Beating Hearts do not Lie
Chapter 2: On a Scale of 1 to 10 How Would You Rate Your Anger?
Shizuo didn't like borrowing the uniforms the hospital had ready in the supply closets. For one, the detergent they used was a heavy duty mix of chemicals that made the linen stiff and smell like flower scented bleach. And second, nothing quite fit his tall frame so the cuffs came up short, meaning he'll have to roll up the ends.
That was why he took great care of the precious clothes his brother had gotten him and always had a clean uniform ready on hand at work. He didn't even get annoyed anymore if blood droplets or vomit somehow ended up on him. It helped too that he had gotten really good at laundry and spot cleaning. But since tomorrow was his day off, Shizuo hadn't bothered packing a spare.
This little locker prank almost caused him to be late for his shift.
The surgical mask he wore covered his frown.
If he could, he would have hunted Orihara down immediately and force him to give him back his uniform. But he was needed on the 4th floor, pediatric department. It gave him time for his anger to simmer down.
He took a deep breath of cool, dry air before entering the corridor. He entertained the idea of taking the day off.
"Good morning, Heiwajima-san." Shizuo nodded his head at the short, petite woman who was his senior.
"Good morning, Yasuda-san."
"It's nice weather out, isn't it?" The sunlight beamed through the long stretch of windows along the halls.
"Yeah, it is," he responded and continued walking. He greeted three other co-workers, and twice more agreed that the weather was nice.
"Shizu-oniichan!" A girl ran over to him, latching onto his legs. Shizuo ruffled her brown hair.
"Ah, Miki. How have you been?"
"Better!" Miki beamed, her head didn't even reach his hips. Sagawa, Miki looked better too. Three weeks ago she had a critical case of pneumonia. The fluid and mucus in her lungs had almost been too much for the little girl, and it had been a long, stressful two days before Miki started responding well to the antibiotics. Shizuo had made sure to check up on her and her mother frequently.
Sagawa-san walked over, her red heels clicking as she took brisk strides to catch up to her daughter. She smiled up at Shizuo, lips as red as her heels.
"Good morning, Heiwajima-san," she said.
"Good morning, Sagawa-san," Shizuo nodded. He was just about forgetting about the terrible start to his morning. Miki stepped back and bounced on her heels.
"Thank you again for watching over us," Miki's mother said.
"Oh you're welcome, it wasn't much," Shizuo nodded his head.
"I'll be able to go back to school!" Miki said, "I got a card this big, everyone made it!" She spread her hands wide.
"That's good," Shizuo said. "Have you seen Nishi sensei yet?"
"Nope, he was out today. Orihara sensei took care of me."
Shizuo looked up sharply. At the open door a few feet away, Orihara stepped out, arms crossed and a bemused expression on his face. "He said everything sounds like it should. I'm all better now!"
Shizuo forced himself to look back at the little girl. "Great. I'm happy for you."
She beamed. "I'll be back next week for my last appointment. You better be there."
"I'll make sure to see you," Shizuo said.
Sagawa-san reached for her daughter's hand and smiled at Shizuo. "It was nice seeing you, Heiwajima-san."
"Yeah, nice seeing you too."
"Bye bye, Shizu-oniichan."
"Bye Miki. Make sure to stay strong."
Miki waved as she walked away, and Shizuo waited a few moments.
"Shizu-oniichan," Orihara said as if he were tasting the words, getting a feel for them. "That's adorable. Who would have guessed that you'd be a hit with the kids."
Shizuo looked both ways and saw that there were still too many people loitering in the hall. Orihara stepped back as Shizuo approached. He closed the door behind them. "Did you notice how that lady didn't take her eyes off you? It was terribly blatant she was into you."
"Give me back my uniform," Shizuo said in a low voice. He took the surgical mask from his face, and the elastic ripped when he tore it off.
"Oh? What's this about?"
"You broke into my locker, took my clothes, and left one of your short dresses there."
Orihara chuckled. "One of my short dresses? What makes you think I own dresses? Heh. Did you imagine me in it or something? You did, didn't you?"
"What? No, of course not." Shizuo crossed his arms in front of his chest.
"Cause I imagined it on you when I picked it out."
"Hah! You just admitted to it…wait, you were imagining what?!" He couldn't be serious.
"You got me. So did you enjoy the gift, Shizuo-kun?" Orihara asked.
