[oneshot] Healing Wounds
Title: Healing Wounds
Author: Luna (dreamweavernyx )
Pairing: Ryuunon
Genre: Fluff
Summary: AU. Perhaps both of them are in need of some healing, after all.
Notes: For Macy (macymacymacy ).
Beta-ed by Jess (hotfruits ) and Saki (shiroikazex ).
~
The white door of the hospital ward is pushed open, and the lone patient in the room looks up at the sound.
“Fukuda-san?” he asks, glancing at his clipboard.
She nods, brushing limp hair away from her face.
“I’ve been put in charge of you,” he tells her, walking to her bedside to put down the clipboard and a glass of water.
He sees surprise flare in her eyes.
“I would have thought I’d have a female nurse,” she says at last, squinting at his name tag, “Morimoto-san.”
“Call me Ryutaro,” he replies, “Morimoto-san is my brother. The hospital is currently understaffed, as many nurses have left to work for bigger hospitals with better pay. You can trust me not to do anything indecent to you, Fukuda-san.”
Her eyes twinkle, and she quickly lifts a hand to hide her giggles.
“Then you must call me Kanon, Ryutaro-san,” she says, a melodic lilt in her thin voice, “and please, don’t be insulted. I was merely taken by surprise to see a male nurse.”
“Besides, perhaps I wouldn’t mind you doing…things to me,” she continues, waggling her eyebrows at him comically, “after all, you’re pretty cute.”
He feels his face burn with a thousand shades of red, as she laughs openly at his reaction.
“Don’t tell me you’re shy, Ryutaro-san,” she teases, winking.
“I’ll…I’ll be back in ten minutes to take you to see the physiotherapist,” he says quickly, backing away at lightning speed.
Hastily excusing himself, he escapes into the relative safety of the corridor, her soft laughs ringing in his ears.
~
Fukuda Kanon is an enigma.
She is young - too young, perhaps - to lose her mobility, yet her spirits never waver, and she is always bright and cheerful despite the pain and the treatments.
The therapy is painful, and her paralysed legs never move the way she wants them to. It is extremely taxing, both physically and mentally, and for both the patient and the nurses. Ryutaro knows two who have broken down and cried because a young woman in her early twenties who lost her mobility to a car crash is simply heartbreaking.
And yet, Kanon goes through the therapy with a smile always on her delicate face. She never complains about the wheelchair and bed confinement, and she perseveres hard to regain full use of her legs.
She is strong, and for this Ryutaro respects her.
~
“Ryutaro-san,” she says one day as he steps in, “do you have any other patients you’re in charge of besides me?”
He shakes his head.
“I had one more, but she was discharged three days ago.”
“So I’m your only patient?”
“For now, yes,” he says.
She suddenly beams at him.
“Doesn’t that mean that you’re quite free? Come, let’s talk,” she chirps, and he gives a confused look.
“…Talk?”
“Yes! Since I’m going to be here for very long anyway, we might as well get to know each other better.”
Sighing, he draws a chair to her bedside and sits down, looking at her.
“All right,” he gives in, and Kanon cheers.
“So,” she begins, “which part of Kyushu were you born in, Ryutaro-san? How did you come to work in the Izumi city hospital?”
Ryutaro bites his lip. He has never told anybody about his background, his life before the hospital. Not even his closest friends in the hospital know about it, and they have long since given up asking.
“Forgive me, if it’s personal you don’t need to tell me,” she whispers, looking worriedly at his suddenly strained face.
But Kanon’s face is innocent and open, her eyes inquisitive, and he finds himself instinctively wanting to trust her.
“I…” he begins, and his throat chokes up.
She watches him with worried eyes.
“Ryutaro-san?”
“I was born in Tokyo,” he says in a soft voice, “my family owns a major trading company there. We had a…disagreement. They wanted me to work for money, I wanted to work for people. They practically disowned me in everything but name, and then I came here, to Kagoshima, to begin anew. I haven’t heard from them ever since.”
Kanon remains silent as he turns to her.
“There. You’re the first person I’ve told who didn’t already know,” he finishes, and she notices his hands unclench slightly on his lap, as if he has taken a burden off his heart.
She can sense his gaze on her, silently asking, What about you?
It’s a painful story to tell, but he has been honest with her and the least she can do is repay the favor.
“I was born in Saitama,” she tells him, “and I lived there all my life. One day, my parents were in a Shinkansen when it crashed. Suddenly, everybody started looking at me strangely, whispering behind my back about how ‘pitiful’ I was. I really couldn’t stand it. In the end, I moved here to start afresh, away from people who knew what had happened.”
It still hurts, and she can feel tears prickling at the edge of her eyes as she finishes her story. Fiercely, she raises a hand and rubs at her eyes.
