If Love Could Be The Cure We Need - A MakoHaru Medical AU

Chapter 6: This Is Home

Makoto Tachibana

It's Friday morning and we're all sitting at the breakfast table. Everyone's here; Rin, Nagisa, Rei and even Haruka decided to sit with us today.

He was absent yesterday and when I went by his room to ask what was going on I saw a sticky note on his saying that he had undergone a procedure and wasn't going to get out of his room that day.

But today he's ready to go again, even though the thick tubes coming out of his chest and insertions in his neck and chest covered by thick bandages look pretty painful. He kind of shrugs it off, saying it doesn't hurt at all.

"So why did you even have to get the catheter?" Nagisa curiously asks before taking a bite of his stack of pancakes.

Haruka glances at his food and I'm not sure if he really wants to talk about it. But he answers Nagisa anyway, telling him that he has to start Dialysis today and he's also supposed to use it for his chemotherapy.

I don't know what Haruka's ill with, but I know they try to not use chemotherapy if it's not necessarily needed, which means Haruka either has a special form of Cancer or something else that can only be treated with chemotherapy. At least, that's what Nagisa told me.

"Oh, I'm on chemo too," Nagisa tells Haruka. "If you have any questions or worries about it you can always come to me, okay?"

Haruka nods, but there's a confused look on his face. His mouth slowly opens before he asks, "Why aren't you bald?"

Rei, who was just drinking some water, burst out in laughter causing the clear fluid to spray out of his mouth. He coughs a few times before laughing again while Nagisa plays with his blond curls and says, "Look, this is a wig. I don't feel so comfortable walking around with no hair on my head, you know?"

Haruka hums as a sign that he understands now, but he doesn't seem relieved about it. He probably doesn't feel comfortable with going bald either, even though he doesn't seem like the type of guy that cares about his looks.

But neither does Haruka look like the type of guy who'd want to hang out with a group of weirdoes like us, and yet here he is. He's sitting in between Rin and me and even though his expression doesn't show whether he's having fun or not I can somehow tell he's really glad he's able to sit with us.

We talk a little more until breakfast time is over. When the bell rings, and the scraping of chairs and coughing and sighing sounds through the entire hall, we all leave together.

As we part ways with Rei and Nagisa I find out that Haruka shares the same classes with Rin and me since he's walking in the same direction as us. We arrive in class where Rin and I take our usual seats, next to the window in the back. Haruka sits on the desk in front of me. He leans on his fist while he stares out of the window with a bored look on his face, it's an expression I've never seen on Haruka; he always looked somewhat enthusiastic when we were swimming.

Rin sighs when our teacher, mister Fumihiro, walks into the class carrying a large cup of coffee and glares at us with his tired eyes. Sometimes our teachers looks more like sick people than we do, but they're just completely healthy people who regret their choices in live.

I kind of get it, because who'd like to teach a group with fifteen seventeen-year-olds that are all pretty unmotivated because they're going to die anyway... actually, when I think about it, I would like that job; teacher, I mean, but that'd be pretty impossible for a couple of reasons.

Most important reason: I'll probably die before my twenties! And that's only one of the many reasons why that job wouldn't be possible.

But mister Fumihiro clearly doesn't want to do this job, seeing how the black circles under his eyes grow bigger and darker with every day that passes. He's had to deal with a lot; sick, depressed or bipolar teenagers, crying parents, people dying on his watch and on top of that he's also had to deal with the stress that comes with being a teacher of a class of kids in their puberty.

His voice is deep and tiring when he says, "Everyone, get your English books." He pauses to sip from his coffee. "Open them on page sixty-one."

We all do as he tells us, but before his lesson has actually started, Rin's already laying with his head of the table. I notice him being more sleepy than usual lately, but him sleeping during classes isn't something new to me.

Haruka is awake though, even though he looks like he hasn't gotten enough sleep last night. And it wouldn't surprise me if he falls asleep during one of our classes today as well.

Not much later, while mister Fumihiro's explaining today's assignment, I hear Rin snoring beside me. It's soft and quiet, but it doesn't take long before mister Fumihiro notices it.

"Matsuoka, we're not supposed to sleep in class!" he says, the expression on his face getting even more annoyed when Rin doesn't wake up.

I nudge Rin with my ell bow, and he slowly opens his eyes groaning. He yawns and when his eyes meet mister Fumihiro's he doesn't even look surprise that he's being yelled at.

"I know you're good at English," mister Fumihiro continues. "But that doesn't mean you should be napping through my classes."

There's a certain tension between the two of them and I'm almost sure that mister Fumihiro's going to give Rin his third warning of the week; this mean he won't be able to join me with line dancing tomorrow. That would be unfortunate, because I had to beg him to join me since Nagisa and Rei would definitely go painting instead of dancing because Rei's wheelchair bound.

I don't want to go alone and I don't think I can expect Haruka to join me when I tell him that I'm the only one of the group doing that activity.

So when mister Fumihiro's lips part and he's ready to speak the words "I must give you a warning for that" I speak up myself. "Mister Fumihiro," I say, loud and clear while standing up from my seat and bow forward. "Excuse me for Rin's rude behavior, but he's not feeling great and..." Rin mumbles something, probably that he's feeling better than normally, but I nudge him so he doesn't interrupt my attempt to keeping him out of trouble for the thousandth time since I got here. "... I'm probably rude when I say that you should be glad he came to your lesson in the first place, he could've taken a sick day today, but he didn't. So, can you please not punish him, sir?"

All eyes in the room are turned to me, because I'm again cleaning up the mess Rin has made and at the same time making a fool of myself. Luckily it works and mister Fumihiro says, "Okay, but only this time" with an annoyed glance at Rin who fortunately didn't fall asleep again in today's classes.