Shizuo shook his head in clear disbelief. "Gift? You call that a gift? I call it a clear case of harassment!"
"Only harassment? Damn. That was hardly my intention. And here I was worrying that I was hitting the nail with the hammer too hard."
"Yes, only harassment. Now can you please give me back my clothes?"
"Alright, alright," Orihara leaned against a counter. "I don't have it right now, but I will give it to you."
"Now!"
"As much as I'd love to sneak off with you," Orihara said with an obvious leer, "we're both on the clock. Come by my desk at around noon."
"Dammit, fine."
His fucking face lit up. "Great! See you soon, Shizu-chan!"
Shizuo cringed. "What did you call me?" He spoke the words slowly.
"Shizu-chan! Though, if you prefer, I could also call you Shizu-oni-chan. That works too."
"My name is Heiwajima, Shizuo. Don't call me disgusting things."
"But I kind of also like Nurse Shizu-chan. I'm sure the children would love it, too. Yeah, think of the children!"
"You're really pissing me off."
"Oh? On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your anger?"
Shizuo snorted. "How about we rate your pain after I beat you to death?"
"I see," Izaya nodded his head. "I'd rate it a seven and a half then- threatening, but still not at a murderous rage."
"I think it just rose to an eight."
"I guess I'd better be off then." Orihara sauntered away from the counter and opened the door.
"Yeah, that's the smartest thing you've said so far."
"Bye bye, Shizu-chan!" The bastard closed the door with a grating laugh.
Shizuo was still mildly irritated when it was finally his lunch break. He was sure of a perpetual itch right below his skin, he guessed somewhere in the subcutaneous tissue, or maybe deeper to his bones and marrow. He wondered how the bastard did it.
He had to ask a Morimoto-san, one of the few other nurses who was also a guy, if he knew where Orihara Izaya's desk was.
Shizuo found it a few minutes later, and he was still trying to reason with himself to not get too mad.
Orihara was there, and Shizuo was so terribly glad that mostly everyone was getting lunch now, so he didn't have to worry about potential witnesses.
The guy was playing with the sleeves of his uniform, pushing his arms through them. Shizuo's blood pressure began to rise, his heart beat faster. "Shizu-chan, what took you so long?" Orihara withdrew his arms and Shizuo then noticed that it hadn't been the top half of his uniform that Orihara had been putting his hands through, but the bottom half.
"What the fu-" Shizuo bit his bottom lip from cursing. "Ok what do you think you're doing? You better not be sticking needles anywhere."
He snickered. "Oh, I'm not doing anything. You know, just sticking my hands in your pants. Completely innocently too, I add."
Innocent my ass. Shizuo thought bitterly. "Pisses me off," Shizuo grumbled. "Just give me my clothes."
"What? No please this time?"
"Please, before I wreck your face."
"Alright. Here." He tossed the rolled up bundle, and Shizuo caught it before it could smack against his face.
Immediately he could catch a scent that wasn't his own or his laundry detergent coming from his uniform. It wasn't bad, but Shizuo decided that he hated it and he wrinkled his nose. "What the hell? Were you rolling in my clothes or something?"
"I may have put them on and I may have rolled around in a sense," Orihara leaned back in his chair with a grin. "Taken a tumble or two."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Shizuo said with obvious distaste, his eyes narrowed.
"Whatever you wish to imagine it as." Those red eyes mocked him with glee. And Shizuo didn't want to imagine the terrible things this terrible person did while in the clothes his brother gave him. He tried to convince himself that his clothes were fine, and that they could be washed of the bastard's stench.
"I'm going to end up scarfing down my lunch because of you, wasting my time, dammit." He walked out of the room, without so much as another look. Across the hall was a vending machine and he decided to grab a sports drink, hoping that it would lessen his rising temperature.
"Hold on a second. I took the liberty of reading your file both as an employee and as an occasional patient," Orihara said, catching up with him. "And I noticed something that gives me a cause for concern."
Shizuo glared. He put his bundle of clothes under his arm, and brought the plastic bottle of Aquarius to his mouth and chugged half of it. Surely Orihara had to have breached security going through personnel files like that.
The bastard gave him his best professional look. "Well, tell me honestly. When was the last time you had your prostate examined?"
He sprayed his drink all over his hand, some soaking his front. "What the hell?" He wiped the front of his mouth with the back of his hand. His clothes under his arm seemed to be doing fine.
