Deciding to give in and get involved with what was going on with Ema and his brothers had its downside. He now loathed overtime, which filled him with more anxiety than seeing a toddler next to a clogged toilet with a happy grin. The plumber had to come over to their house so many times.
At the end of his first week back, he put his foot down. In his efforts to impress on his flock how important it was for him to be home at a decent time (he couldn't watch over Ema if he wasn't even there), he made the mistake of mentioning that, eventually, he would get married and have children and would need to be home at a decent time to be a father and husband, so they needed to start getting use to it now and plan accordingly.
The force which Dani slapped her puffy cheeks in her excitement hurt his ears and made the other girl in the office wince.
"Who is she? WHO?"
"No one," he said as patiently as he could. "But it's going to happen someday."
"You wouldn't say that unless you had a girl on your mind, Doctor, don't try to put one over me. I'm older than you and have worked with you for the better part of the last ten years, ever since you were a cute little intern. Aren't you a little old for secret crushes anyways?"
He hesitated. If he threw down a crumb of the truth, they may all converge on it so loudly he'd have time to escape. But if he did, they'd be pecking on him first thing in the morning for new clues.
What the hell. They pecked on him anyways.
"It's...one sided."
Dani rolled her bulk about in the office chair, delight sparking in her eyes, but round fists perched on her love handles in disapproval.
"Aren't you a man? Fight for her! Or did you turn chicken overnight?"
He tried not to smile at that particular analogy. Best to not let them know how he privately thought of them.
Kyoi and another office girl turned on him as well, all frowns and furrowed brows.
"Yeah," said Kyoi. "Women get turned on by emotional security, and there ain't no security in some guy who isn't even willing to prove his love."
"Nothing sexy about a wimp," said the other, Yona, who had long, dyed orange hair that always reminded him of his younger brother Natsume.
"Well there isn't anything that would attract her to me in the first place, so confidence isn't going to help much." He made a grab for his folders and turned. Time to run.
"Excuse me, boy?" Oh no. Dani had rolled out the mama-hen-is-going-to-peck-your-eyes-out tone. "Confidence is everything, and if you're going to let the first girl to actually catch your eye instead of the other way around be snatched up just because you're a coward, I'm lining you up with appointments so hard, you ain't gonna have time to date any women anyways."
Kyoi, Yona, and the lone male medical assistant somewhere behind him 'ooed' like kids in the peanut gallery to a fight.
Masaomi dropped his face onto the counter.
"Please. You don't know the situation."
"What situation is there to understand?" Kyoi chirped. "It is a girl, right?"
"Yes!" Best he get that out there before the lone male medical assistant heard. Masaomi had his suspicions about him.
"Is she legal?" asked Dani dryly.
Ema was eighteen. Masaomi had not missed that day at all. "Yes."
"Is she single?" asked Yona, a bit more gently than the other two.
More 'ooo's came from the peanut gallery. Oh god, another medical assistant had dropped into the conversation. Did he have the whole office on him now?
Yona wrinkled her brow. "What? Love knows no boundaries."
"Excuse me?" Kyoi snapped, who was fiercely loyal to her husband and took offense to that.
He lifted up the folder, as though he could use it to fan away the attention, his face hot. "She's legal, she's single, and it's not happening. Please, girls? I have a patient waiting for me."
"Which is why you better tell us a reason why," snapped Dani, and Masaomi couldn't help but see her as the hen with her comb bright and feathers puffed up. "I can't see you break your own heart like this. You know you're like a son to me, right?"
The other girls nodded. Yona looked especially sympathetic.
Sighing, and unable to deny the little spark of hope in his chest that maybe... "She...she sort of has...a whole lot of guys going for her. Like a whole lot."
"You're in love with a model?" some girl in the back shrieked.
"No!" He stabbed the air with the medical file. "Now I am seeing to my patient and then going home, so help me god!"
And he did so. He even managed to slip out while the rest of them were wrapping up for the evening so no one had the chance to demand any more answers.