Here is the new chapter! I know it's not the update speed the story had during the first few chapters but I'll try not to take any more one-year hiatuses.
One announcement: I'm planning on making some other J-Dramas (Doramas) and J-Movies part of this fanfic's universe. Will you be ok with that? Leave your opinion in the comments.
Disclaimer: I don't own Code Blue.
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Keisuke walked around for more than an hour before stopping to really take in where he was, he was around Megumi and Mihoko's apartment. As soon as he returned to reality his phone began ringing and, after seeing that the caller was Doctor Inoue, Keisuke sighed. The man had not gone to the hospital in the morning that day, so Keisuke supposed he had just arrived at the hospital and learned about the death of the patient.
"Yes, Aragaki here" he said after accepting the call.
"Dr. Aragaki, the Kurono Couple has left something for you at the office before leaving the hospital this morning, a letter. Normally I wouldn't bother you about it but the people at our department are spending more time looking at the envelope, more interested in the contents of the letter than in working. Would you mind coming to get it?" Keisuke thought for a second. He had last seen the Kuronos, the parents of Yui Kurono, the girl who'd died that morning, when he'd told them their daughter was gone and there was nothing he could do about it. They hadn't been especially hostile towards him, they had been so devastated and tired that they'd only had the strength to cry. Was this a letter cursing him for letting their little girl die? Telling him they'd see him in court? Or was it something else? "Doctor?"
"I…" Keisuke began to reply, a little unsure about what to say. "I will pick it up now sir. I can be at the hospital in 15 minutes."
"Good" Inoue said. "I'll see you soon."
"See you soon then sir" Keisuke replied before ending the call. A couple of seconds later, he called his mother's.
"Keisuke" her voice greeted him.
"Mom, I need to go to the hospital for a while so you will have to pick the children up alone after all" he informed her.
"I see, will you be gone for a long time?" Tomoko asked.
"I'm not sure" he replied. "I'll call you when I know" he added as he spotted a taxi and raised his arm to stop it."
"Alright" his mother replied. "I had hoped you'd be here the first time I see the kids in person, I mean I only saw Satoshi when he was a newborn and I haven't met Sakura yet." She added, feeling a little worried.
"You've talked to Satoshi over the phone a good number of times, he knows your voice. Sakura won't know who you are yet but she is usually a very well-behaved baby and she won't give you any trouble." Keisuke replied as he got into the taxi. He knew his mom hadn't told him about her worries earlier because she was afraid he wouldn't leave then. "It'll be fine. Call me when you've picked them up. Love you." He added before ending the call and giving the cab driver the name of the place where he wanted to go.
Keisuke arrived at the heart surgery department of the hospital in the time he had told Dr Inoue he would and knocked on the Chief of Department's door. After receiving the go ahead from the man, he entered the office and the man greeted him with a smile. "I'm sorry for calling you when you probably really needed the free time but I had to get the envelope off the department, our department members were behaving like curious school children and not getting too much work done."
"Don't worry, sir" Keisuke said, giving the man a small smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I'm very sorry to have caused you trouble and…"
"Don't say it" Dr. Inoue interrupted him in a somewhat stern tone of voice. "No one here can blame you for what happened to the child. You did everything you could to keep her alive and everyone here will testify for you if necessary." He added, handing him the envelope.
"Thank you, sir" Keisuke said
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There was no one from his department or from Lifesaving when Keisuke entered the cafeteria with the envelope in his hand, something for which Keisuke was a bit grateful. He had decided to read whatever it was the parents of the child wanted to tell him before going home. Whether this would help him move over from his patient's death quicker or would make him more depressed he didn't know, but if it was going to be the latter, he wanted some time alone to prepare to pretend he was ok when he went back home.
Buying a cup of coffee, he sat at one of the tables that were empty and opened the envelope. The letter wasn't particularly long but it was longer than one he would have expected someone in the state of mind of parents who had just lost, or were losing, their child to write. Pushing that thought aside he began to read its contents.
"Dear Dr. Aragaki.
If you are reading this, it's because my husband and I are certainly completely devastated because of our daughter's death and the thought of telling you this hasn't even crossed our minds, but there is something we have to tell you:
Thank you, doctor, for everything you've done to try to save our daughter until there was nothing else you could do. Thank you for always greeting us with a smile and not letting Yui stay depressed, for taking the time to speak to her whenever you checked on her, for trying to comfort us even when you knew the end was near.
I truly think that our daughter was able to last as long as she did at the hospital because you were her attending doctor and that at the end she was fighting not to see, not only my husband and I but also you, sad.
I also want you to know that neither my husband or I blame you or the people at the hospital for Yui's death and I beg you to continue to do your best for your patients, saving everyone you can. I know this is what Yui would want as well.
Always grateful.
Madoka Kurono."
Keisuke re-read the letter several times as he drank his coffee. There was none of the anger or the accusation he'd expected to find. It was a letter to help him cope with the fact that he'd failed in saving their little girl's life. They were consoling him. This made him feel even worse about having lost his patient, but it also made him decide to overcome his sadness. His patients needed him to be ok, so that he could give his 120% when helping them. That was what Yui and her parents wanted him to do.
Just at that moment, his cell phone rang again. "Aragaki here" he said, picking it up.
"Doctor, have you left the hospital?" It was one of his department's nurses, Makimura.
"No, I'm at the cafeteria. What's wrong?" He replied.
"Dr. Inoue has been asked to help with a patient the EMS people are bringing, a pregnant lady. Her heart has been injured due to an accident. Dr. Inoue needs a surgeon to assist but all the others are busy with their own patients and he is asking if you would assist him."
