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The old man in bed 53 looks dead.
He’s not, of course. One, because he wasn’t on their list of people expected to die. (Not that that ever precludes anyone from dying). And two, someone would have alerted them already if he’d really stopped breathing, either to save him or certify him.
Also, dead people have a specific frozen wax look to them, and he’s not there yet.
“Bring up the CT abdo,” says Wang Yizhou, their senior resident. Xiao Zhan ducks away to the mobile ward computer, trying to finish off his notes at the same time. Bed 53 is the last patient of the morning ward round. It’s currently 1400 hours, as in 2’o’clock in the afternoon, as in no longer in any way, shape or form a morning ward round. But that’s what happens sometimes on an eternally busy internal medicine unit.
The ward computer, naturally, chooses this moment to become painfully slow. Xiao Zhan’s pager beeps while he waits. Bed 16 IV tissued needs replacing. Xiao Zhan groans internally. The lady in 16 has the shittiest veins ever. They had to get anaesthetics to cannulate her last time.
“Still going, then?” comes his co-intern’s voice, Yu Bin. They’ve been tag-teaming, with Xiao Zhan following the round and note-taking, while Yu Bin’s been doing referrals and ward jobs.
“Last patient,” says Xiao Zhan tiredly. The CT images are still loading, only a sliver of abdominal wall visible at the top of the screen. “By the way, 16 needs a new IV.”
“Fuck,” says Yu Bin, with feeling.
“I know.”
“You’re better at it than I am.”
“Not with veins like that, I’m not.”
“Is that the CT?” interjects Yizhou, who’s come over. Xiao Zhan and Yu Bin instantly snap to attention. Fortunately, the bottom end of the image loads just at that moment. Yizhou scrolls through, then reads the radiologist’s interim report.
“Cancer,” he says, shortly. “Knew it. Make sure you refer to palliative care.”
“Uh,” says Xiao Zhan. “We…don’t need to refer to oncology?”
Yizhou chuckles, making dimples appear on his otherwise gruff face. “Oncology? He’s a eighty-seven-year-old who we wouldn’t biopsy, let alone give any active treatment. They’d never even go near the guy.”
Xiao Zhan nods dutifully, and writes down pall care referral in the plan. Guess the patient goes on the list to die after all. He looks back over to the old man and feels a twinge in his chest. Wonders what the reactions of the man’s family will be, when they find out.
Xiao Zhan mentally shakes himself. He’s gradually learning that part of being a doctor is to not let yourself get too emotionally caught up. You need to have empathy, but not too much. You need have distance, but not too much. It’s hard to find that balance between treating your job as a job, and still having the heart that characterises the best doctors. And Xiao Zhan would like to be a good doctor, even if he isn’t the best.
Rounds are over, so Xiao Zhan and Yu Bin compare their job list. “I can do the referral,” says Yu Bin, “if you’ll take a crack at that IV.”
Xiao Zhan heaves a huge sigh. It must be louder than he thinks, because a nurse who’s been hovering in the background turns towards him, looking eager.
“Oh, Dr Xiao,” she says, stepping closer. “You’re looking very stressed! Is there anything I can help you with?”
She’s young, with round glasses and her hair in two short braids. Xiao Zhan looks at her bemusedly while Yu Bin snickers in the background.
“No, it’s fine,” he says, politely. “Thank you, but I’ll let you know if I need anything.”
“If there’s anything I can do, you just have to ask,” says the nurse. Her cheeks are pink. She’s looking at him the way the diabetic patient in bed 27 looks at sweets.
“Sure,” he says, nodding at her, before he takes Yu Bin’s arm and flees. Well. Fleeing is undignified. He walks with purpose back to the sanctuary of the doctors’ office.
“Hey,” says Yu Bin once the door’s shut behind them, “that nurse was totally into you. You should’ve pushed the advantage.”
“Pushed it how?” says Xiao Zhan. “There's no way she can do tough IVs, she's a junior nurse.”
