A week passed. Ema got better. His hours got worse. The baby he had to admit with hand, mouth, and foot ended up worsening before he got better, but Masaomi was there to hold him as his mother slept in a nearby bed. He knew that part of the reason she could sleep at all was because the doctor himself held her child. Happily, two days later, he was able to release the babe to recover at home.
On Wednesday they returned for a checkup. As he tickled the baby's stomach to get his mouth open so he could see how the sores were healing up in there, Dani knocked on the door.
"Doctor, your sister's at the front desk for you. She's in a fit state."
His nerves prickled. Ema had never come to his office before when she had needed something. She always called, just like the rest of the brothers. What could be wrong that she felt she had to come here herself?
Once he finished the check up, he checked his phone. There were three missed calls. Usually he kept it on silent when with patients, but he hadn't felt any vibrations.
When he saw her, Dani was still hovering nearby with a drink of water, which Ema didn't so much as twitch to touch. At the sight of her trembling frame and wide, bright eyes, he all but ran the rest of the way to her.
"Ema, what happened?"
"He's..." she stopped and shot an uneasy glance at Dani, who put the cup of water down on the counter.
"I'll give you some privacy." She turned back to work well enough, but Masaomi suspected she did so reluctantly. He also hadn't missed that crook to her eyebrows when she had looked between Ema and him, as though something just made sense to her.
Masaomi gestured to an empty exam room and they went in. He closed the door behind him, hoping she didn't think much on the cartoon paintings on the walls and dangling toy birds.
"He's coming to kill you," she blurted out.
His hands went cold. "Who?"
"Kaname's friend, the one I..." she bit her lip. Her hands clenched so hard on her ruffled skirt that her knuckles showed white. "Masaomi...did you really shave him and ruin his reputation at the temple?"
He opened his mouth to ask how she knew that, then realized it didn't matter. All he could do with that information is try to lie, and he had no intention to do that to her, no matter how it made his gut twist.
"Yes," he said. "But what makes you think he's going to kill me?"
"He left a voicemail on my phone. Said he—said he was going to kill one of my brothers, a-a-and after-after hearing from Kaname last night that Chi had been kicked out dishonorably and that he suspected it might be you—" her breathing hitched and, suddenly, her face screwed up against watering hysteria. "What if I got it wrong? What if he's after Kaname? Masaomi, his voice, it was—I don't—"
He went on auto pilot, rushing to stroke her arms and hush to her like he would a terrified child. It was all he knew. He just stopped himself from pulling a toy out of his pocket. But even if he did know better, his rattled insides would have made it impossible for him to think straight.
"And he called me of all people—" she gasped. "This has got to be my fault, you—you must have heard about what he did—it's my fault, I shouldn't have gone to that stupid club, what if he's—"
A knock on the door interrupted her breathless tirade. Frowning, Masaomi went to the door to see Dani again, looking far to disinterested to be real.
"There's a young fellow up front saying it's urgent he get a word with you," she said.
"One of my brothers?"
She shook her head. "Doesn't have the look, and he's not the adopted one either. Told me to give you this."
She handed a sealed envelope through the door.
Masaomi took it as coolly as possible.
"Thank you."
"And you have a patient waiting in room five." With that she turned and trotted off, albeit slowly.
He close the door and tore through the envelop, cutting his finger in the process. The words bled against his eyes as the red from his cut dyed the paper.
Come to me quietly. If I get hint of a ruckus or cops, I have a bomb.
"What does it say?" she whispered.
Masaomi tucked the letter with its envelope into his pocket, but not before Ema saw the stain. Without a word she went to the cupboards and, luckily, found a box of band aids on her first try. Yet her white hands hook so hard she dropped the box into the sink. He came over to help as he spoke.
"Nothing you need to worry about." His voice came out perfectly calm, as he had to use whenever a child's sickness scared even him and no one could know. He peeled out a band aid, but she took it from him without asking.
"Then I probably shouldn't know," she said, softly, though her tone still came out peaked and vibrating with terror. "Just tell me what to do."
He felt a wave of awe. She was terrified, yet instead of demanding and becoming more hysteric or even angry as he had seen most people get when afraid, she trusted him, quickly dried her face, and straightened with a cool determination he'd never seen before, waiting on his instructions.
In that moment, he knew he had found someone to depend on.
But she didn't need to be here.
"I need you to call one of our brothers for a ride. Tell them to come out to the east side of the hospital, to the outside wall of my office where the fire exit is."
"Won't the alarm go off if you use it?"
He gave her a tight smile. "It doubles as a back entrance." And covered by back bushes and trees so the idiot in the office wouldn't know about it. "Don't leave it until you know they're outside."
She nodded, then visibly hesitated, as though wanting to say more.
He turned and opened the door.
"Masaomi..."
He glanced back at her, and couldn't help the wave of sadness at her wane, pale form.
"I'm so sorry to have done this to you," he said.
Before she could response, he had Dani (who hadn't gone far at all) and Kyoi before him and had started his instructions in a low murmur.
"Keep what I'm about to tell you absolutely quiet. You can't even let it show, you have to behave as though nothing is wrong."
His head hen and her second in command stiffened and met his eye with resolute soberness, as he knew they would. Still, he couldn't imagine appreciating the day he hired them more than he did then.
Besides him, Ema listened, her hands still tightly fisted into her skirt.
Once he gave them instructions, he dismissed them, and put an arm around her shoulder. Her wired, taunt muscles against his bicep made his chest constrict.
"Ema..." he swallowed the urge to murmur the softest of endearments. "It isn't your fault. It is only mine. I should have controlled myself better. I have not been on my best the last month or so, and I am so, so sorry."
