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Chishiya Shuntaro was a man who had seen and done many things in his life. He’d worked with countless sick children. He’d made choices and made contributions to a corrupt system that he still wasn’t proud of. He’d survived a meteor strike and then entire months spent in a parallel version of Tokyo playing hundreds of death games to get back to the real world. At this point in his life, there was little that could faze the doctor, or make him feel an emotion other than boredom.
But as he stared down at the patient on the table, he couldn’t help thinking that this was definitely the weirdest situation he’d ever been in. “Doctor?”
“Yes?” the doctor he was assisting said, turning from her tools. “What is it, nurse?”
Chishiya kept his attention on the patient. “The patient doesn’t look so good. Look.” He lightly poked the patient’s stomach, a bit of red coming away with his finger. “The incision is starting to bleed more. This may be a sign of internal bleeding.” He looked up gravely at the wide-eyed doctor. “The patient may not survive the surgery.”
The doctor shook her head fiercely. “Don’t say that, nurse! We’ll save her! Now give me the scalpel!”
Chishiya nodded. “At once.” He turned to pick up the scalpel and hand it to her. “Be careful, doctor.”
“I know to be careful, nurse!” The doctor leaned over the patient with a look of intense concentration, bringing the scalpel down to the incision on the patient’s stomach.
Chishiya couldn’t help noticing her grip was off. “Excuse me, doctor?”
“What, nurse?”
“Forgive me for saying, but you’re not holding the scalpel correctly.”
The doctor looked down at the scalpel quizzically. “How do I hold it, nurse?”
“Here, like this.” Chishiya reached over to gently adjust her hold on the scalpel. “There.”
The doctor grinned at him happily. “Thank you, nurse!” she chirped, and went back to work.
Chishiya smiled softly. “You’re welcome, doctor.” Maybe this situation wasn’t so bad. Weird, yes, but not terrible. At least the doctor he was working with was adorable.
“How’s the surgery going?”
Chishiya turned his head to see Arisu leaning against the bedroom doorframe, watching the scene with a grin.
Akemi stopped what she was doing and looked up, then frowned when she saw Arisu. “Daddyyyyy!” the six-year-old groaned. “You’re inner—inner—”
“Interrupting,” Chishiya supplied.
“You’re inner-rupping the surgery!”
“Oh no!” Arisu looked properly abashed. “I’m very sorry, Dr. Akemi.” He eyed the Barbie doll lying on the little table and the line drawn on her stomach in red marker. “What’s wrong with Barbie?”
“She’s got a… appen… um…” Akemi looked over at Chishiya and he couldn’t help thinking of how much her confused pout looked like Arisu’s. “What’s she got, Papa?”
“Appendicitis,” Chishiya clarified, saying the word slowly.
“Appendicitis?”
“That’s it.”
“Appendicitis!” Akemi turned back to Arisu with a grin. “She’s got appendicitis, Daddy! We’re gonna make her better again!”
From Arisu’s widening grin, Chishiya knew he was internally fawning at how adorable their daughter was. “That’s great! You’re just like Papa, Akemi.”
Akemi giggled happily and bounced up and down, waving the scalpel in her hand. “I’m gonna be a doctor like Papa!” she exclaimed.
Chishiya allowed only a smile to grace his face, enough of a signal that his heart was melting inside. “Akemi, be careful with the scalpel.” He gently stopped her hand from waving around. “It’s sharp.”
“Oh. Sorry, Papa!”
“It’s okay. Just don’t hurt yourself with it.”
“I won’t! Okay, now we have to keep op’rating! We have to save her life, nurse!”
“You’re right. Let’s proceed with the surgery.”
“Excuse me, Dr. Akemi?” Arisu asked politely. “Would you mind if I talked to Nurse Papa about something?”
“But Daddy, I need him to help me! She won’t make it if we don’t do our best!”
“Dr. Akemi,” Chishiya said to the girl, “you need to be able to face the unexpected if you want to be a good doctor someday. I have no doubt you’ll be able to operate on the patient alone for a minute.”
Akemi frowned, thinking. “Okay,” she said finally. She pointed at Arisu with the scalpel. “But just for a minute! He needs to help me or we can’t save her.”
“I promise, I’ll only talk to him for a minute,” Arisu swore, like they were in a far more serious situation than they actually were.
“Okay. You can go, nurse. But come back!”
Chishiya nodded solemnly—he supposed he couldn’t judge Arisu when he was doing the same thing. “I will be back, doctor.”