“What happened?” asks Xuan Lu, another medical intern who shares their office.
“Xiao Zhan is stealing baby nurses’ hearts,” says Yu Bin, ignoring Xiao Zhan’s elbow, “and isn’t capitalising on the favours.”
“It’s so unfair,” says Xuan Lu.“If only I had a Y chromosome, was 6 feet tall and looked like an actor. Instead, I keep getting mistaken for the social worker.”
“If it makes you feel any better, Lulu,” says Yu Bin, “radiology screamed at me for ten minutes straight last week when I tried to order an MRI with contrast.”
“If it makes both of you feel better, what just happened was totally a once-off,” says Xiao Zhan. “Normally the nurses laugh at me because of how slow I am. It took me, like, an hour just to find all the stuff for an LP the other day.”
It’s a weird kind of bonding exercise, trying to outdo each other in accounts of humiliation, but Xiao Zhan finds it does help him feel less alone. He’s in the middle of telling them about the time he tried referring a patient to renal, only to find afterwards that he’d referred the wrong patient (no wonder they’d refused to see someone with two working kidneys and a perfectly normal eGFR), when they get interrupted by a knock on the door. It’s Yibo.
Well, it’s Yibo plus a couple of other medical students. They’re looking for long cases. Xiao Zhan holds up his patient list, and definitely does not hide behind it.
“Bed 12 is good for history-taking and signs,” Xiao Zhan mumbles. Over the top of his list he can see that Yibo’s wearing a fetching shirt patterned with little bicycles under his white coat. “Don’t bother 26, she’s had enough of students. 39 is alright, but he never stops talking, so don’t get stuck there forever.”
“If we get stuck, I’m sure you’ll come and rescue us,” comes the familiar teasing voice. “Won’t you, Zhan-ge?”
Xiao Zhan mentally counts to three, because he doesn’t have time to count to ten. “You’ll be fine,” he says to the little bicycles. He dares to look higher at the last second. As he’d suspected, Yibo’s eyes are trained squarely on him.
“I’ll make sure to present my case to you after, if that’s okay,” Yibo says, gaze unfaltering. “Only if you’ve got time though.”
Xiao Zhan’s not wearing a tie, but if he was, he’d be loosening it. “Sure, I’ll see if I have a minute.”
The students murmur their thanks and file out of the office, sheep-like. Except for Yibo, who shoots a final, heated glance over his shoulder before he leaves. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, thinks Xiao Zhan, nonsensically.
“Hey,” says Yu Bin, nudging Xiao Zhan. “Case in point. That med student is totally into you, too.”
“No he’s not,” says Xiao Zhan automatically.
Yu Bin sighs. “Must be nice, to be 6 feet tall and look like an actor, and to not even notice who’s swooning at your feet.”
“He didn’t look like he was swooning,” says Xuan Lu with a grin. “He looked like he wanted to eat Zhanzhan up.”
“We’ve got a zillion jobs to do, shall we get started?” says Xiao Zhan, acerbic.
The thing is, Xiao Zhan has eyes and ears. You’d have to be Helen Keller to not notice how obvious Yibo’s been acting towards him. Hell, even Helen Keller would’ve figured it out in no time. What Xiao Zhan doesn’t get is why him? There are tons of medical students who are cuter, have more time and are less sleep-deprived. Any one of them would be a better fit for Yibo.
Except Yibo seems to have other ideas. And Xiao Zhan can’t yet figure out whether he’s going to do anything about it.
When Xiao Zhan had first met Yibo, he’d been about three weeks into his medical internship. His internal state of rabbit-in-headlights terror had become less constant, but most days still felt like surviving a war zone. The transition from dozing off in lectures and practicing on mannikins, to dealing with real humans and the myriad fragilities of their bodies, was intense. Every other minute, Xiao Zhan expected someone to tap him on the shoulder and ask what an impostor like him was doing there.
