Once Upon a Day
Tokyo state hospital. A busy affair to say the least. Especially for one Dr. Otonashi Yuzuru. Entering the establishment was always something like a chore. The first step, the heaviest. No seriously, it was like someone had suddenly filled his shoes with lead. Always was, always had been. But once in the building, it was suddenly easy. His little sister told him that it probably had something to do with the fact that he hadn't liked hospitals, or entering them, in a previous life.
He always teased her about that. "Previous life? You'd have been a bookworm." There wasn't a moment when she wasn't reading some light novel or something. Seeing her reading always stirred something within Yuzuru. She'd always been sick, with a weak heart condition. It had taken ages to get a donor, but eventually someone had been willing. It had been right at the critical moment, where the next second could have meant death for the little girl. It was a relief to her older brother that it had happened just in time. Not that he ever let on.
It had caused a major change in his character, mind. From the class bum to the A student he now was. He had decided to go into medicine. He had seen the extent of the impact of the help the surgeons gave their patients spread happiness. He had felt it. He had been in a state of euphoria. His whole family had been affected. It was at that moment that he'd felt a desire to share that kind of happiness with others.
His mother, who had given up on him, suddenly had reason to be proud of him. His father, who'd turned him out of the street to work, suddenly clapped him on the shoulder and told him he'd become a man at last. They were never more proud when, at dinner three years ago, he'd come home with the news that he had a job in a great hospital. He never realised how much it was possible to celebrate something. It felt like a week.
"Noda!" the Punch and Judy show. Nakamura Yuri, the head nurse was storming down the corridor, her mauve hair billowing out behind her and her green eyes flashing with indignant rage. "Where is he?"
"I don't know, Yuri san." Yuzuru was uptight, the girl was intimidating.
"Oh, Otonashi kun." She calmed down, smiling. She did that a lot, everyone who wasn't used to it found it creepy. "Good morning."
"Hi. What's Noda done this time?" he tried to sound interested.
"He threatened one of the kids on my ward!" he sighed.
"It's troublesome, I'll admit. I'll talk to the child." She nodded.
Yuzuru was a surgeon, but a general surgeon. He didn't specify between adults and children, so he had access to the entire hospital. That said, he was mostly dedicated to the children's ward. Yuri was head nurse for the same ward, because her mothering instinct peaked around kids and she took excellent care of all of them. She was admired and loved by all the people she treated.
All her hard work, however, was laid to waste by the idiot janitor.
"Noda!" she saw him over Yuzuru's shoulder and went over. "How many times have I said not to tell kids that operations hurt?"
"Yurippe."
"Don't Yurippe me!" she was furious. Time to move away before she noticed the conversation had been interrupted. Noda'd be apologetic and follow the instruction, until he forgot. Which would be fairly soon. And then this whole thing would start all over again.
He walked to the lobby desk. "Anything today, Oyama?"
"Ugh. Lemme check. Otonashi, Otonashi…" the boy's finger jerked on the scroll on the mouse.
"You could just click "Find" you know." The young man blushed.
"I know that! I just didn't think." he argued, doing it anyway. "Otonashi: morning: Heart Transplant for" a list of names and operations. One caught Yuzuru's interest.
"Matsushita?" the secretary nodded.
"As in Matsushita 5-dan." The pair shared a conspiratorial grin. "He broke his arm again."
"He really should give judo a miss every now and again! Well, thanks for that Oyama." He took the printed sheet that was his schedule for the day and went in the direction of the ward. Suddenly delicate piano music sounded from somewhere.
"Otonashi!" Dammit! Yuzuru pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket. That idiot Hinata again! How many times did he have to tell the idiot he called a friend not to call him during work hours? Now he had Fujimaki on his case.
"Otonashi!" the idiot was waving his broom handle at him. "You should know better than to use a phone in the hospital."
"Of course, Fujimaki."
"San! Fujimaki san!"
"I'm sorry." There was just no arguing with this guy, or you got hit with a broom. Noda's partner in crime; the concierge. Though, to be fair to him, Fujimaki was a lot better towards the kids. He just scared the shit out of the doctors. Or at least tried, most were too used to him by now. Otonashi's blatant politesse was enough to get Fujimaki going. He put the broom handle against his shoulder.
"Listen, Otonashi, you're a great doc, and everyone likes you and all, but you don't fool me."
