru looked no-less pissed off, face finally —finally!— contorted in a frown that reeked of stress and disappointment. In spite of having wanted to see if he, too, was capable of feeling human emotion like a regular person (like a regular doctor, too!), Suguru was weirded out by the gesture rather than pleased by it. He didn’t like that look on Satoru’s face at all, he found.
Though that doesn’t meant he wasn’t just as weirded out when Satoru’s eyes finally unglued themselves from the papers to look at him properly. The shine on those cerulean eyes once they finally took him in, the smile back on Satoru’s face, were what made him freeze on the spot.
“Suguru. Hey.”
“Something up?” He inquired, trying to appear more daring than genuinely concerned. For Satoru or for a hypothetical patient, he didn’t even know.
“I do emergencies too, you see! Don’t worry, I’ll catch you later,” Satoru said, almost off-handedly.
His hand was cold when he pressed it onto Suguru’s shoulder, giving him a self-assured squeezed before going back to rushing down the hall. It should have felt as uncomfortable as the cold AC in his ward or the sterile air of the hallway, but it felt like a soothing balm being applied to a bruise. It calmed down the warm feeling inside his stomach almost immediately, only for it to resurface as long as Satoru was gone.
Shoko dashed right past him, smiled coyly, then shook her head. Whatever that meant only intensified that feeling. He did not invest any money in remedies for acid reflux.
He still hasn’t, though that insidious warmth increases the longer he stands there. He tries to wash it down with his boiling-hot coffee. He wonders how Satoru likes his own, probably with too much sugar for it to be healthy— but you know, “do as I say, not as I do” is the Bible verse for doctors, after all.
Nobody mentions their several odd encounters throughout the week, and nobody mentions Riko Amanai. He doesn’t feel on-edge about this conversation though. Satoru’s presence has started to become the most relaxing thing he has found in this hospital, even more so than Shoko’s ramblings once she’s done with her cigarette.
Late at night, some nights, he will pass by her spot to notice Satoru and her talking animatedly about something. They wave goodbye to him then look at each other with a look he cannot seem to interpret correctly. Usually Satoru will either cover his face or just straight up turn on his heel and leave. Shoko will punch him in the shoulder.
‘Remedies for acid reflux’ and ‘pharmacies near me’ sit at the top of his search history, though he never brings himself to buy anything. Even as he hears Satoru laugh over his coffee, he decided not to do it.
He knows exactly why his gut feels the way it does, a symptom he can only attribute to something that is not even an illness. It’s bothersome and mocking, just as Satoru’s words, but easily subdued by them.
Of course an asshole will produce asshole-ish feelings, he thinks. Suguru sighs inwardly. He watches the dimples at the corners of Satoru’s mouth, the way he brushes his hair back with one hand, the interest in his irises whenever Suguru speaks.
Suguru doesn’t like calling Satoru an asshole anymore. It brings forth a feeling of disgust he cannot shake off. He doesn’t really know why he keeps thinking of him like that.
Perhaps, if he lets himself be swayed by the original perception he had of the young miracle surgeon, that feeling goes away. But that goes against the point he had once tried to prove: he’s a human, with feelings laid bare for people to see, and he likes it to be like that. So why doesn’t he now?
What would Satoru think of it? Would he brush it off, if he felt it too?
“Hey, Suguru, check it out. I’ll show you how to get snacks from this old machine for free.”
Why the fuck does he care about what Satoru thinks?
(“Why did you assume I wouldn’t care?”)
IV.
Can it be considered testing a hypothesis if it’s done by accident and definitely —like absolutely, resolutely— not on purpose?
It’s snowing outside, a thin blanket of ice surrounds the city, yet Suguru thinks it’s less cold than the inside of the hospital, than the stare of Satoru’s eyes, and the sensation his touch leaves behind in its wake.
Despite it all, Suguru is warm all over. His knees hurt from running downstairs and his cheeks must be dusted pink judging by the unbearably hot feeling on them. He rushed outside the moment he crossed paths with Shoko and a defeated sigh had left her lips.
“New autopsy to run, I guess,” she said. Then, more quietly, “brain tumour.”
And Suguru knew immediately what had happened, just like he knew when he first heard Satoru say “you know it will happen again” and just like he knew when Shoko said ““Gojo’s just like that, I guess. Too painfully honest” and just like he knew since the very moment he saw him gently address a former patient and suddenly the word asshole no longer fit him.
Just like, in the back of his mind, he always has known.
(“Why did you assume I wouldn’t care?”)
A myriad of words, of questions, are waltzing aimlessly inside his head. Worst of all is that he wishes he had a suitable answer for them.