However, there was no question that some parts of the job were much less stress-inducing than others.
“No one told me that becoming a doctor meant becoming a glorified paper monkey,” Yu Bin had grumbled one morning, heaving a stack of patient files onto the desk.
“Well, we are at the bottom of the food chain right now,” said Xiao Zhan absently, as he waited for the printer to whir into action. There was a little red light blinking on it. That was never a good sign. “That involves doing all the scut work.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. It’s medical students who are at the bottom of the food chain.” Yu Bin opened the first file, nearly knocked over his milk tea, and caught it at the last second. “Actually, scratch that. Med students aren’t at the bottom. They’re not even on the food chain in the first place.”
Xiao Zhan sniggered. “So you’re saying they’re like, dung beetles?” He tried giving the printer an experimental thump. They really needed these patient lists if he didn’t want his ass reamed out by their resident.
“Hey, dung beetles are still part of the food chain. They get eaten by birds and shit.”
“You know, it wasn’t so long ago that we were med students ourselves.”
“A lot has changed since then,” said Yu Bin, with a world-weary air. “But I still remember things. Being invisible to the doctors, scared of our own shadows, always underfoot and in the way.” He snapped his fingers. “Perhaps a fungus is a better analogy.”
“Now you’re saying med students are the equivalent of athlete’s foot.” They both laughed.
“Actually, I was thinking more tinea cruris. Jock itch is never a fun—”
“Excuse me, is this where the medical ward round starts?”
Xiao Zhan stopped laughing and turned towards the open doorway, where there stood four people in white coats holding notebooks and clipboards, all looking young and fresh-faced.
“Oh,” said Xiao Zhan slowly. “Medical students?”
They all nodded in unison, expressions ranging from timorous to terrified. Except for one, who had a resting bitch face. Either that, or he had overheard their comments and was summarily offended on behalf of his non-existent student rights.
“We’re assigned to you for this rotation,” said Bitch Face, who appeared to be their spokesperson. Xiao Zhan pegged him as the over-confident one.
“Come in,” Xiao Zhan said, slightly flustered despite himself. “I’m Xiao Zhan, and this is Yu Bin, we’re the interns. We’re going to start as soon as the resident gets here. I just need to print off these lists.”
“I think that printer isn’t working. The error light is on.” Confident Bitch Face, again.
Xiao Zhan took another look at him. Okay, so he was hot, with dark eyes and a pointed chin and a lean body that looked very good in professional wear, even half hidden under a white coat. He also looked like the type of guy who knew it.
“Damnit,” said Xiao Zhan, looking away towards the computer. “I guess I’ll just print it out to pharmacy, then.” He sighed. Pharmacy was all the way on the other side of the ward.
“I can run and get it for you, if you like,” said Hot Bitch Face.
Xiao Zhan peered at his name tag, which read ‘Wang Yibo’. He supposed he should stop calling him names in his head. “That’d be wonderful, thank you.”
“No problem,” said Wang Yibo. Then he smiled at Xiao Zhan. There was something suggestive in his smile that instantly made Xiao Zhan nervous, for no particularly good reason.
The nervous feeling was still there when Yibo returned with the lists. It spiked when Yibo handed them to Xiao Zhan, fingers brushing briefly against his. It persisted as Xiao Zhan tried making small talk with the students, asking their names and what specialties they were interested in. Xiao Zhan wasn’t surprised when Yibo stated that surgery was his preference. Yibo already struck him as someone who was very direct, a doer more than a thinker.
Yizhou arrived at that moment, and there was a ripple of awe amongst the students. Wang Yizhou had an imposing physique and had already been dubbed ‘daddy material’ by some of the interns. He didn’t smile often, but when he did he had dimples, which combined with his chiseled jaw were a heady combination. He was flashing that dimpled smile now towards the students, who looked overwhelmed.
