The Messiness of Life
By Victoria G.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters in this story.
Narrative #9: Eat Your Own
Date: November 1, 2013… a Friday
"Hey." Her dark head popped into my office.
I blinked as I took in her outfit, as she walked over and leaned against the corner of my desk... directly beside where I was sitting. The way she was dressed surprised me. A white shirt covered her, sleeves pushed to the elbows with a pale green scarf draped around her neck. The thin material clung to her lithe frame as she stretched her arms backward, gripping the edge of the desktop, long legs crossing, hair hanging like silk around her face. Frame hugging dark jeans and a pair of leather-riding boots hugged her calves. Of course, her watch was still there as always. She looked much softer like this. I threaded my fingers together, willing myself still. I could not help but question how aware she was of her own attractiveness. "Natsuki-han is not dressed for work. Was she off today?"
"Yeah." I noticed the tiny silver stud in her left nostril with interest.
I smiled at her, resting my chin on folded hands. "You came in just to have lunch with me? How sweet."
Her face turned immediately red. "No! I had to something to do, then I had to come here anyway… and I didn't know when my lunch would be on the other days." As if to test my control, she ran her hand threw raven strands, tossing it to the side and crossing her arms.
I stood up, keeping my eyes on the desk. "So where will we be dining today?"
"Huh?" Her reaction suggested that she had expected me to plan our meal, which would make sense given I had asked… or it could be that she was one of those people who did not like making decisions. The first option seemed likely, but it was certainly more fun this way. "What do you wanna eat?" I refrained from answering that particular question in the manner I wished to.
"Natsuki-han can surprise me!" I said instead, with my most excited smile.
"Surprise you..." Narrowed green eyes met mine, a rather adorable grimace on her face.
"Yes," I answered happily, mood improved by her presence.
Her mouth dropped open, then closed as she eyed me curiously for what seemed like a long stretch of time. "Let's go and just Natsuki is fine."
"Shizuru is fine as well then."
We began walking down the hall, me a few steps away. I found the sight of her from behind in those particular jeans was so trying to my self-control that I quickened my pace to walk side-by-side with her. I contented myself with greeting a few of the transporters and service staff I knew as we passed them.
She turned and looked at me, eyebrow raised. "What are you? The mayor of the hospital?"
I tilted my head and gave her a small grin, closing my eyes for a moment. "I enjoy talking with people."
She frowned and remained silent for the remainder of the trip, but somehow she was able to make that silence awkward and halting. It did not seem she was helped by the smiles I sent her way each time she glanced in my direction.
We stopped in front of a restaurant I had been to before. It was quite nice and not what I was expecting for this lunch. She did not speak until we were seated.
"No complaining." She said firmly, handing me a menu. I found the gruff request entertaining. Even if I hated it, I would never say so.
"I will do my best to behave."
"Why don't I believe you?" She grumbled, scanning the options.
"Does Natsuki doubt the purity of my intentions?"
"I have a reason to." A tiny, crooked grin hit her lips and it distracted me enough that it took a moment to realize she was poking fun.
I made a face of mild offense, regardless of the fact that her instincts were very much on point. "Ikezu. What reason?"
"That thing about the OR room in front of Alyssa." The accusation in her tone was quite evident.
"What is it that you believe I meant?" I asked as if confused.
She glanced at me, annoyed and apparently not fooled. "Idiot." She mumbled under her breath. "You know what you meant and so did she." Did she truly just call me an idiot? She did…I do not think anyone had done so since I was twelve.
"Only because Natsuki called such splendid attention to it." I wondered now if the idea of the two of us sharing an evening disgusted her... if she had thought on it enough to form an opinion on the matter. Somehow that seemed unlikely...not that it was of any consequence whatsoever.
"I did?!" She said incredulously.
"With that adorable blush." As if on cue her face lit up and I studied the redness intently.
Her lips spread into a thin line that turned up at one corner, jaw shifting. "I thought you said you were gonna behave." She mumbled.
"Am I not behaving?" Perhaps I was being a bit too playful with her…
"No." She growled and I was struck by a strange urge to pat her head.
