Chapter IV: Flatlining

It's been two weeks since Fukuzama stepped through the doorway of the underground clinic overseen by the callous young doctor Mori. Despite his inner thoughts telling him to leave, Fukuzama kept coming back. Maybe it was the curiosity of learning what Natsume found admirable in the sadistic doctor. Maybe it was because Fukuzama internally liking the constant bickering back and forth and Mori's snippy retorts. Maybe, and this was something that Fukuzama kept buried so deep inside of him for fear of admitting, he liked the young doctor. Despite Mori's cold and insensitive treatment to his patients, all of them were able to walk out mended and healed even after they originally walked in on the brink of death. He was a good doctor through and through. Had a healer's gift while blantely calling the patient stupid for putting themselves in their situation. And his eyes, his creamy voice...it was beginning to seep into Fukuzama's veins. Fukuzama did his best to not look at Mori for too long as a way to keep a fair distance between the two. However; if he did, he would have noticed the brightness lighting up in Mori's eyes every time he entered the clinic each evening.

While each night was busy, it was also uneventful. Most of the patients limped in with broken bones, bleeding wounds, bullet ridden legs, glass shard faces, and singed skin. They would stumble through the doors crying for help; demanding medical attention and in sauntered Mori from his office - unfazed and unamused as he lead them to his one operating room. In a few hours and several screams later, they would walk or be wheeled out to the recovery room where they would be allowed to sleep off the pain meds until Mori thought them ready enough to limp back out of his clinic and into the fray. Fukuzama kept his distance but he always followed Mori. Whichever room the doctor floated into, Fukuzama would find a vacant corner and watch the vicinity like a haunting gargoyle.

Never did he intervene but then again Mori never asked him to. As he stood in the corner of the operating room, the screams of the patient rummaging through his ears, Fukuzama would look away and at the door making sure no one would barge in. Even when the patient's injuries required a team of medical professionals, Mori handled everything perfectly on his own. He would briskly walk out to his office to collect more supplies and be back to the operating table before blood began pooling on the floor. He would bandage and wheel the patient out to the recovery room on his own and clean up his tools without a wipe from his brow. Never did he sigh in exhaustion or whine unless it was at the patient for choosing to join such a reckless gang. Mori never addressed Fukuzama when treating his patients or asked for his help.

Until today.

He was probably fifteen - a child still in so many ways. A friend of his around the same age was holding him up. They were two kids from the slums that probably were manipulated by one of the fractions' propaganda. A promise for a better life where they didn't have to sleep in the back of convenience stores and shoplift junk food to get by. The friend tried to explain to Mori while holding up his bleeding friend that they were ambushed by a group of undercover cops and were outnumbered and outgunned. Mori barely listened as he flew to the bleeding boy; lifting him up in his arms and carrying him to operating table as he was still just a frail thing. Fukuzama was right behind him, insisting that the friend stay in the waiting room and not come in. He closed the door behind him after forcing the frantic friend to sit down and saw Mori was already ripping the boy's shirt open to see the damage.

"Looks like 9mm. Lower abdomen. Left side. Multiple entry points." Mori listed. Fukuzama didn't know if Mori was talking to him or himself but one thing was for sure - Mori was scared. He never talked while treating his patients and to hear Mori list the wounds of the young boy, he suspected it was Mori's way of strategizing his plan of treatment or to help brace himself of the kid's death sentence.

The doctor dragged his small rolling table to his side, equipped already with the tools needed to extract the bullets. He quickly shimmied his latex gloves and began trying to locate the precise entry points of the bullets. Fukuzama kept his distance so as to not further add pressure to an already stressed Mori. The young boy withered in pain as tears ran down his cheeks. He gurgled a little while looking up at the ceiling; small streams of blood starting to run down his throat from his mouth. It was already looking bad and Mori hasn't even started yet.

Mori began prying into one hole with his tool; hoping to quickly pluck the bullets from the boy's body.

"I need more light!" He barked.

Fukuzama quickly turned on the operating table's ceiling lights. It was then that he realized that Mori may need him. Instead of retreating to his usual corner, Fukuzama placed himself on the other side of the operating table; ready to be called on by Mori once more. He watched the young doctor use the tool to search through the open wound; failing to find the bullet. The young boy squirmed even more.

"Hold him down." Mori ordered. Fukuzama grabbed the boy's shoulders and pinned them to the table. It pained his heart to hold his small shoulders so harshly. They were so small he worried he would crush the shoulder in his palm. Each cry of pain tore his heart open. Mori didn't slow down to respond. In fact, he wouldn't even look at the boy.

One.