Xiao Zhan couldn’t help peeking at Yibo to see whether his reaction fell along similar lines, but to his surprise, Yibo wasn’t even looking at Yizhou. His eyes were fixed instead on Xiao Zhan, who quickly averted his gaze and busied himself with juggling files.
“Need any help?”
Xiao Zhan looked up and jumped. He hadn’t even noticed Yibo approaching.
“You can hold these,” he muttered, shoving some of the files at Yibo as they followed Yizhou down the corridor. He tried to focus on who they were seeing first, and not on how good Yibo smelled—he must be wearing cologne, something with a hint of citrus. Xiao Zhan had stopped wearing anything beyond basic deodorant when he’d started working. Couldn’t be bothered, and there was no one to impress. At least, there hadn’t been.
“You there, in the blue shirt,” Yizhou said, after they’d seen a woman who’d just had cardiac stents. There was no sign of dimples now. “Reversible causes of cardiac arrest, go.”
Blue shirt stuttered and stammered. “Uh—um—reversible, did you say? Um—“
“Too slow,” said Yizhou. “The one next to him. Look, I’ll even give you a hint. 4 H’s and 4 T’s. Go.”
“Uh, well there’s hypovolaemia, hypoxia, um…”
“Too slow. Come on, you guys, this is basic stuff. Next.”
The next voice was confident, and already familiar to Xiao Zhan. “4 H’s: hypoxia, hypovolaemia, hypothermia, hypo- or hyperkalaemia, plus any other electrolyte disturbance. 4 T’s: thrombosis, tension pneumothorax, tamponade, toxin.”
“Finally,” said Yizhou. “At least one of you knows something. Aren’t you guys in final year?”
Xiao Zhan glanced up from scribbling file notes to find that Yibo was looking at him, again. Does he know it’s rude to stare? Xiao Zhan thought. Is there something wrong with my face?
When they made eye contact, Yibo looked inordinately proud of himself, and winked before turning back to Yizhou. He can’t wink for shit, thought Xiao Zhan, who was starting to recognise what Yibo’s behaviour might signify. He exhaled, slowly. If Yibo thought he could get a reaction out of Xiao Zhan with his flirty behaviour, he was sorely mistaken. Xiao Zhan could pull rank if he wanted to, and was good at fending off overtures. Yibo would get bored in no time.
Fast forward one month later.
Yibo’s showing no signs of getting bored. And perhaps Xiao Zhan is less good at rebuffing advances than he thought.
Whenever the students are quizzed, it seems like it’s Yibo’s personal mission to impress Xiao Zhan (and only Xiao Zhan) each time. Like a dog wanting to show off tricks to his master. Only dogs don’t give their owners The Look. The Look is something that Xiao Zhan can identify, but has no idea how to deal with. He’d certainly never tried coming on to any of the junior doctors he’d followed as a student, so he has no template for this.
It doesn’t help when the students get more comfortable and start asking him questions incessantly. Xiao Zhan ends up squeezing mini-tutorials into time he doesn’t have. He likes to teach, even if it’s just about how to respond to a page about reduced urine output (1. Flush the catheter, 2. Flush it again, 3. Proceed to freak out), or the first thing you should do in a cardiac arrest situation (take your own pulse).
(Just kidding. He really does like to teach things properly).
But Yibo, who’s clearly whip-smart, will ask completely irrelevant questions. Like, “Xiao Zhan, what’s your age?” Or, “Zhan-ge”—somehow along the way it had become ‘Zhan-ge’ this, ‘Zhan-ge’ that—“what do you do to make your skin look so good?” And the kicker: “Zhan-ge, are you seeing anyone?”
“I don’t think that has any relevance to managing hypoglycaemia, Yibo,” Xiao Zhan responds as dryly as he can. Yibo just smirks back at him, slouched back in his chair with his legs kicked out wide.
