Doctor Hanahaki - I'm trying to get over this. [8]
Doctor Hanahaki
Chapter 8
WC: 3281
Akaashi goes through life after the kiss, regret and sorrow fill his days to where he almost collapses at work. Despite his inner turmoil, the flutter in his heart continues, and there is something he will have to figure out on his own.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/47404093/chapters/140754997
~
“Okay, what the hell?”
“Be quiet,” Kiyoko hushes Sugawara who stares at the tablet in her hands, going over the schedule for the day. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but the big notice was Bokuto Koutarou was listed, and not under Akaashi’s name. “It says Akaashi recently referred him to someone else in the clinic. Weird…”
Sugawara frowned and looked around to make sure nobody else was watching. “That’s… weird. Kind of sad too. I feel like ever since Bokuto came around, Akaashi was so much more open. I wonder what happened.”
“Hopefully, nothing,” Kiyoko puts the tablet down and starts flipping on the lights to the rest of the clinic. Akaashi was usually here first, he was supposed to be here first, but he was not. “I trust that Akaashi has good judgement. It was probably just a scheduling conflict.”
“No, Kiyoko. You don’t understand,” Sugawara shook his head. “Akaashi is the most stoic, dead-inside person I’ve ever met. He’s so empty, anxious, chronic overthinker, you know what I mean. He had Hanahaki when he was 17, that surgery saved his life, but it messed him up. He hardly feels anything but whenever Bokuto comes in, Akaashi is smiling. It’s like he’s alive again.” It was a topic Sugawara was passionate about. Akaashi had been in his life for so long, the two of them had built this clinic (figuratively) from the ground up after their residencies. He was always for Akaashi becoming more open with others.
“You think he…”
It’s implied, but Sugawara hates to think about it.
“No,” Sugawara hears the door open and hushes his voice. “Akaashi is so morally correct, I’m sure of it. If something happened, he’d walk in here to resign. There must be something we’re missing but as his coworkers and his friends, we should check on him.”
The door opens, Sugawara has to hold his breath as Akaashi enters the clinic, hair extra ruffled and eyebags which beat even his worse ones. His eyes are dark, low, empty as ever, and even Kiyoko has to keep her composure at the sight of him. “Akaashi?” Sugawara breaks the silence, heading over to lay a hand on his younger coworker but hesitating as Akaashi backs away. “You look rough, buddy. Are you alright? Have you been sleeping okay?”
“I think…” Akaashi sighs, running his fingers through his hair and Sugawara swears he swayed. “I think I want to quit.”
~
“I’m in love with you, Bokuto,” Akaashi stands on a pedestal surrounded by whiteness, shouting into the void with no control over the words which fall out of his mouth. Petals fall out of his mouth as he screams again. “I love you! You’re everything!”
Akaashi looks down as vines climb up the pedestal, grabbing him by his ankles. “I love you! I love you! Take it, Bokuto! Take my love! Take it and be cured!” The vines climb up and knock Akaashi to his knees, threatening to pull him into the white void. Akaashi grips to the side of the pedestal as the vines attempt to pull him down, Akaashi letting out a harsh cough as petals and blood stain the quartz pedestal which he once stood proudly on.
“You hurt me,” Bokuto’s voice booms throughout the void, tears in Akaashi’s eyes. “You wanted to hurt me!” He shouts as the vines pull Akaashi from the pedestal.
He falls and screams.
He screams against the hardwood floor of his apartment, Nariko poking his face. “Ugh… oh my God,” Akaashi groans as he sits up from the ground and looks around, holding his hand over his mouth as waves of nausea from the nightmare sweep by him. The night is young, the moon is out as seen through his windows, and Nariko sits by Akaashi with beady eyes. A way to remind Akaashi he’s hardly slept this whole weekend, let alone in his own bed.
Nariko is the only factor helping Akaashi, as he runs to the bathroom and throws up in anguish from the night prior, thankful he finds no blood or petals. “I don’t love him, I don’t love anyone,” he mutters to himself, half delirious from the lack of sleep. “It was a mistake, Akaashi. You made a mistake; it didn’t mean anything.” Disgusted at the idea of love, the idea of feelings, the idea of ruining his ethical code for something so stupid!