A single bullet was plopped on top of the little side table but Mori didn't have the luxury to celebrate yet. They still had four more to go and the boy was losing blood fast. If he had a team of nurses, they would be able to administer fluids into the boy while the doctor would simultaneously concentrate on removing the bullet. But unfortunately this boy was a kid from the slums that decided to join a terrorist faction. He had no where to go but a small clinic hidden in the bowels of a janky strip-mall operated by one lone doctor running on three hours of sleep.

Two.

"He's losing too much blood fast." Mori finally said. Fukuzama didn't answer for he knew the doctor wasn't looking for a response. It was a matter of fact. A statement that confirmed the dire situation they were both in. Fukuzama looked at the clock which seemed to be moving faster than usual and then to Mori. He never saw his brow so twisted in conviction and shockingly - fear. Panic started to creep up Fukuzama's spine but he remained motionless as stone while holding the boy down who was now searching for a hand to hold. Neither men were able to hold it. This moment didn't allow the luxury of comfort.

Three.

When Fukuzama heard the third bullet plop on the table, he began to feel hopeful. If Mori continued at this pace they would have all five bullets on the table and enough time to spare in running to get bag of blood from the office to make up the loss.

"Shit." Mori hissed.

"What happened?" Fukuzama wished he didn't say anything in fear it would ruin Mori's concentration.

"Bullet's shattered." Only half of the iron cylinder joined its family on the table. "Half of it's still in there."

"Maybe take out the other first-'' Fukuzama started.

"Fuck off!" Mori went back to the original wound; holding back his intensity as he carefully dug around for the missing half. The little boy cried in pain even more. "I said hold him down." Mori snapped at Fukuzama. The swordsman knew better than to snap back at him. The last they needed were the two to start ripping each other's heads off while the child between them was bleeding out fast.

Mori threw his tool down and reached for another, one smaller and thinner. As much as he wanted to throw the utensil across the room in anger, he maintained a light and delicate touch like that of a painter. The more he continued to locate the missing shard, the more blood poured out of the wound making it nearly impossible to see despite having all the light shine upon it. He didn't want to admit it but he knew deep down the truth of the situation. But Mori continued on; ignoring the voice in his head.

The child's breathing began to pace faster. He no longer screamed and stared straight at the ceiling; past Fukuzama's face. The shoulders were no longer giving Fukuzama a fight as he held him down.

"Mori," Fukuzama began.

"Not now." The child stopped searching for a hand.

"Mori"

"Almost got it." The shoulder feel limp in his palms.

"Mori-''

"WHAT!" Mori glared at Fukuzama, his's grey eyes reflected back heart ache at the enraged pools of violet.

"...He's gone." Fukuzama finally said as he released his hold on the young boy. For the first time Mori looked at the boy's face. His brown eyes staring straight at the ceiling, his mouth agape with blood continuing to spill from his lips. His skin growing cold and colorless. With two bullets still lodged in his abdomen, he was gone.

Mori stared at him for a while until he let out a long sigh and rolled his chair back to stand up. He only gave the two men a brief moment of silence for the boy as he threw his blood soaked gloves on the side table.

"Let the boy's friend know. Once he's calmed down he can come in to say goodbye before we remove the body." Fukuzama stared at him in disbelief.

"What do we do with the body?"

"We fucking call someone to remove it!" Mori shouted. Fukuzama made sure to notice that Mori was already calling the boy "it". He didn't want to discuss the matter any further as he cut the conversation short by walking into the recovery room that was connected to the operating room.

Fukuzama thought it unprofessional for the bodyguard to be going up to a young boy telling him his friend was dead. It should have been the doctor who worked tirelessly to save the boy to deliver the news but Mori did warn him this clinic was a grey area - not up to code.

As expected the friend was in shambles when he entered the waiting room but surprisingly he didn't yell or howl in pain. It was almost as if he already knew his friend was dead and he just needed to hear it. He asked if he could see Ren one last time. That was the name of the body that lied cold on the operating table. Usually most hospitals wouldn't let it happen but then again this clinic wasn't up to code. He allowed the friend to walk sheepishly to the dead body of young Ren. He held his hand as tears silently fell down his cheek. It pained Fukuzama that he was the one that had to close the eyes of the dead as both Fukuzama and Mori forgot to do so beforehand.

While the friend held the hand of his deceased friend's in his, his head bowed; whispering promises that will never be fulfilled to Ren, Mori was quick to come into the room rolling in a second long table. Only this table had a black body bag open to receive Ren's remains. The friend didn't fight as Mori removed his hand from Ren's and watched Ren be gathered up in Mori's arms one last time and placed in the center of the bag. He was so young he didn't know any better. Fukuzama did though.

