A/N: I'm still not sure if I want to put this author note here, but I thought the least I could do is offer an explanation why I disappeared for four months. If you don't mind or want to read my ramblings, please skip ahead to the chapter.
A reviewer asked if I was okay, and I chose not to answer because I didn't want to burden them with, well, me. I'm sure it's blatantly obvious considering what topic I write about, I have similar issues as some of the characters, and it was a long, miserable, bleak summer. I wasn't able to write or be creative at all.
Also, when I could write, I was so frustrated with this chapter and the months I spent agonizing on the character of Dr. Satou (cause he's important!), I fell into a writer's block too. My reasoning aside, enjoy this chapter. I hope you like it (I never want to look at it again)!
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RYC to Guest: Thank you for your review! Read this chapter and see what happens... ^_^
RYC to another (or the same?) Guest: Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying it. Keep reading. ^_^
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Chapter 19: Dr. Satou
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Bakura dropped his head into his palms, as he slouched over on his bed. The silence of the room mocked him as Yami's footsteps echoed against the hardwood floors as the former pharaoh slinked off after yet another failed attempt to coerce Bakura into opening his bedroom door.
Fuck me, he thought angrily, even as hot liquid coated his hands as he scratched at his eyebrows. He hated himself for the uncharacteristic display of emotion, and it only further increased the tears leaking from his eyes.
He choked down a breath, resolution halting the awful fit, just as Yami returned moments later. A pause as the idiot outside his door sucked in a deep breath as if to brace himself for the next battle of wills. "Bakura?"
"What?" he drawled in a long, resigned sigh. "What more could you add to this shitty day?" He ignored the accompanying sigh from the other side of the door at his melodramatic remark. It wasn't exaggerated if the statement described the situation perfectly. Hell, most days he felt that way—unless, of course, he physically harmed himself.
Nauseous, head pounding, cut inflamed on his arm, Bakura allowed himself to succumb to the ever present misery. Yami banged a fist into the closed door. Leaning his head against his fist, Yami propped himself so his nose nearly touched the wood. He narrowed his eyes, and the notches in the wood blurred. "Look, Ryou will be home soon, then the doctor will be here. Why don't you just come out?" Disdain dripped from Yami's words.
Bakura heard the silence where he would have filled with: for fuck's sake. Anger restoring some of the strength he had vomited away and rage burned away the god awful emotion, Bakura jerked himself upright so he was sitting on the edge of his bed. "I told you before," irritation bubbled over as he was forced to repeat himself, "fuck off and I'll be ready when he gets here. Fuck!"
As Yami's footsteps plodded away, down the hall, thankfully and finally, Bakura's rigid posture relaxed into a slouch. He let sections of hair fall in his face and cling to his wet cheeks.
…
Dr. Satou arrived, not long after Ryou, knocking on the apartment door. He was a tall, slim, older man with graying hair and glasses. He smiled genially at Yami and Ryou, though never actually meeting their gazes, very much unlike Yami's perception of a doctor who worked with Kaiba. In fact, he was reminded somewhat of a humbler version of Solomon's friend, Arthur Hawkins.
"Hello, my name's Dr. Satou." He bowed to Ryou, then Yami. Yami murmured a response, nodding his head in a bow.
Ryou led Dr. Satou to Bakura's room, pausing outside the door. "I should wake him first," he explained. Mumbling more to himself, "He's not going to be happy."
Dr. Satou shifted the bag in his hands. "Most sick people aren't." He stepped back, standing in the edge of the doorway, to allow Ryou and Bakura a moment of privacy.
"Hey, Bakura," Ryou said as he patted Bakura's back, not looking near his face where tears still stained his face. Bakura groaned, flopping an arm against the comforter. "There's a doctor here to look at you."
When Bakura sat up, Ryou offered, "Why don't you go get cleaned up and he'll see you?"
Bakura glowered, but his stomach still gurgled sickly, so he just nodded, and did as Ryou suggested, stepping past a non descript older man (likely the doctor Ryou and Yami mentioned) on his way to the bathroom. He washed his face and hands, and returned to his room, where Ryou had cleared off his desk and the accompanying chair.
…
Dr. Satou bowed to Bakura, entering the room after him. Ryou sat on the bed next to Bakura as Dr. Satou began questioning Bakura from his desk chair.