"Sorry to hear that. Now if you'll excuse me, Fujimaki…san." Yuzuru walked away, leaving the concierge fuming. Life at the hospital sure wasn't boring.
After having treated Matsushita: an old friend from high school who kept dislocating his shoulder in his judo matches, and Shiina: an old classmate who had a bad habit of climbing almost everything and then falling off it if a cat happened to pass her by, Otonashi felt like he's accomplished something.
"And don't look at it next time." The girl turned her head to one side.
"It is my sole weakness."
"So you keep saying."
"You know my weakness for cute things."
"Yeh, but I can't hold it against you. Now don't move till your limbs are back in shape, ok?" he left the mummified looking "kunoichi" in the bed and reported quickly to Yusa, Yuri's girl on the ward.
"Keep an eye on her, Yusa." He told her. "She tends to try escaping, though I doubt she could pull it off this time." The blond nodded and wrote something down on a clipboard.
"Thanks." He headed towards the sweet scent of coffee. The doctor's lounge was always calming. There were never too many people around, the coffee was good and it was nice to have a break, even if the likelihood of it getting cut short was always more so than having the full half hour. Yuzuru sat in his favourite chair, the one with a view out the window at the city. It was his favourite because he could see something worth looking at. Something that wasn't the interior of the room. Not that he'd been looking recently.
There was a new doctor around. He didn't know what she specialized in, but her white lab coat and professional air suggested to him that she was a doctor. She was short, platinum blond with intriguing eyes: bright gold. Still not much to say. He didn't know her name, but he knew she was friends with Yuri. Or had been. Yuri had tried to be a doctor, but her grades had meant that she had to go into nursing instead, and she resented the fact that her friend managed it. It wasn't that she was deliberately mean or anything, but it's always hard to pretend to be happy for someone else who managed to do something you've dreamed of your life long and had to settle for second best. All Yuri did was to say that she was busy when the girl tried to start a conversation.
"Otonashi san." Looking up, Yuzuru saw a familiar pair of dark red eyes.
"Naoi, hi." Not that you'd realise from his tone of voice. The younger man dogged him without fail and it was getting annoying. "Sorry, I have an important call to make."
"I can wait."
"No, please, it'll be very boring for you. Family matters."
"Someone who cares about his family! I swear all the doctors in this establishment are arseholes who don't care…excepting yourself Otonashi san." Naoi put up his hands in an I'm-backing-off gesture.
"Err, thanks. Now may I?" the other man sat on the sofa opposite him. "Naoi, please."
"I'll wait for your call to end. You're the only person around who is interesting to talk to." Unfortunately, that is precisely what our hero didn't want.
"Listen, Ayato." Using the guy's first name generally tended to work. "I'm expecting a girl to sit with me. Please?"
"Why?" the other looked affronted.
"Please, man." It was really hard, sometimes, to know if Naoi Ayato was a gay trying to push himself on Yuzuru. "I haven't had a relationship since Yuri, and I to be honest, I think she's trying to get back together. It didn't work last time; I just don't love her, you know. So if I got another, she might find someone else..." he didn't like explaining his social life to anybody, especially not Naoi, but what could he do. And the fact that this was the absolute truth made the other man consider it.
"Alright." He agreed after some time. "Good luck, Otonashi san." He left, and Yuzuru heaved a sigh of relief. Great, now he was back to thinking about Yuri. She'd been devastated when they broke up, but he just couldn't live a lie like that.
"It's Tenshi isn't it!" she had yelled. "Fine! Since she's better than me in every way! Little bitch!" she'd left, crying. This stupid rivalry between them really affected her. And Tenshi didn't seem too happy about it either.
Pulling out his phone, Yuzuru decided to see what Hinata had wanted. The phone rang. A hypnotic sound. Suddenly, Yuzuru wasn't all there, his mind was far away, trailing in an unknown void while the buzzing ring counted.
"Otonashi!" a voice yelled from the other end, in welcome, for once, not abuse.
"Hinata. How many times do I have to tell you not to ring during work hours! It's not an easy ride for everyone you know."
"Dick! It's not fun and games for sportsmen either. Anyway, I'm gonna have to give it up."
"What? But you love baseball."
"Yeah, well, I need to talk to you about that. Can we meet at the bar later?"
"Tell me now."
