White. So much white.
There was white all around. The white snow that covered the hills, parts of the deep green that poked out from more pure white snow, the off-white sky that seemed ready to drop a couple more inches of snow, and even he was covered in which if he could look down on himself.
"Now you're just showing off, Mr. Li!" Came a shout that floated over to him faintly. Syaoran turned to see a figure slightly behind him. He skillfully leaned forward, turning his snowboard ninety degrees and perpendicular to the downhill as he awaited his companion's approach.
The 'thank you, Ms. Mizuki' died in his throat as Syaoran's body lurched forward suddenly. He appeared to have hit soft snow - the snow falling through due to his weight and propelling his unguarded form toward a dangerously steep path full of strong forestry.
"Mr. Li!"
Caught unguarded at first, Syaoran tried to regain his balance and control. He drove a zig zag path, narrowly missing foot-wide trunks. But physics strove to test his limits as it accelerated him faster and faster through the steepest hill he'd have yet -
He couldn't have avoided the fallen tree trunk spanning a double digit amount of feet across his path - he tried jerk his snowboard aside to a U-turn or a ninety degree - his back hit the trunk at the velocity he had been speeding downhill in -
A ground shattering pain flowed through his body like an electric current bouncing from the toes in his feet to the tips of his hair.
She was running. "Mr. Li! Mr. Li! Syaoran Li!" Her voice was so far away.
He couldn't move.
Black out.
Where was he?
There were doctors...doctors…scrubs? Nurses...They were talking to him...they were blurs.
What were they trying to say?
Pain. So much pain.
He was being rolled around somewhere. Faces? There was a blur of faces.
Beeping. Something's beeping.
White. So much white.
.
.
.
Doctor
ASPIRATOR
Chapter One: The First Year
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| | JANUARY | |
The walls were no longer white.
"Hello," came a soft female voice, belonging to Green Eyes.
Syaoran looked around the room. He was on the bed with dark green sheets. There was one side table. Some medical equipment. A bookshelf in the far corner. It looked like a polite guest room, if anything else.
But he was in a hospital gown, so obviously not.
"Who are you?" He asked her, noting her white lab coat, her soft brunette hair, and her green eyes. He didn't know why he was so drawn by the greenness of her eyes.
"I'm Sakura, your doctor." She seemed to be used to confused patients for she spoke calmly, "you are in the long term recovery wing of Tomoeda General Hospital. You were almost paralyzed if it wasn't for the ten hour surgery. But you have to slowly recover your muscular movement. You will feel weak at first, but within several weeks, there should be some improvement."
"This is unbelievable." He grumbled. "When can I leave?"
"When you recover." Another voice answered. A tall man entered the room, also wearing the doctor's uniform. He was older, with kind grey eyes.
"You've gotta be kidding me. Can't you figure out when that is?"
"It's all based on your performance-" The female doctor tried to explain, but she was interrupted.
"So you don't know?" Syaoran growled at her in impatience. He had a business to get back to! He scrutinized the female who claimed to be his doctor. She looked young. "Are you that incompetent? What are you, an intern?"
Green Eyes gazed at him in annoyance, but she held her tongue. Instead, she stated, "I'm going to grab your chart." With a huff, she stalked out of the room, leaving it up to the man to deal with him.
As soon as the woman doctor left the room, the tall man steadied his grey eyes on Syaoran. Syaoran only stared back, wondering what the man had in mind when those kind eyes so suddenly hardened.
"She is a doctor, Mr. Li." The head doctor started in a stern voice that hardly matched his soft features. Strangely enough, it brought upon a commanding aura that wasn't there before. "She has been working here - one of the best rehabilitation facilities, mind you - for several years. In fact, it wouldn't be stretch at all to say she's one of our best doctors. She's a very capable physician. Treat her with respect."
If Syaoran wasn't already paralyzed on a bed, he would have been laid flat by the man's abrupt change in character. Syaoran, for one of the few times in his life, didn't know how to respond.
But he didn't have to, for Sakura walked back in with a smile lingering on her face. Yukito's attitude, upon Sakura's presence, returned just as suddenly to its kind demeanor before. "Take care of Mr. Li, Sakura. He's all yours."
"Thank you." Sakura smiled at the head doctor again. When she turned to her patient, however, her smile seemed to have dropped completely.
As soon as the door closed behind Dr. Tsukishiro, Syaoran muttered under his breath, meaning completely for her to hear, "kiss ass."
Sakura sent him a sarcastic smile, responding sassily, "that's right, I'm your physician now, and if you don't like something I'm making you do, you can kiss my ass."
