Soumako-Central ✿✿✿

A/N: Haematemesis is the medical term for vomiting of blood

September 14th fell on a Wednesday this year, and Makoto was surprised to overhear loud noises coming from the GI clinic at five in the afternoon when he left his office. There were no GI consultations on Wednesdays if he remembered correctly.

And Makoto would remember everything correctly. So he rounded the corner out of curiosity and saw the team of GI doctors busy decorating the hallway with grey balloons and black, lettered flags that spelt out ‘Happy birthday, Sousuke!’.

“Makoto,” Rin called to him. It was naturally Haru’s boyfriend who first spotted him standing and staring at the flags. “You have perfect timing! Please, help!”

Dr Kirishima also appeared delighted to see him. “Yes! Makoto-kun, please lend us any of your personnel who are available right now, please?” As if sensing his concern, Dr Kirishima quickly added, “We have gotten approval from Dr Azuma for this celebration already, don’t you worry! He even offered to cover for us in the ward from five to seven, so we’d have time to make it a party. We’re just a little short on manpower right now to properly spruce up the place.”

The head of their division was an incredibly thoughtful superior in that case, Makoto was impressed.

“He covered for you, Natsuya! You’re the one with limited time,” Dr Mikoshiba laughed. “You, and our birthday boy. The rest of us will party hard and are free to drink all the booze we want!”

“Heck yeah,” Rin, too, rejoiced at that. “Please join in on the fun if you’d like, Makoto? You know how rare it is for the entire GI team to gather together other than for work. I even asked Haru to come, he’ll enjoy himself better with you here too.”

“You’re only inviting the nurses as well for extra helping hands,” said Haru flatly as he showed up just then. He probably headed here immediately from his department despite his complaints. “I’m leaving as soon as we finish setting up.”

“That’s not true, we invited our tech guy too for him to help out,” Dr Mikoshiba interrupted with glee, patting his brother’s back a little too hard for it to not be an intentional distraction to his candle-counting.

“Nii-san is the worst!” retorted Momo-kun once he finished counting thirty of them.

“This reminds me,” Dr Kirishima managed to fish out his phone even with the number of confetti poppers he had in hand. “I have a younger brother who is free too now that the pharmacy counters are closed.”

Makoto gave a chuckle. He would like to stay, just to assist with the preparations of the celebration like Haru would if nothing else. The hospital’s policy did detail that alcohol was only prohibited wherever and whenever clinical activity was taking place, anyway. The GI team would be fine.

“On the top of my head,” he finally offered. Nagisa was an obvious choice for how much he loved a good get-together, but he was stationed at the GI ward until seven, leaving him out of the question. “I recall that Nitori-kun would be coming in for the night shift later. I’ll ask him if he’s free to come in earlier for the party then?”

And as expected, Nitori-kun was down for it. They all made quick work of the decorations while they waited. Ikuya later brought in the cake from their delivery driver at the hospital's main entrance and Nitori-kun was promptly put in charge of calling Sousuke in while still panting as he reached.

“Me?”

“Yes, you,” Dr Mikoshiba instructed. “Make up a fake patient and tell him there’s an emergency, say the rest of us are not available and he’s scheduled to be on an in-hospital call later anyway.”

So Nitori-kun, despite his apprehension, was forced to make the call before his breathing even calmed down. Sousuke picked up on the first ring even when he had an hour left before his on-call duty.

“Dr Yamazaki!” Nitori-kun exclaimed as if taken aback by how fast it was answered, and put the call on loudspeaker. “There has been an emergency, please come to the clinic!”

“The clinic’s closed today. Wouldn’t I be needed at the ED instead?” He first expressed doubts, before quickly proceeding to brush that off and asking for a breakdown of the case.

“It’s a 30-year-old male patient,” Nitori-kun frantically looked around for any ideas, before locking eyes with Makoto. “It’s- it’s Tachibana-senpai!”

The rest of the team could barely hide their snickers while Makoto paled from the imminent embarrassment.

“Makoto?!” Sousuke sounded alarm (as would anyone in his situation, why would the nursing manager be having a gastrointestinal-related emergency out of the left field), concern evident in his tone. Makoto could feel that tiny sliver of hope rising up again at that and at the use of his first name, but he rapidly swallowed it back down. The mortification he’d be feeling in front of Sousuke soon was enough to snuff out any sparks in his chest.

“Nitori, details of the case!” Sousuke demanded after Nitori-kun was quiet for a while, too busy trying to come up with a fake history. Shuffling came from the other end of the phone line, he must have been moving in a rush.

“Uh, erm, senpai presented with- with haematemesis!” Nitori-kun gulped. “He just got off work—that’s right—that’s why he’s at the clinic.”

Someone in the team let out a giggle. It wasn’t caught on by the other end, apparently, as Sousuke continued gravelly, “History of presenting complaint? Any medical conditions? His medication history?”