"Shizu-chan, prostate cancer is a very serious matter and all those carcinogens from those awful, disgusting cigarettes aren't doing your body any favor. I could give you a quick and easy checkup, you know, just a poke and it will be all over faster than you can say pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. Then you can sleep easy for another year."
"I don't have to start that for another 20 years, what the hell is your problem?"
"I don't have a problem, I'm just concerned for your health. You know, early detection is the best prevention."
"Oh shut up, I'd take a fucking PSA test if I really wanted to. Go take your concern and shove it up an old man's wrinkly ass, or just finger your-fucking-self."
Shizuo had to deal with one perverted doctor already, but a second one who was an asshole as well? No way. No fucking way.
Orihara, the bastard, smiled fondly at Shizuo. "I'm only trying to be nice." This was him being nice? Shizuo shuddered. "You know, I could have you replacing the catheter bags or other medical waste cleanup duty for the next few days if I really wanted to."
Shizuo couldn't stop the twitch over his eyebrows. "You don't have control over my schedule."
Izaya snickered. "I don't? Then it might be a good idea for you to recheck your schedule."
Shizuo narrowed his eyes. "You're annoying," Shizuo said. "If you keep harassing me, I'm going to report you."
"That's it? Report me?" Orihara laughed. "You're going to report me? Haha! Shinra was so wrong about you."
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Shizuo couldn't stop his voice from rising. Luckily the hall was empty, but he wasn't so sure if the rooms were as well. Some poor patient was probably pissing his pants. "Why are you acting like such a dick? Leave me the fuck alone."
"Shinra said that if I pissed you off, you'd go crazy and go all hulk on me, minus the green muscle mass of course. But I havn't seen you lose it."
"That's it? You want to see me destroy shit when I'm angry."
"Yeah." Orihara shrugged his shoulders.
Shizuo closed his eyes before speaking. "I've worked my ass off to get this far. I'm not going to ruin five years of work just because you're an asshole and want to see me crush things. No. If you fucking make me lose my job, I'm going to kill you. I will murder you by ripping off your arms and legs. No actually I'm going to break all 206 of your bones and then reset them, then break them again and again. I've done that to people, y'know break and reset their bones. The assholes who used to piss me off and who'd pick fights with me, yeah, they were good practice. I fucking love the sound of bones snapping, I'm sure yours will be sweet and crisp too."
Orihara nodded his head. "Yeah, but if you were to murder me, then what about your brother's career?"
"My brother…?" Shizuo's voice had gone a register lower.
"I'm sure it would destroy your brother's reputation. Kasuka Heiwajima, or better known as Yuhei Hanejima. I can see the resemblance, though your face is so much more expressive than his, funny right. I'm sure it-"
Shizuo's body moved without him cognitively aware. His hands grasped metal and lifted, feeling the hum of the machine before it came up so high that the plug popped out and it crunched against the ceiling. Still without him processing it, he maneuvered it on its side, so that he'd be able to lift it over his head.
It was then in his rush when he was going to take aim, that he saw Orihara's face. It was enough to confuse his slowly catching up mind. He'd seen people piss themselves with fear at his displays of violence. People have passed out before he's even hit them. Sure, Shinra has looked on him with awe, but he's never actually fully directed all of his anger at the guy.
Even with the threat of a vending machine about to crush him down, Orihara looked pleased, his eyes delighted. He could see those hands moving before Shizuo could hear that he was clapping.
Shizuo blinked his confusion away, torn with throwing the vending machine or placing it down and keeping his job. That's when Orihara pulled a folded up scalpel from his coat pocket and opened it with ease.
"I've also heard your skin's tougher than leather. I wonder if that's true, too." Orihara leapt forward and Shizuo moved back, the vending machine hitting the wall and causing him to lose his grip on it. It fell behind him. Orihara pivoted and ran. The next second his hands had turned to fists and he was running hard against the floor, chasing a white fluttering coat and black fluttering hair.
This guy was fast. Faster than Shizuo, even though Shizuo had longer legs.
A startled co-worker kept to the wall as they ran.
"It's an emergency. They need us in the operating room," Orihara shouted over his shoulder, then snickered.
Shizuo's feet pounded against the floor, and his heart rate was a furious string of beats. They reached the stairwell, and it was Shizuo's turn to be amazed as the guy jumped flights of stairs, going over the railings.
