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When Arisu walked out after the fight, Chishiya felt like his whole world had walked out along with those footsteps.
The apartment felt cavernous in his partner's absence. Chishiya stood in the living room — their living room, with Arisu's gaming equipment sprawled across the coffee table, his collection of energy drinks in the fridge, his stupid cat-shaped slippers by the door — and felt the silence press against his eardrums like deep water. It was such a silly, stupid feeling, one that could make him laugh out loud if he didn't feel so… hurt.
Their fight started off small — microscopic, really — when Arisu asking him about his decision to come to dinner with Usagi and Kuina next weekend, a simple question that required a simple answer. But Chishiya, being Chishiya, with his mind three steps ahead into differential diagnoses and his eyes deep in the middle of a patient case file, had said, “I don't see the point.”
He didn't even look up from his laptop when he said it, which was the first mistake he had made in a cascade of errors that created this fight.
“… They are… our friends, Shun.” Arisu said softly, voice calm in a way that he should've considered to be the first warning sign. “Hanging out with friends is a way to bond with them, you know.”
“We see them regularly enough,” Chishiya replied, still typing. His fingers moved across the keyboard with efficiency that came from years of residency — documenting symptoms, treatment plans, prognosis for a seven-year-old with a congenital heart defect. He needed to focus. “I fail to see how sitting through another dinner where Kuina interrogates me about my emotional availability adds value to anyone's life.”
He heard Arisu's controller click off. The sudden absence of game soundtracks should have been his second warning.
“Right,” the brunette sighed, his tone flat in a way that he recognized as anger wearing in. “Of course. My mistake for assuming you would want to spend time with people who care about you.”
“That's… not what I said.”
“It's what you meant though, isn't it?” Arisu stood up from the couch, and Chishiya could feel the weight of his gaze even without looking. ”That spending time with our friends is pointless. That caring about maintaining relationships is pointless. That everything that isn't work or sleep or—”
“… Arisu, if this is enough to make you feel disappointed with me, you're free to leave.”
The moment those words left his mouth, Chishiya knew he had miscalculated horribly.
“… So that's how you feel about us all along.” His partner laughed, the sound strained and humorless as he grabbed his jacket and his keys. “I'll let you be for the night. Don't wait up.”
Then the door closed shut behind him, and everything he had ever known also walked out in worn sneakers and an oversized hoodie.
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Chishiya had always known that he was his father's son — in a deeply flawed, ugly type of way.
He had spent years throughout his life trying to convince himself otherwise, that he was never the same man his father was. He didn't stand in doorways and look through people like they were furniture. He didn't dismiss affection or treat silence as a weapon. He saved lives, for fuck's sake, but standing here now, in the dim light of his apartment — their apartment — the resemblances felt like bruises blooming on his skin.
You're free to leave.
What kind of fucking monster said that to someone they loved? What kind of person weaponized abandonment in a moment of conflict, turned the door into a threat instead of just… talking?
Well… his father was that kind of person, and now, apparently, so was he.
Chishiya moved on autopilot after that, closing his laptop with a quiet click. The seven-year-old patient in his care needed him and his expertise, but his hands were shaking so bad, and he couldn't find the strength to calm them down, which was really ironic because surgeons didn't shake. They were calm, steady, controlled and precise, none of those things he could provide right now — not when he just told his partner to leave over something as trivial as dinner plans with friends they were close to.
So he sat himself down slowly on the couch — Arisu's spot, the cushion still warm — and stared at the paused game on the TV screen, some puzzle-platformer with bright colours and cheerful music that would resume the moment anyone touched the controller. It looked so simple, so uncomplicated, because you just needed to press the right buttons, solve the puzzle, and then move forward.
If only relationships worked the same way.
Chishiya blinked slowly and realized he had been staring at the same spot on the TV screen for the past ten minutes without actually seeing it. His hands had gone numb in his lap, and even when he wanted to be surprised, he really wasn't, because this feeling wasn't new — this sense of floating somewhere above his own body, watching himself exist without really being present. It happened sometimes during particularly long surgeries, or after his parents' rare phone calls where his mother would ask about his work in the same tone someone might use to discuss the weather, clinical and detached. His father never called at all.
If this is enough to make you feel disappointed with me, you're free to leave.