"Kanin-na." I spoke gently, smoothing my voice. "I am not being very kind to you after you have agreed to come to lunch with me, am I?" I had just resolved a day ago to not be so insistent in my teasing… and yet I had immediately fallen back into it. I had also resolved to think less on it, so I tapped her arm in apology, ignoring the warmth. "It was not my intention to embarrass you in front of your sister."
She looked at me, nearly into me, untrusting...as though she expected some other flush-inducing comment might leap out at her at any moment. Part of me wondered why she did not simply get up and leave. Our eyes locked as she tried to find her words, making my pulse tap strongly against the skin of my neck. I was thankful when the waitress came over, providing me time to recover from the spell of that emerald-colored intensity.
"So how are you finding your employment at the hospital?" I introduced a more subdued, but less enjoyable topic of conversation.
"It's fine." She said disinterestedly, choosing not to elaborate. I decided that work was likely best left out of our conversations.
"Can I ask what brought you to this island?"
She looked at me, gaze cynical while she rested her chin against her palm, a graceful elbow on the table. "I grew up here."
That explained her knowing the restaurant and her knowing Nao-han and Mai-han. "You did not train here though."
"No." Her focused stare plucked a touch of bashfulness from me… a rather unusual occurrence…this woman. "What about you? You're not from here."
"That is true."
She rolled her eyes and quirked her eyebrow at me. "So where then? Kyoto?"
"Yes, my family has a home in one of the more rural parts of the prefecture."
"Why'd you leave? It's beautiful there."
That was not a question I had any intention of answering. "You have been to Kyoto?"
"That's where I went to school and did my Residency." How strangely coincidental… serendipitous almost… as though we'd switched places… traded lives, yet we'd both had ended up in Fuuka sharing a meal. A shrug and then she seemed to remember the lost thread of our conversation. "Oi, you didn't answer my question."
"It is just that I find Natsuki so much more interesting," I said with a smile.
"Still didn't answer it." She grumbled. It would seem my evasiveness annoyed her.
"I left to attend Medical School." There, a rather abbreviated version.
"Where?"
"Gauderobe," I answered. "And yourself? Would I be wrong in assuming you went to KPUM?" Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine had the best program in the area…it made sense for her to have gone there, given she ended up at Fuuka Hospital... though there was that family connection to consider. She nodded. "You were living in Kyoto then?"
"For most of it, but I did the exchange program."
"And where did that take you?"
"Oxford."
"England?" I asked, and she nodded. "Were you there long?"
"A year." She was staring out the window, and I wondered where her thoughts were as she seemed distracted.
"With your sister, I would guess?"
Her eyes flicked my way quickly and her voice was irritated. "No." She was truly a master of short answers. "She lived with my father." It was not what she said, but how she said it that indicated her lack of affection for the man. "I came back after a year and stayed."
She was a surgeon. She had to be reasonably intelligent... her eyes would suggest it even if her profession did not, but both schools were rather noteworthy… not that Gauderobe was not… "Oxford…is Natsuki trying to impress me, I wonder?"
She tried to force down another blush unsuccessfully. "Says the girl from Gauderobe." She mumbled, lifted her head from her hand and looking at me quickly... frowning as her newly unoccupied fingers poked at the table. "So… you like Fuuka?"
"It is a gorgeous island… the cliffs are particularly scenic. You must be rather fond of it to have returned here."
"My friends are here." Curious that she did not mention family at all... "I don't know how long you've lived here, but be careful about those old women in the shops downtown unless you want everyone knowing your business. People talk here."
I laughed softly, unsurprised she valued privacy enough to impart such advice. "I will take that under advisement."
"Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"And you'll be serious?" She half-questioned, half-threatened throwing a quick glance my way.
My lips slipped down, landing in a straight line. "If that is what Natsuki wishes."
"Why are you being like this?" I did not know to what she was specifically referring, but it worried me.
"I am not sure that I understand."
