distance
Fruits Basket is a registered trademark and copyright of Natsuki Takaya. The author had taken the liberty to write but not to make profit or any other suicidal attempt.
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"Ah!" Tohru Honda fell, hard landing with one knee first, immideately Arisa Uotani and Saki Hanajima looked over their shoulders to find their perciouis friend kneeling, bending one knee, and holding her patella. She was only looking at the deep swollen cut with blood flowing like a river, with a little surprise and a fake confused face, but the feeling of hurt in the corner of her eyes couldn't be hidden from the two friends.
Tohru titled her chin upwards; her glance turned into a comforting gaze. Not knowing that she was the one to be comforted, she smiled, "It's alright just a little scratch."
"Scratch my ass!!" The so-called yankee's voice roared through the field. Soon after, all students who were having physical educations turned their glances towards the source. "You're bleeding, idiot! I can see your flesh from this distance, you baka!!"
"Uo-chan," Tohru looked, eyes widening, eyebrows arching, not because the harsh words her friend had threw her, but because the worried expressions she only could read; and then she said again, the face turned into a thankful expression of a friend's care. "Thank you, but I---"
"Another but and I'll really punch you away to the ward, by force!" She stormed again when Tohru wanted to open her mouth for another protest. "Now, I'm GOING to drag you!"
Tohru felt herself was so light when Arisa lifted her like a pillow, having her resting her hands at her shoulders, she looked at the dumbfounded teacher, more than 10 meters away and yelled. "Sensei! Honda Tohru is sick!! I'm bringing her to the medical office!"
"Hai!" A slow answer from the teacher, just after the girls were both far away from his sight. "Take care."
***
"Hum, it seems that the teacher isn't here yet."
"Uo-chan, I think I can walk for myself." Tohru cut's her friend's comment, head was still on her shoder, but voice filled with a cheerful and calm voice, making sure that her friend bought her acts.
Air of annoyance escaped from her friend's nose while she sat Tohru in the nearby divan. "Yes, yes, of course you can. You and your stupid senseless nerves."
"Eh? What does that mean?"
Again, Arisa sighed in desperation as she started to talk again, but she was not allowed to speak one word when the sound of a sliding door passed smoothly through the line. "Anybody here?"
"Sensei," Arisa walked through the white spotless curtain, seperating every divan in the ward. With only a barrier of a white material, she heard the conversations went on.
"Oh, hurt?" A polite soprano voice of an adult questioning.
"Yeah, I think it's bad, need to be sewed, I guess." Uo-chan's voice. Tohru smiled, sometimes she felt that she was so useless that she could make a strong girl like Uo-chan and Hana-chan worried. But in order to pay back their serious attentions and thoughts, she too tried hard as she could, making them happy with her own happiness.
"Well, I'll take a look at it."
"Please."
"..."
"..."
Huh? Silence?
"I presume you still have a lesson to catch." The school doctor's voice said, breaking the silence. "Why don't you go there and catch before you miss so much. I'll be handling your friend right here."
Another mute answer from Uo-chan. While there's a silent laugh from the doctor. "You know, teachers don't eat their students. Why don't you learn to trust your friend a little?"
"All right" was a single reply from the ex-gangster. "Oi, I'm leaving." Arisa's footsteps were rather slow than usual, as the sliding door to rolled quietly without a sound. Tohru almost could feel her friend's curious gaze to the school doctor.
"Now, my first patient." The curtain was uncovered by a light skinned hands and that time Tohru saw a pair of beatiful dark lavender eyes, talking to her to be eased and not to fear her presence. Her face was far too familiar, no not in the magazine or tv, it meant that she had met this female doctor somewhere. But her instinct also said that she hadn't met her at any place she could remember. "Your name?"
"Ah!" Tohru's voice went high for a second because of surprise. "Honda Tohru, class 1-D."
"Well, Honda-san. It's nice for having a female patient at the first time." She smiled, taking a place to stand just in front of her. Her looks at her not like a teacher who was watching at her student. But more like a mother who was looking at her only daughter that she just had.
