When I saw the new group art and shared it with fellow author of Waiting for Totsuka and A Growing World, Kateracks, we couldn't help but make fun of the improper word choice on Yata's shirt. Seriously, Lifesaver instead of Lifeguard? Anyhow, this is just a silly little idea that came from that shirt.
Once upon a time, Yata applied to be a lifeguard. It was a career suitable for his personality, and with the numerous part-time employments he had taken up over the years, it really was no surprise that he eventually tried it out also. He was an avid swimmer with a surfer's body that looked great in swim trunks. Having grown up with younger siblings, he was apt at yelling commands to rowdy children. He was attentive to people's needs and had super quick reflexes. He could even spend hours under the hot sun without suffering heart exhaustion.
It didn't work out at all.
There was one reason, and only one reason why the venture failed: bikinis. At the first sign of summer, girls of all sizes and ages appeared at the pool to show off their bare skin. With curves like that, dripping with chlorine water when they climbed out of the pool, Yata couldn't even look, much less perform his job.
The company did give him a second chance at the kiddie pool. He would walk from the office to his post, eyes on the ground and blushing to his ears. He took care of the kids very well. But if one of them had an attractive mother, or a teenage babysitter, or even if a girl so much as walked by with legs, cleavage, or a belly button showing, he panicked. He'd throw his floatation device, flail, even knock over his own chair or umbrella.
It made the women uncomfortable, so they had to let him go. They did occasionally still call him in to judge children's swim meets, where the adults were all fully clothed. He would stand at the corner of the pool, next to the finish line and proclaim the winner, as well as make sure no one jumped the gun. It didn't pay the bills, but he kept accepting because the kids liked him. A little extra cash on the side never hurt either.
There was a time when a little girl hit her head on the far end of the pool and didn't come back to the surface. Yata didn't think twice about throwing himself into the water to rescue her, so that a minute hadn't even passed before she was back on solid ground. Her whole team, the coach, and all of the parents shared the expense of buying him a red sweatshirt with the word LIFESAVER printed across the front in bold, white letters.
He was embarrassed to wear it most of the time. After all, what he had done was only normal. Anyone would have done the same; he was just fastest, so it wasn't really something to make a big deal about. He was rubbing his nose, like he did when he was feeling bashful, in the picture the team took with him, particularly because the little six year old decided to kiss his cheek. Red shirt, red face, reddish hair. All of the guys back at the bar made fun of the picture, so he kept his copy hidden in a box in his closet with all the other important things he never looked at.
This was just one of the stories Fushimi had missed from the years they had spent estranged. The first time he saw the shirt after their friendship got on the mend, he made fun of it as well. "Isn't it supposed to say lifeguard? That English is horrible. A lifesaver is the object you throw into the water to save someone, but I guess with that shirt on you'd be easy to mistake for one."
They weren't quite on good enough terms for Yata to explain properly when Fushimi riled him up like that, so he replied in like, "No one's gonna pick me up and throw me into the water, Smart Ass!"
"You're about the right size," Fushimi continued the taunting.
The conversation turned quickly to insults when Yata retorted, "At least I can swim and don't just deflate like a blow up doll as soon as I touch the water!"
The next time the subject came up again, they got a little farther. Yata managed to affirm that he had, in fact, been a lifeguard before Fushimi cut in, "And your virgin eyes didn't bleed?"
As they were hanging out at the bar that day, everyone agreed that Fushimi was right on that account, and the tale came to a swift end again. With the passage of time, however, Fushimi learned to hold his tongue and Yata to control his temper until they could have decent, civilized conversations. He finally heard the whole story when they ran into the girl - now almost nine - and her mom at a McDonald's (Fushimi wanted French fries, and when that picky boy actually admitted to wanting food, no one stood in his way for fear he might change his mind and not eat at all).
It was quite a while after that when Fushimi found the flash cards. They were at the skatepark at the beginning of autumn, where one needed a jacket to be sitting around, but not when expending energy to learn a new trick. Fushimi had wanted to stay inside. It was cold and windy; allergens were all over the city. The last thing he wanted was to return to a full week of work with a runny nose.