It definitely meant something, at least to one of them.
Akaashi slowly gets up and looks at himself in the mirror, cringing as he looks away. “I can’t be there anymore.” Bokuto said he was not going to make a complaint about it, even though Akaashi begged him too. His license and reputation were only going to get hit if he came out. Akaashi was on his own, and he wanted it to be done.
“I’m going to quit.”
What about Bokuto?
Shut up.
Bokuto.
Be quiet.
You love-
“Fucking… oh my God, end me now. Shut the fuck up!” Akaashi covers his ears and leans against the bathroom counter, tears pouring as the bathroom lights flicker from his outburst. Bokuto is stuck in his mind, every waking second, no matter how much he doesn’t want him to be. “I’m quitting, I’m done. No more, Dr. Akaashi. No more, Dr. Hanahaki. I never should’ve gotten close to him. Never should’ve done any of this!”
Akaashi knows what he did was wrong, but he also knows that it did not feel as wrong as it should. The kiss consumes his waking days, and Bokuto is forever in his thoughts. He knows he should hate himself for it, but he misses Bokuto dearly. Akaashi knows he can never love, but he knows Bokuto was important to him, more than anyone ever before.
Key word, was. It has to be was.
He shut the lights off in the mirror and heads to the living room, picking up Nariko and sitting on the couch with her as he stares at the midnight sky. He’s worse than the way he was before Bokuto came into his life, living through the motions and blinking only to notice how much time has passed.
“I’m going to quit.” He repeats himself at the clinic when Sugawara stands with his mouth agape. He knows his tone sounds like a slash from the sword of betrayal, but he no longer cares. It’s for his own sake, for ethics and morals. “Consider this my two weeks. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Akaashi, you can’t be serious,” Sugawara shakes his head, Kiyoko looks out the window as cars start to pull up for appointments while the receptionist glances away from the drama. “We built this clinic from nothing, and you want to quit? Why? Why now?” The words scratch at Akaashi while he clenches his fists.
“Guys,” Kiyoko tries to jump in, but her voice does not carry so far.
“I said I didn’t want to talk about it. Be professional, Dr. Sugawara.”
“After everything? Dr. Akaashi, I may be your coworker, but I am also your friend.”
“And as my friend, I’m asking you to let it go. I’ve made my…” Akaashi’s voice trails off as he grabs the side of the wall, dizziness attacking his vision. It’s the stress, the lack of sleep, all the emotional turmoil. “My choice.”
“There are patients on their way in here!” Kiyoko shakes her head. “Deal with it later, you both need to be professional.”
Bokuto.
The dizziness tries to sweep him off his feet, Akaashi shakes his head to try and clear his thoughts. In his peripheral vision, Sugawara reaches out. “I’m sorry, I’ll be okay,” Akaashi forces a smile and starts to head to the back of the clinic where he starts his day. “We have a job to do, so let’s do that. Okay?” He practically storms off with a medical service smile, leaving to work on his day.
He's working in one of the more private offices in between appointments, filling out paperwork with the door half open when he sees him. Akaashi’s heart drops, as he watches through the crack of the door to see Nurse Kiyoko escorting a figure he knew all too well into a different room. Not his room, Akaashi didn’t have an appointment scheduled for 2:00 in the afternoon, not anymore. Bokuto’s shell-like figure motions through and the door closes, his sweater that once hugged his muscle curves now hanging loosely. It has not even been a week but still-
Go talk to him.
“God, no,” Akaashi tries to interrupt his thoughts, dizziness swarming his vision as he slams his head against the desk, almost falling asleep if it were not for the fact he was on the job and he would surely be greeted with nightmares if he did.
It was killing him.
Akaashi figured it was rather ironic, how a dying man was killing him like this. It was not fair, it was not right, but what was worse was the ache in his chest to know Bokuto was down the hall with a new doctor because Akaashi couldn’t keep his lips to himself.
“Dr. Akaashi?” He feels a single poke on his shoulder, and he remembers his head is still on the desk of a rather dark office. Yet, he has no desire to get out. “Akaashi? Please get up,” another poke, he realizes it’s Kiyoko.
He also realizes how dizzy he is feeling rather suddenly.
