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The rain had been pouring for the past four or five hours and Ramuda was growing impatient. Today was supposed to be his day out with the doctor and he had so many plans in mind, but nothing of what he’d planned or hoped for had become reality. It wasn’t only the rain’s fault, mind it; the old man had promised to give him all his time and attention, but then an emergency had happened and he had had to rush to it. Ramuda groaned at the thought. They had talked about this, he and the doctor; he knew that Jakurai could only promise him so much during his work days and that the medical emergencies within his ward were not easy things, but he couldn’t help but wonder when he’d be able to have one day with him without hospitals and emergencies in mind. If he hadn’t been so stuck in his mind, he would have noticed the irony in his thought: he was a patient of the hospital himself, and that was the reason he was able to see the doctor so often. But it was easy to understand his annoyance when all he had to do was eat the less-than-appetizing hospital food and chat with Dice, who had stopped going to the casinos to stay with him but was so bored that had tried multiple times to set up an underground gambling house with the nurses, all of which had been shut off with a stern talk from the head physician, and Gentaro, who was so distant these days Ramuda questioned if he was really there or if that was just a hologram sent to make him feel less lonely.
The door opened with a light creak and the smell of coffee filled the room. With the most annoyed look he could muster, he turned around to look at the newcomer. He already knew who it was, and he was not happy. The doctor smiled brightly at him before setting down his mug on the bedside table and sitting on the edge of the bed.
“It seems like it won’t be stopping for a while, doesn't it?”
“No.”
“We’ll have to stay inside then.”
“Obviously”, hissed the designer, before reaching out to grab the doctor’s mug. He took a long sip of coffee, made a disgusted face and stuck his tongue out at him.
“Will you ever stop putting so much sugar?! It’s disgusting!”
“First of all, Ramuda-kun, that is my coffee and I drink it however I like” the doctor started, an amused look on his face. Ramuda sneered and turned around again.
“And second, it’s good that you don’t like it. It was a test, and you passed.”
“A test? What do you mean?” asked the designer offended without turning to look at his companion. It should be illegal to test him without his knowledge, he thought; he should report him to the hospital’s offices.
“You have always been addicted to those lollipops, and while I know the real problem was not the amount of sugar in them, you also developed a strong addiction to it. Seeing that you now find my coffee disgusting means the cure is working, even if slowly. The new medication seems to have already worked on the most dangerous substances that were-”
“Yes, yes, I know.” Ramuda rolled his eyes, which the doctor could see in the reflection on the window. “You explained it already, and I’m not in the mood for a lecture. Now go get me a decent coffee” he demanded, knowing full well that his behaviour was only allowed because the doctor knew how frustrating this day was for him. Tomorrow he would apologise, but right now he needed to feel his emotions.
What he wasn’t expecting was for Jakurai to come back, minutes later, with a coffee and a wheelchair.
“What’s that for?” he asked, suspicious.
“For you, obviously. You’re still not allowed to stand for long periods” the doctor answered, as if it was obvious.
“I know that, but where am I supposed to go? I don’t have any visits this afternoon, so I plan to stay right here cursing at the rain and you while drinking my coffee, thank you very much.” He looked at the doctor as if defying him to change his mind.
But Jakurai didn’t say anything. With two long steps, he reached the bed, picked up the designer and placed him in the wheelchair.
“Wha- Hey! I just told you I have plans! Don’t just ignore me, HEY!” he fussed, and then, seeing that the doctor had no intention of listening to him, he turned in his seat and looked him straight in the eye.
“If you make me leave this room, I’ll start screaming that you’re kidnapping me” he hissed, trying to look threatening.
“You know that the wheelchair is only here so you don’t overexert yourself, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t need to threaten me, if you want to spend the afternoon sulking you can just stand up and go back to bed. It would be too bad though, I had prepared something for you.” The doctor looked in the distance as if reminiscing something. Maybe he had made a big effort and Ramuda, for all that he didn’t want the old geezer to win, was starting to be curious. He crossed his arms over his chest and huffed.
“You’re the doctor in charge, so if you insist that I have to come with you it’s not like the nurses are going to stop you.” And to be sure Jakurai knew he didn’t want to go but had no other choice, he rolled his eyes again and cast them stubbornly on the floor.
Jakurai smiled. He knew Ramuda was curious, but part of him still questioned if this surprise was a good idea. He wanted the designer to feel like he was a human being, not an animal trapped in a cage, but it was difficult when he’d been forced to lie in a hospital bed for months with no end in sight.
Ramuda, who had memorised the ward’s map by now, shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Even without looking up, he knew that they had left the ward and ventured into uncharted territory. That was weird. The doctor had never taken him out of the ward: they could find everything they needed there and, if he had a crisis, all his medication was readily available. He tried not to overthink, an old habit he was still trying to keep under control, but not knowing what was going on always made it harder. He coughed feebly.