Instead of just saying so like a normal person, he invented a way to mock his friend, "Aren't you a little old for new tricks?" He didn't even believe that to be true, and Yata knew him well enough to see right through it.
"You're the old one sitting at home all day long. Come on, I want your technical pointers."
And so Fushimi was dragged along. The skater carelessly tossed his jacket onto the bench and headed straight into the bowl. Half of the flash cards fell out of a pocket, and Fushimi begrudgingly collected them before the wind could blow them away, muttering complaints to himself. Curiosity got the best of him, wondering, so many years after dropping out of school right after Junior High, what could the air head possibly be studying?
The answer was shocking. The cards were full of acronyms like AFIB, mnemonics forming easy words like FAST, drawings of arrhythmias, and anatomical terms. It was all medically related, something Fushimi honestly had never pictured Misaki taking an interest in. After all, he had a lot of strong points, but when it came to books, he was dumb as a brick. Fushimi stared in disbelief at the flash cards, hardly even blinking as his mind raced for alternative possibilities.
Yata came running back. "See, even though I do it just like the videos show, I can't seem to get the landing right. What do you think?"
The younger of the two hadn't seen his friend's failed attempt that he was supposed to be watching attentively. Hardly even listening, he responded, "Uh...yeah... What are these?"
At first Yata didn't notice what Fushimi had discovered, but the items in question were held conspicuously in his lap. The skater scratched nervously at the back of his head through the beanie. "Aw nothing really. It's just a study tool." He tried to turn the conversation back to skateboarding, but Fushimi wouldn't have it.
"Why?" He asked abruptly.
"What do you mean why?" Yata replied as he slumped onto the bench beside the longtime friend. In reality, he knew exactly what that person meant with his question. They had agreed not to bother with school long ago. The smarter of the two, Fushimi would have had no problem getting into any school he wanted, but he found it boring and mundane. He chose to leave that all behind for Yata's sake, who couldn't seem to pound any knowledge into his dense skull. For his part, Yata dropped school and began his life in part-time jobs to rescue Fushimi from a bad environment. At the time, it had seemed like the right decision.
"All of a sudden, and you choose medicine?"
"It's not such a big deal. I'm not trying to be a doctor or anything!" He snapped a little defensively. "It's just for emergency response. I figured it was about time. You've got a steady job over there with the Blues, and even Anna is going to school now. I've gotta find something that'll last more than a couple months."
Anna really had been the motivating force behind it. Her class was starting to talk about how to choose the right career and which high schools were best for which domains. She had to write a report on her top choices, and she couldn't exactly say her current and eternal role was as Donna of Homra. It was her asking around that finally made Yata feel like he really needed a permanent direction for his adult life.
"Can you even understand this stuff?" Fushimi inquired.
"Sure!" He agreed enthusiastically but then added, "well some of it. I had to learn CPR as a lifeguard anyhow, and I've got plenty experience patching people up, so it's like I already had a head start. It's the names I have problems with." He didn't mention that the selection had a lot to do with losing two good friends and nearly a third.
Fushimi was still back at CPR. With an impish grin, he asked, "Do you really think you could give some lady mouth-to-mouth without dying?"
Yata's back straightened with a start, and he stuttered unintelligibly for a while. Finally he was able to form words, blurting out, "H-how often am I even gonna have to do that?!"
Fushimi snickered but didn't torture his friend eternally. "Trick question," he teased, reading the answer directly from a flash card, "Since 2008 health organizations agree that hands-only compressions are just as effective in adults except in cases of near-drowning, drug overdose, or carbon monoxide poisoning. Medical professionals should always provide rescue breaths with a barrier or a bag-valve-mask. This is the only way to ensure proper perfusion of target tissues."
Groaning in frustration, he snatched the cards from Fushimi's hands. "Just forget about it! I'm failing the class anyhow..."
"Nah, you should go for it."
"Huh?" Yata was surprised by the unexpected response.
"You'd make a good medic," Fushimi admitted.
Well that's the basic idea. If y'all like it, I'll write more, since I have a few more ideas for it, just not the words to express them yet.