Her mother or father's friend? She rarely saw them... but she must had seen her, somehow, somewhere.
"Eh?" The surprise more like finding something that didn't belong them, the doctor kneeled in front of her kneecap. "Oh my, your friend's right. You really need some sewing here. It's deep wound, dear."
"Eh... you mean?" Tohru's thought's distracted when she heard the female doctor's comment.
"Yes, I'm going to sew you here."
"Here? I mean..." Her brownish puppils withened in fear and worry. "I mean... do you have the tools... Can you do it here? Not in the hospital? No, I not mean to hurt your feelings. No, mother told me not to doubt other people's... but, ah..."
"You know it's not common for a new school doctor to sew her student in the school ward, but... at this rate you cannot do anything else, can you? I have some tools in my case, I can just drug the place near your wound, clean it, and only do... maybe 2... enough to close the wounds for a while. When you can home, you can go to a doctor you know and he or she will do the complete thing." She said calmly, hands patting her student's femur, relaxing her.
"Uh...um." Tohru nodded and she smiled back.
A girl she saw in the market? No, she must be better than that if her face stuck in Tohru's mind this clearly.
"You won't feel a thing."
Yes, she didn't feel a thing, but a little pinch. A shot of liquids passing through the needle, piercing her skin and running through her veins. Cold water pressing the flesh of her meat; thread and needle passing through the surface of her body, fastening it. While the main question still echoed in her mind, *who is she? where did I she see her?*
"You're a new teacher, sensei?" Tohru said when the doctor clapped her both hands, looking satisfied with her new and first masterpiece.
"Oh yes, Honda-san." Cleaning the little operation tools, she answered. "Just have been transfered this morning, because your previous medical teacher's pregnant." A light chuckle. "Lucky her. I'm replacing her until she returned... but who knows... I will be here a little longer."
"Oh..." A single mumur from Honda's lips. Still, the one query yet hadn't been answered. "Um, sensei! Do you mind if I you told me your name?"
"Of course not. I'm the one who not introducing myself from the beginning. What a teacher am I, huh?" A louder giggle from the doctor, taking a sit beside Tohru. "Sohma Kana, nice to meet you."
Thunderbolt blasted through her head with a speed of light, she felt like the secrets of nature was just revealed before her. Sohma Kana, of course! She could be some slowpoke somehow, the answer was nearer than she thought. Baka! Baka! She was baka! She hit his head repeatedly.
"Are you alright, Honda-san?"
"Ah! Yes!" Tohru answered quickly, too quickly, she realized when she saw another confused glance from the adult female. "I mean... I'm okay. I just remembered why I've seen you somewhere... I mean!" Tohru quickly closed her mouth with her both hands. Sohma Kana supposed to forgot all she had with the other Sohma.
"You have met me?" Now the doctor asked questions. "Where did you remember you had seen me before, Honda-san? I mean, I can forget thing easily these days, sorry if I forgot anything about you."
"No, no, sensei! I... saw you... in..." An answer! Pick a reasonable answer! Hurry! The little voice in her mind screamed so quickly and panicked, she muttered. "In... the... park?"
Lame answer, while Sohma Kana arching her eyebrows more, totally confused. "Park?"
"I think I saw someone who look like you! Same face! Maybe, it's just a coincidence! Hahahahaha---" Tohru continued her nervous laugh until the edge of the doctor's lips raised.
"I see. So, the world's so small after all."
"Ahahahahaha..."
"Don't forget to go to the doctor as soon as you come home. Do you know some doctor around you who can fix the wound?"
An image of a man flashed through her eyes. Well, not around here... but she knew a really good doctor, also the cause of her sudden anxiety. She gulped, making herself comfortable with the heavy thing run through her throat. "Yes, I do know a quite good doctor."
***
"That's 4 at your knee. Don't move your legs often for a couple of days, maybe until a week." Cold voice of Sohma Hatori commented dryly. "Change the bandages every day. Use the salve two times a day. Drink the antibiotics, 3 times a day, after eating, and if you have fever, drink this tablet."
