.
no rest for the
Sunday, mid-afternoon in November. The streets of the city were dull, grey in anticipation of the coming winter. Together with my partner, I finally cornered the dopant, its...
"Oh, what the hell," Shoutarou said, when the Stagphone did an insistent dive-bomb next to his ear. He really needed to talk with Phillip about getting the phone to automatically disable this function in a fight, because it was handy when he didn't want to get off the couch, and significantly less so when they were in the middle of something important, for reasons up to and including the fact that after a year, he still didn't know what Phillip would take as a distraction. (It was also somewhat inconvenient when he forgot and left his phone up in the office while he went to the workshop, because Phillip had neglected to program recognition of 'walls' and 'doors' into the Stagphone's AI, but at least the hats kind of hid the impact craters.)
He'd accidentally grabbed Phillip's in his hurry to get out of the office, which would ordinarily not be a problem, except Akiko had somehow persuaded Phillip to programme Morning Musume's latest single as his ringtone. "Phillip, do you know what she's calling us about?" Shoutarou said, waving the gadget away.
"Nothing important," Phillip told him blandly, Luna's arm reaching out to trip the dopant as it tried to sneak away during the confusion afforded by warbling teenage girls. The phone buzzed an irritable circle around his head.
"If you're going to keep hanging around here, at least make yourself useful," Shoutarou muttered, plucking the gadget out of the air and jamming Heat Memory into its port.
When the smoke cleared, Stagphone was crawling towards his foot. It spat the Gaia Memory out accusingly, ringtone looping into the chorus. Sighing, Shoutarou pulled the belt off and picked the gadget up.
"What," he said.
"Nothing important," Phillip told him, through the speaker this time. Shoutarou thought he could hear Akiko shrieking in the background before the call cut to an abrupt dialtone.
"WHAT," he said again.
Hauling the guy off the roof (one day, he really had to ask what it was with them and roofs) and leaving the police an anonymous tip took him a good half an hour, his phone remaining silent throughout.
For some reason, there was a 'closed' sign on the door when he pulled up in front of the office. Shoutarou shrugged and headed in, where he was greeted by the sight of Phillip lying on the couch. For some other reason, Phillip's parka was in a crumpled heap on the table, and Akiko was leaning over him.
"Uh," Shoutarou said, raising an eyebrow. "Should I - "
"Shoutarou," Phillip said.
"HE FELL OVER THE RAILING," Akiko said, which explained the stripping, except for the part where it didn't.
"Why were you... no, don't answer that."
"And then I couldn't get him to wake up!" Akiko continued.
"...we'd be in more trouble if - nevermind. You... couldn't have called 119?" Shoutarou said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Phillip-kun wouldn't let me," Akiko said. "Because he doesn't have insurance." The glare she leveled at him suggested that this was somehow entirely Shoutarou's fault, and not, in fact, the result of multiple factors up to and including Phillip being a wanted man who did not actually exist in the national registry.
"He - ...forget it. Phillip, you doing okay?"
"Fine," Phillip said. He looked like he always did, skinny and pale and taller than was strictly fair for someone who spent most of his time in a garage and barely remembered to eat.
"Great. Any concussion?"
"No," Phillip said.
"Broken bones?"
"Just one," Phillip said.
"That's good, next time just remember to WHAT."
The look on Phillip's face suggested that he didn't know why Shoutarou was raising his voice when he was the one who asked the question in the first place. The look on Akiko's face suggested that she was seconds away from raising her voice herself. Not that he didn't sympathise, but their building was in the residential district. He took a deep breath.
"What did you - PUT THAT DOWN," Shoutarou said, as Phillip gingerly raised his right arm. "I - You could have - this is your idea of 'nothing important'?"
"I've already researched everything about bone injuries," Phillip said, sounding as calm as usual, not that he was an appropriate emotional barometer for, oh, anything. "It's no longer of interest."
"Of course it's of interest," Shoutarou snapped. "Just try looking up 'bone sepsis' - no, no, stop," he said, when Phillip closed his eyes. "Don't actually look it up - "
The look Phillip leveled him was a little put out, but the most worrying thing was that he actually obeyed. Shoutarou pinched the bridge of his nose again and headed for the kitchen cabinet. He shook out two headache pills, then another one as an afterthought, swallowing it dry. Phillip accepted the pills and the glass of water that Akiko poured him without protest, although there was still something mutinous about the expression on his face.