His father had done the same thing to his mother when he was younger, again and again throughout his childhood, a cowardly deflection disguised as logical practicality. If you find my work schedule so objectionable, perhaps you should reconsider this arrangement, his father said over dinner while young Chishiya pushed peas around his plate and pretended not to hear. His mother would go quiet, her smile brittle and sharp-edged, and the rest of the meal would pass in suffocating silence.
Chishiya had sworn he would never do that to someone he loved.
(And yet he did anyway.)
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The vibration of his phone snapped him halfway back into his body.
For a split second, hope flared in his chest — Arisu, texting to say he was coming back, that they could talk, that Chishiya hadn't completely destroyed everything with his pathological need to push people away before they could leave him first.
But the name on the screen was Kuina's, and his hope curdled into dread.
He stared at the phone for three rings before answering. “Hello.”
“Chishiya.” His friend hissed on the other side of the call. “Arisu came to our apartment and had been crying for twenty minutes straight. Want to tell me what happened between you two or do I have to come there and physically kick your ass?”
Chishiya could feel his heart drop to the pit of his stomach at those words, knowing that he had taken the thing his partner feared most — abandonment, being unwanted, being too much — and weaponized it in the span of a single sentence. That he had, somehow, allowed this cruel part of himself to come out in the worst moment possible.
But rather than admitting any of that, he just let out a long, heavy sigh and said, “It's not your business, Kuina.”
The silence on the other end was deafening.
“… You know what? You're right. It's not my business, and I don't have any right to interfere with your private life like this.” Kuina said, voice cold in a way that made his heart twist painfully. “But Arisu is my friend, and he's sitting on my couch sobbing because the person he loves just told him to leave like he's some inconvenient guest in his own home, so genuinely, fuck you, Chishiya.”
Then she hung up, and Chishiya sat there with the phone still pressed to his ear, listening to the hollow tone of disconnection. His reflection stared back at him from the dark TV screen — pale, expressionless, alone, just like his father used to look in the study at 2 AM, surrounded by medical journals and the deliberate absence of family photos.
Arisu came to our apartment and has been crying for twenty minutes straight.
His stomach cramped suddenly, and he couldn't help but press his hand on his abdomen with a pained hiss. As a doctor, he knew exactly what this was — stress-induced gastritis, probably progressed to ulcers by this point, exacerbated by irregular eating habits and too much coffee and the kind of chronic anxiety that he pretended didn't exist — and thought distantly that he really, really should see someone sooner for all this pain before it could get worse.
But he didn't move.
Instead, he stayed exactly where he was — rooted on the couch and stared at nothing — as the pain built until it filled every corner of him like it always did.
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By midnight, everything had deteriorated significantly.
Chishiya found himself hunched over the bathroom sink, breathing through his nose while his stomach felt like it was eating itself from the inside out. Sharp, stabbing sensations that radiated from his epigastric region down to his lower abdomen. He had thrown up twice — mostly bile and coffee, which tracked — and when he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, he caught sight of blood smearing there.
That was… not ideal.
He straightened slowly, gripping the edge of the sink until his knuckles went white. The rational part of his brain — the part that had gotten him through medical school, through residency, through countless emergency surgeries — was cataloging symptoms like he was assessing another patient instead of himself. Hematemesis, even minor, combined with severe epigastric pain pointed to a bleeding ulcer. Possibly a perforation if the pain continued to worsen. He needed imaging, IV fluids, possibly a endoscopy, definitely a proton pump inhibitor.
The irrational part of his brain, though, whispered that he deserved this, that this was the punishment he deserved of being his father's son.
Chishiya looked at his phone on the counter. He really should call someone, but Arisu was at his friends' apartment still sobbing his eyes out, and Kuina had made it clear where she stood. He had burned those bridges thoroughly in the same way he did everything else in his life, and there was no one left to call.
So with a quiet sigh that tasted like defeat, Chishiya picked up his phone and ordered a taxi.
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The ER was bright and sterile and exactly where he deserved to be — alone, being assessed by strangers who didn't know him well enough to be disappointed by him yet.
“Dr. Chishiya,” the attending physician said, glancing at his chart with a frown on her face. “Your bloodwork shows significant anemia, and the endoscopy confirmed a bleeding gastric ulcer. We're admitting you overnight for observation and IV treatment. You're lucky you came in at this time, because another few hours and we might have to consider surgery instead.”