Then there’s the touching. At first Xiao Zhan thinks it’s accidental, the way Yibo’s hand always grazes against his whenever he hands him files or charts. The way Yibo always stands too close to him when they’re cramped together around a patient bed on rounds, so close Xiao Zhan can feel his body heat. The time that Xiao Zhan was looking at a chest X-Ray on the computer, and Yibo asked if he could look as well, and then actually leaned over him with a broad palm resting on Xiao Zhan’s back, feeling like a brand on the back of his white coat.
And finally, there’s the drink-stealing.
One afternoon, Xiao Zhan is powering through discharge summaries with the aid of his giant thermos of green tea. Yibo is hanging out in the office as well, even though there’s not much to do. All the other students have nicked off to study elsewhere.
Xiao Zhan reaches for his thermos now without looking, getting empty air instead. Glances up to find an incomprehensible sight.
The sight in question is Yibo drinking his tea—god, he looks like he slurped half of it in one go, the greedy bastard—before he hands it back to Xiao Zhan unconcernedly, as if they do this every day. Xiao Zhan’s jaw is hanging open. The fuck?
“You good?” asks Yibo, straight-faced apart from a tell-tale twinkle in his eyes.
Xiao Zhan snaps his jaw shut and yanks his thermos from Yibo’s grasp. “You—why—what?” he says, eloquently. He pulls himself together. “Think what’s mine is yours, or something?”
“Exactly,” says Yibo, leaning forwards. “I get more energy drinking Zhan-ge’s tea than any other tea. So from now on, we share.”
Xiao Zhan splutters. “You’re an absolute menace. What med student dares to steal their intern’s drinks?”
Yibo levels him with a smug look. “But you let me get away with it.”
That shuts Xiao Zhan up. He does, doesn’t he. He’s a total pushover. He has to change. Stand up for himself, or something.
But then Yibo starts making a habit of it, sometimes going so far as to take Xiao Zhan’s drink directly out of his hand, even when they’re not alone. Xiao Zhan always remonstrates but doesn’t stop him, all the while staring at the way Yibo’s lips purse directly over the spot Xiao Zhan just drank from. Each time he wonders what would happen if he showed overt displeasure. He’s pretty sure that Yibo would back off, if he sensed that Xiao Zhan was seriously offended.
Xiao Zhan isn’t, though, weirdly enough. He guesses he’s not the kind of person who gets offended easily.
Still, maybe Yibo’s aware that he’s being a tad too shameless. One day, he brings in a tall steaming cup and places it in front of a stunned Xiao Zhan.
“What’s this?” Xiao Zhan asks, trying not to grin.
“Taking care of the elderly,” says Yibo. He dodges like it’s nothing, and Xiao Zhan’s jab goes wide.
“This is flagrant sucking up behaviour,” cuts in Yu Bin, who’s sitting next to Xiao Zhan and eyeing the drink enviously. “Young Yibo, you should treat your seniors equally or it’ll backfire on you. Where’s my tea?”
“I figured Dr Yu didn’t need one, seeing as he was already in front of me in the cafe queue,” says Yibo, innocent. “I would never wish to give my respected senior a caffeine overdose.”
Yu Bin laughs. “Okay, you almost got me there. You can just say he’s your favourite, you know.”
“Hey,” says Xiao Zhan, alarmed. Trust Yu Bin to make things awkward.
“What?” says Yu Bin.
“Ah, I’m not Yibo’s favourite. He likes all of us equally, right?”
“Wrong,” says Yibo. Xiao Zhan can’t detect any joking in his tone, which doesn’t seem right. Yibo shoots a shamefaced smile towards Yu Bin. “No offence.”
“None taken. I’m pretty used to it,” Yu Bin grins. “After all, Xiao Zhan has nurses falling over themselves for him across the whole ward,” he adds conspiratorially, ignoring Xiao Zhan’s gestures at him to stop talking. “And then there’s the legendary catheter story.”
“Shut up, Yu Bin,” says Xiao Zhan, at the same time as Yibo leans forward and asks, “What catheter story?”