“Don’t worry Ramuda-kun, we’re not going to do any tests or visits. I just wanted to bring you somewhere you’ve never been, so you could feel less bored for one afternoon.”
That explained the unknown corridor, Ramuda thought. Had it been anyone else pushing his chair, he would have sprinted back to his room ages ago, but the truth was that, despite his attempts to hide it, he trusted Jakurai with his life. He fixed his posture and kept staring at the floor, as if to show that he couldn’t care less where they were going, regardless of the doctor’s best attempts at reassuring him.
They reached a big white door, which the doctor opened with ease. Inside, Ramuda saw another corridor with smaller doors on both sides. It looked like a normal hospital corridor, but the atmosphere was different. Where there was usually silence, here there was laughter. Where there was low talk, here he could hear the people behind those doors singing and shouting jokes at each other. He shot a glance at the doctor, who seemed unfazed by all this and kept walking forward.
After what felt like hours of walking, they reached another door, this time considerably smaller in size and made of wood. Jakurai fished a key out of his pocket and turned it into the lock. The door rotated on his hinges without a sound and Ramuda’s face was immediately assaulted by the heavy rain he had seen from his bedroom window. He immediately retracted as much as he could on his chair, trying to shield himself from, the rain with his arms. He looked at the doctor with fury in his eyes.
“Was this your big plan all along? Get me drenched and laugh at me while I sneeze for the next three months?” he shouted to get his point across over the loud pattering of the rain.
The doctor looked him in the eyes for a moment and Ramuda had to lower his gaze, unable to withstand the fondness he saw in them. Then, after what felt like days but was probably just a moment, Jakurai materialised an umbrella seemingly out of nowhere and opened it over their heads. They walked under the pouring rain for a few seconds, until they reached a wooden gazebo that looked to Ramuda as if it had been abandoned there centuries ago. The row of benches that run along its sides were mostly rotten, probably because the roof didn’t protect them at all from the rain; the table at the centre had splinters so big Ramuda thought he could use them as weapons. The only positive aspect was that it was spacious enough that, sitting close to the centre, the rain couldn’t reach them. Jakurai closed the umbrella and leaned against the table, eyes lost in the rain.
“Usually, after a long day, I prefer to go straight home, but a few years ago I stumbled upon this garden while I was looking for the staff rooms, and since then I’ve considered it my secret place.”
“Secret place?” Ramuda inquired. There were hardly any secret places in a hospital, especially among the staff.
“It’s not an actual secret” Jakurai explained, reading his mind once again, “the other doctors and nurses just don’t see a point in coming here. They prefer to stay inside, get some sleep and something to eat and go home afterwards, but I enjoy the quiet of this place much more than the joking and singing of the cafeteria.”
“Are- are we allowed to be here?” Ramuda asked, a hint of worry in his voice.
“Of course we are! We are still within the perimeter of the hospital and you’re with your doctor, I doubt anyone could say we are breaking any rules” Jakurai reassured him. He placed a hand on the designer’s shoulder and began tracing small circles on it. Ramuda sighed contentedly, then remembered he wasn’t going to let him win so easily and slapped his hand away.
“Why did you bring me here? It’s raining and it’s cold, it’s not like we can do anything fun” he huffed. He was starting to feel better, the tightness in his chest easing now that he was breathing fresh air for the first time in a few days, but he was sure the doctor hadn’t just walked through half the hospital just for that, and he was dying to know the real reasons for that impromptu trip outside.
“Are you cold? Do you want to go back inside?” Jakurai sounded truly concerned, so Ramuda made a point of reassuring him by looking at him as if he’d just asked him to do a backflip.
“No, of course I’m not cold, you gave me three cardigans and a blanket when we left the room” he groaned.
The doctor smiled at him and fully sat down on the table.
‘Those long legs of his,’ the designer thought rolling his eyes.
“I brought you here because, as I said, it’s my secret place and I wanted you to be part of it.” He stopped. Ramuda waited for him to start speaking again, but he didn’t. When he looked at him, Jakurai looked lost in thought, as if he was reminiscing days long gone when he’d been there to soothe himself after a long and challenging day of work.
After what felt like hours, the doctor spoke again.
“I hadn’t been here in ages, but it still feels familiar. That bush over there in a few months will grow the most beautiful roses you have ever seen.” He stood up intending to walk towards it, then remembered the rain and sat back down.
“And behind that rock wall is a pond with koi fish. I don’t know why there is a pond in a hospital or who keeps it clean and feeds the fish, all I know is that when I’m nervous or insecure about something I go there to look at them, and everything becomes bearable again. It has become my safe place, where I can spend all the time I need to be lost in thought” He looked at the smaller man staring at him as if trying to read his mind. Quickly, he set those thoughts aside.
“Ah, forgive me, I’m rambling again.”
