Partners

"Why, thank you." 

Summoning a bit of energy from some hidden reserve, she managed a bright smile at the tall, muscular young man who had opened the cafe door for her. She slipped through it, waiting at the hostess station for her companion to join her with a slight shiver. It was always cold in the little shop, possibly owing to its huge display of ice cream options behind a glass sneeze guard, and the thin, pale blue medical scrubs she wore did little to insulate her against it. 

She looked up with a softer smile as the sensation of cold passed, as Sho had thrown his brown suede jacket over her shoulders. Akane began pulling her arms into the sleeves, blushing a bit. "Thanks. I really gotta start remembering to stop at the locker room on the way out and grab mine."

"Don't sweat it, Akane. I got ya." The gentleman she'd been paired with for most of her clinical training beamed down at her as the pair were escorted across the white tile floor to a booth against the east wall, and Akane slid onto one of its periwinkle vinyl benches. The dingy, chipped off-white mica surface of the wall-mounted tabletop was still damp from the server's wipedown after the previous diners had left. She scooted close to the window, hoping the rays of afternoon sun streaming through the raised blinds would help her warm up, at least until she could get a hot cup of tea between her hands. 

The handsome young man's short, spiky black hair was slicked back with a bit of gel. He was probably two years Akane's senior, with dark skin from a lifetime of summers spent at the beach. His muscles were well-defined, but not so far so as to be grotesque. Sho Kitarage's over-focus on chivalry, coupled with his overall appearance, reminded Akane a bit of Ryoga, if he hadn't been such a freaking idiot, coming after Ranko like he had. Like Akane, he wore a set of light blue medical scrubs, as was required for all clinical trainees.

"Damn, Anako," the cafe's hostess exclaimed, sidling up to the young waitress working the back section of the cafe. "Trade me spots. I wanna get a better look at that guy. Fuckin' yummy!" She made a show of fanning herself with a laminated menu.

"Don't waste your time, Kasane. I'm pretty sure that's his girlfriend he's with," the brunette server replied. "They're in here together a couple times a week, and they're always laughing and cutting up. Besides, do you honestly not see the way he looks at her? You need some new glasses, girl!"

"That's just 'cause he doesn't know me yet," Kasane replied hopefully.

"Okay," Sho said, regarding Akane with his steel-gray eyes as he reached into his pocket and produced a stack of pink index cards. "Pop quiz."

Akane groaned, hanging her head back on the padded booth bench. "Oh, come on! Can't we just eat lunch and take a break? My brain hurts."

Akane's lab partner chuckled. "We're med students. We'll rest when we're dead." He glanced down at the first card. "Pancreatic enzymes. And, go." 

"Let's see," Akane said, leaning her head against the glass of the window with a hollow bonk. "There's Go, Fuck, and Yourself." 

Sho laughed loudly, making an irritating buzzing noise in his throat. "I'm afraid that's not the correct answer, Miss Tendo. Care to try again? I'd hate to see you cost yourself a shot at the bonus round."

"Lipase, lactase, phospholipase, esterase, and amylase," Akane recited in a robotic tone, grasping needily for the cup of hot water their server brought her. "Any chance I won some rocket fuel to put in here?"

Her companion shook his head, offering her a dark brown wicker basket from his side of the table. It was divided into four quadrants, each stuffed with a different type of tea bag in little paper packets. She chose a black tea, tearing open the little packet and dropping the bag into the water. After hesitating in contemplation for a moment, she grabbed a second packet, adding it to the same cup. Yeah, gonna need some stronger stuff.

"We'll stop at the gas station on the way back to the hospital and see if we can't get you a can of zoom juice," Sho said with a smile as he sipped at the glass of soda the server had brought him. 

Akane nodded, whining quietly. I used to judge Ranko so much for drinking that shit all the time, but here I am downing two or three cans a day. At least she isn't seeing it. I don't need her picking up her old bad habits again, especially not right before she goes away. I gotta remember to add that to the list of things for Crash to watch for, she thought with a soft smile. Can't trust that girl gallivanting around southeast Asia without some sort of supervision, after all.

"How many B vitamins are there," Sho asked, flipping to a different index card. 