"Talking to me, and Alyssa… then this lunch…you're being so…" I waited, trying to keep any of the concern from showing…so what? "Friendly, even with the teasing." She said the word as if the taste of it was foreign to her. I understood that she was curious as to what I wanted from her…hesitant to trust another's intentions. I suppose in my case it was partially warranted, but still… she was quite guarded.
"I like you and I enjoy our conversations, even if they have been somewhat limited thus far. I think we could be friends." I responded, letting a touch of the sincerity I felt come through, allowing her to take that as she wanted to.
Her forehead wrinkled as if she were deep in thought. "You like me."
"Is that so very difficult to believe?" I asked gently, wrapping a hand around the water in front of me.
"It's not most people's reaction." She answered with that delicious little grin again, but there was a sadness behind it she failed to disguise.
"Natsuki?"
She looked at me with only slightly less skepticism in her eyes. "What?"
"I've been meaning to thank you for talking to Arika-han."
"Yeah. Sure." I could tell she was embarrassed, but attempting to hide it behind a blank face. She was saved as the dishes slid in front of us. Her selections were light and healthy. It was not what I would have pictured her eating. What reason I had for that I could not guess, given the only food I'd ever seen her with was fruit.
She picked up her chopsticks, using them with the same dexterity she had her surgical tools. Picking small pieces off of her meal, she ate slowly, taking noticeable, child-like pleasure in the act. I felt that same difficulty in looking away I had when in the operating room with her.
Suddenly she paused, chopsticks hovering a few inches above her plate. Eyebrows pulled down, mouth locked in a frown, and bright green fixed on me. I was not certain I could be relied upon to handle my own breathing if this continued. "You don't like it."
I was caught off guard… "Why would you think that?"
"You're not eating."
"Natsuki is watching me carefully," I said because I could not very well explain that her adorableness was remarkably distracting.
"It's not like that. I was kidding before…about the 'not complaining'." I cocked my head at her. "Look, if you want something else, order it. It doesn't matter to me, but there's no reason to eat something you don't like." That was certainly an interesting perspective on dining etiquette. She continued working at her plate, speed increased, that expression of enjoyment significantly diminished. That would not do.
Since it seemed we were working outside of traditional manners, I snatched a piece of her lunch away with my chopsticks, closing my eyes as I chewed it. Whatever she had chosen was quite tasty… I would have to remember it for next time I came.
"Oi!" I lifted one eyelid to see her staring at me with an unreadable expression on her face.
I smirked at her. "It is delicious."
"Eat your own!" Even through obvious unease, a smile and a sound that was as near to a laugh as I'd heard her make slipped through.
"Ookini… for your company as well as the meal." I added seriously, pleased to see her shoulders relax a bit.
She gave a stiff, wary nod and then continued eating with renewed, equally wary excitement. I joined her this time. It was excellent food and a welcome change from the strain of the last few days. It did take some effort to ignore the unblinking intensity of her eyes. I could tell she was watching me as I ate. To reassure herself that I was not unhappy with my meal I suppose. I had made her choose… it may have been too much pressure...
I was happy when she excused herself to use the restroom... it would give me the opportunity to pay without an argument. I looked out the window as I waited for her return, noticing there were a few more clouds in the sky than there had been. As my eyes followed them, I noticed a familiar person pass by.
Haruka stomped by the glass with a brunette woman I recognized from our days in medical school. Kikukawa Yukino… the shy girl my former roommate had invited for visits periodically. A best friend who seemed to be very much enamored with her. Not that I expected the blonde woman to notice such a thing… that would be disastrous for their friendship I was sure… … or I could be entirely wrong. I felt my eyes harden as I saw the smaller woman lay a gentle hand on the other's stomach, pulling away quickly… self-consciously… their eyes meeting shyly. A look passed between them whose meaning I was entirely too familiar with. I did not know what I felt at that moment, but it was overwhelming. I had reached some sort of emotional saturation point. I was not dealing as well as I expected to with nearly anything as of late. It was a frightening experience if I was honest.
I was so lost in my own thoughts that her hand on my shoulder made me gasp.