He got up from where he was sitting on the floor of Akemi’s room and went to join Arisu in the doorframe. Arisu immediately went for a one-armed hug, and he smiled before kissing him softly. “Did you just get back home?” he asked quietly, so they wouldn’t disrupt Akemi.
“Yeah. Sorry I took so long. The kid’s parents were causing a scene.”
Ah, the joys of working as a counselor at a private school. “Don’t worry about it. We found ways to stay busy, as you can see.”
Arisu couldn’t help laughing softly as they turned to watch Akemi, who was muttering to herself as she pretended to operate on her Barbie doll. “Is Barbie going to make it?”
Chishiya smirked softly. “Not sure. I noticed signs of internal bleeding earlier.”
Arisu snickered and looped his arms around Chishiya’s waist, resting his head on his shoulder. “She’s so focused.”
A fond smile found its way onto Chishiya’s face as he leaned into the hold. “She has to be. An appendectomy is a delicate procedure.”
“That scalpel wouldn’t happen to be real, would it?”
Chishiya paused, recalling how he’d caved to Akemi’s begging and gone to get the satchel from his medical bag. “I can neither confirm nor deny.”
Arisu chuckled knowingly—he knew Chishiya was wrapped around their daughter’s little finger, despite the doctor’s denial. “One last question. Why are you a nurse?”
“Because she’s the doctor, obviously. There can’t be two doctors performing a surgery at the same time; everyone knows that.”
Arisu scoffed and poked his side. “Be serious.”
“I am. That’s actually true. Also… she asked me to.”
“Awww, she did?”
“She came running, yelling that she wanted to be a doctor for her dolls and asked if I would be her nurse and help her.”
He could hear the grin on Arisu’s face. “Puppy eyes?”
Chishiya sighed quietly at his exposed weakness. “Puppy eyes.” He turned to give his partner a glare when he snorted softly. “I blame you.”
“What’d I do?”
“You passed them onto her. You knew what you were doing.”
“Oh no,” Arisu laughed. “You caught me. My genius plan, exposed. Whatever shall I do.”
“Shut up,” Chishiya grumbled fondly, giving him a kiss.
“NURSE!”
They both jumped at the shriek and turned to find Akemi glaring disapprovingly at them with her hands on her hips. “You need to come back and help me!” she insisted. “We need to save Barbie!” She gasped dramatically. “Are you helping Daddy? Do we need to save Daddy, too?!”
Chishiya untangled himself from Arisu’s arms. “Daddy’s just fine, Dr. Akemi. I looked him over and he’s completely healthy.”
“Actually,” Chishiya should’ve hated the smile on Arisu’s face if he didn’t find it so cute, “now that you mention it, I do need your help, Dr. Akemi.”
Akemi gasped and dropped the scalpel to run over. “What’s wrong, Daddy? Are you sick?”
“No, baby, I’m not sick.” Arisu knelt down with a sweet smile that Akemi had definitely inherited. “But I really missed you and Papa today. Is there a cure for that?”
Akemi’s little eyes widened. “I don’t know, Daddy.” She looked up at Chishiya, biting her nail until Arisu gently guided it out of her mouth. “Is there a cure, Papa?”
“As a matter of fact, there is.” Chishiya looked at her incredibly seriously. “In order to cure Daddy, you need to give him a hug and a big kiss on the cheek.”
Arisu couldn’t help laughing at him. Akemi, on the other hand, looked up with shining eyes. “I can do that! Here, Daddy!”
She threw her arms around Arisu in a big hug, then leaned back to press a huge, very loud kiss to his cheek. “There! Do you feel better, Daddy?”
Arisu giggled. “I feel much better. Thank you, Dr. Akemi!”
Akemi turned back to the forgotten Barbie doll, and gasped. “Oh no! The patient’s bleeding! Come on, nurse!” She grabbed Chishiya’s hand and pulled him back towards the table. “We have to save her!”
“Right away, doctor.” Chishiya turned to Arisu. “This could take a while,” he said quietly.
Arisu nodded with a smile. “I’ll start dinner.”
Chishiya nodded, then turned back around to sit down on the floor across the table from Akemi. “What should we do, Dr. Akemi?”
Akemi looked around. “Where’s the scappel?”
Spotting it on the floor, Chishiya picked it up. “Here it is. You remember how to hold it?”
“Yeah.” Akemi took the scalpel and showed him her hold. “Like this?”
“That’s perfect. Good job.”
Akemi beamed and bounced up and down in excitement. “I wanna be a doctor like you, Papa!”
Chishiya’s heart melted even more as he smiled at his daughter. How did he get so lucky as to have Arisu for a partner and this sweet little girl for a daughter? “That sounds great, sweetie~”