"I'm on my way" Keisuke replied before rising from his chair and sprinting out of the cafeteria.
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"We managed to save both of them" Mihoko told the worried husband of the pregnant woman they had operated on. "We performed a C-Section to save your daughters and the heart surgeons then repaired the damage to your wife's heart."
"Was her heart badly injured? will she…" The husband began to ask.
"We will have to keep her under observation" Keisuke replied. He was the only heart surgeon present since, when they were about to close the woman up after repairing her heart, Doctor Inoue had been called away, one of his patients' state had worsened and he would have to be operated on as well. "But the surgery went well and I think we can expect a full recovery" he added.
"Thank you Doctor." The husband cried.
"You are welcome" Keisuke smiled.
"Can I go see my children?" The man then asked. He had briefly seen them when the nurses had taken them out of the operation room, but he'd been too worried about his wife to really look at them.
"Of course" Mihoko said, looking at one of the nurses, who nodded and took the man away. "Good work" Keisuke said after the man left.
"Thanks, you too" she replied as they began to walk. "I was surprised when you entered the operation room with Doctor Inoue, I thought today was your free day."
"It was, but I'd come to the hospital to pick up something and Doctor Inoue asked for my help." He replied. "I lost a patient this morning, a young girl, and her parents had written me a letter. I came to pick it up." He then explained when he saw that Mihoko was about to ask him what he had come to pick up.
"I see" Mihoko said. "What are you going to do now?" She asked, changing the topic. She knew he probably wouldn't like to talk about the letter so she wouldn't press him about it.
"I think I'll wait in the hospital for a while to see if the woman wakes from the anesthesia and then I'll go grab something to eat." he replied.
"What about the kids?" Mihoko asked.
"They are with my mom, she arrived this morning" Keisuke replied.
"I see" Mihoko said. "It's great that your mom has come to help you out a bit."
Keisuke sighed. "Well, it is great. But I'm afraid of her definition of "Helping out a bit". When she did it with my sister Kyoko, she didn't stop helping until well into her new marriage. Within one month of her arrival, she'd forced her to go to three "Omiais". Said her children couldn't stay without a father for long."
"That is a bit too much" Mihoko chuckled.
"It certainly is." Keisuke agreed "She had my sister's best interest at heart though. She was forced to raise me and my sisters on her own and knows how hard it is. She doesn't want any of us to know of the hardships of single parenting for too long."
Mihoko nodded. "I need to go now but Megumi has to stay the night at the hospital today, so, if you want, give me a call when you are about to leave I'll grab a bite with you."
"Mihoko Hiyama, are you inviting me to dinner after hearing I might be having "Omiais" from now on?" Keisuke smirked.
"Of course" Mihoko laughed. "I know how popular single parents are with women nowadays, I don't want to miss my chance."
"Very well then, it's a date." Keisuke said before walking away.
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"I gotta say, I expected something different for our first date than a ramen street food stall, but this ramen is delicious" Mihoko said.
"Depending on how well this date goes, I might take you to a french restaurant for our second date." Keisuke joked.
"Ah, baiting the woman with a more appealing date next time" Mihoko laughed. "Does that work often?"
"I'm not sure, it's the first time I've used this tactic, so we'll have to wait and see" Keisuke laughed as well.
"So, do you think your mom will make you have an Omiai soon?" She asked.
Keisuke sighed. "As soon as she finds a suitable candidate, I wouldn't be surprised if she had called some of her acquaintances and a couple of matchmaking agencies before arriving."
"She works that fast?" Mihoko asked.
"You've got no idea, around three months after my divorce, she organized some kind of video-omiai" Keisuke told her. "A single mother of twins, a nurse who had worked abroad with several NGOs and was friends with my sister. A lovely woman."
"Sounds like it" Mihoko admitted. "Why didn't it work?"
"Well, it turns out she was using the Omiai to pressure her lover into a committed relationship, they got engaged a couple of weeks after it happened." Keisuke laughed again. "I did get a playdate promise for Satoshi out of it though, scheduled for whenever I go to Sendai. Her children are the same age as him."
Mihoko smiled. "Well, that's good then." She looked at the stall's owner. "Master, another two glasses of beer."
"Coming right up" the man replied, pulling a bottle of beer from under the counter and serving both of them.
When he was serving Keisuke, the surgeon took a good look at the man for the first time that night. Before, Keisuke had not been able to do so since the man had been quite busy with other clients and he had been more concentrated on his conversation with Mihoko, but now that he was able to do so, the heart surgeon couldn't help but feel he knew the stall's owner from somewhere. "You look really familiar. Have you always worked in this town?" He asked.
"No, I moved here around five years ago, before I used to work in my brother's stall in Tokyo." The man replied.
"Near Sakurai hospital?" Keisuke then asked.
"Yes" the man smiled. "Doctor Sakurai invited his doctors pretty often to eat there. Were you one of them?"
"No, but my cousin was. Whenever we met for lunch or dinner on a day he had to work, he'd take me to your brother's stall." Keisuke answered and the man nodded before moving away when another client called him.
"Your cousin is also a doctor?" Mihoko asked curiously.
"Yeah, he is also a surgeon" Keisuke replied. "One of the best there is, in my opinion."
"What's his name?" Mihoko questioned again.
"Doctor Asada, Ryūtaro Asada" Keisuke answered.
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Reply to icejanesintos' comment: Thank you for waiting! I will.
Please remember to tell me your opinion about making other Doramas and J-Movies part of this universe.