A warm hand rests on top of her unoccupied one, and she looks up, startled, to see his hand wrapped gently around her own.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, “for stirring up painful memories.”
She shakes her head, locks of hair flying.
“Thank you for sharing that story with me. I’m happy that you trust me with such a private and painful matter.”
They sit in the sudden silence, her hand in his, not letting go.
~
Two weeks later, he enters her room, only to find her table strewn with notebooks and pens and pencils.
“Kanon-san, what’s that for?” he asks curiously.
“This?” she replies, gesturing to her mess, “I’m writing a song.”
“Really?”
“Yep!”
“May I see?”
Her eyes widen, and she quickly grabs the book, clutching it protectively.
“It’s private,” she tells him mock-sternly, “because it’s got the inspirations for the lyrics and everything scribbled here too. I’ll show them to you when I’m done.”
She pouts, and he feels a sudden urge to laugh at the hilarity of the scene. She’s propped up on her pillows, upper torso half-turned to face him, a notebook clutched tightly in her arms and a grumpy pout on her face.
“Then…can I hear you sing the song when you’re done?”
“I can’t sing,” she deadpans, and a small smile tugs at his lips.
“I bet you’ll have a beautiful voice,” he tells her.
“Someday then,” she relents, “someday.”
“I’ll hold you to that promise then.”
Smiling, she holds up her pinky and interlocks it gently with his.
~
He is reading in the nurses’ resting room when he feels someone staring at him. Lowering his book, he finds himself looking straight into the eyes of his best friend in the hospital.
“You’re smiling,” Yamada says, voice full of shock, “oh man, you’re smiling.”
“…Is there a problem with that?”
“Ryutaro, the stony solemn guy, is smiling,” gasps Yamada, and now Ryutaro knows he’s just fooling around, “it must be the end of the world! What the heck happened to make you smile? I’ve been trying for ages without success.”
“Yama-chan, springing surprise tickle attacks on me with the feather duster isn’t going to make me laugh.”
“But it makes me laugh!”
“I’m not ticklish,” Ryutaro informs him gravely, and then returns to his book.
Yamada whines pitifully, and gives Ryutaro a noogie before roughly ruffling the younger male’s hair.
“Yama-chan, I’m twenty-four. Not twelve. And you’re twenty-six. Act like it.”
With a sheepish grin, Ryutaro’s head is released, and he rubs his neck grumpily. Yamada flops down on the floor, still regarding Ryutaro with curious eyes.
“But really, I’ve never seen you smile ever since you joined the hospital! Who or what succeeded in achieving the impossible?”
“…My new patient,” Ryutaro says eventually.
“Fukuda Kanon-san?”
“Yeah. She is…an extremely interesting character.”
Yamada blinks.
“…What’s with that look, Ryutaro?”
“Eh?”
“You look like you’re in love,” laughs Yamada.
Scowling, Ryutaro whacks Yamada with his book. Yamada backs away and leaves the room to fetch the medicine for his patient, taking the tense air with him.
The faint cherry blush on Ryutaro’s cheeks, however, remains.
~
A few nights later, a magnificent thunderstorm begins to brew, lashing out at the glass windows in what promises to be an all-night storm. The wind howls outside, and the rain attacks the glass and walls mercilessly. Inside the hospital building, the thick walls mute the sound, but the presence of the furious storm can still be felt.
Placing a glass of water on Kanon’s bedside table, Ryutaro straightens up, and turns to leave.
“Good night, Kanon-san,” he says, turning back at the door, before flicking off the lights.
“Please, can you stay?”
Her hoarse whisper reaches him just as he is about to step out of the room. Turning his head, he sees her sitting up in bed, eyes wide and luminous in the dark room.
“Please,” she says again, voice almost lost in the roar of the storm.
“The night-shift nurse will come if you press that button, Kanon-san-”
“I’m not as familiar with her as I am with you,” Kanon cuts in, and now Ryutaro can see the faint traces of fear etched on her face and in her eyes.
She looks at him like a lost baby deer, eyes wide and ears flat, hands slightly trembling as thunder roars outside.
She must be afraid of thunder, he thinks.
His shift is over for the day, and he would very much like to return to his lonely, cramped apartment and topple onto his thin mattress and fall asleep. But Kanon’s eyes evoke a sense of protectiveness he has not felt in very long, and he feels himself giving in.
“I’ll stay with you until the storm ends,” he says at last, and she smiles a small smile.
Crossing the room swiftly, he makes himself comfortable sitting on the steel chair next to her bedside, and takes one of her cold hands in both of his.
Thunder roars again, and she jumps slightly, letting out a small whimper, before starting to shake slightly again.