"Sorry." Natsuki had jumped back, eyes alert, body tense… apparently, my being startled had startled her as well.
"Kanin-na, but I have just realized the time. The lunch was wonderful and it was a pleasure Natsuki." I smiled, and she arched her brow at me as if she was not sure what to make of me.
That hand was at her neck, scratching. Her gaze caught the black leather on the table. "Oi! You paid already?!"
"Now there must be a next time, to make us even. Have a good day." I stood up to leave, giving her my best smile.
She stared at me and I began to walk away... "Wait a second Shizuru!"
I stopped, composed myself, and turned to glance at her inquiringly. She was up and moving toward me almost cautiously, dipping her head and drawing her brows together. Her body language was almost animalistic and drew the oddest urges from me. In this case, I imagined extending my hand for her to sniff, maybe scratching beneath her chin… my mind was capable of such foolishness.
"I have to go back to the hospital for something anyway. Do you want me to walk with you?"
I smiled at her as reassuringly, surprised by the question. "When such pleasant company is offered, I could not refuse."
She scratched her neck again, peering over at me. "I didn't know if you just needed a minute."
I looked at her curiously. "A minute?"
"By yourself?" It had been my intended purpose in departing so quickly … but I would never have asked for one, never would have voiced it so truthfully. There was also the fact that she was asking in seriousness, which indicated she would have willingly allowed me the moment if I requested it. We watched each other and I did not understand the look in her eyes… it seemed she did not understand the look in mine either.
"It is sweet of Natsuki to be so concerned for me." I smiled as I said it and it had the intended effect of making her frown and forget my slip from earlier.
"It was just a question." She mumbled, feigning disinterest and moving toward the door. I felt my lips curl, a softness suffusing me… she really was too adorable. We walked toward the hospital in a slightly less awkward silence. I thankfully found myself wondering more about my companion and whether or not she realized she was fiddling cutely with one of her earrings than the troubling scene outside the restaurant. However, I held no illusions that I would not devote a significant amount of time to thinking on it later... regardless of whether I wished to or not.
Digression #9: Kikukawa Yukino
Date: May 13, 2010… a Friday
Yukino was an intelligent woman. No one had ever, nor would they ever try and debate that fact. What often went unnoticed was that her intelligence extended beyond the intellectual realm into the political arena. Her greatest strength was that she had always understood her own weaknesses. She had wonderful ideas and innovative means for implementing them, but was neither outspoken nor did she possess a strong personality. The trouble for her was always in getting others to listen. She was naturally soft-spoken… somewhat timid. If the situation required it, she could do it, but the experience took so much out of her, to raise her voice like that, to argue with people, to fight. It made sense to her that she gravitated toward people who were what she wasn't; people who were all voice and muscle…it completed the package so to speak. Because of her quiet way and choice of allies, she had already risen through the ranks at the engineering firm at which she was employed, before any realized she had such ambitions.
Yukino stood at her desk, reviewing the plans for a plant that would be starting construction in two months if everything worked according to schedule... which it seldom did. Her mind, unusually enough, was not on the task at hand though. Her best friend, Suzushiro Haruka, was getting married tomorrow… she was going to be the maid of honor. She would be catching a train in an hour. Her thoughts had been falling hopelessly back to the event all day.
Haruka was different, an individual to say the least… aggressive and loud, but at the same time, beneath it all… there was a gentleness that she tried her hardest to hide. She was a person who was easy to misunderstand, to dislike, to simplify to the point of a caricature. At this point in their lives, Yukino was the one protecting of her...more from herself than anyone else, but it was quite the reversal from their earlier days. Grade school had been hell on earth for the shy, spectacled, mousy little girl that Yukino was back then. Haruka had protected her, taken care of her, and leveled her tormentors with awe-inspiring efficiency. The girl had done it not because they were already friends, at the time they were not, but simply because she thought it was right. Such a strong, immutable sense of morality was a large part of the initial attraction.