"Ah yes, Than you very much, Hatori-san." Tohru nodded.
"Hmph, a horde of phone calls in the afternoon, for a girl who isn't a member of a Sohma family." He said sarcastically to grinning Shigure, pretend-not-knowing Kyou and a look-which-cannot-be-described from Yuki, while the girl who was making all these confusions was in confusion by herself. Worried, grateful, nervousness, and speechless were mixing into one thing, held in her throat.
"I'm sorry for causing you trouble, Hatori-san." At last a sentence was told.
"No need to." Hatori replied her words emotionlessly. "Thank your medical teacher, making first aid you to prevent the complication of your wound. Although, I was confused myself finding a school medical teacher performing that in the place that have limitation. I didn't reccomend it even though I did say it was a good job."
"Ah! That's..." Her voice was stuck in the passage to her lungs. "I mean... well," She was now uncomfortable with all the eyes watching over her and she suddenly laughed. "I was her first patient! Maybe if I told her your comments, she would be flattered! Ahahahaha-"
Hatori's eyes narrowed as the following shocked shoutings escaped from the other Sohmas' lips. Before she knew it, Kyou's rantings ran through the room.
"What kind a teacher is she?! She hasn't even have a patient when she suddenly want to what--!? Sew your knee like that!! Taking as a what!? Guinea pig!?"
And Shigure's voice trailed. "Um.. guinea pig's rather sarcastic for Tohru-kun I see. But I do agree with Kyou-kun's opinion for a while... ::sigh:: sewing a first patient, moreover, a high school girl."
As Yuki's concerned voice asked. "Honda-san, are you---"
Another laugh of Tohru they oftenly heard when Tohru didn't want other people to worry her. "I'm all right! Perfectly fine! She's a beatiful person and kind! I wasn't nervous when she told me she wanted to sew me... not a perfect lie. I'm scared for a while, but it's all right! She knew what she's doing and she was being nice to me... ahahahahahahaha----"
"As long as what she's done is right, I have no complaints." Hatori soon remarked, taking all his case. His hair revealed his left eye from his slumber when she saw him collecting his bellongings. "Well, I see you in a week, after your wound's dry. Take care of yourself until then."
"I can't!" Tohru thought's screaming in her curly grayish curves of brain when she saw Hatori bowed and walked away. "I need to tell him this but I can't! No, he had been in a lot of trouble with his past life, if I told him about Sohma-sensei (mentioning Kana) in front of everybody here, he would be in trouble again! But what if the past's scar reopened if I told Hatori-san!? Ah, but if I don't tell him... I! I can't! What should I do!?"
"Tohru-kun? Why are you making faces like that?"
"Huh?" Shigure's voice snapping her, taking her from the deep currents of her own confusion and helping her surfaced. "Ah... err... I mean... I forgot to tell something to Hatori-san."
"?" All eyes gazing to Tohru then to Hatori that almost closed the fusuma before leaving Shigure's house.
"What is it?" Hatori's cold tone asking as if he was caught making a mistake in his medication receipts.
"Aaa... ano..." Tohru pupils are widening and narrowing both with all the sudden mixing emotions of embarassment, distressed, bewilderment and anger to herself while she was searching for a propper words. "Err... I need... to talk with him alone?"
"Well, anything you can talk with Ha-san can be spoken in front of all of us, Tohru-kun... if..."
"I'm sorry, Shigure-san." Tohru's bowed, almost displeased with her own attempt to cut the older man she respected so much. "I don't mean to make you uncomfortable, but I really need to talk with Hatori-san alone."
Shigure received the pleading glance from the little girl, with the deep apologize and regret; he shook his head in defeat. "Ah, well, let Tohru-kun talk to Ha-san a while, shall we go, Yuki-kun, Kyou-kun?"
Shigure went first, Kyou followed with serveral wisphers of "women, they're all the same, hmph!", while Tohru in the other hand knew that he didn't understand the meaning of his words himself. At the other end, Yuki looked at Hatori with a threatening gaze of if-you-lay-your-hands-on-her-I-will-make-sure-that-you-will-loose-your-right-eye-as-well and walked away, following his cousins, closing the door behind him.