"I heard you've been sick for a little over a week," he said, jotting down an affirmation on his clipboard when Bakura shrugged, and at Ryou's reproach, elaborated with, "Longer. I think three weeks?"
Ryou's gaze met him, a pair of upraised eyebrows and a frown. "Three weeks? Why didn't you say anything?! That's practically all break!"
Dr. Satou lifted his eyes from his clipboard, silencing Ryou's worried tirade. "That could be the sign of something more serious. The length of time is especially concerning. Have you had any other symptoms, besides flu like?" He ticked off items with his fingers as he offered examples of flu symptoms. "Nausea and vomiting, body aches and weakness, a temperature."
Bakura nodded, and rubbed at his arm. He bit back a grimace at the pain radiating from one cut. Dr. Satou narrowed his eyes as he witnessed his patient rubbing his covered arms. He looked at Ryou, and spoke to him, "I think we might get further, if we were alone. If you don't mind?" The words came out in a chaotic tumble that even Bakura recognized as not professional.
If his thoughts weren't firing off rapidly in fear of his cutting being found out, he might've smirked as Ryou jumped up. "Of course!" He lingered at the doorway. "Would you like the door closed?"
Dr. Satou nodded, distracted, as his right hand halted, and the pen enclosed within his grip stopped scratching against paper. "Er, yes. Thank you."
Bakura bristled when Dr. Satou's gaze returned to him. A dead weight jammed up his throat, and without being fully cognizant, he knew Dr. Satou at least suspected. He leaned against the wall, pressing his arms to himself.
"I thought you would prefer the physical tests done in private," Dr. Satou explained. His gaze had since returned to his clipboard, as if following commands to avoid gazing directly into another's eyes. Bakura noted he hadn't truly met Ryou's gaze, even as he awkwardly asked him to leave. Maybe that's how the doctor worked well with Kaiba; he never felt the rich bastard's venomous glowers of hatred.
The exam went relatively smoothly from there. Dr. Satou retrieved his medical bag from where he had set it near the door and proceeded to remove the standard set of tools. Bakura nearly sagged against his bed in relief. So Dr. Satou wasn't as observant as he thought. Besides, Bakura reasoned, the guy's so old, be might be completely blind. He remembered this from GP visits Ryou had every year. First, went on the rubber gloves, and the exam began.
"I need to check your heart and the status of your internal organs," Dr. Satou stated as he positioned the stethoscope evenly around his neck. Bakura sat up straightly, repressing the urge to flinch, as Dr. Satou's hands crept up his shirt. Between his memories from Ryou and Dr. Satou's continued explanations as he checked Bakura's front and back with the cold metal of the stethoscope, this was part of a typical physical. Or, in his case, a routine checking to diagnose his illness.
And a gateway to providing prescription pills to annihilate this flu. Bakura remained stoically silent, shrugging only when Dr. Satou addressed him. He silently allowed the older man to prod his mouth and ears with an otoscope.
Blood pressure, please," Dr. Satou said as he brandished an analog blood pressure machine. "If you could lift your sleeve, please?" He asked pleasantly as he glanced at Bakura's sleeve covered arm. "Or, if it would be easier, you can remove the garment entirely."
Yeah. Fuck, no. "I'm cold," Bakura said tersely. He glared down at his lap as Dr. Satou's eyes bore into the fabric of his sleeve as he twisted it inside his clenched fist.
After a moment, Dr. Satou spoke in a light voice, apparently unconcerned why his patient was clad in long sleeves during the last week of the hottest month, "That's fine. I'll take it over your sleeve, then."
Bakura nearly jumped when he wrapped the upper portion of his arm with the blood pressure cuff. Not acknowledging his reactions, Dr. Satou continued to speak, "It won't be a perfect reading, but I should still get a good idea." Bakura attempted to regulate his breaths as the aneroid gauge rotated round, and reversed. The cuff dug into his arm, similarly to the constricting in his chest. He beat down the emotion. Apparently money doesn't buy perfection, and it's not like Kaiba's doctor noticed his arms yet anyway.
That, or he was easily duped. "A little high, but that could be the fabric of your shirt or just nerves." He smiled pleasantly at the end of his explanation. Bakura shrugged. Sure, normal fear-of-doctor nerves, not fear-of-getting-found-out-and-locked-up nerves.
He relaxed a fraction when Dr. Satou returned the medial paraphernalia to his bag. Now, he would announce Bakura's diagnosis, write a script, and problem solved.