"Just - stay there and... don't break anything else," Shoutarou said, after Phillip drank the whole glass at Akiko's urging. He palmed his phone and retreated to Phillip's workshop for a semblance of privacy. He liked the place well enough, really; it was cooler and quieter than the office, and also, now that he thought about it, full of edges and gaps that were entirely unsuitable for a person who made passing out a part of his job description. Shoutarou sighed, flipping the phone open. The hospital was out, and so was Jin-san, because there was... probably technically nothing illegal about stashing - harbouring a teenager in a garage for a year, but it was still more than he wanted to explain, which left -
"I have a very busy schedule, you know," Watcherman said with a hint of reproach.
"Take your fetish blog photos later," Shoutarou told him. "I need a doctor, fast."
"It's art," he protested, wounded. "A doctor?"
"A doctor," Shoutarou said. "Someone who won't ask too many questions."
"Shou-chan, did you knock somebody up?" Watcherman said dubiously. "Because, you know, it's not that I - "
Shoutarou hung up.
At least, he thought, dialing another string of numbers with more force than strictly necessary, Santa-chan was a better listener and usually reliable, even if he liked to show it in funny ways.
"Shou-chan, did you - "
"I DID NOT KNOCK ANYBODY UP," Shoutarou bellowed into the receiver.
"That's not what I was going to say," Santa-chan told him, the carefully injured note in his voice suggesting the exact opposite.
"A doctor," he repeated firmly.
"For the ulcer that you're going to get?"
Shoutarou hung up.
He scrubbed a hand hard over his face and sighed. The garage didn't have anything resembling proper ventilation, and was uncomfortable in the summer and froze in the winter, not that Phillip really complained. Without the constant squeak of Phillip's marker running across the whiteboards, silence rang in his ears. It was a tossup as to which was more annoying, but his phone started buzzing a few long minutes later, making it hard to consider the matter anyway. Shoutarou looked down at the name blinking on the screen, half-tempted to cancel the call.
"Santa has a present for you," Santa-chan told him cheerfully when he raised the phone to his ear, which almost made him regret his decision. "Even though he knows you've been naughty."
"That was extremely creepy," Shoutarou said. "Never say that again."
"And after all the trouble I went to," Santa-chan said, not put off in the slightest.
"You found one?"
"I told her that you came to Japan in search of the lover that you met in Bulgaria," Santa-chan said. "And that you shelter orphans in your free time, in between rescuing puppies and giving blood. She's very sympathetic. I'll mail you the address, so just head over there and... look deportable."
Shoutarou opened his mouth. Then he closed it. Then he opened his mouth again.
"I... don't even like dogs," he said finally.
"Try not to tell her that," Santa-chan advised.
For a moment, he considered asking Santa-chan how exactly any of that was supposed to help, but he decided against it, because there was always the risk that Santa-chan would actually tell him.
"...thanks," he muttered, instead.
"Merry Christmas," said Santa-chan graciously.
Shoutarou snapped the Stagphone shut and dropped it into a pocket, then sighed and unhooked his hat from his belt.
"Come on," he said, walking back into the office. "We're going to the doctor."
"You found one?"
"It's not interfering with my research," Phillip said. "Simple fractures are seldom - "
"Bone. Sepsis." Shoutarou said sharply, balling Phillip's parka up and throwing it at Akiko. She caught it with a shriek of outrage before it could hit her in the face, by which time he was already halfway out the office to flag them a taxi. Phillip had pulled his hood up, low over his eyes, before he walked out; as disguises went, it was quick, simple, and mostly ineffectual.
The taxi dropped them in the middle of a row of shophouses, in the old part of town, the tip of Fuuto Tower just barely peeking out over the low roofs. He checked Santa-chan's mail, scanning through the street's unit numbers at the same time, all of them faded and arranged by whimsy.
"68," he muttered. "75... 62..."
"I think it's here, Shoutarou-kun," Akiko interrupted, because apparently nobody had ever taught her not to read someone else's mail. "But are you sure..."
He looked up at the sign Akiko was pointing to, down at the screen, then up at the sign again. It continued to say 'Takahashi Animal Clinic' in blocky kanji, framed on either side by a pair of crossbones, because the sign-maker had apparently been overenthusiastic and/or possessed of a defective sense of irony.
Shoutarou jammed the call history button with a vengeance.
"Season's tidings, how - "
"Santa-chan," he hissed furiously. "You sent me to a VET."
"Relax, Shou-chan," Santa-chan said. "I mean, we share like, 75% of our DNA with dogs. And 50% with a banana," he added, which was neither reassuring nor what Shoutarou wanted to hear. At the corner of his eye, he could see Akiko hovering over Phillip with a worried air.
"A vet!"
"She's very good," Santa-chan told him reassuringly. "She cleared up Pochi's fleas in no time!"
"I need a doctor!"
"They all take that... what's it, Hypocritic Oath anyway," Santa-chan said dismissively. "Now excuse me, I have joy to spread."
