"Why the fuck am I only seeing you now Sabaku?"
Now facing a very angry Senju Tsunade, he's reconsidering the idea of dying of blood loss instead. It seems somewhat less scary.
Kiba had called an ambulance upon seeing Kankurou faint, and he had been transferred to his specialist's clinic.
She was displeased, to say the least.
"I called your office to get an appointment this afternoon."
It's a weak defence but he doesn't have much better.
"Since when has this flare-up been going on?"
"The bleeding started on Thursday and the vomiting today. That's when I called."
"Although that's valuable information, I think you know that does not answer my question."
He can feel her burning gaze on him even if he's looking anywhere but in her direction.
He doesn't hate her. Quite the opposite, frankly. For the nine years he's known her she has surely been rough, but never violent nor disrespectful, she's been firm but always considerate of his own opinion on his treatment.
It's all the more painful to feel like he's disappointing her.
"I got my first cramps a month and a half ago and the pain and diarrhoea have been really bad for two weeks or so."
She looks at her notes in silence for a moment before calling him.
"Sabaku."
He finally raises his eyes to her level.
"I get that you don't like to talk about this, even to me, but don't do that again. You got a flare-up, you call, I don't want you to croak on my watch. Understood?"
He nods quietly.
"Now, your lab result should come back soon, but I think you and I don't need them to know the situation is concerning. When is the last time you ate?"
"Around noon, but I'm pretty sure I threw everything up. The last meal I kept was yesterday evening."
She nods.
"You're going to pass some X-rays and, depending on the situation, maybe a colonoscopy or flexible sigmoidoscopy."
"I hope not," he mutters under his breath but she still seems to hear him.
"You should. If we don't it will mean that the inflammation in your colon is so bad there's too much risk of perforation to take a shot."
To be fair, the amount of pain he's in right now feels like it's already the case. His gut hasn't felt like anything else than a wounded bag of leaky organs, blood and shit for the past two days.
Just the slight pressure of breathing makes his jaw clench in pain.
"How do you feel about steroids?"
"You know the answer."
He's more defensive than he would have wanted to be.
She raises her hand in compliance.
"Just making sure."
He knows another doctor would have pushed. He knows they're a good treatment for resistant flare-ups. He also knows he'd rather suffer whatever the physical consequences are of refusing them than risk the toll they took on his mental health the last time around.
There's a certain amount of psychosis one can get used to. At least he had.
The shadows had come to life fifteen years ago around him and the walls had been bleeding and echoing empty noises for over a decade now, it was part of reality just as much as gravity was. Always there, restricting but ultimately useful, a parameter of how the world worked that he had to take into account in order to navigate it.
Although his second flare-up wasn't the worst one in itself, his reaction to the drugs had been agonizing. He had never realized how much of a presence his usual hallucinations were until they were taken away from him.
He had gotten home to a still and quiet apartment, leaving his place unrecognizable and sterile. With every minute of silence passing, he had grown more convinced that whatever had come to kill the shadows would eventually come back to get him too.
He had never liked silence, but silence after a decade of living with the constant white noise and background chatter of an ever-there companion was terrifying to a degree he had not anticipated. He felt weak, alone, hollow in a way that made him want to cut his gut open to make sure there was still something there, but most of all he felt incredibly vulnerable and threatened.
At some point, he thought maybe Temari was the one who had done it. She had a spare key to his apartment, she could have sneaked in and killed the shadows while he was at the hospital. Maybe she had grown jealous because they were seeing more of Kankurou than she did.
The more he thought about it the more people were suspicious and he had ended up spending two whole days guarding his apartment door in case the shadows' murderer came back.
The tingling feeling of being watched from behind was the first thing that came back as whatever steroid-induced high his brain was on started to wear off. When he turned around the shadows were alive again, shivering like a waggy dog welcoming his owner home, murmurs still blurry but undeniably there.
He could have cried with relief.
And he did.
Steroids were off the table.
"In this case, we'll probably try biologics when your lab results come back. I'm going to leave you for now, a nurse should be here anytime soon to transfer you to the X-ray room."
She stops talking for a second.
"Sabaku."