When Dr. Satou turned around after zipping shut his bag, his face had hardened. The polite façade froze to professional decorum, and Bakura could not remember an instance in Ryou's memories that a doctor had gazed at him with such an intense look.
"Well, everything points to you being a very ill young man," he said as an opening. "Normally, I would cite you having the flu, but the prolonged state of it concerns me." His eyes flashed, and Bakura's heart raced in his chest. "I do have my suspicions…"
"Why don't we make this pleasant for both of us, and you roll up your sleeve, please," Dr. Satou said in the same tone he had been using for the entire visit, a polite but neutral pitch.
Bakura held his arms tighter to himself, and Dr. Satou sighed. "Working for the Kaiba family, nothing can surprise me now," he said as a bribing chip.
Bakura snarled, anger fueling his actions. "Are you telling me rich boy does this?" He shoved up the sleeve on his non dominant arm revealing the scars and the pus-filled, inflamed cut.
"Well, not that I'm aware," Dr. Satou said without missing a beat. He stroked his short clipped beard. "However this explains your long run flu."
Bakura, startled, let Dr. Satou grab his arm to inspect the cut. "Excuse me?"
"This cut," Dr. Satou said as he pressed a gloved finger at the edges of the cut, "it's infected."
Bakura sat in silence, even as the man momentarily excused himself to dig through his bag. When he returned to the bed, a bottle of sterile water in hand, Bakura stoically gazed past the doctor and his ministrations. He cleansed the cut as he spoke, "It's a relatively easy fix, but until it's fixed, it will make you sick as a dog. Worse if you don't get rid of the infection." Bakura repressed a flinch as Dr. Satou flushed the wound with water repeatedly.
Bakura watched the man clean out the puss and use a cotton ball to dab the cut with peroxide, before bandaging his arm. "I'm going to prescribe antibiotic for the infection, but if you keep your cuts clean, this shouldn't affect you again."
Bakura nodded. Dr. Satou sat back, and gestured to Bakura's other, covered, arm. "Will you please roll up your other sleeve?" Bakura quirked an eyebrow, and did as asked. "I thought so," Dr. Satou said as Bakura revealed another arm filled with mostly healed red and white scars. Unlike the other arm, Dr. Satou skipped over irrigating any of the cuts, and proceeded to clean the open wounds and wrap the area in gauze.
"I'll give the script to your brother," he said in reference to Ryou, confusing the muddled relationship, as Bakura yanked his sleeves down the moment Dr. Satou finished.
Bakura's heart raced to his throat. "You won't tell him about?" his voice trailed off to silence as he tried to speak the damning words.
Dr. Satou gazed at his nose (now that his accusations ended, he resumed not looking directly at Bakura) with an odd expression, a cross between empathy and stern disapproval. "I will not, but I think you should seek out help for this. The problem will only manifest." He handed one of his business cards from his lab coat pocket to Bakura.
Bakura let the words wash over him, as Dr. Satou crossed the room with his packed up equipment and script for Ryou. He glanced down at the card in his hand. It had Dr. Satou's personal name and office phone number and address along the bottom.
"Feel free to contact my office if you need a referral," were Dr. Satou's parting words. His hand lingered on the door knob, and Bakura caught sight of several almost faded white scars on Dr. Satou's wrist as his sleeve caught on the wood frame.
The door closed, leaving Bakura to his racing thoughts. What the fuck? He blinked quickly, trying to rewind the past minute or so. He swore he had seen the tell-tale flash of white scars, much like his own, especially the older scars from last April. He hadn't thought anyone else had done this. Of course, he knew there were others. Someone else, at least, must cut themselves, he knew—especially since their psychology class late last term had spent ten minutes in class going over self mutilation.
He remembered the ten long minutes of sweat dripping down his back. He expected everyone's gaze to narrow in on him and his long sleeves, but even his most studious peers were staring out the windows longingly at the July sun. Even Ryou had been so entrenched by his eating disorder back then, he hadn't been paying most lectures any attention.
He rolled up his sleeves to gaze at the older scars on his arms. He flicked at the gauze neatly wrapped on his arms. Through his baggy tee shirt, he was unable to make out the gauze, thankfully. He considered Dr. Satou's comment on keeping the cuts clean. It hadn't taken that long to clean out even the puffy, infected cut from three weeks ago. He supposed, he ought to include cleaning his cuts after a round as sort of a routine.