The exhausted woman sitting across from him groaned, hanging her head over the teacup she held in both her hands, basking in its warmth while she waited for it to steep. "Eight. And before you ask: thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, pyridoxine, biotin, folate, and cobalamin."

The young man chuckled, stuffing the stack of cards back into the pocket of his medical uniform pants. "I don't know why you're so stressed about Zumo's test. You're gonna nail it; you've got all this stuff down cold." Sho smiled softly. "You've always been better at this stuff than me."

Akane rolled her eyes, shaking her head a bit. "Honestly, I'm more worried I'm gonna sleep through it. I don't think I've ever been this tired in my life, and I've only got… gods, how much more of this shit?"

The tall man across the table from her smirked. "Five years? Maybe six? Not too bad."

Sho's lab partner whimpered pathetically, curling back up against the window. Maybe I should just take Ranko's offer to let me be a stay-at-home wife after all. This crap's gonna kill me.

"News from the home front? Things still rough with your family?" Sho nodded gratefully to their waitress as she refilled his soda glass from an amber-colored plastic pitcher. 

Akane nodded sadly. "Yui's still a fucking mess. I don't know what we're gonna do with her. I think Mom's one, maybe two more hung-over shifts away from taking a day trip down to Fukuoka and dragging her ex back here by her freaking hoop earrings. We've all been trying our best to keep her out of the booze, but she's a bartender, so it's pretty easy for her to get hold of stuff if she wants to bad enough. It's been really hard on the other girls, too - after Mom, Yui's kind of the glue that keeps that place together. Izumi and Ayako are both busy all the time with their babies; at least Izzi's daughter is old enough for day care now. At the rate they're going, Mei and her new boyfriend are gonna turn up pregnant any day now, too. Aya and Mom are finally talking again, so that's something, I guess." 

Akane chuckled. "I haven't heard from Kasumi in days; she went with her boyfriend to some chiropractic seminar retreat thing up north someplace and they decided to make a vacation out of it. My poor dad's gonna die, living on takeout breakfast, lunch and dinner for a week, but my friend Ukyo's keeping an eye on him for me since she lives out by him. And Nabiki…" She laughed again, shaking her head. "They should just give her the damn keys to Yokai Records already. She's been doing more to get the tour buttoned up than everybody who works there combined. Without her, I think Ranko would probably show up in Cambodia or something and not even have a freakin' hotel room booked."

Sho nodded quietly, his facial expression seeming to darken slightly at the mention of Akane's wife. His eyes followed her every movement intently. "How's she holding up, with her leg?"

Akane shrugged. "Walking on it, finally. If it were anybody else, they'd probably let her go down to just a nylon brace now, but the ortho's being super cautious because we all know the second they unstrap that thing from her knee, Ranko's gonna go full speed on it whether they want her to or not, and she can't really afford a setback with the tour so close. We're being really careful not to tell Ranko that, though, because she's itching to get out of that immobilizer something terrible, and if she knew we were only keeping it on her to keep her little ass planted on the couch a little bit longer, my wife would absolutely murder us all." 

Sitting up from the window, she smiled brightly as the server slid a red plastic basket containing a sandwich and some tempura vegetables in front of her. The lab partners were such frequent patrons of the little sandwich shop that she had both of their usual orders memorized. Akane dove into the sandwich feverishly; one of the many things she'd had to learn to survive without during Ranko's convalescence was her usual breakfast at home before leaving for the hospital, and she was starving. 

Sho idly fiddled with his bowl of rice with the ends of his chopsticks as he listened to his friend. "And you're gonna be okay, right? While she's gone?"

Akane nodded hesitantly, trying to put on a happy and confident face. "I think so. At least I'll have everybody at the Phoenix, and you, of course! After all, these clinicals wait for no one!" 

Her partner laughed, lifting his bowl of rice in a salute of acknowledgement. "And I'll see that we keep you fed while your little domestic goddess is away."

Akane blushed at the thought of Ranko, of all people, being addressed by that label, but despite Ranko's current incapacity, she really couldn't argue with it. She cooks, she cleans, she shops, she does the laundry, and she's amazing in every other way, too. Gods, I'm such a lucky girl. 

Fuck, I'm gonna miss her.