"I CAN'T - " Shoutarou yelled at the dialtone, before the clinic door opened with a faint jingle and a young-looking attendant in a labcoat poked her head into the street.
"Hidari Shoutarou-sama?" she said. "You can come in now."
"I really can't," he said, with complete sincerity, but she ignored him, keeping the door open with an expectant air. In the end, Phillip shrugged in a way that suggested he thought people were making a lot of unnecessary fuss, although the effect was spoiled by the way he winced and dropped his shoulder a second later. He walked inside, leaving them without much choice but to file in after him.
The inside of the office was clean and white-tiled, plastic chairs lining a neat row opposite the counter. In fact, it wasn't really that different from a regular waiting room if you just ignored the giant poster on heartworm prevention hanging from one wall, Shoutarou thought unconvincingly. The attendant lead them to one of the examination rooms, Akiko bowing politely to the vet inside, a short-haired woman wearing a professional-looking surgical apron in lieu of a labcoat.
"You don't look very Bulgarian," she noted, as the door swung shut behind them with a soft click. "So, what seems to be the problem?"
Everything with my life, Shoutarou thought, with only a little self-pity, all of it completely justified.
"His arm - " Akiko said, pushing Phillip forward. The vet didn't seem surprised or concerned to be presented with a patient distinctly out of her specialty, just pulled her mask over her face and carefully rolled Phillip's sleeve up. The skin underneath was swollen-looking and an unattractive shade of purple-red. Shoutarou hissed a short breath through his teeth.
"That is a problem," she agreed, disappearing behind a shelf and reappearing with a syringe in hand. "Let's see if we can't do anything about it."
Akiko made a small noise of distress when the vet cracked open a new needle, expertly screwing the plastic together. Phillip just turned his arm, calm and practiced, like he was offering a vein; the sight of the needle disappearing under his skin didn't disturb Shoutarou, but the way Phillip stared at it unblinkingly did, and he looked aside.
"All right," the vet said, thumbing the tip off and dropping it into a sharps bin. She tolerated everybody trailing through the back door, tile giving way to bare concrete and the heavy whir of ventilation fans, but drew a line at the X-Ray room, leaving Shoutarou and Akiko to stare at the radioactivity warning label stuck outside.
The back room was filled with businesslike equipment and ominously empty cages, although if he thought about it, that was preferable to them being actually occupied. He leaned against a wall, while Akiko sat on the edge of what looked like an industrial-grade weighing scale, until she caught him looking significantly at the digital display above her head. She shot to her feet with indignation, one hand already reaching into her messenger bag. The threat of violence was only forestalled when the door to the X-Ray room swung open.
"A slight fracture," the vet announced, walking out. "We'll put a cast on just in case, but it's nothing to worry about."
Akiko sagged with relief, while Phillip looked vindicated.
"You're not allowed to self-diagnose until you can remember basic nutrition," Shoutarou told Phillip, to get the smug expression off his face.
He left Akiko to handle the cast and headed back to the reception to handle the petty matters of payment and not providing relevant documents. The assistant was already stacking boxes of pills neatly on the counter, tagging each box with dosage instructions.
"Painkillers," she said. "Two pills twice a day, after food. You can try hiding them in some cheese if he doesn't want to swallow them," she added cheerfully.
Shoutarou accepted the cardboard boxes, but frowned uncertainly at the plastic cone she pushed at him along with the pills. Breathing aid? ...funnel? It... wasn't like Phillip couldn't aim with his other hand -
"In case he tries to bite the cast," she told him.
"Oh," Shoutarou said, neither relieved nor enlightened.
Akiko and Phillip reappeared ten minutes later, Phillip's arm wrapped in bright blue fibreglass from wrist to elbow, his sleeve bunching up messily above the cast. The sling had apparently been dubbed a nuisance and swung uselessly around his neck; Shoutarou could already foresee losing several arguments about it.
"It should be ready to come off in two weeks," she said. Akiko bowed again, and the vet disappeared back into the examination room. Shoutarou tipped his hat to the assistant and plucked the plastic cone out of Phillip's curious hand.
"Not in public," he said, when Phillip leveled him an unimpressed frown, and ushered them to the exit.
"Come on," Akiko said, pushing the door open and waving Phillip over. "I'll sign your cast when we get back."
"I know about that custom," Phillip mumbled vaguely, looking tired and young. He hovered close to Shoutarou's shoulder as they stepped out to the street, the wind suddenly chill as the sun slipped lower, sky already darkening with the early winter night. One of his clips had worked itself loose and dangled painfully next to his ear. Shoutarou pulled it free with a sigh, and Phillip automatically turned his head.
"Next time," he said, pinning Phillip's hair back into place, "You henshin on the damn couch."
.