Chishiya nodded without saying a word, his mind already detached from his own body once again. It was easier this way — to float somewhere above himself and observe the clinical details without feeling the full weight of what it meant that he was here, alone, because he had systematically destroyed every relationship that mattered to him in the span of a few hours.
“Is there anyone we should call?” The lady continued, pen poised over his paperwork. “Emergency contact?”
Logically, he knew he should be honest about it and let her know what Arisu's number was so that they could contact him. It was in the hospital protocol, after all, to call for family members in case things got worse, to notify them about the next steps of the whole chain and how the patient was doing.
Emotionally, Chishiya just stayed silent, choosing to stare at the ceiling tiles instead — white, sterile, with those little holes that were supposed to absorb sound. He counted seventeen holes directly above him before the attending seemed to be done with his silence and started with, “Dr. Chishiya, I'm required to—”
“Don't call anyone,” he interjected quietly, his voice flat and clinical in the same tone his father used during those rare occasions that he came home for dinner. “There's no one to call.”
It was a lie, technically. He had Arisu's number memorized the way he memorized drug dosages and surgical procedures — perfectly, automatically, without any conscious input controlling it. But the truth was worse than the lie: that he had someone, someone who loved him despite all his sharp edges and emotional unavailability, and he had told that person to leave.
The attending looked at him for a long moment, something like pity flickering across her face. “Alright, I'll proceed with your treatment. Please let me know if you change your mind.”
Chishiya closed his eyes and didn't say anything to that comment at all.
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The sound of a chair scraping against the linoleum floor was what woke him up from his drug-fuelled slumber.
For a disoriented moment, he thought he was in the on-call room, that he had somehow fallen asleep during a double shift and someone was waking him for a consult. But the bed was too comfortable, the lighting too dim, and there was an IV in his arm that definitely shouldn't be there.
Memory returned in pieces. The fight. The pain. The taxi. The emergency room.
Don't call anyone.
He opened his eyes slowly, expecting to see a nurse doing morning rounds. Instead, he found Arisu sitting in the visitor's chair beside his bed, arms crossed, expression carved from stone and said, “So this is how you decided to spend the night after telling me to leave, huh…”
“… How did you—”
“The hospital called me.” His partner laughed bitterly. “Apparently when someone's emergency contact is listed in their file, the hospital tends to ignore requests to ‘not call anyone.’ Novel concept, I know.”
Chishiya's throat felt tight. He tried to sit up, but the movement sent a wave of pain through his abdomen that made him wince. Arisu's expression didn't change, though his body shifted a bit on the chair like he was ready to stand up and intervene.
“Don't move too much. The nurse said you have a bleeding ulcer.” The younger man sighed, sounding like he was trying very hard not to show any feelings at all. “They were also very apologetic for calling someone against your wishes, which is… interesting, to say the least, given how we've been living together for eight months now.”
“… I—”
“No, actually, I'm curious.” Arisu leaned forward, eyes sharp despite how red they were. “At what point exactly did I stop being someone worth calling? Was it when I walked out last night? How about before that? Did it happen when we transitioned from being friends-with-benefits to actually dating or did I never qualify to begin with?”
Chishiya turned his head away, staring at the IV bag instead of meeting those brown eyes. The clear fluid dripped steadily, rhythmically, like a metronome counting down the seconds until this conversation destroyed what little remained between them.
“Look at me.”
He didn't want to. Looking at Arisu meant seeing the hurt he had caused, meant confronting the reality that he had become exactly what he feared most — his father, cold and clinical, pushing away anyone who dared to care—
“Shuntarō.” A soft, reluctant sigh. “… Look at me, please.”
He flinched at the way his partner called him — his first name in full, soft and warm yet still carried a touch of scolding in his tone — and forced himself to turn his head slowly, listening to those words.
“There we go. That wasn't so hard, was it?” The brunette smiled, brittle and pained. “Now, I'm going to ask you some questions, and I need you to actually answer me this time instead of deflecting or shutting down or telling me to leave. Can you do that?”
Chishiya nodded, not trusting his voice.
“Do you want me here?”
The question was so simple, so direct, that it bypassed the high, high walls he had built around himself over the years. It was not do you love me or are we okay or any of the other questions he could have dodged with his usual deflection. Instead, it was just a simple do you want me here, which was enough to make him cave and want to beg for forgiveness from the man he loved.