"Could you at least wait until he's finished saying his respects?"

"This is not a funeral parlor." Mori didn't look up at Fukuzama nor the boy as he clenched his jaw. "I have to clean up before the next patient comes in." The boy began chocking on his sobs. Fukuzama draped his arm around his shoulders which were no wider than the shoulders he had pinned down just a few moments ago. Mori only zipped the body bag halfway up. "Here." He motioned to the boy. "You can keep crying over him while I clean up."

Obediently the friend walked over to where Mori stood and bowed his head over Ren. Mori continued cleaning up while Fukuzama moved away; sidled next to the boy as he continued to brush the back of his head. It's what his mother did whenever he cried at the same age. Occasionally he would look up at Mori; shooting daggers at the doctor who quickly bur precisely began disinfecting his tools and the table.

"Mind getting a mop from the back room?" Mori didn't look up at the two who were standing over Ren's body.

"I'm here as a bodyguard - not a janitor." Fukuzama sneered.

"Fuck's sake." Mori cursed under his breath. While Fukuzama and the friend remained still and motionless in their grieving; Mori hurried through the clinic and around them like a tornado. Not once did he pay the simpering boy any attention or to Ren.

When the boy's sobs calmed down, Fukuzama slowly zipped up the body of Ren and escorted him to the waiting room. He prepared the boy some tea and learned who the friend was. His friends called his ZouZou. He was Ren's friend. They were ambushed. Neither had any family save for each other and a group of other kids in the slums. He listened; nodded at the floor while Fukuzama explained to him that Ren's body will be given to the city and most likely will not be buried but burned. Eventually ZouZou had no more tears to weep and he left quietly. Mori didn't come to acknowledge him. He preoccupied himself with cleaning the operating room and calling the city morgue. After some time, Fukuzama found Mori getting off the phone with someone who was to come by and pick up the body.

"What." Mori slammed the phone down.

"What the fuck was that?" Fukuzama entered the room but he choose not to sit down. He glared at Mori who leaned too comfortably in his chair.

"The fuck do you mean?"

"A fifteen year old boy just died and you cleaned it all up like it was nothing."

"Because there was nothing else to do. I tried! He died! We move on!"

"You didn't even have the balls to talk to ZouZou."

"Who the fuck is ZouZou-''

"His friend!" Fukuzama slammed his fist on the desk. Mori remained silent as he stared the pen that slowly rolled off the table. "For how quickly you confirmed his death and cleaned it up, I wonder if you even gave it your-''

"Don't you fucking finish that sentence!" Mori hissed as he shot up from his seat. Now both men were leering at each other over the desk; eye to eye for the first time since Ren came through the doors. "You dare say that to me when you don't know shit?!"

"Don't question my familiarity with death."

"I'm not questioning your familiarity with death. I'm questioning your familiarity with watching people die over and over again for nothing!" Mori straightened himself out as he ran his fingers through hair in agitation. "I don't know what the fuck you were up to during the war, but this was my usual Tuesday afternoon! Day after day the bodies rolled in. Patched them up one day and saw them on the slab dead the next. I don't even bother closing their eyes anymore!" Fukuzama took in a deep breath. He didn't want to give in and lie down to Mori's words. While he probably indeed endure horrors while at the front line, it didn't justify how he brushed off the boy's death so casually.

"That was war. This is-"

"You think this only happens during war?!" Mori began pacing back and forth while wiping his mouth. Now he couldn't look away at Fukuzama. His sights were set on his target of anger. "I've seen containers of kids younger than him dead from overheating! Children starving! Raped! Tortured! And it wasn't during times of war! It's been happening long since you and I were born! And it'll continue happening! Kids who were born poor enough die young. That's it! I'll do what I can to patch them up but every time I send them back out, I see them again dead in a ditch! That's life. Grow! the! fuck! up!"

"Fuck you!" Fukuzama pushed himself away from the desk and walked around to where Mori stood. Their hot breath on each other's faces. Fukuzama wanted Mori to see the tears welling in his eyes. Stare into the heartbreak that he refused to acknowledge. "You think everything is a lost cause don't you? huh?! Their fates already sealed. Already good as dead. Right! Then why do you do it!?" He shouted. "WHY?!" Mori remained silent but he didn't back down by lowering his eyes. "What's the point of you helping? Giving them false hope? Trying to make yourself feel better? Are you THAT bored that you would rather watch a boy bleed out and die than go home along and watch tv?"

"You think anyone will make a difference where we are?! Think!" Mori shoved his index finger into his temple.