He's not sure where he finds the strength to look back at her at this point but he does.
"If any of your symptoms get worse or if any new one appears, you call a nurse immediately, understood?"
He nods.
She's about to leave the room when she turns around like she forgot something.
"Oh, do you want your friend to come in? We can't allow non-family visitors without your agreement so he's been waiting in the corridor the whole time. The dude is panicked."
He frowns.
"What friend?"
She shrugs.
"The one who called the ambulance for you. Dirty jeans, greasy hair, trying to grow a beard I guess?"
Oh. Kiba. Right.
"Yes, sure, let him in."
[19:58] Hinata: How are you holding up?
[19:58] Kiba: I'm dying
[19:58] Kiba: What is taking them so long?
[19:59] Hinata: If he's still in the same room with that doctor it surely is a good sign. It means he's conscious and he hasn't been transferred to an operating block or anything.
[20:00] Kiba: I guess you're right
[20:01] Shino: She is
[20:01] Shino: Hinata is always right, you should know that by now
[20:02] Hinata:
The door next to him clicks open.
[20:03] Kiba: She's here! Gotta go
[20:03] Shino: ️
He jerks off his seat, wincing at the ache in his butt from having been waiting for over an hour on the hard plastic chair.
"How is he?"
The woman takes a step back like he's a dog jumping on her. To be fair he probably smells like one. There's no stopping Akamaru from sleeping in his bed and he's been extra-cuddling him all afternoon to try and calm down before he eventually gave up on being chill altogether and ran to Kankurou's apartment.
Thinking of it, he probably stinks of sweat too.
"Calm down kiddo. He's gonna stay for some tests and spend at least tonight here, but you can see him for now."
He bows.
"Thank you, ma'am."
He promptly goes for the door but she calls him again just as he's about to enter the room.
"Hey, dog boy? You were right to call an ambulance. Good job."
Kankurou doesn't really get a chance to process anything that just happened before Kiba bursts into the room, starting to blather things he can't completely grasp about how worried he was and how happy he is to see him conscious again.
It's moving but incredibly overwhelming in a very unpleasant way.
"Can you back off a bit please?"
For a moment he's afraid he might not be able to talk loud enough for Kiba to hear him over his own logorrhea but the other man gets quiet the second he speaks.
"Of course. I'm sorry," he says, walking backwards away from the bed to sit upright on one of the hospital chairs against the wall.
He has never seen Kiba behaving like that.
He lets out a mirthless quiet laugh.
"Can you stop being super weird? It's kind of creeping me out. I'm not dying, go back to being a loud asshole or whatever it is you usually do."
To his immense relief, Kiba chuckles a bit at his words.
"I'm going to take you insulting me as a good sign."
It doesn't make the pain go away, and good l-rd, fuck is he in pain, but at least the situation feels a little more normal. The last thing he needs right now is everyone around treating him like he's made of glass and rubbing salt in the painful wound of his decaying health.
They stay in silence for a moment, Kiba gently smiling at him.
"I'm sorry for snapping at you earlier, I just… I don't like being seen like that," he eventually says.
Kiba nods.
"You do not look great."
That fucker is lucky he's sitting on the other end of the room and that Kankurou can't move to save his damn life anyway.
"Screw you Kiba!"
The other man sticks his tongue out to him from where he is, protected in his corner, before bursting into laughter, and the sound of it makes him a bit dizzy.
Maybe it's not that bad having company when you're sick after all.
[20:32] Kiba: Hi guys I'm back
[20:32] Hinata: How is he?
[20:32] Kiba: Ok I guess?
[20:33] Kiba: I mean no, not at all, he looks half dead and they're keeping him for the night, but like he's conscious and we talked a bit and laughed a bit so that's reassuring
[20:34] Kiba: Right?
[20:34] Hinata: Yes, that's good!
[20:35] Kiba: He's been taken out to do more tests but shouldn't be back in too long. Is it cool if I sleep there?