The only thing Suguru has right now is the awfully loud silence of the main entrance garden, beyond the parking lot and beyond Shoko’s smoking spot, and the way snowflakes fall around Satoru’s figure like they hesitate to even touch him.
Suguru does not. He’s not fragile like they are. His hand lands on Satoru’s shoulder.
“You’re warm,” Satoru says.
“I know,” he whispers back. “Why are you here?”
“Thinking, obviously. Are you worried? I hate when you do that face. Let’s go inside and I’ll treat you to some coffee so you can tell me about the latest ER gossip.”
When Satoru makes no conscious effort to move despite having said that, Suguru sighs and takes a seat on the pavement by his side.
“You’re a doctor, you don’t do miracles.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You don’t,” he huffs, annoyed. “Because you’re human. And I know this profession is tough and you guys want to be able to compartmentalise, but you’re a human who just lost someone. Of course you’d be upset.”
“I shouldn’t be. I need to focus on the next—“
“And you will,” Suguru tells him.
(“Why did you assume I wouldn’t care?”)
“I know you care more than you let on, now. Unfortunately, your honesty is no something I was used to and I definitely did not appreciate back then. But when you told me to put some distance between me and Riko, between me and any patient, I know now that you were trying to look after me.”
“You know I hate that face you make when you’re upset,” Satoru smiles, gloomy. “I didn’t want to have you do it again.”
The odd confession makes Suguru chuckle.
“So I suppose caring must be part of the job. You’re a good doctor, aren’t you?”
“I’m not always a heartless asshole,” Satoru concedes.
(“Why did you assume I wouldn’t care?”)
“You never were. You look after others in your own way. I’m sorry it took so long for me to figure you out.”
“You don’t have to say sorry for that, it’s weird.”
“Says the one who’s been keeping an eye on me since he saw me,” Suguru chuckles. “I think you’re the weirdo here.”
As a response, Satoru’s eyes widen comically. That’s a new look on his face, the one that makes him look like a deer caught in the headlights, and Suguru suddenly has the morbid curiosity to decipher all of the different expressions on Satoru’s snowy-pale complexion. He almost wonders why he thought of him as a calculating, impassive person. It doesn’t matter how cold his gaze is, how numbing his touch — he knows ice can melt from time to time, if only barely.
“What, no remark? I’m disappointed now.”
“I didn’t know you noticed,” Satoru mumbles. “I’m sorry, Suguru.”
(“Why did you assume I wouldn’t care?”)
“No, I didn’t mean—“
“I didn’t wanna trouble you with job feelings, but I also wish I didn’t bother you with my own. I get it,” he sighs. “And also Shoko owes me ten dollars, so there’s that.”
“I don’t get what you’re rambling on about.”
Satoru exhales, exasperated and theatric. “You’re smart. Of course you do.”
And then the feeling of warmth inside Suguru’s gut intensifies.
Oh.
Oh.
Wait no, this might just actually be acid reflux— is it normal to want to throw up when someone confesses their love for you?
“I’ve seen so many people quit med school, quit the job altogether, because of not handling these things well. It’s understandable, because they hurt like a bitch and I know I won’t be able to sleep at all today. But when I first saw you I knew you were going to be interesting, I wanted to know you,” he says. “But you were feeling so beat up about a patient who hadn’t even died yet that I thought you would leave, too. I thought it would be too much for you to handle. Perhaps you simply aren’t afraid of expressing your pain openly, unlike the rest of us. That’s admirable, I think. Makes me like you even more.”
Stuck at a loss for words and heating up like a kitchen stove, Suguru simply lets his shoulders slump in relief. Yes, of course he had to fall for the emotionally constipated asshole who is not really an asshole just too honest for him to be properly understood. Right. Because not even his love life can go easy on him.
(“Why did you assume I wouldn’t care?”)
This sucks. He has never had to tend to matters of the heart beyond his cardiology course back in uni. He has never had to tweak phrases and mannerisms to get a glimpse of another one’s brain. He wonders if Satoru, specialised in neurological patterns to the point of miracles, was trying to do the same and realised he couldn’t.
Perhaps, all this time, his cerulean eyes were trying to analyse Suguru in hopes of finding the exact anatomy of the feelings they shared.
“Would you be open about your feelings towards me?”
Satoru grins and shakes his head. “I’ve always been, you see. Everyone has been teasing me relentlessly. You seriously haven’t heard? My assistant, Amai, even tried to email you from my computer asking you to go on a date with me.”
Suguru explodes in a fit of laughter. “Oh, you don’t say.”
“Mhm.”
“Sucks that he didn’t send it, then.”
“Would you have said yes?”
No. Maybe. He doesn’t know. Perhaps he wants to say yes just now.