“The catheter,” says Yu Bin, gleefully leaning forward as well, “involved a nice young man who got admitted to us for rhabdo in our second week. He needed a urinary catheter, so our dear Xiao Zhan went to do it. Only the nice young man was just a poor red-blooded mortal, so when he saw Xiao Zhan, he was—shall we say—enamoured. And some parts of his anatomy were especially enamoured. To the extent that poor Zhanzhan couldn’t even put it in, so to speak.”
“Ohhh,” says Yibo, and then he and Yu Bin are cackling like a pair of gremlins.
“You two are the worst,” says Xiao Zhan, red-faced. “He wasn’t enamoured, he was just having a physiological reaction to external stimuli.”
“Is that how you describe your handjobs, Zhan-ge?” says Yibo, with a sharp grin.
“Yibo, that’s so inappropriate,” Xiao Zhan gasps, ignoring the thrill he feels deep in his gut. “You shouldn’t imply things like that! The poor guy was mortified. As was I.”
“I’m sorry,” says Yibo, not sounding sorry. “It’s just that I can relate to the dude.” He then proceeds to give Xiao Zhan one of the most blatant once-overs he’s ever seen. Xiao Zhan would laugh, if he didn’t feel like he was going to spontaneously combust.
“Wang Yibo, this is highly unprofessional of a soon-to-be-doctor,” Xiao Zhan says, in the sternest voice he can muster. It doesn’t seem to work. If anything, Yibo’s eyes light up.
“I swear I won’t be inappropriate in the workplace.” Yibo’s gaze on Xiao Zhan takes on more weight, if possible. “Can’t make any promises about outside of work, though.”
“I really don’t need to be here, do I,” mutters Yu Bin in the corner.
The thing is, Xiao Zhan’s just not that experienced with this stuff. Med school had been a haze of stress and study, punctuated by the odd fling or encounter that never amounted to anything serious. It wasn’t that Xiao Zhan hadn’t wanted it to be, or that people weren’t interested. But no matter how much he’d tried, things never seemed to work out. In fact, he’d come to learn that just because someone was interested in you, didn’t mean you were beholden to reciprocate. So he’d stopped trying. He figured that if it was meant to be, it’d happen in its own time.
He hadn’t factored for someone like Yibo, who’d basically smashed into those assumptions like a blunt, shameless instrument. And now he can’t stop thinking of Yibo in connection with blunt instruments of all kinds…
Xiao Zhan’s heated musings cease when he steps through the hospital doors into a dense downpour. Today happens to be the day he’s forgotten his umbrella, as is the way of these things. The prospect of getting soaked on his walk home is enough to put a dampener on any R-rated thoughts, at least.
With a grimace, Xiao Zhan pulls his coat up over his head and starts walking. He hasn’t even gone five paces when a loud honking makes him jump-startle. Someone pulls up next to him astride a motorbike, wearing a helmet and leather jacket. The guy pushes his visor up. It’s Yibo.
“Zhan-ge,” he says. Xiao Zhan wants to disintegrate in the rain. Of course Yibo would be the kind of kid who decided to ride a motorbike because it’d make him look cool. The problem is, it’s working.
“Hey, Yibo.” Xiao Zhan struggles for something smarter to say than you look hot. “Hope you know how to ride that thing,” is what ends up coming out. Somehow being around Yibo always messes up his brain-to-mouth connections.
Yibo lifts an eyebrow. “I could show you, if you like. Hop on, I’ll give you a ride home.”
Xiao Zhan’s brain rapidly shifts gear into panic. “Oh no, I’ve never—I can’t—”
“Yes you can,” Yibo interrupts. “Besides, you shouldn’t walk home in the rain.”
He reaches behind him, taking a spare helmet out from the compartment under the backseat of the bike, and holds it out. Xiao Zhan stares at it like it might bite him.
“Hurry up,” says Yibo, “my arm’s getting tired.”