[20:35] Hinata: Of course
[20:36] Shino: The dog has been fed
[20:36] Kiba: Thank you ️
[20:37] Shino: I'm such a good boyfriend
[20:37] Kiba: You are
[20:38] Kiba: How's your evening going? Please distract me with random information
[20:38] Shino: Hinata and I are watching Monsters University
[20:39] Shino: ️
[20:39] Hinata: We are
[20:40] Shino: Classic enemies to lovers, I'm very much enjoying myself
[20:40] Hinata: I made popcorn
[20:41] Shino: She did
[20:42] Kiba: Well, at least I'm happy to know you two are enjoying your impromptu date night while I watch my crush bleeding out in the hospital
[20:42] Shino: Thank you for your support
[20:43] Kiba: You're welcome
[20:46] Shino: Kiba?
[20:47] Kiba: Yes?
[20:48] Shino: You're a good friend. Kankurou is lucky to have you.
[20:48] Kiba: ️
[20:49] Shino: Now go woo his ass
[20:49] Kiba: Yes, I'll do that
[20:49] Kiba: I love you
[20:50] Shino: I love you too
"We're definitely not going to risk a colonoscopy," Tsunade says, frowning at Kankurou's imaging results.
He's about to celebrate his victory when he remembers that's not actually good news.
"How bad?"
"You know I'm not one to sugarcoat things Sabaku, so I'm not gonna lie to you, pretty bad."
She turns the screen of her computer towards him.
"This is your colon. For the transverse part here on the top, we consider that it's abnormally dilatated when it's over 6 centimetres in diameter. Yours is a good 10 centimetres in most places, 12 at its worse."
The large dark phantom shape in the X-ray looks like a giant maggot eating him from the inside. Just looking at the imaging makes him feel sick and suffocating, like he's about to throw up his own organs. His hands itch to shove fingers down his throat and get it over with.
Tsunade continues her explanations.
"Besides the obvious pain and the consequences of your blood loss, one of the main risks here is that your colon could rupture and spill bacteria into your abdominal cavity."
"That doesn't sound good."
"It's life-threatening in most cases."
Maybe he shouldn't have told Kiba he wasn't dying.
"I'm putting you on biologics by IV as soon as I can. They work for a lot of people but as often we won't know until we try it out, and if your state doesn't improve in the next 72h, or if it worsens before that, you're up for surgery."
The shadows hiss and spike behind her at the idea of being naked and unconscious in front of strangers willing to cut him open.
"What surgery are we talking about?"
"Colectomy and ileostomy. We're removing your colon entirely and creating a hole in your abdomen for your small intestine to poke through to evacuate wastes. The upside of this procedure is that since UC only affects the colon, you would essentially be free of the disease."
"And the downside is that I'd have to shit in a bag for the rest of my life."
She shrugs and nods.
"The surgery can be reversed in certain cases depending on how things evolve, but until then or if we have to make it permanent, yes, you'd have to live with a bag."
The concept of stoma is not entirely new to him. Of course, in the decade he's lived with this diagnosis he has looked it up online, and of course, he knows that this type of surgery is required for a significant number of people with severe flare-ups.
He just didn't think it would happen to him.
Not because he thinks he's lucky or above it, he doesn't, but for the exact same reason, it took him a month and a half to eventually resolve to ask for medical attention. Because he rather not think about it. Because he's not having it that bad. Because he's a crybaby. Because he's probably making this up. Because this is the kind of thing that happens to people who have actual serious problems, not to him, to the ones who surely are in much more pain, to the one who needs that kind of help.
(The ones who deserve that kind of help.)
"Sabaku."
He hums in response without looking at her.
"You should call your family."
"It's not your job to give me that kind of advice."
She nods.
"You are correct, but it is my job to ensure your recovery goes the best that it can, and support is important for that. You know that if there's ever a choice to be made, I will let you choose, but there most likely won't be, either the treatment will work or you will be getting the surgery whether you like it or not because your life will be on the line. What you can choose, however, is who you want by your side while that happens. It's the one thing you have control over right now. I simply suggest you make the most out of it."
He's about to mumble in disagreement but she cuts him.
"I won't force you to call anyone if you don't want to, you said it, it's none of my business, and I have no interest in your arguments, but I can tell you this: you don't deserve to do it alone."