For the second time, Syaoran is left speechless by a doctor. As she turned to walk off with a self-satisfied pride, he grumbled in annoyance, "What kind of rehab facility is this?"
Sakura wrenched the door open, turning her head slightly to tell him, "the kind that makes you get your shit together." She slammed the door behind her, not withholding a dignified huff.
| | FEBRUARY | |
Syaoran sighed. He's met his physician, his physician's boss, and then there's this lady. Syaoran frowned like a pouty child at the peppy woman before him.
She was the day nurse. She'd use her whole body to express an emotion and whenever she was particularly happy about something, her hair would just bounce as if it was agreeing with her mood. Her name was Chiharu Mihara.
"So you're a businessman." Chiharu nodded, her chestnut curls bouncing along.
"Explains the attitude." Dr. Sakura muttered from the foot of his bed, having just finished a check-up of his physical condition with Chiharu's assistance. Syaoran, who injured his body not his ears, sent her a pointed glare. Sakura continued writing on her clipboard as if she hadn't noticed his glare.
Oblivious to the exchange, Chiharu tapped her chin, "I imagine businessmen sit in offices all the time and hold boring meetings." She pulled up the chair beside Syaoran's bed, sitting down in it comfortably. She leaned forward with her chin in her right hand, her right elbow digging into her thigh. "So how'd you fracture your L2 and L3?"
Syaoran held back a groan. "I thought this was a rehab facility not a therapist's office."
Chiharu only stared at him eager-eyed and not at all deterred. Dr. Sakura grumbled something about attitude and sour under her breath, then hung her clipboard by the cabinets on the walls. With one last glance at him, she walked out the door.
Good riddance, Syaoran thought. Talking about his attitude? She had attitude. He turned to eye the awaiting nurse. One down, one to go.
"I was snowboarding." Syaoran answered shortly. Maybe she'll go away now.
"Trying to impress a girl?" Chiharu winked at him slyly.
Woman, Syaoran corrected in his head. Outloud, he said, "Client."
"Businessmen go skiing?" Chiharu leaned back, half-surprised, half-joking. "Figures you would have a more exciting life than us nurses. Everyone does." Her pager went off - music to Syaoran's ears - and in less than a minute the intrusive nurse was out the door.
Finally, Syaoran had some peace. If only he could move his body to a more comfortable position. Syaoran gazed up at the ceiling, cursing at his bad fortune.
| | MARCH | |
"You know, Patient Twelve, you should write a book." Sakura spoke from behind the ever present clipboard that hid her eyes from his view.
Syaoran sat up, indulging himself in a glimpse of her emerald orbs as she looked up nonchalantly at him. "About what?" Syaoran humored her, as he always did. "The Days I Spent in Hell?"
"No," Sakura scowled at him, checking over the medical equipment. The doctor was oblivious to Syaoran's eyes following her as she moved. "How to Make Your Doctor Think About Stabbing You in The Neck."
Syaoran sat back, acting casual and unaffected by the doctor's full body coming into view. He scoffed, "That'd never sell; the title's too long."
His doctor rolled her eyes as she made her way to the door, "I'd feel sorry for the doctors in the world if that sold well anyway."
"Me too," the patient grinned, hiding his disappointment at her parting, "because they're stuck with assholes instead of being blessed with my presence."
"'blessed'" Sakura quoted with an air of 'yeah right' before calling behind her, "goodbye, Patient Twelve."
As the doctor strolled out, a thought occurred to Syaoran.
Dr. Sakura called him Patient Twelve whenever she was irritated with him. For some odd reason, Syaoran found it sort of...adorable.
He shook his head, settling down further in his bed. Strange thoughts.
| | APRIL | |
Syaoran's doctor had to be all sorts of crazy to think he wanted to get out of that bed to, quote, exercise, end quote. But then again, Sakura is all sorts of crazy, Syaoran thought and he told her so.
"I know, I get that a lot." Sakura answered easily. She frowned thoughtfully at she tapped her finger against her chin. "Fine, maybe you shouldn't strain yourself too much yet. What sort exercise can you do on the bed?"
A slow grin found its way up Syaoran's face.
"Don't answer that."
| | MAY | |
A sharp shooting pain blossomed across his chest, he clutched it in pain. Gasping for air, he punched the help button by the bed.
A nurse immediately rushed in, assessing the situation quickly. She tried her best, but it was outside of her expertise.
The patient gasped out, "get me the doctor!"
Rika frowned, nodding, hurrying out the door, but not before asking, "Which one?"
The patient paused only long enough to stare at her with his sharp amber eyes. "There's only one."