"What do you mean where we are? Where are else would we be?!"

"Imagine how man people died during the war all because of a bunch of bloated assholes with their hands too far up their ass to fix the problem themselves. That's where I want to be. That's where I need to be! That's where I'll make a difference!"

"And you're gonna get there by mopping up a fifteen year old's blood."

"Oh fuck you!" Mori threw up his hands. "Pull your head out of your ass and stop being so short sighted! You think the only thing that passes through here is dead little boys!?" Fukuzama grew silent. "Wrong! Information is the real currency in this city and it passes through my door every night. You may have noticed it if you weren't such a fucking stupid cunt from the country! Clearly you have no vision on the bigger picture here. You know why you're so bored, Fukuzama?! It's cause you gave up! Don't mistake my own boredom the same as yours - I see things as they are not the way I want them to be. But I'm not complacent either. I have a path and by God I'm going to take it regardless how many Ren's die on my table. It won't matter to how many others I'll be able to save! What can you say for yourself? You come in and out like a ghost to moonlight as a bodyguard. What fucking change are you able to make to this city other than help zipping up the body bag?" Fukuzama twisted his brow. So this is why - this is the real reason he put in so much time into this clinic.

"So I was right...this clinic is a front for something. Instead of drugs like I originally thought, it's just for information to help you one up a few politicians." Fukuzama looked around the room nodding his head, ready to deal his killing blow. "And what information did the dead boy give you before he bleed out?" Fukuzama knew he just stepped on a mine. Of all of the bickering they had quipped at each other the days before and how they lashed out at each other over Ren, he knew he had made a step too far. He regretted those words the moment his own ears heard them.

In an instant Mori's eyes; which were once violet with anger and disdain grew hurt with palatinate.

"Get out." He whispered. Fukuzama lowered in own eyes in shame and backed away, quickly turning to close the door to the office behind him.

He stared at the ceiling hoping that gravity would pull his tears back into his stone-like eyes. Bringing both of his hands to cover them, he let out a long strained sigh. Out of curiosity, he walked into the operating room. It was in pristine from what had taken place just thirty minuets ago. Mori had already rolled Ren's body bag into the recovery room; the room's only occupant tonight. He knew he had to get out of there. Everywhere he turned, every corner now sickened him. He turned off the lights into the operating room and was about to leave through the waiting room until he heard the lightness of a young girl's voice coming from Mori's office.

Fukuzama used every muscle in his body to slowly walk over to the door of the office where the little girl's voice was singing from. Slowly and without making a sound, he turned the knob and cracked open the door just enough for him to peer through.

Mori, with his back turned from the door was hunched over in his seat. Facing him was the transparent image of a little girl with long golden hair and wearing a long sleeve dress of red velvet and lace. She was petting his head as he sobbed silently in his hands.

"Please don't be hard on yourself." She whimpered softly. "You did everything you could." Fukuzama could see from the shaking of Mori's shoulders that he was crying as she stroked his head; sadness and panic washing over her expression. Children usually panic when they realize that even adults cry. Based on how the young girl materialized out of thin air and appeared someone transparent, Fukuzama realized that she was Mori's gift. The manifestation of his power. But Fukuzama's attention wasn't solely on the realization of Mori's gift - it was Mori himself. At that moment Fukuzama saw a sliver of the real Mori; the man he was when he wasn't performing as a man of indifference or protecting himself as an asshole with no regard to human life. Guilt enflamed his chest as he watched the little girl comfort the young doctor. When he realized he saw enough, he closed the door as silently as he opened it.

As Fukuzama began to leave the clinic, his heart and his head raged war. While he was guilty to have said those words to Mori, he was somewhat grateful to have seen a glimpse of that side of him. It proved that maybe this clinic wasn't a lost cause. However; he doubted he would have the strength to go back to those underground rooms underneath the strip mall. And even more so, he wasn't confident that Mori had the strength to continue on as well. Maybe this clinic is doomed to fail. Regardless if it would continue long after Ren's death or not, Fukuzama decided right then and there that he would not be able to see it.

NEXT CHAPTER: After the recent events, Fukuzama does not return to the clinic for some time. While considering his options on what to do next, Natsume decides to have a hard conversation with the young swordsman and finally address what he's been chasing for this whole time.

Thank you so much for the reviews so far! When originally writing this chapter, I was not expecting it to be so long. Part of me wanted to delve further into the emotions of both Fukuzama and Mori during the aftermath of the event but I held back a bit in hopes to explore more of that in the next chapter. Feel free to drop a review on your thoughts about this chapter!