This Kanon, this broken, scared woman, is the complete opposite of the strong patient who welcomes each day with a sunny smile, the complete juxtaposition of the Kanon Ryutaro is familiar with.
Then again, nobody is strong all the time.
“It’s okay,” Ryutaro finds himself whispering, fingers brushing soothingly across her knuckles, “it won’t hurt you.”
He remembers a time, very long ago, when his little brother and little sister would come running into his room with scared eyes and glistening tear tracks down their cheeks, throwing themselves at him and crying as the thunder and lightning wrecked havoc in the sky outside the window.
“Don’t cry,” he would murmur, “everything’s alright.”
He finds himself doing exactly the same thing now, gently stroking Kanon’s hair and keeping a warm grip on her hand.
Gradually, her shaking begins to stop, and her breaths begin to even out as she succumbs to sleep.
Kanon wakes up to bright sunlight shining in and warming her face, burning away the horror of the night storm.
Something seems to be wrapped around her right hand, and she turns to investigate what it is.
She sees Ryutaro slumped in a chair, his face resting on her bedside table, still fast asleep. His left hand is still wrapped gently around her own, warm and comforting.
“Thank you,” she whispers, gently patting his hair, “for taking care of me.”
~
Kanon knows something is not right when a male nurse she is not familiar with steps into her room with a clipboard.
“Fukuda-san?” he asks, glancing at his clipboard.
She nods, feeling a slight sense of déjà vu.
“I am Nurse Yamada,” he says, “and I’ll be in charge of you for now.”
“What happened to Ryutaro-san?”
Yamada winces.
“I am not entirely sure,” he says honestly, “I was just told that I was in charge of you because Ryutaro had been in an accident. Paramedic Nakajima, who was in the ambulance that Ryutaro came back in, said that it was a car accident, but didn’t elaborate.”
She can sense worry clear in his voice.
“You’re close to Ryutaro-san?”
“We’re best friends,” he replies, smiling weakly, “or at least, we’ve been best friends ever since he joined the hospital.”
“I see.”
Yamada decides to keep her company, and thus they begin to talk lightheartedly, about food and sights and holidays beyond Japan.
“Yamada-san!” shrieks someone as she bursts through the door.
Kanon starts, and notices a nurse in surgical scrubs at the doorway.
“I’m helping out with Morimoto-san’s surgery. Yamada-san, do you happen to know how we can contact his family?”
“His family? Whatever for?”
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” says the nurse urgently, “we need a blood transfusion as fast as possible.”
Yamada’s eyes grow wide in slowly-dawning horror.
“He’s never mentioned them before,” he says, barely above a whisper, “I have no idea where they stay, even…”
“You’ll never get them to reach Izumi city in time,” Kanon cuts in suddenly, “if they agree to come, that is.”
The nurse whirls to face her, eyes questioning.
“Ryutaro-san’s family lives in Tokyo. But apparently he’s been as good as disowned, so they probably won’t come even if you ask them to.”
“But he’ll die soon if he doesn’t get a transfusion in time,” whispers the nurse, voice filling with dread.
Kanon feels the brief stirring of panic in her heart.
Calm down, she tells herself sternly, think. Think!
“What is Ryutaro’s blood type?” she hears Yamada ask.
“He’s type A.”
“Shit,” groans Yamada, “I’m B.”
“I can give blood for the transfusion,” she finds herself saying after a tense pause, “I’m type A.”
~
Yamada sprawls on a chair outside the surgery room, while Kanon grips the armrests of her wheelchair nervously.
Finally, a tall doctor walks out of the room, and Yamada springs up immediately.
“Doctor Okamoto! How is Ryutaro?”
Okamoto sighs, and runs a hand through his hair.
“Morimoto-san’s condition has stabilized,” he says, choosing his words carefully, “but he is currently in a coma.”
“A coma…” Kanon whispers to herself, the panic that had died down at the doctor’s first statement flaring up again.
“May we go in to see him?” Yamada asks.
Okamoto gestures to a door on the left side of the corridor, and Yamada wheels Kanon to the door to look through the window in the door of the ICU.
Ryutaro is lying on a bed like the many patients he has had to take care of, bandages wrapped around his head and face paper-white.
“He will get better,” Yamada whispers by her side, “I’m sure of it.”
Kanon finds herself clinging to his firm statement like a drowning person grasping at straws.
~
A while later Ryutaro is finally transferred into the normal ward, and Kanon will wheel herself down the corridor to his room and spend every day there without fail.
“Ne,” she whispers one day, clutching in her lap the lyric notebook she had kept secret from him all this while, “remember that time when you asked to hear my lyrics? I didn’t want to show the book to you because it has my inspirations scribbled in it as well. But now…I think I’m ready to show them to you. So please, wake up, open your eyes so I can show you.”