“… Yes,” he whispered.
“Okay. Good. That's a start.” Arisu leaned back in his chair, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. “Now, second question: Do you actually want to break up, or were you just panicking and saying stupid shit because emotions are hard and you default to pushing people away when you're scared?”
Chishiya blinked. That was… surprisingly accurate, actually — uncomfortably so, even.
“… The latter,” he admitted. His voice was wobbling already, which really shouldn't happen, but Arisu was still looking at him with soft, quiet eyes, and that reminded him exactly how they landed here, drowning in fluorescent white. “I… never want to break up with you, and I'm sorry for being the asshole who made you cry.”
“Shun—”
“It made me realize that I was no different than my father, which was ironic considering how I have tried to not be like him.” Chishiya continued, and he couldn't bring himself to look at his partner any further. It hurt to know how he had thoroughly let him down, so he looked down at his own hands instead, letting the shame and the fear and the anger eat him alive.
He was certain that Arisu would leave after this, but he didn't expect the press of Arisu's hand on his back, followed by strong arms wrapping around him and pulling him into a tight, comforting embrace.
“Oh, what am I going to do with you?” The brunette murmured, breath tickling his cheek like feathers brushing on his skin.
“Ryō, I'm serious.” Chishiya tried again, voice tense. “I'm no different than—”
Arisu squeezed his shoulders with a sigh. “Don't,” he said. “Or else I would be very, very mad with you.”
He wisely stayed silent after that.
“You are nothing like your father, Shun.” The younger man pulled back to looked at him, smiling sadly. “And you will never be, not when you're sitting here beating yourself up over hurting me. Your father wouldn't have cared enough to feel guilty.”
“… Ryō, I had told you to leave—”
“And it really hurts, I'm not going to gloss over that fact.” Arisu reached up to brush a strand of hair from Chishiya's forehead before resting his hands on his face, touch gentle despite everything. “However, I'm also not going to ignore how you sat on that couch in our apartment and spiralled so hard you gave yourself a bleeding ulcer. That's not healthy, obviously, and we're going to work on that, but it shows me that you really, really cared about us — which, in itself, means you are nothing like your father at all.”
Something must have cracked wide open in his chest then, because when he blinked his eyes again, tears started to fall and burn hot on his skin.
“I'm sorry for hurting you.” He whispered hoarsely, shaky fingers holding onto his partner's wrists as he sobbed and fumbled clumsily through his words. “I'm so, so sorry, Ryō. I didn't mean any of it, I was just—” His breath hitched. “I was scared that you'd realize I'm not worth the effort and leave first, so I thought if I pushed you away before that happened, it would hurt less, but it just kept going—”
“Hey, breathe.” Arisu sighed, pressing kisses against his cheeks to wipe the tears away. “I've got you. I'm not going anywhere.”
“You should,” Chishiya sniffled. “I'm— I don't know how to be… normal about feelings or relationships or being a decent partner. I just keep fucking it up and—”
“Shun, baby, look at me.” Arisu waited until their eyes met, then gave him a small, gentle smile. “I'm not going to abandon you the moment you mess up, I'm not going to hate you when things between us are difficult, and I will never, ever hurt you or leave you high and dry just because loving you takes effort sometimes.” When Chishiya teared up again at those words, the younger man just sighed and hugged him once more, resting his head against his heart. “So don't punish yourself anymore, and please know that you're always worth it for me, alright?”
That was enough to make everything spring free, and before he could stop himself, he buried his face further into Arisu's warmth and let the pain bleed out of him in waves. His partner, true to his promise, never let him go — just held him tight and stroked his hair and rubbed comforting circles on his back while whispering soft reassurances in his ears like lullaby.
Eventually the tears slowed enough for him to breathe again, and Arisu pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek, asking him if he felt any better than before.
“… Yeah.” Chishiya croaked, sniffling. “… Your hoodie is ruined now.”
“Don't worry about it, doctor. You've got a lifetime subscription to ruining my clothes.” His partner teased gently and kissed the crown of his hair. “Now get some rest for me, okay? I'll be here when you wake up.”
And with that quiet assurance anchoring him, Chishiya finally let go — of the fear, the guilt, and the ache — and drifted into the first peaceful sleep he could ever have in years.