“Jury’s still out,” he finally settles on.
Satoru smiles, soft and gentle like the falling of snowflakes around them Suguru has the sudden urge to intertwine their fingers, but he decided to simply let their pinkies touch. Satoru takes the initiative, having been given an opening, and rests his hand upon Suguru’s own.
“I run cold,” he regrets, anyway.
“Good thing I’m warm, then, no?”
“You’ll get cold, though. Mind if I at least treat you to that nasty coffee from the machine you like so much?”
Arching an eyebrow, Suguru replies. “Is that your idea of a date?”
“Whatever works, works.”
“Fine. Bad coffee it is.”
V.
The coffee machine in the break room is, to no one’s surprise, broken again.
Groaning in lieu of acting according to his impulses and kicking the old thing, Suguru complains with a, “Ugh, do they ever fix this thing?”
Shoko simply shakes her head. “I’ve given up already. A thermo does the trick just fine, you know?”
Yes, he does know, except he really needs to go to the common break room and complain very loudly so Satoru can hear him from his office —which is right upstairs— and come down to bother him. Except he’s never a bother in Suguru’s eyes. Mostly.
And, well, some of his frustration towards the coffee machine is quite real, actually. Why wouldn’t they fix the main source of caffeine for doctors who work insanely long shifts? Does the administration want them to die of fatigue or something?
“Oh no, and here I wanted a hot chocolate to ease my day,” Satoru laments like a lady in an old period drama as he waltzes into the room. It always takes him scarily short to get down here. His icy blue eyes fall upon Suguru, then. “Though I think I’ve found something even better to make that happen.”
“Really?” Suguru says without missing a beat, crossing his arms before his chest. “And here I thought glucose was crucial as a stimulant for the brain.”
Satoru leans closer to him, legs taking long strides until he’s leaning onto the coffee machine, towering over Suguru is a way that may or may not just spark a new feeling inside him. This one he really wants to find out about as soon as possible, he decides.
“Well, what if my brain is just happy to see you?”
“Wow, I knew you were freaks, but this is the weirdest flirting I’ve ever heard in my life. Why are you talking about your brain like it’s your dick?” Shoko chimes in, from where she sits o one of the plastic chairs, drumming her long nails against the table.
“Hey, how do you know we’re flirting?” Suguru hurries to say, simultaneous with Satoru’s “Technically my dick is connected to my brain, so it’s a common response.”
“Ew. To both of you. I’ve seen cadavers with more charm than whatever you have going on.” A pause. “Also, Gojo, you owe me—“
“Ten dollars, yes. Alright.”
“I cannot express how much I hate that you were in on it. What was the bet, anyway? That I’d agree to a date eventually?”
“No,” Shoko replies with a shit-eating grin. The one that screams ‘I know more than I let on, and way more than you ever will’. “That you were just as head over heels as he was.”
“I called him an asshole the first time we talked,” he points out, while Satoru gasps in mock-offence.
“Et tu, Brute?” A pause. “Oh, wait, you guys talk about me? Well, of course you do, I’m so cool like that.”
“Nothing of the sort.”
“We trashtalk you. Often.”
“You will live with this knowledge. Also you guys talk about me, too. Isn’t this just fair?”
“It isn’t. We should meet up and talk dirt on Shoko,” Satoru says, solemnly. “Perhaps we can meet for coffee after your shift’s over.”
“So that’s your idea of a date,” Suguru smirks, holding his gaze.
It’s cold and analytical but so genuinely full of curiosity and anticipation. Suguru never wants to miss any of those simple details again. His eyes feel soothing where they meet Suguru’s burning violet ones.
“So long as you’re around, even the surgery room seems like a cool date place to me.”
“Weirdo.”
“I agree. Weirdo.”
“You guys are just as offputting as I am! Stop that and just say ‘yes’, please, I’ve been trying for weeks.”
And how could Suguru, with his soft heart and warm stomach and blushing cheeks and that weak point reserved for Satoru’s pout, ever deny him? Hw can he look at those eyes of his and just decide he doesn’t enjoy having them on him at all times?
“Fine, you win. Take me on an actual date.”
“You won’t regret it.”
“Eh, we’ll see. You’ll have to work hard. Be open with me.”
“Sure.” Satoru laughs, and for the first time ever Suguru thinks he can read his expression clearly. Joyful. Smitten. “It comes with the job.”
You’re getting cynical and that won’t do.
I’d throw the rose tint back on the exploded view,
darling, if I were you.
And how’s that insatiable appetite
for the moment when you look them in the eyes
and say, “baby, it’s been nice”.
— Arctic Monkeys. There’d Better Be A Mirrorball.