Nitori-kun couldn’t give any coherent answers to that and only stuttered into the phone. In his defence, Sousuke basically fired the line of questions at him without waiting for a response. He still reprimanded Nitori-kun sternly nonetheless. “What was that report with how many years you’ve been a nurse now, Nitori?”

“To be fair, I’m panicking! It’s my manager we’re talking about here,” Nitori-kun whined. “Please get to the clinic as soon as possible, none of the other GI internists are available.”

“What? How is that possible- just get him to the ED already! I’ll be there in 15.”

“Noooo, come to the clinic!”

“Sousuke,” Makoto interrupted the call, exasperated at Nitori-kun’s helplessness. He wouldn’t want all the efforts of a surprise party going to waste, so he’d have to do it himself. “Bright red vomit, accompanied by pallor and dizziness. No known medical illness and not on any medications.” He tried to sound weak and mumbled some when providing the details, even adding a cough at the end for good measure.

“Please come over to the clinic, I’m too sick to walk all the way to the ED and Nitori-kun is panicking too hard right now to get any sort of meaningful help,” he added at the end.

There was the sound of a car door opening and more shuffling before Sousuke steadied his breath and puffed in reply. “Okay- okay, I’m on my way.”

The team cheered noisily when the call ended, patting Makoto on the back for the good job well done. Although he was apologetic for lying to Sousuke, he hoped the party he’d helped set up would more than make up for the deception and it’d be truly an enjoyable birthday for Sousuke.

A party that Makoto didn’t stay for, because he was a coward who couldn’t deal with pretending to not recognise Sousuke anymore. He left alongside Haru, all the while contemplating whether he should get it off his chest by talking to Haru about it.

In the end, he didn’t. Haru was never the friend who could offer him words of advice when it came to matters of the heart, after all.

Maybe Rin could do that in his stead. If not… well, Makoto was out of ideas.

It was a spectacular first birthday at TUH. Sousuke’s new colleagues were amazing people and he couldn’t imagine himself being surrounded by a more uplifting bunch. Or a more chaotic one.

The adrenaline surge in his blood was still going on when he parked his car at his designated spot that evening, all ready to manage an emergency. He frantically rounded the corner in search of Makoto, only to be caught off guard by confetti poppers going off and a loud cheer of Happy Birthday from his wonderful but mischievous teammates.

His heart rate didn’t calm down until he was called in for his shift at seven, and he couldn’t help but be bummed out by missing Makoto who he somehow thought would be showing up at some point. Sousuke was actually starting to get used to his heartbeat quickening at the thought of him, even anticipating the weird symptom at times which became a regular occurrence since the day he met Makoto again.

It was from this point on, though, that he realised it had become a true concern. He had looked forward to coming across Makoto at work the next day, even when he knew what it’d do to his chest. Makoto was in on the surprise the previous evening, after all, so the thrilling thought of seeing him on the job and maybe receiving a happy birthday from him was… starting to worry Sousuke.

So he resorted to his best friend for advice. Rin came in the next day at seven in the morning with zero signs of a hangover from the previous night. Sousuke could only hope the eight-hour rule of ceasing all alcohol before a shift would work just as well for him.

“Rin, have you ever experienced palpitations?”

Rin looked taken aback, cocking an eyebrow at Sousuke. “Yeah, sure. Why?”

“What was your diagnosis?”

“Huh?” Confusion was written all over his face.

Sousuke straightened up. “I’ve been having occasional episodes for a while now and I can’t for the life of me figure out what is it. Do you think I should head over to cardiology for a check-up?”

“Slow down, where’s the rest of your history?” Rin didn’t look too worried, flipping through his hepatology textbook to catch up on what he failed to study the previous night.

“The only concomitant symptom is clammy hands. The triggering factor appears to be—as silly as this sounds—a person.”

Now he had Rin’s full attention. “And do I know this person?”

“You do. It happens to be the nursing manager.”

“Mako-” he almost exclaimed before lowering his volume, quickly overcoming his initial shock, “Makoto?”

Sousuke nodded. “It really is puzzling, isn’t it.”

“It is not,” Rin gulped. “I should have seen it coming, honestly.”

“Do you have a diagnosis already?”

Rin gave him a side-eye, unamused. “Of course I do. I even know the gold standard treatment!”

“What is it? I can’t believe you got it so soon. I revisited all my cardiology lecture notes and still didn’t have a clue.”

“That’s a shame because it’s not cardio in nature.” Rin snapped his textbook shut, scrutinising Sousuke in a way that made him feel self-conscious about not knowing the answer. “Your condition is infatuation, Sousuke. You’re crushing hard!”

Sousuke was speechless for a moment, his mouth hanging open at the conclusion Rin arrived at.