His eyes remain closed. Choking back a sob, she reaches for his limp, cold hand and holds it tight, just like how he held hers during that thunderstorm.
“At that time,” she continues, wishing to fill the silence, “I wasn’t sure of my feelings. But now I think I’m sure. That song I was writing…its inspiration was you.”
~
Ryutaro is drifting in a sea of darkness.
He can vaguely see snapshots of a speeding blue car and a road and lots of blood float by in his mindscape. It’s painless, here in this strange abyss, and he wonders what exactly he’s doing there.
Muffled as though he is hearing it underwater, a faint sobbing sound filters through the darkness. It is soft and distinctly female, but Ryutaro cannot fathom any female who would be sobbing over him. His mother doesn’t care, neither does his sister, and the nurses would be too busy…
…Kanon.
He strains his ears to hear the soft sound, and thinks he can make out words.
“Just open your eyes…come back to us, Ryutaro-san - no, Ryutaro-kun - everybody needs you. Yamada-san needs you. We need you.”
“I’m here!” he wants to say, but no sound comes out.
“I need you,” the last sentence comes.
~
She has taken to folding origami cranes. As each coloured square is carefully folded, she finds herself singing softly.
“I promised I’d let you hear me sing,” she murmurs, smiling a little, “so I hope you can hear me now.”
The lavender crane she is folding is finished, and she painstakingly threads it to join the other nine hundred and ninety-eight cranes.
She reaches for the last sheet of paper, a beautiful, soft gold-brown square. Humming softly, she begins to fold what has become extremely familiar creases.
“Almost done,” she whispers, “almost done…”
~
Strangely, the sobbing has been slowly replaced with light humming.
“There,” he can hear the voice which he has taken to be Kanon, “one thousand. I should make a wish now…”
“Can you hear me? I’m here!” he tries again, and still no sound comes out of his mouth.
“I wish you’ll come back to us. To me.”
I am here! he wants to say.
Focusing hard, he tries to escape the darkness and tell Kanon that he is very much awake and aware.
The darkness presses in on him, refusing to let go.
~
She reaches out to hang the string of a thousand cranes onto his bed post, when a raspy cough causes her to shriek and drop the cranes. Her head whips back around.
Her hair whacks a stirring Ryutaro smack in the face.
“Ryutaro-san,” she gasps, and he produces a mumble in response.
Hope suddenly floods her heart again.
~
The next day when she pushes open the door, Ryutaro is already propped up on his pillows.
“You’re…back,” she whispers, hardly daring to believe it.
He smiles a small smile, then coughs a little.
“Yeah,” he whispers, “Tadaima.”
Her smile is wide enough to split her face.
“Okaeri.”
~
“You know,” she tells him one day, “I sang my song for you. But I guess I’ll have to sing it again, now that you’ve woken up, hm?”
“I could hear you, you know. You sound nice when you sing.”
She forces back a blush at the compliment, and waggles her eyebrows at him just like their first meeting.
“Ryutaro-san, are you flirting with me?”
His face burns a thousand shades of red as he flounders for a while. A thought occurs to him, and a smirk slowly crosses his face.
Time to turn the tables.
“Ryutaro-san? Whatever happened to Ryutaro-kun?”
Kanon squeaks, and crimson floods her cheeks.
“You…you heard that?”
“And all the confessions, too.”
She flushes even darker, and squirms in her wheelchair as though she can just sink through the seat and disappear.
He raises an eyebrow, and half-grins.
“Didn’t you mean them?”
Shyly, Kanon nods, and Ryutaro reaches out to pat her gently on the head.
“Then why be embarrassed?” he asks, smiling, “I’m touched, honestly.”
She can do nothing but blink at him in shock.
“…Touched?”
“Yes,” says Ryutaro gently, “because I never thought you’d feel the same way.”
~
The day Ryutaro is allowed to get out of bed and walk around, he wheels Kanon to the hospital rooftop.
“Isn’t the view from here beautiful?” he asks, as the wind blows gently, ruffling their hair.
“Yes,” she breathes, looking out at the city as its lights begin to turn on. Above, the twilight sky is painted peach streaked with midnight purple and smoky grey.
“It makes me feel like I’m flying,” Ryutaro murmurs, arms snaking around the back of the wheelchair to capture her in a loose embrace.
They watch in silence as the brilliance of the setting sun melts away into the distant horizon. Slowly, Kanon draws from her pocket the thousandth crane, pulling open its closed wings.
“It’s granted my wish,” she says, “so now I’ll let it grant those of other people.”
Mustering her strength, she flings it out, and watches as the tendrils of wind pick it up and carry it, airborne, away over the sparkling city lights.
To where someone else is wishing for a miracle like her own.