The nasty thought: so you aren't going to stop then niggled at him, and Bakura collapsed against the bed, feeling something besides ill. He tugged his sleeves over his hands, trying to process the last hour, and waited for his heart rate to slow.
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Ryou bit at his thumb nail when, after almost a full hour passed, Dr. Satou left Bakura's room, closing the door behind him. An action that reminded him he wasn't privy to every aspect of Bakura's life. He straightened his sleeves and readjusted his bag before he noticed Ryou standing at the edge of the living room.
"Er, what's wrong with him?" Ryou nearly squeaked when Dr. Satou looked at him with a quirked eyebrow.
"He's fine. Just a touch of summer flu." He handed Ryou the script for antibiotics. "Bacterial. He should fell better within a couple days once he starts the medication."
"Thank you," Ryou said with a bow.
Dr. Satou crossed the living room, into the kitchen and slipped on his shoes as he entered the genkan. "Keep an eye on him. Seems he doesn't like to let other people in."
"Um…Right?" Thinking about Bakura's admission on the length of his illness, Ryou missed Dr. Satou's lips thinning in bitter remembrance.
After the doctor exited the apartment, Ryou guided himself to his favorite chair in the living room. He bent his legs underneath him, and leaned forward, elbows resting upon knees, and chin pressed into his palms. Three weeks. Bakura had been ill for almost the entirety of holiday break, and he hadn't noticed.
Dr. Satou's warning circled his thoughts, coiling tightly as guilt in his stomach. "Keep an eye on him." Sure, he had been distracted with his eating disorder, too hungry and ill to look past himself, but after that… If Bakura was hiding something as overt as the flu from him… Was Kaiba's family doctor trying to alert him of something?
His ruminations on the unpleasant thoughts dissipated as the home phone rang shrilly. He uncurled himself, walked over to the phone, and greeted the person on the other end with mechanical motions.
"Hello, Bakura residence?"
A pause from the other end, then, "Hey Ryou."
"Yugi." His voice filled with warmth as his friend's cheerful tone washed away the guilty thoughts.
"Um, you see," Yugi's laughed down the line as the distinct voice of Yami intruded into the conversation.
"Just want to know if he's okay, is all," Yami's voice thinned with a touch of petulance. Ryou smirked, covering his twitching lips in reflex.
"Tell Yami, Bakura is fine. I'm going to fill his prescription shortly," Ryou assured Yami via Yugi, who relayed the message back by shouting at the other without the nicety of covering the mouthpiece.
Ryou winced. "Yeah, I'm just going to head up that way. I don't think it matters as long as it's a family store," Ryou answered Yugi's where's how's and when's.
"I can run and get it," Yami offered from the background.
Ryou felt an eyebrow quirk without his volition. "Um, that's not really necessary."
"Actually," Yugi said, speaking over the confused Ryou and overly helpful Yami, "You can't get it anyway, since Ryou has the script."
"Oh." A silence from Yami, then he spoke in a nonchalant manner. Ryou could practically envision his arm gesturing madly. "Thought I'd offer."
"Um, thank you, regardless," Ryou said politely. He let the phone conversation dwindle into pleasantries, and hung up the receiver with a click. Well, he thought. That was strange. He grasped Bakura's prescription and called out his departure to Bakura, before slipping on tennis shoes and making his way cross-town to the closest pharmacy, incidentally near the Mouto's, to fill Bakura's prescription.
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A/N: Health care in Japan. I'm still not very knowledgeable on the subject, so any mistakes I made are hopefully not glaringly obvious. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I can't promise mistakes will be fixed right away, because I' so freaking sick of this chapter.
In Japan there are two types of pharmacies: family run ones, where you can pick up medication from with a prescription authorized by a doctor, and convenience store like brands—like a CVS or Rite Aid, but you cannot get prescription medications at these. The family run pharmacies are usually located near doctors' offices, so I'm pretending the Mouto's live near a doctor.
In regards to the house call, well it's fanfiction, and Kaiba is rich, so he can probably afford that luxury. I'm fairly certain Japanese minors are subject to the same privacy
(or lack thereof) laws like in the USA, so I'm not saying Dr. Satou's lack of informing Bakura's guardian (Solomon Mouto) is exactly legal or professional, but he's not getting found out quite yet…