Her ponytail swept along his bare forearm as she turned her head, as though to look up at him, but found that awkward while they walked so close. But she didn't say anything, which was perhaps best.
At the door he quickly let go of her and gave her his best, professional default smile.
"Now please, do as big brother says and stay here," he raised his pinky finger to her, hoping his words came out humorous rather than the weepy he heard his head. "Please?"
She wavered as he knew she would. Above everything else, she wanted a family, and his brothers had gotten away with figurative murder by pulling out the 'big brother' card on her.
Even so, he still felt relief when that little smile curved her lips and she curved her own pinky around his, tight as a new spring vine.
"Then promise me you won't get hurt."
Something inside him trembled and died the moment it was born. It had been a ridiculous pleasure anyways. Of course she wouldn't want him hurt.
"That is the plan."
"Promise." Her pinky clenched tighter.
"Promise." And resisting the urge to kiss their entwined fingers, he pulled apart. "Best you try on a smile. Best we not make the others going through this door nervous, yeah?"
She nodded and her smile widened, though it didn't touch her eyes.
"Yes'm, Doctor!"
With that, he spun on his heel and marched through the hallways. His medical assistants passed him with children and mothers and one father at their hands. They all smiled, and the children seemed to find it no different than moving from the waiting room. One of the mothers did look uncertain, though. He patted her on the shoulder, willing reassurance through to her, and hoped seeing him walk in the opposite direction would give her some kind of reassurance. Only once he was certain everyone who was inside had gone out the door did he continue on.
Up beyond the separating counter in the office space, Kyoi and Dani sat in their chairs typing away, both on the phones canceling appointments for the next two hours. He took the clipboard from off the partition and clicked it on the counter. Both girls turned. Then, in answer to the silent question in his eyes, Dani lifted up a note card that said "Stools in place." He nodded, ignoring how dry his mouth had become.
He stepped behind the wall next to the door, so that anyone who came up to the sliding glass window wouldn't see him. Kyoi checked to see if Masaomi was in place so that it wouldn't look to obvious when Dani opened the window and called up Chiyaki.
All too soon, he heard the hiss of the glass window sliding open.
"Sir, if you'd come and fill out a form."
As Masaomi slid to the door, he heard Chiyaki's voice answer.
"I'm not a patient. I just need to see him."
"I got that, but its procedure. Don't look at me like that, I didn't decide what was what, I just work here."
Of course Dani wouldn't balk from talking to him like her idiot son. Guy could probably have a freaking gun pointing at her face and she'd probably still hand out to sass. Masaomi may have to consider changing his mental image of her as a chicken.
Only once he heard Chiyaki come to the window did he open the door. The oiled hinges opened silently (the janitor happened to be an OCD war vet, so he was on top of things like that, THANK GOD). He rolled his feet, eyes instantly flying to the set of barstools one of the girls had replaced two of the waiting room chairs with. The pen used to fill out the board had one of those dainty chains used to keep them to the counter and out of thieves reach. And since Dina was careful to hide her usual mug of free pens so patients could sit down to fill them out, Chi would be kept at the desk, his gaze to the board.
And hopefully he didn't see the waiting room door open out of the corner of his eye.
Heart hammering cold ice past his ears, Masaomi reached the stools in two long strides and thank his mother for his long legs.
"This is stupid," he heard him say.
"Then you should have called ahead," said Dani with a haughty sniff. "Since you're not family, you have to fill out the form so we can put you up in the order of importance."
His sweating hands grasped the legs of a stool.
"But you're not even busy. No one is in here."
Breath held, he crossed the distance to him. The man's head had been touched up since Masaomi barber skills had graced it, and the baldness had an oiled, reflective sheen to it without any random spurts of gray fuzz.
"But there are people in with him—"
With every ounce of his strength, he brought the stool across to the back of the pretty bald skull. At the last nano-second, Chi turned. The seat of the stool chunked with the back-side of his head, the legs to his temple, and a loud crack burst his eardrums. The girls screamed.
Chi crumpled.
Masaomi raised the barstool, eyes jumping for any sign of movement. He waited for what felt like an hour, readying for another head bash, but only a few seconds by the tick of the clock in the quiet.
Then he snapped into motion, pawing through the man's crisp, casual suit jacket. He pulled out wallets, chains, then tore open the shirt, searching for anything out of the ordinary. Then the pants and shoes, not bothering with the man's privacy.
But besides the black handgun lying besides his hand, Chi had no other weapons or bombs on him.
"Dani," he barked.
"Police should be here in five minutes," said Kyoi.
Dani appeared in the window, throwing out a rolled tape measure, which Masaomi caught and proceeded to tie up Chi's hands behind him in quick, practiced tugs. Yes, he had practice in tying up people. Best not to dwell on that thought, or the fact that he had essentially broken his hypocratic oath to do no one harm—physically, that is, as he told his monster of a conscience.
Only on standing did he register the sharp pain on the outside of his left thigh. The surprise more than the pain made him stagger into the counter. Kyoi squeaked in alarm, but not Dani. In an almost superhuman flash she was out in the waiting room, fat arms around his and hefting him into a chair.
"Stay." Yep. He had become the sassy hen in her coop who needed to be taught a lesson.
But wasn't he hurt? Why was he in trouble?
Confused, he looked down to see the dark red staining through his gray slacks on the left side of his thigh. A bit of blood shone against the yellow pine of the chair's armrest where his leg had brushed against it.
Well...crap. How was he going to make up to Ema for breaking his promise?