“My apologies…” Akaashi attempts to lift his head up, vision blurring in and out. One single glance at Kiyoko and he lays his head down on the desk again, groaning as a headache continues to beat his head from the inside out.
Bokuto. I miss him.
The thoughts don’t stop, the constant reminders that he truly was happier when around Bokuto, and he could never pinpoint exactly why. There is a lump caught in his throat when the only barrier to a mental breakdown in the middle of the medical office is his own exhaustion, tiredness which keeps him from being able to lift his head off the desk.
It’s as if he’s falling.
“Akaashi? Let’s get you to lay down, I’ll check on you. Okay?” Before he can even realize it, his arm is slung half over Nurse Kiyoko, his eyes opening to face reality for the first time in minutes. An empty office moves to an empty room, his movements ragdoll-like as Kiyoko practically props him up onto the examination table like a toy.
He remains silent as he lays on the bed, idly watching as she takes his blood pressure, the only noise in the room the pumping of the tool. “Just a bit low. Not terrible but not the greatest,” she mumbles, laying the blood pressure cuff on the side. “You don’t look well, Dr. Akaashi.”
“Just tired.”
“I don’t think so,” she sighs while Akaashi feels a shiver go down his spine. He’s cold, stoic, hard-to-read, but Kiyoko sees him like an open book. After all, like-minded people simply know better, they just do. “What’s on your mind? You haven’t been sleeping well, I can tell. What keeps you up at night?”
Bokuto.
The kiss.
Being in love-
No.
“How did you know that you fell in love?”
Akaashi, what the hell are you doing?
Akaashi’s eyes are half-lidded when he asks the question, hardly aware of the weight the question holds, but he pushes onwards. “I can’t feel those things, but you are like me… personality-wise at least. How did you know?”
The oxygen is sucked out of the room when Akaashi lets the words fall out. He’s half aware of his whole situation when Kiyoko goes to sit in the chair in the room. “Well, it’s different for different people,” she starts. “For some people, it’s how much they want to have sex with the person, that physical intimate connection,” Kiyoko speaks, rather bluntly.
Akaashi swears he’s about to throw up.
“I disagree with that, but it works for some people,” she shrugs. “For me, I found out how much I was valued. How much he valued me, wanted to protect me. With that, I realized I wanted the best for him, more than anyone else. I realized how important he was to me, and I couldn’t let that go.”
Letting it go?
“People laughed at me; you know?” Kiyoko gives a small chuckle, surely thinking of her lover. “For the first few weeks of dating, I couldn’t say I love you. The words left this awful taste in my mouth, and I had no idea why. I felt terrible too, because he would say it to me every day! Despite that little bump, he knew I loved him. I just couldn't say it yet, and that’s okay. People move at their own pace.”
Their own pace?
“Well, it took me about three months to tell him I loved him. He cried when I said it for the first time. He never doubted it, I just expressed it in different ways. Ryu always knew how important he was to me, and we made it work.”
Akaashi wants to ask more questions, but the dizziness invades him and tries to bring him back to his rational self. Hanahaki surgery survivors like him can’t feel those things, so why bother? His mouth is awkwardly dry as he turns away to face the wall, curling up on himself.
He isn’t sure whether to feel hopeful, or to cry.
“You should take one of your breaks, just so you can get back on your feet. I’ll come back when you’re needed, I know how much you probably want to get back to things,” it’s a lighthearted joke laced with kindness, one Akaashi will learn to appreciate.
“We should talk more often,” Akaashi mumbles as Kiyoko turns off the lights to ease the migraine engrained in his brain. Had the conversation helped his existential dread? Not particularly but Kiyoko had this certain aura of peace wherever she went, something Akaashi feared would fade when she left the room.
“We should.”
~
He gets up after about 15 minutes, the anxieties creeping in as he goes to finish his day of patients (none Hanahaki) and later day of paperwork. It’s as if he’s almost out of the tunnel, avoiding it all till he can go home for another sleepless night.
“Akaashi?” Just his luck, Akaashi is interrupted from filling out a form for a middle-aged woman. The clinic is almost all shut now, just Sugawara and Akaashi left now. Of course, it started with them, so it shall finish with them. “Can we talk?” Sugawara’s voice almost breaks as he sits in the chair near Akaashi’s.