Rika stared at him for a long minute, until he winced, bending over. She snapped to attention, backtracking to glimpse at the clipboard by the bed. "Right - Doctor Kinomoto! Sakura!"
| | JUNE | |
"I get a wheelchair?" Syaoran raised his eyebrow at his doctor. "You're going to get me a wheelchair?"
"Yes, so you can move around. And nobody here has to carry you around either." She rolled her eyes, probably thinking about how often she had to call in Yukito for help.
"What if I…sprain something?"
"In a wheelchair?" It was Sakura's turn to raise her eyebrow at him. "Come on, it's the next step in your recovery. Don't be a wuss about it."
Syaoran scowled at her. She did not just call him a wuss.
| | JULY | |
"Touch your toes."
Syaoran rose a brow at her but stayed firmly in his wheelchair.
"Come on," Sakura gestured for him to obey.
"You want me to touch my toes." He dryly repeated her command.
The doctor nodded encouraging, "yeah." She sighed, putting her hands on her hips for a minute. "It's not that hard." Sakura let her hands hang loose along her sides, then shrugged. "Just touch your toes." Then, the weirdest thing happened. She stretched her arms downwards, bending over so that her fingertips scraped the floor.
Syaoran rose both eyebrows, this time. He watched her sharply, then couldn't help tilting his head slightly to get a better view of her fantastic butt. Those jeans really suited her.
The patient straightened when his doctor did. But he couldn't help a smirk crossing his face. "Sorry, I missed that. Can you do that again?"
Sakura smacked him in the shoulder, her face flushed.
| | AUGUST | |
He didn't know why he ended up liking her company so much. Maybe because his options were limited and she was the better company out of his choices. He would choose Sakura over an overenthusiastic nurse any day.
"Syaoran, have you been doing the exercises I assigned you?" The doctor asked, snapping him back to the present.
Syaoran shrugged, digging into his food.
"You know, it's good for you, to regain your strength when…" Syaoran tuned out the rest of her lecture, contenting with eating silently and occasionally glancing at her when she wasn't looking.
There was an air about her that he liked. And he couldn't, for the life of him, figure out why. It was calming, he supposed. It was pleasant, he thought second. He smirked when she demanded if he was listening to her. No, it was…amusing. Yes, that must be it.
Suddenly, Naoko burst in - even starting Syaoran enough to cause him to drop his spoon. Sakura, however, was immediately on guard.
"Sakura - your -" Dropping the formal title meant the situation was urgent. The nurse sucked in her breath sharply, "Patient six-"
She only really managed to utter those two words before Sakura dropped everything. She was sweeping out the door within the second.
| | SEPTEMBER | |
"Who's patient six?" Syaoran asked one day as Sakura checked his heart beat after a stretching exercise.
Sakura stopped what she was doing, and looked at him for a moment. Then, resuming her actions, she asked casually, "why?"
Syaoran shrugged. "It's just you spend more time with him than anything else." When Sakura moved away to jot some notes down onto her clipboard, he hurriedly added, "not that I'm jealous. It just seems like unnecessary attention."
Sakura glanced warily up at him, but responded flippantly, "I have you two patients to look after so naturally when I'm not with you, I'm with him."
"But you spend more time with him than you do with me."
Sakura put the clipboard down with a teasing smile. "Sounds like you're jealous, Syaoran."
"I'm not." He frowned, firmly reassuring her.
"Anyway," she went on, ignoring him. Sakura walked to the door, looking over her shoulder at him as she continued, "I have a third patient coming in. So try not to get too upset when I spend even less time with you, alright?"
"I'm not jealous." He grumbled.
| | OCTOBER | |
Her name was Meiling and the first time he met her, he immediately disliked her.
They call her Patient Eight, and she was two rooms down. Syaoran was getting in his wheelchair when a commotion occurred outside his door. Panicked nurses ran down the hallway, some carrying items. This didn't alarm him - it was a hospital after all.
"Doctor -"
"Sakura!"
That was what alarmed him. The nurses always addressed Sakura respectfully with Doctor, despite the doctor's insistence. Quickly, Syaoran wheeled himself outside his door, unapologetically getting in the way of some nurses travelling fast down the corridor. Rika glanced briefly at him before shouting, "get back in your room!" then running off again.
Oddly, the nurses were running into that one room - then darting out quickly, as if fearing for their lives.
That was when he saw her.
Sakura stumbled out of the room, jumping out of the way just before a silver cart, too, rolled sharply out of the room and slammed against the opposite wall.
Syaoran wheeled himself closer, despite the nurses yelling at him to go back to his room.
Rika sped past Syaoran again, this time holding some gauze and bandaids. She was by Sakura's side in an instant.
That was when he saw it.