In college it became apparent, she thought to both of them, that their friendship was something outside of normal... that there were yearnings which were becoming impossible to ignore or dismiss. The hopelessness of their situation hadn't become obvious to her until Fujino Shizuru… until she watched her friend rail against the woman who had become to Haruka, the very personification of sapphic indulgence. Yukino had understood her friend's reaction to the woman in a way that her friend refused to…probably even to this day. Shizuru was not a person to her friend, she was a symbol… she was the snake in the tree presenting forbidden fruit…original sin... ignorance lost. Yukino considered in this analogy, she would be the dangling apple waiting to be tasted… the thought made her incredibly embarrassed.
Fujino Shizuru… she did not know what think of her or her continued presence in Haruka's life. In Yukino's opinion, their relationship with one another was not healthy… not for either of them. It was almost as if her friend needed Shizuru there to remind her… whether of the possibility or the sin, she couldn't be sure. Why Shizuru needed Haruka was a question she couldn't begin to answer. She was only grateful that she wasn't there when Haruka had walked in on her roommate. Yukino had always been appreciative of the fact that she didn't have hurtful words said in her best friend's voice to replay in her memory each time she thought of her that way.
Haruka's sense of right and wrong erected a wall on either side of which were emotions that could never be acknowledged, let alone explored. It was a wall that seemed to stretch infinitely in either direction, mortared with stubbornness and pure strength of will. She couldn't find a way through and now her friend was marrying some man. 'Some man'… it stuck in her skin that she thought of him like that even once. Yukino had no issues with him, he seemed a good match, a good person… an American transplant… a Catholic who could share her values.
She sighed, wishing she'd worn her glasses today instead of her contacts. It would have been soothing to remove them, polish them, and put them back on. She settled for tapping her finger on the desk as she traced the lines of a schematic with her eyes. She didn't even think of Haruka in that way anymore, not very often anyway. Yukino was perfectly content with her life… she'd even gotten married first. Long ago she had recognized that a significant amount of the adoration she felt was hero-worship…but not all of it. She was sure that she'd been in love with Haruka back then. The blonde had been the only woman she'd ever even considered such a thing with.
She loved her husband dearly and that was never a question for her. When they'd been dating, she was surprised to find it entirely possible to love two people at the same time. He was wonderful and supportive and intelligent and quirky in the best of ways. Something about Haruka getting married felt different, frustrated her a bit. Despite all that she knew of her friend, of the reasons why it would never be, some part of her still longed for the other woman to admit there had been something between them… just so it was said in the open, in the light of day… so it became something real. I thought about you in that way… I looked at you in that way. It was challenging to accept that they that were going to spend their lives with it being unspoken, a secret... she'd known it from the minute she'd asked Haruka to leave that night in her dorm. Would it have been better than what she had now? It was difficult to imagine it would be. Yukino was very happy, but she would never know and she dealt poorly with unknowns.
It was not uncommon, she'd learned, to have that one person that you always wondered about… and Haruka was most definitely her 'what if'. Logically, she understood that the situation was not really fair to anyone involved. Besides, there was still so much good in the friendship, so much to be grateful for. Haruka was the girl that shoved Aito face first into the sandbox when he'd called her a nerd and she always would be... Haruka was still her best friend in the world. She didn't know how she would've made it through her schooling without the girl, didn't want to imagine it. They hadn't asked for this and likely neither of them would have wanted it... given the choice.
When she thought of the future, she pictured their children playing together… she and Haruka smiling at one another with none of the directionless hurt that still lived in their eyes. She imagined herself being able to be entirely, selflessly happy for her friend. It was something to hope for, something to believe in...that someday the only love she would have for Suzushiro Haruka… soon to be Haruka Armitage… would be a friendly love. Moving had helped, had given her time and space… but she missed her friend...terribly at times. Oddly, she missed the things that irritated her the most. She missed her errors in speech, her tendency toward making fists to emphasize a point, her quick-fire temper.