(Insert cricket's sound)
"So, what do you want to talk?"
Tohru eyed Hatori nervously, her face's redened at the sudden thought what would she say to him, and the mistakes that would be happen if she did or she didn't. "Ano, thank you, Hatori-san?"
"You were not asking them to leave just to say that, were you?"
"Ah, no!" She bit her lower lip, knuckles went white as the grip into the blanket tightened, trying to relaxing all the sudden bloodrush coming to her mind. "I don't know if I can tell you this, Hatori-san... But I think you need to know. No, not an obligation. But before you hear it as a surprise from Yuki or Kyou, or the others... ah... I... am.. sorry to make you in trouble."
"Just tell me the point."
"Oh, ano... the new doctor... the one that I told you... um... I'd seen her somewhere before I met her this morning... Err, I didn't remember until she told me her name..."
"And?" Clearly, Tohru could hear that Hatori's voice covered with annoyance. He couldn't be blamed; she spoke slowly and her voice more like wisphers of wind than a report.
"Ano... her name's Sohma Kana..." Tohru stopped for a while to see Hatori's reaction, but she saw neither a positive or negative reaction from him as she had predicted before. She thought he hadn't heard it before and added, "She really looks like the woman in the photo you had in your room. I saw her before there..."
"Oh." Single answer from the man, face didn't show any changing and lips were performing a great straight 180 degrees horizontal line as. "So, you just wanted to tell me that."
"Y-yes." Now, Tohru felt like she was the dumbest living human creature ever beneath the earth atmosphere.
"Thank you for telling me." Hatori said, but his voice had no grateful at all, like he had received a news of the next day's weather forecast. "But her and I, now walking in a very different path. I don't have anything to do with her life, neither does she."
Tohru eyes' widened, in surprise as well in total puzzlement.
He stood. "Don't forget the capsules and tablets." When he turned his back just to say that, he found Tohru, hands covering his eyes and transparents drops of liquids flowing from her eyes, hands and chin. His lips were glued for a while; the soil had captured his feet kept in the place. "Why are you crying?"
"No, I do understand Hatori's sayings." She choked between her tears. "What I don't understand is... why you can say all those thing after all you've been through? I... don't understand... why? Why you can say such a cruel thing at her? I thought... you wanted to speak few words for her, see her... and..." Her eyes coughed the tears again. "I'm sorry... I'm so stupid... I don't even know the feeling of love just yet... I dare myself to do that...
"I'm sorry, Hatori-san. I'm so sorry..."
Hatori made no attempt seeing her releasing all her cheerful mask to a weak emotion... for him... for his love to Sohma Kana. Wasn't it laughable?
"Well," Tohru brushed the hands of her pastel pajamas, cleaning the tears. "I gues I'll be seeing you, next time, Hatori-san. I'm terribly sorry of what had happened." Then, Tohru bended her back, bowing to him, performing polite greetings.
"Ah, yes... no need to." He bowed back, fighting all the soil's hands to his feet, he walked to the fusama, opened, and closed it carefully, releasing a deep breath, trying to relax himself, but didn't last long as he found three pairs of eyes looking intensely at him. One with unreadable emotion, one with fury and one with the same threat he had given him before he left.
"She just need a rest." At last he said. "Don't bother her to do house works."
***
*Why I'm doing this at the first time? Oh yeah, because the girl... Damn that girl playing people as easy as turning your neck to the left. She's even as good as Akito in this.*
Dust flying, sound of a silent break and the wheels followed the leader's command, their in the driver's seat. While the driver rested his back at the uncomfortable chair, sighing.
"Huh?" from the other place, two floors above, a certain boy with orange hair eyed the scenery in front of his sharp red eyes.
"What you're doing, bakaneko? You should be paying attention to the teacher." His cousin, gray haired, pale skinned boy looking hatefully to the boy sit beside him. The fact that the new chairs had been decided by the homeroom teacher didn't please them very well, because... they had to sit side to side.