Akaashi looks at his computer, unable to make the eye contact. Despite that all, he stops typing and lets out a shaky breath. “Look… I messed up. I can’t stay here, I’m quitting. I’ve made my decision already, so don’t try to convince me otherwise.”
“Akaashi…” Sugawara shakes his head. “You’re the most amazing doctor I’ve ever met. As your coworker, I respect your decision. As your friend, I can’t just let you go like this. I thought things were really looking up for a bit, you’ve seemed happier. What happened?” The final question repeats in his mind, interrupted by the comment of his happiness status. He hates that Sugawara is not wrong.
I have been happier.
The words repeat and haunt him, Akaashi turning his chair to face Sugawara. “I…”
He let it happen.
No, I made it happen. No matter what, it’s my fault.
“Akaashi?”
“I kissed Bokuto.”
Sugawara goes silent, paling as he grips the edge of the counter where they are sat. “When I brought his groceries to his house the other day, one thing led to another and we kissed,” Akaashi puts his hands over his face, tears threatening to pour. “I don’t know how it happened, or why, I just know I hate that it happened. I can’t walk in here every day for the rest of my life knowing what I did.”
There’s a long pause of silence, Akaashi looking up until Sugawara goes to break it.
“Why are you still here?”
“What?”
Sugawara repeats himself, the two of them making eye contact for the first time. “That happened days ago. Why hasn’t he put in a complaint about it? How does he have the bravery to walk in here today? Why do you still have your license? Why are you still here?”
“He said he wasn’t going to make a complaint,” Akaashi mumbled the words and that is when they truly set in. Bokuto said he was not going to make a complaint?
How could Bokuto forgive like that?
“So, I’m going to quit.”
Sugawara shook his head, hands trembling. “Who initiated it?” He asks, only met with silence. “Akaashi, I know this stuff is new to you but sometimes people do things that-”
“Stop trying to defend me. I did, okay?” The dizziness from lack of sleep is truly getting to him, getting worse by the hour. His vision blurs as the nightmares race in his brain 100 miles an hour. “He asked to put my hand on his chest and then my hand moved towards and- oh my God, I’m never seeing him again, I can’t.”
“He asked you to put your hand on his chest?” Sugawara asks.
Akaashi responds cautiously. “Yes, he did.”
“You made moves before you kissed him, which he didn’t reject?”
“…Yeah.”
Sugawara’s eyes widen a bit, almost in surprise. “And he still says he doesn’t want to file a complaint or anything? That he doesn’t want your apology?”
Akaashi brings his fist down against the table, a single tear streaming down his face as he wipes it away profusely. “What point are you trying to prove?” He glares. He has no idea why his anger is coming out against Sugawara when it’s more himself. “Sorry…” he quickly backtracks, leaning his back against the seat. “I’m just… on edge.”
���You’re fine. I’m just trying to say that maybe…” Sugawara pauses, sighing and shaking his head. “Never mind. Thanks for telling me. Even if Bokuto doesn’t seem to be mad, I’m glad you’re being responsible.”
You need to figure it out on your own.
Akaashi nods, gripping the edge of the counter while anxiety attempts to weave its way into his cold heart once more. “So, you’ll let me go?”
“Yeah, I’ll let you go,” Sugawara gives a soft smile. “Just, finish the two weeks? Finish what you started, Akaashi. Just these two weeks, I know it’ll suck if it’s morals you’re after, but please,” despite Sugawara’s typically aloof demeanor, it’s as if he is pleading with Akaashi to stay, at least for now. “I know you wouldn’t do anything like that with anyone else, so that’s why I’m asking you to finish these two weeks.”
Akaashi takes a shaky breath, nodding hesitantly. This was his only passion ever, and if he was going to throw it out, he would at least finish what he started. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“We cool?”
“We’re cool.”
Akaashi watches as Sugawara, half on the verge of tears, rushes in for a hug. For once, it reminds him of his residency. Akaashi, with limited experience and knowledge rushing into the arms of a doctor who welcomed him with kindness when the rest criticized his coldness. A doctor who told him they would build a clinic together to save lives when the big medicine industry failed.
Sugawara was important to him. Akaashi didn’t love him, but he treasured him, and maybe that’s good enough.
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