Rolling up the plans, she began the daily process of neatening her office. The picture of her and her husband smiling through their misery in rain ponchos beside her computer caught her eye. It was taken during a honeymoon where the weather had adamantly refused to cooperate. Her eyes traced the frame and then him. She adored how tall he was, like a regular person taken and stretched. It was easy to imagine what a gangly teenager he must have been, the time it must have taken his muscles to catch up with his bones. A man now, he'd grown into his face and body…was handsome in an unconventional way. It made her smile fondly to see his long arms wrapped around her, nearly touching his own sides because of their span. He was different than Haruka in every way she could think of.
"Yukino." She looked to see him standing in her doorway, wearing the tweed jacket with elbow pads that made her picture a pipe held between his lips. "All set?"
"Almost." The soft smile she gave to him made him stand up a bit straighter. He had a tendency to slouch. She often wondered if it was the result of having to sit in furniture that was designed for a person of average height. She tucked the last of her tools into the large center drawer of her desk and walked over to him. Her head tilted slightly and he adjusted his posture further under the scrutiny as she fixed his thin tie and righted the collar of his jacket where it was tucked inside itself. She let her hand rest on his neck for a moment.
He gave her an embarrassed half-smile and leaned down to kiss her lightly. "Your dress is in the car… and your shoes."
"You remembered your suit too?" His grinned proudly, pushing black glasses up on his nose.
"The list helped." He added.
She slipped her much smaller hand in his, glad he was coming with. It would make this whole thing just a little easier.
Aside #9: Buy the Car (Memory)
"My most favorite Resident… it would seem my day is on the upswing."
A light frown greeted him in response, but eyes sparkled with the barest hint of amusement. She'd met the man in ER, performed his surgery under the supervision of her Attending, seen him twice since.
She nodded toward him. "How's your ankle?"
"Better every day, thanks to your superb craftsmanship." He rapped the top of the now split cast lightly. "It was almost a shame to cut it."
The young doctor knelt, pulling the pieces apart and manipulating the appendage lightly, testing the range of motion. "The x-rays looked good. It's healing well... tell me if anything I do hurts."
"No, it feels good as new… perhaps better than it did before."
She wanted to roll her eyes at his silliness by when her gaze flicked to his now bare head… to the gaunt pull of his cheeks… worse than before, she suppressed the urge. Besides, it wasn't the most professional of behaviors anyway. "How do you …feel?"
"Admiring my new haircut are we?" He ran a hand over the smooth surface. "I feel fine, I believe I was given three more months, Kuga-sensei. I intend not to be terribly sick until then. Of course, before all this, I fully intended to live forever and we can see how well that worked out." A bright smile showed still white teeth.
She scoffed lightly, shaking her head. He was so strange… "Be careful if you're gonna go back out by that river."
"I most certainly will, though I cannot say it would be a hardship to have to see you again."
Ignoring the comment and the tiny blush it brought, she went about her business. "Stand up." He did as he was told. "Any pain?"
"None."
"I'm gonna write you a script for a boot, you can walk on it now. A couple weeks and you can take that off too, but put it back on if it starts to bother you."
"Understood."
"You can sit…did you buy that car you were talking about?"
A gleam showed in his reddish-brown eyes, he was clearly pleased… whether it was because she remembered their previous conversation or because of the car, the young woman couldn't tell. "As a matter of fact, I was finally able to sell my cabin. Absurdly expense car to cost more than a summer home, I still had to pull a good deal from my savings."
"Why not just rent whatever it is for a week or something, why buy it then?"
"Because this way it is mine. Otherwise, I would merely be driving someone else's car. The vehicle is gorgeous."
"Gorgeous, huh?"
"It is the only apt descriptor. Kuga-sensei is not impressed with cars?"
"It's not that… I prefer motorcycles, I guess."
"A rebel, are we? Do you have one?"
She sighed at him lightly. "A Ducati DRIII. Is it worse at night… or in the morning?"
"Not at all. The cold does affect it some."
"Still need the pain relievers?"
"Not for that past week, it has been unnecessary. I do hope you are careful…motorcycles can be dangerous. Kanin-na for saying so, but it would be a shame to put even one scratch on such a beautiful face."