“And I thought I knew you well enough to know your sexuality. Damn it, now it’s Haru’s turn to judge me for being a bad best friend,” said Rin. “Makoto is just the type you’d be into—gentle and caring and all that.”

“So… your idea of a treatment plan would be?”

“To talk to him, idiot. He actually texted me just yesterday to ask about you, I’d say you’ve got a good chance.”

The thought of Makoto asking about him made Sousuke’s mouth go dry. “W-what did you talk to him about?”

“Look at you getting all nervous about it,” Rin guffawed. “Relax, he was wondering if you enjoyed the party we threw, is all.”

“Is all?” Sousuke couldn’t hide the disappointment in his tone.

“Did you expect it to be a conversation where he revealed his secret crush on you?”

“Shut up.”

“I would but I have to apologise first. I told him you’re heterosexual.” Rin shrugged and made a gesture that said ‘You can’t blame me’. “It came up when he asked about Kisumi, who had been trying to bring the two of us together behind our backs. My boyfriend was not thrilled at all when he learned that, apparently. So I told him what I’ve always said to Haru: you’re straight.”

“I-” Sousuke would reprimand Rin for that, except that he had only dated girls in the past and never opened up to anyone about his bisexuality.

Sousuke, having the hots for Makoto? Was that what all these years of dwelling on the past had amounted to?

Sousuke couldn’t say. Not yet, at least.

Not until he came clean to Makoto about the fact that he remembered meeting him as a PT patient seven years ago. And that he was not heterosexual.

Even as years passed, Makoto couldn’t help but think of how he met Sousuke on that rainy morning whenever September would roll around again. He’d also always thought about what could have been and wondered what happened to Sousuke—a lot of changes must have taken place with the time that went by. Maybe his injury healed. Maybe he completed his residency. Maybe he left the country. Maybe he forgot about the nursing student he met at Yowa Hospital.

Makoto, on the other hand, never forgot about him. He never could; Sousuke was one of the first people he had built rapport with as a nurse. As a result, he never thought of him as only a patient he’d helped. He wondered if he was just a nurse to Sousuke, though. He honestly wished he remembered him as something more and thought about him sometimes. Maybe even wondered about his current circumstances and whereabouts like Makoto would with him. But that was where Makoto was conflicted: he would hate for Sousuke to learn the reality of what had been going on in his life.

In reality, there was a lot of not much going on. Makoto had missed out on a lot since he dedicated himself to his job and committed to gaining recognition for his services in Tottori University Hospital’s nursing team. He had remained single all this while, and it was only partly due to his career ambitions to rise up the ranks to become a nursing manager. Maybe, somewhere in the back of his mind, he had held onto the hope of seeing Sousuke again—a man who happened to have everything he wanted in a partner.

Maturity. Dependability. Consideration. He sometimes wished he had never known more about Sousuke than what meets the eye; the height, the voice and those eyes would have been enough. Now he was stuck on the idea of having someone that just seemed too good to be true.

Too good for him, at least.

So when Sousuke finally appeared in his life again, Makoto was too stunned to properly react.

Why would Sousuke remember him, right? Makoto was only a student nurse back then, helping out in a couple of his many weeks of therapy sessions. Makoto didn’t even dare to probe about his injury at the time, for fear of being seen as a busybody. Strictly speaking, they were never friends.

So when Sousuke introduced himself in TUH as Dr Yamazaki, the new gastroenterology fellow, Makoto greeted him like it was their first time seeing each other. That would be the first of many missed chances he had to acknowledge his recognition of Sousuke from his time in nursing college.

It only became increasingly difficult to breach the topic from then on.

After all, what would he say?

Do you remember that student who was briefly there for your PT almost seven years ago? Hi, I’m that guy. Fancy seeing you here at TUH!

Yeah, no. He’d cringe just imagining that. While he was glad—over the moon, actually—to meet Sousuke again, he struggled to bring up their history, seeing as any attempts he had made to reach out were simply… not taken any notice of.

Katsumi-san had very kindly given him the phone number, saying that Sousuke had authorised him to do so. At that moment he had hope fired up in him: Sousuke had wanted to be friends! With time, could they develop into something… more?

At first, it was a courteous but casual text, saying hello and notifying Sousuke that he was stationed at the psychiatric ward now. No reply came.

Then, Makoto had let him know that he ended his time as a student nurse at the hospital and would be proceeding with his prep for the National Nursing Examination. That received no response either.

Finally, Makoto informed Sousuke that he had successfully gotten his nursing license. That was when his hope truly died, because he’d thought a congratulatory message would be anyone’s reply. Instead, all he got was radio silence.

Yeah, they were never friends. That thought would cause Makoto to have this constricting feeling in his chest, so he never liked to think about it for long.

It was a shame, but the past was supposed to be left in the past, anyway.