"No, I thought I saw Hatori's car."
"You start seeing things. Better check your eyes, tomorrow."
"What!?" He suddenly stood, ignoring the reality that they were in the homeroom, studying. "Are you threating me, kusonezumi!?"
"No, I just gave you a suggestion."
"Why you---"
Hatori glanced to the window two stairs above them. The cat's voice sure was loud enough to reach the place he were, and the sudden riot, a new fight had just begun. He shook his head, cursing that he was so stupid to fall into a girl's tears trap and brought himself here, well... Tohru and Shigure's plan was just asking permission from the headmaster for Tohru Honda, not able to follow the lessons for the rest of the week, while in the other hand he knew very well that it was a trap for him to *meet* and *talk* the new female doctor.
*Stupid dogs, didn't know what they are doing* He was very aware of his sudden change in language, but he kept it perfectly fine in front of the bald headmaster who were raising his almost missing eyebrows.
"Well, of course Honda-san can take a couple of days for rest, remembering this is the first time she had been absent in the whole year. But it surprises me to find a private doctor deliver his own patient's letter to the school. I guess the era had changed..."
The era hadn't been changed. He left the headmister's office with a short bow and walked along through the corridor. You can't understand what dogs have in their little stupid brain. As if his eyes were hypnotized when he caught a glimpse of *meddical ward*, he stopped.
*Stupid dogs and their little games.*
Well, maybe some part of his heart trembling with delight and anxiety, but the greater one was regret and fear. But again, he knew what he was doing... this was the very last... the very last to the very last. Just for a while, not for fulfilling his desire, that was enough. They can't be together anyway... well, that's rather harsh.
He stood in front of the door of the medical ward, checking the panel above him repeatedly, raising his hands to knock, but it took a long time to her just to tap the door a few times and get---
"Hatori-san?"
He froze, from the bottom of his ankle to the top of his hair, the blood in his veins changed into solid ice and his heart stopped pumping.
"Yes, you are Hatori-san. It's been a long time, how are you?" She smiled.
He didn't know how to counter it, the only option who was still standing in his mind was looking away from her gaze. "Yes, I'm fine, thank you."
She didn't see his alarmed eyes, just stepping one step to the right and she had her eyes meeting with his again.Such a innocent eyes, as if they had never held hands, had never kissed... had never shareed the deepest secret of his. "Fancy to meet my ex-tutor in here."
*Of course she doesn't know everything about those times*, his mind again reminded him, *You had erased her memories.* "My patient told me to come here, asking the headmaster for a few days rest."
"Patient?" Lavender gleamed with curiosity.
"Yes, Honda Tohru. I guess you've meet her." His eyes stirred, shaking of a sudden urge floating from the core of his emotions. *Sohma Hatori, you're better than this.* Small childish voice coming from it.
"Oh, Honda-san." She smiled, purple jewels shining with a sudden excitement. "Yes, so you're the *good doctor* she said before. Ah, I should have known."
*Good doctor, huh?* "Your first aid was very well although it's not wise for you to do that again in the boundaries of our Ethic Codes in this place. You're handling students with minimal tools, I presume." *Go before you do something stupid. Remember Akito, A-K-I-T-O!* His mind again now replaying all the obscene scenes in the past. *See, you'll make things worse.*
*But---* *Shut up!* He closed both his eyes.
She smiled, her back straightening. "Thank you, I take that as a compliments from my ex tutor. Care for a cup of tea?"
"I guess I'm in a hurry." He looked as his wristwatch. "I have another patient."
"Oh, okay." Disappointment, he saw it.
"I have to excuse myself, doctor."
Her face flushed, ten shades redder than the usual, just because a simple title, *doctor*. "Uh, yes. I guess I'll be seeing you next time, doctor."
"Farewell." He bowed. He shook his head again, for the second time in this morning. He closed his eyes, smiling, as the distance between to his past lover grew.
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end (lame ending, yeah, I know)