She held her tongue because coworkers and strangers were one thing; patients were another. Besides...his comments didn't annoy her to the same extent that some others had before. They were harmless, but she found herself wondering if she was giving him more latitude because he was dying… that thought was not one she liked the feel of. Maybe it was because he had the kind of warmth she wished her own father had … that thought was not one she liked the feel of either. She didn't need a father, she'd done fine without one.
Natsuki narrowed her eyes, but the look was not menacing, it was somewhere between admonishing and playful. "Sneaking a drive in your new car with that cast on was more dangerous."
He laughed. "You have bested me Kuga-sensei."
She favored him with a tiny grin of self-satisfaction and then frowned. "What're you gonna do with it when…" Her eyes widened as she realized what she had asked and she barely caught the curse that tried to escape. "…I'm… sorry…"
He smiled. "Please, no use dancing around it." A sudden, oddly serious look came over him. "I suppose I will leave it to my daughter."
An eyebrow arched. "She likes cars too?"
He shrugged. "I haven't the slightest idea."
Another dark eyebrow floated up to meet its twin and both dipped downward. "Why leave her a car like that then?"
"My wife may drive the thing right into a river if I left it with her. She thinks I am having a crisis of some kind." He paused thoughtfully. "I suppose she is right." Studying the woman across from him carefully, he gave her a quirky smile. "You would like my daughter I think Kuga-sensei, she is quite the character." She considered commenting on how much like him she must be then, but decided against it… afraid it would come out too sarcastic. She found that she second-guessed herself more often with patients, was careful because she knew she tended to be unintentionally harsh. Better not to say anything that could be misinterpreted. There was a slip now and then, but she was developing a system, a catalog of questions to ask, the same mindless questions people asked her when she was younger, things to fill the space, things she remembered patients saying… a mental guide to making small talk. He was most definitely one of her easier patients that way, he did most of the work.
"A father could not ask for a better daughter… she is a doctor as well." His eyes gentled and he looked a much younger man.
She tried to figure out how to respond. "Does she… work here?"
The first frown Natsuki had ever seen on him, crossed his lips and his eyes clouded for a moment. "No. Unfortunately, I do not know where she works. We have grown apart you see… and I've not had any luck reconnecting us."
"I'm sorry."
"Nothing for you to be sorry about." He smiled at the woman. "Humor an old man for a moment, will you my lovely young doctor? Pretend there is wisdom in what I am saying. Let me die thinking I said something worth hearing to someone worth speaking to." She gave him a confused look. "I was going to travel the world when I retired Kuga-sensei… get my picture taken with the Dalai llama, ride a camel across a desert, wrestle a lion, climb an ice wall…those sorts of boyish fantasies." She nodded slowly, still not entirely accustomed to his animated way of speaking, his words that bordered on deliberately ridiculous. "It would seem that life had other plans… all of these experiences I set aside for later, for my retirement? I made a bad bargain… my time for money, money for a later I just assumed would be there. We always feel we have so much of it… time… always feel younger than we are, it is one of life's best illusions I think. The truth is that the future is nothing but a dream we have each day. We dream of fixing our mistakes, of the things we will do, of reconciliations, but they are still only dreams. We do not consider time. So tell me, what is the moral of the story, Kuga-sensei?"
She stared at him for a second, trying to fish a response from the emotions his words had unexpectedly evoked. "I don't know."
He grinned. "Buy the car of course." She gave him a small smile. "…and if you must die of cancer, make sure it is a rare one, something to brag to your friends about." She laughed quietly because it was absurd and because she was uncomfortable with such morbid humor. "Ookini Kuga-sensei… truly it was a pleasure."
She nodded, eyes shifting nervously to the side, and then bouncing back to his. "… take care of yourself Viola-san."
"Yes, the same goes for you." He slipped his cap on and paused in front of her. She reached out to shake his hand and he clasped hers. "I've no doubt your future will be bright." With a smile, he walked out of her examination room. The idea that when she completed her residency in four months, he might not be alive any longer… it was impossible to consider in anything but its most abstract form.