Ramuda, who had been so engrossed in the doctor’s voice that he’d almost forgotten about the rain, blinked a few times and looked at him in disbelief. Of all the things they’d talked about in the past few weeks, this was hardly the least interesting and Jakurai for sure knew it and was just messing with him. He stood up and skipped to the edge of the gazebo, ignoring the rain soaking through his hair. For a moment he considered going back for the umbrella, but decided against it. He stepped in the rain, grinned back at the doctor, who was looking at him with wide eyes, and started walking towards where he really hoped the pond was. And indeed, there it was, with dozens of fish swimming peacefully as if the raging storm wasn’t part of their world. ‘It isn’t’, Ramuda thought, and for a moment he imagined his life as a fish; no rain, no hail, never a day of bad weather. It would have been a dream for him, who hated the cold and couldn’t stand the feeling of wet clothes clinging to his skin. But despite this, at that moment his legs were refusing to lead him back to the safety of the gazebo. Mesmerised as he was by the patterns made by the fish in the water, he didn’t realise someone had joined him. The doctor gently crouched down and sat on a rock at the edge of the pond. Without taking his eyes off the smallest of the koi, Ramuda sat on his lap. The doctor’s chest was warm despite the freezing rain, and something twisted in Ramuda’s mind. He looked at Jakurai and asked him, in a whisper:
“Was I ever one of your thoughts?”
It was a weird question, maybe it didn’t even make sense, but the doctor immediately understood.
“You were often my only thought. My days at work were hard and tiring, but I only came to this secret place to allow myself to think about my one true secret. Now that everything is out in the open, it was about time I showed you.”
“Your one true secret?” Ramuda asked, still somewhat in disbelief. He was quite sure he knew what the doctor meant, but he couldn’t allow himself to feel too hopeful. He thought back at everything Chuoku had asked him to discover about the doctor and at the fact that, despite his efforts and connections, he hadn’t been able to find out anything more than what everyone else already knew. It was almost funny now hearing Jakurai talk about his ‘one true secret’, considering his life seemed to be made of only those.
“You, Ramuda-kun.” The doctor’s voice interrupted his train of thought.
“I thought of you, even when I knew you would have despised me for that, even when we became sworn enemies, I still had you in my mind every day. But it would have been dangerous for both of us if I showed it, so I did it in secret, and this place came to me when I needed it the most.”
Ramuda stood up, and without hesitation took the doctor’s face in his hands and, without looking at him, placed a feather-light kiss on his lips. The smile that bloomed on them when they parted made his stomach twist, but he turned away from the doctor muttering something under his breath.
“What was that?”
“Thank you for showing me” he repeated, still refusing to look at Jakurai.
The doctor laughed. He placed his hands on Ramuda’s shoulders and turned him around.
“I wanted you to know about this place because it’s yours more than it is mine, and so that when you feel like you’re stuck in a cage you can come here, look at the fish, smell the roses and remember that there are things for which life is worth living.”
He looked around, then took a second key out of his pocket. It was brighter than the one he’d used earlier to open the wooden door, as if it had been made more recently. He handed it to Ramuda.
“And I lied earlier, the staff doesn’t actually know of this place. They think the wooden door is stuck in its frame and the key has been lost. Keep this safe and don’t show it to anyone, or everyone will be in on our secret.” He winked at Ramuda’s confused expression, and then his gaze softened again. “I know my life can get hectic and I can’t always keep my promises, but I want you to know that you are always in my thoughts and that I’m the first to wish we could spend more time together, especially outside of the hospital.”
A shy ray of sunshine peaked through the slowly dissipating clouds. Ramuda looked up at the doctor, whose drying face made him look less intimidating and more human, and felt a wave of affection that warmed him from the inside. He took the doctor’s hand and squeezed it in his, feeling a blush creeping on his cheeks. He quickly turned to the side, but it was too late. The doctor picked him up in his arms and, looking at him as if he was the most precious and beautiful thing in the whole world, reciprocated the kiss. Ramuda could feel the doctor’s heartbeat as he slowly dozed off with his head on his chest, the smell of wet grass and lavender all around him.
“Why do you always have to ruin everything?” Ramuda hissed only inches away from the doctor’s face. He didn’t know how long he’d slept, but when he’d woken up, he was still in Jakurai’s arms under the gazebo. He had sighed contentedly and then, just then, the doctor had decided that they’d been outside enough and they risked catching a cold.
“You can’t bring me to the prettiest place on earth and expect me to be happy to go back to my room” Ramuda continued, hoping the doctor would eventually give in to his whines and grant him a few more minutes out there. It was useless; Jakurai was determined to have Ramuda in bed by dinner time, which, judging from the sky’s dark blue, was going to be very soon.
“Okay okay fine, but I want you to carry me” Ramuda surrendered eventually, locking his arms around Jakurai’s neck. The doctor let out an amused laugh, patted him on the head and stood up, Ramuda safe in his arms. The nurses would probably give them a dirty look, but in the end, they didn’t really care.