"Stop running!" Shizuo's voice echoed through the halls as he jumped after him, his landing not nearly as graceful. "Get back here so I can crush you!" The white coat made it look like he was gliding through the air, jumping around like some kind of insect. Their eyes met in a brief moment and Shizuo caught just the edge of a smirk. "Stop running, you fucking flea!"
"Shizu-chan is amazing! See! I knew we could have fun!"
A railing bent under his mistreatment.
"Hurry up, we only have twenty minutes till our break is over! If you can catch me I'll buy you ice cream."
The flea went through a door, running outside, and Shizuo dropped down to the ground, bolting through the still closing door and squeezing his way through.
He was easy to spot with that white long coat, running like he was flying. Shizuo tore after him, his breaths coming in harsh pants. "Iiiiiizzzaaaayyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaa!" Shizuo shouted. "I'm going to tear you apart!"
A laugh was his only response, as he chased those quick legs.
Not only was Izaya fast, but he had incredible endurance. They were running along the hospital, then an alleyway. Shizuo passed people, but they were blurs as his eyes were experiencing tunnel vision, only able to zero in on Orihara Izaya.
Izaya turned sharply, and Shizuo brushed against that white flapping coat.
"Arggg!" He could feel the beat of his heart throbbing against his forehead. He pressed on faster, ignoring the burn of his leg muscles. Izaya turned again, but this time he went into a brightly lit store. So the bastard thought he could hide if in public? Yeah right.
Shizuo was careful of the glass doors as pushed it open. In his peripheral vision, Shizuo could see that there were many people here, but he didn't give it a second thought when he took three more long strides and lunged, arms just about touching that white coat. It came by complete surprise that the flea suddenly stopped, the momentum causing him to crash and send them both to the floor.
It took a few seconds for Shizuo's mind to catch up with his now still body. Izaya was equally still, directly under him. Maybe he did crush him? Shizuo could feel from under his chest, harsh breathing that wasn't his own. Ok, so not dead. He blinked back some of his confusion.
"Ow," Izaya groaned and his voice was muffled. "I feel like I got hit by a truck. Did you replace all your bones with steel?"
Shizuo scowled. "I caught you, so now I get to crush you."
"You already are. And I said you could get ice cream if you caught me, not crush me, silly. Ow, I think I cracked some ribs." He shifted and hissed in pain. "Well, maybe just bruised."
Shizuo could hear a low hum of whispering. He looked up lifting up his torso with his arms. Around them, people were watching and speaking in hushed tones. A few people were pointing and a couple girls were giggling. On the wall paper were two letters, pink and blue. Shizuo noticed two things in quick succession. First that they were in the middle of the floor of a Baskin Robbins. Second that he was sprawled over Izaya in a rather compromising position considering they were still lying there panting on the floor, Izaya's ass under the lower part of his abdomen, but to these people it might as well have been his crotch.
Shizuo felt a new burn pass over his cheeks, different from the burn of anger. He jumped off of Izaya. "I'm going to kill you," he seethed.
Izaya gracefully, albeit very slowly, propped himself up and stood on his own, brushing the dirt from his coat. He walked over to the counter with a slight limp.
"Sorry about that, my friend just gets really excited at the prospect of eating ice cream. Can I get the sweetest thing you have? Oh and vanilla too. Three scoops should be fine."
Shizuo really considered killing Izaya. He weighed it on his mind. But he held off for the moment with a heavy scowl, deciding killing Izaya would be all the sweeter if he had free ice cream too while doing it.
"It better come in a freaking cone, or you're dead."
"Hai, hai," Izaya smiled at the cashier who was watching them with wide eyes. "See. I told you, so excitable."
It came by no surprise that Shizuo got an extra scoop from the terrified worker, on another cone of course.
End of chapter 2
Some things that just might be actual notes:
Before, a female nurse was referred to as 看護婦さん（Kangofu san).
A nurse who happened to also be male was 看護士さん（Kangoshi san).
However, there was a change in regulation, so female and male nurses both are called 看護師さん（Kangoshi-san).
You all probably know this- 鬼 oni is pretty much an ogre/demon/yōkai/monster, or ogre-like person.
I've never watched shows like House or Scrubs, so just bear my limited knowledge- I was an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) once a time ago, when I was 17/18 so that is something...
Thank you for reading and for any feedback