"Nah! You'll get cut off right at the good part. Meet me at Maneki Neko bar at half seven, ok?"
"Fine, as long as i don't regret it."
"You won't."
"Fine, see you then. Bye."
"Bye mate." The line shut dead. What the hell was his best friend thinking? Giving up his steady career as a pro baseballer...for what? He didn't even know that. He checked his watch. It was nearing 11 o'clock. He'd have eight beautiful hours of work ahead before this mystery sorted itself out. Fantastic.
Getting up, Yuzuru left the lounge.
"Otonashi san!" Naoi again!
"Summoned to an operation. See you Naoi."
"Checkmate." Said the man opposite the younger doctor, moving the white pawn. "Takeyama, up for a game?"
"I keep telling you, my nickname's Christ!"
"Blasphemy at its best. You playing chess?"
"Fine."
A doctor's schedule is never easy going. There's always some emergency that can slip into a priority slot without a moment's notice. But for once, Yuzuru wasn't subjected to any emergency transplants and the ward was running smoothly, even with Fujimaki hanging around.
Yet for an uneventful day, Yuzuru's mind was buzzing. That phone call had stirred him up. Walking past the local street performer and throwing him a tip of five yen as usual, Yuzuru walked on. He never really bothered with street performers, but this guy was just so weird, dancing away like a nervous tick. There wasn't any music, just this guy twitching around and muttering the odd English phrase.
"TK let's go!" someone yelled, grabbing the dancer by the wrist and pulling him off.
"Everybody needs somebody to love." The usual blathering nonsense. No one knew where this guy came from, but one thing was for sure, he wasn't local. Or if he was, he was doing a good job of showing he wasn't.
No time to wonder at the usual mystery of the shady TK's origins. Yuzuru pushed the door of the Maneki Neko bar open and went to find a seat. It was his usual booth. The one in the far corner away from the bar, and the mad barman, a middle aged man named Cha, who threw angry fits every now and again, especially when he was drunk and Yuzuru was in sight.
"The bastard who broke Yurippe's heart!" he'd yell coming over to start a fight. Technically that statement was both true and false. True, he had broken up with Yuri, but he had done it in the most gentle way possible and left the solution up to her. They could tell him he had no taste in women, as they often did, and they could tell him he was an idiot, but one thing they could not do was shake off his feeling that she deserved someone better. He knew who he wanted and he couldn't help but feel guilty that it wasn't Yuri. She had to understand that.
"Hey!" looking up to find a mop of blue hair and bright blue eyes, Yuzuru looked upon the face of his best and most trusted friend.
"Hinata. What the hell are you up to? You know I'm now worried sick about what you're up to?"
"You're worried about me? Are you?" Hinata put a hand up to his cheek and averted his eyes.
"Most certainly am not! Dead straight." The old joke never got old between them. "Anyway, my question first."
"Fine, fine, Christ."
"No he doesn't go to the bar."
"Oh, that brat's still hanging around?"
"Hinata, answer a simple question. What are you playing at?"
"Ok ok, jokes aside. How long have we known each other?"
"Since high school, that makes nearly 10 years. God that's ages. I might just wonder at our straightness."
Hinata chuckled. "Long enough for you to consider us close friends."
"You're really trying to freak me, aren't you?"
"Listen, you know my girlfriend?"
"The one you've been dating since I started uni, how was the concert?"
"Well, she enjoyed it. And she has every reason to; Girls Dead Monster are really something is this modern age of random crap."
"They're high in the popcharts."
"Forget the popcharts!" Hinata sounded angry. "That's not what I'm here to talk about."
"Well get to the point!"
"Fine! How would you like to be my best man." There was a silence broken only by the other customers that were frequenting the bar at that moment in time.
"What?" Yuzuru asked when he processed and reprocessed the proposal. "Best man? You're..."
"Marrying Yui, yeah."
"But she's..."
"I know she's quadriplegic. Still! I made up my mind."
"Well, you've known her for ages and dated her for a long while too."
"Yep, I don't think it could have been the same with any other girl, you know?"
"No...well maybe." The thought of a short woman with platinum blond hair and gold eyes flashed into his mind. "Alright then." Hinata grinned. He clapped his best friend on the shoulder.
"Thanks Otonashi. Let me buy you a beer. We'll drink to love."
"To love."