Love Held Hostage

True Love's Beginning

It's 4:30 now, and I just got home from school. I park my car in the driveway and go in to put my stuff down and get something to eat. I put my bag in my room, and head to the kitchen. I see Rantaro in the kitchen making himself some homemade soup. Rantaro has a day off from the café and the hospital today and this weekend. The café is closed on Sunday, and he doesn't work there Saturdays. It's closed today for maintenance. Rantaro worked a 72 hour shift about two weeks ago because of short staffing at the hospital. He filled in for the missing positions all on his own volunteerism. So his attending gave him the weekend off to relax.

"Hey Rantaro!" I pop up beside him.

"Hey kiddo! How was class today?" He stirs the soup in a big pot on the stove and adds some more seasoning.

"Pretty good! Although, some girls at school were bullying Futo." I grabbed a brownie that was leftover that Rantaro made yesterday.

"Again?" I nodded as I ate some of the brownie. "Yeah.. he told me about how he's getting made fun of because of a rumor going around someone started at school."

"Yeahhh. But, it's not a rumor that he's getting made fun of for."

"It's not?"

"No! Someone hacked into the school system or something, and they got access to all his records and stuff. Then they sent out a mass text to everyone at school about something they found. Everyone was making fun of him for a condition he has." Rantaro asked me to hand him some carrots for the soup. I got two from the fridge. "I haven't gotten the text, and Shuichi hadn't either. But Futo told us that it was about him having something called A-Fib? I think that's what it was."

"Oh yeah." He nodded. "He told me about that about a month ago. I noticed he wasn't feeling so good at work one night, and he told me he was having a small A-Fib attack. That was the first time hearing that he had A-Fib. He said he never likes to talk about it." Rantaro got two bowls and poured soup in them. He gave one to me and we sat down on the sofa in the living room.

"What's that? Is it like a heart attack? Was he gonna die?!" I made a dramatic gasp. Rantaro chuckled in response.

"No, it's not like that. It just means that it was affecting him a lot more that day than usual, so it made him feel a bit ill in response to his body trying to regulate itself. He's okay though, those things happen normally with A-Fib." I nodded and ate some soup. Rantaro and I talked some more while we ate our food and watched the drag race. The season finale was on again from a few days ago, so we're watching it again.

"Oh! Rantaro can I ask ya something?"

"Sure! What's up?"

"Have you ever, I dunnooo.. liked anyone? Like, do you have a crush anyone right now? Hmmmm?" I made a smirk.

"Heheh, I, actually do." I made another dramatic gasp.

"Really?! Who is it? Who's the lucky guy?" Rantaro started to blush now and he looked a bit awkward.

"Eheh- I'll tell you, but promise not to tell anyone else okay? I, don't think I'm ready for everyone to know yet."

"You can count on me nee-heehee!"

"Alright. Recently I have been developing a bit of a crush on one of my coworkers."

"Oooh, like someone at the café?"

"No, someone I work with at the hospital."

"Ohhh got it got it. Someone in the trauma department? Or surgery?"

"It's, both actually. I'll let you figure that one out heheh." Rantaro blushed a little more, but it was more happy than awkward this time. I began thinking.