Sakura held her right cheek delicately, waving away Rika's fretting and taking the bandages into her own hands. Blood seeped through her fingers as her cheek revealed a scar caused by a sharp object.
"Sakura!" He heard himself call out to her in alarm, seeing blood. He didn't even realize he had called her by her first name.
She whipped around at his voice. Sakura furrowed her eyebrows, paying no heed to Rika fussing over her cheek. "Syaoran? What are you doing? Go back to your room."
But Syaoran was looking at the small gash across her cheek, blood staining the many napkins Rika held up to it.
"I'm fine," Sakura followed his train of thought, "it's a small scratch. Don't worry about it." She caught his eyes, locking gazes with him, and clearly directing, "go back to your room."
Syaoran glanced uncertainly between her eyes and her cheek. After her second assurance that she was fine, Syaoran spun his wheelchair around in a huff, obeying her and no one else.
In that instant as he was doing a 360 in his wheelchair that he caught sight of her. It was a little girl with long black hair and blazing red eyes.
| | NOVEMBER | |
Syaoran avoided Patient Eight at all costs. He didn't want to know her, all he knew was that he didn't like her. Patient Six, on the other hand, held his curiosity. He felt somewhat attracted to discovering who he was.
Since it was the long-term recovery center, the nurses would freely speak of their names. They, more often than not, jokingly or in formality refer to them by their patient numbers. But mostly, they spoke their names…
Except for Patient Six.
There was some spell over patient six. Nobody spoke his name. They barely wanted to say "Patient Six".
And Sakura…well, she was always taking care of Patient Six.
Syaoran had to know. When no one was looking, he wheeled himself down the hall until he reached the door. Patient six. He wheeled in.
It was a man.
Syaoran ignored a pang of jealousy. Of course it was a man.
He was sleeping. He had dark brown hair, and sharp facial features. But then again, it looked like he had been in the hospital for a long time. There were small decorations around the room. Flowers in a vase. His bookshelf was filled. The side table had a picture frame and a rubik's cube.
Syaoran wheeled himself closer. What was so special that Sakura found in this guy?
Out of curiousity, he glanced at the man's clipboard, hanging at the bottom of the bed.
Syaoran tilted his head to read the handwriting. Touya…Kinomoto.
| | DECEMBER | |
Syaoran sat in the dark, though completely awake, letting his thoughts overtake him. He couldn't help but reach back to his realization a month prior. Patient six. Sakura. Patient six. Sakura. Syaoran lifted his eyelids, tilting his chin to the ceiling as he leaned back against the pillows with a sigh. He wonders if -
A soft gentle voice floated to his ears, "Merry Christmas, Syaoran."
The patient looked up, caught speechless by the appearance of his doctor without her usual lab coat.
The door stood ajar, the doctor standing just within the borders of the room. She looked unsure of herself, almost meek with a usual hint of softness about her. Light flooded just that corner of the room, shining upon Sakura's back like an ephemeral spotlight. She stood wearing a simple dress, her purse hung loosely from her fingers. She brushed back a free strand of hair behind her ear self-consciously.
"I mean…" She continued in the ensuing silence after her entrance, "it's not christmas yet. But I won't be here, I guess. It's a required vacation…" Sakura shifted her eyes, nervous from her patient's unblinking stare. "I just wanted to...um. I mean, I wanted to come by before I leave." She shifted her purse from one end to another, scruffing her feet on the ground. "So. Um. That's it. I - uh…Goodbye." Sakura brushed her hair back again.
Sakura was incredibly beautiful. He knew that of course, but - Syaoran stopped himself. He couldn't think of his doctor like that. Sakura wouldn't like him to think of her like that.
Biting her lip, Sakura turned uncertainly. She glanced at him again, pausing as if wanting to say more. She opened her mouth...then closed it.
Syaoran snapped out of his trance, realizing that his silence may be driving her away. In a sudden stroke of yearning, he impulsively called to her, "Sakura."
The doctor turned back towards him with a mixed expression of relief, surprise, and a little something more tender.
The same unnerving thought that Syaoran had been so focused on the past month occurred to him again. Patient six. Sakura. Patient six. Sakura. Touya Kinomoto. Sakura Kinomoto. Kinomoto.
Syaoran opened his mouth to ask - itching to ask. Then he bit his tongue, for the umpteenth time this month. He closed it again. Sakura tilted her head questioningly at him, but did not speak.
"Merry Christmas, Sakura."
The doctor smiled sweetly. The smile that filled up a special part of Syaoran's heart. She turned to leave.
"I'll be back soon." She answered vaguely.
Soon can't come sooner, Syaoran thought as he watched her go.