That makes Xiao Zhan step forward and take the helmet. There’s a flash of triumph in Yibo’s eyes that’s gone so quickly, Xiao Zhan thinks he imagined it.
He still feels the need to protest. “Yibo, I’ve never ridden one of these before.”
“No time like the present,” Yibo says blithely. “Honestly, all you have to do is sit tight and hang on. And don’t lean too much when we turn. Easy.”
“Yeah, easy for you to say,” grumbles Xiao Zhan, as he swings one leg over the seat and positions himself gingerly behind Yibo. He dithers for a moment, then places his hands just as gingerly on Yibo’s trim waist.
Yibo clearly doesn’t do gingerliness. He grabs Xiao Zhan’s hands and pulls them so far forward that they cross over Yibo’s front. Xiao Zhan tenses up, trying to shift back again to make room between their bodies. In answer, Yibo releases the clutch briefly, jostling Xiao Zhan forwards with a squeak of alarm. Reflexively, he throws his arms tightly around Yibo’s waist.
“I did say to hang on, Zhan-ge,” says Yibo, sounding amused. “Now, where do you live?”
Xiao Zhan gives his address, glad that at least Yibo can’t see his reddening face. He really should have thought this through. Why did he think being pressed up against Yibo whilst fearing for his life would be a good idea? Because you’d like to be pressed up against him in other ways, his traitorous brain supplies. He firmly shuts it down. At least he doesn’t live far.
It’s still seven very long minutes. Seven minutes of sensing every flex of Yibo’s abdominal muscles under Xiao Zhan’s arms. It’s enough to sufficiently distract him from his fear of falling off, at least. And Yibo’s solid, warm weight against his front is a nice counterpoint to how exposed the rest of him is to the elements.
The rain thins out to a misty drizzle as Yibo eventually putters to a stop in front of Xiao Zhan’s apartment building, and Xiao Zhan lets go reluctantly.
“So how was your first motorbike ride?” asks Yibo, as Xiao Zhan staggers off the bike on jelly legs.
“Wet,” says Xiao Zhan without thinking. “Ah. I mean—”
Yibo throws his head back and roars with laughter. Xiao Zhan chuckles as well.
“I meant to say, apart from the whole fearing for my life thing, it was actually kind of cool.”
“No need to fear for your life. Don’t you trust my driving skills?” Yibo pouts.
“I don’t know, Yibo, are you a trustworthy person?” Xiao Zhan counters. He isn’t fast enough to duck Yibo’s answering blow.
“Ouch! Okay, I’m gonna go before this elder abuse continues,” laughs Xiao Zhan. “Thanks for the ride.” He waves, and turns towards the building door.
“Zhan-ge.”
Xiao Zhan turns back. “What?”
“You’re still wearing my helmet.”
“Oh.” Xiao Zhan flushes with embarrassment. He pulls the helmet off quickly and holds it out to Yibo, who just looks at it for a second.
“Yibo?” tries Xiao Zhan. “My arm’s getting tired…”
“I was going to suggest you hang on to it for your next ride,” Yibo says, as though he didn’t hear. His tone is light and teasing, but his eyes are like hot coals, locked onto Xiao Zhan’s face. His hands, encased in leather biking gloves and slick from the rain, tighten on the handles of his bike. The damp air between them feels charged, all of a sudden. Xiao Zhan forgets how to move or speak.
Then Yibo takes the helmet, and the spell’s broken. “Maybe next time,” he grins at Xiao Zhan, as he stows it away, flips his visor down, and zooms off, leaving Xiao Zhan standing in the rain and feeling like a blushing adolescent in a teen romance novel.
Okay, so maybe he has a problem here.
When you’re starting out as a junior doctor, the job is so busy and so all-consuming that you become used to shoving other life concerns onto the backburner. It’s why so many doctors are hopeless at doing their tax returns.
The Yibo issue definitely goes onto the backburner, in favour of the issue that is Xiao Zhan’s ongoing paranoia about accidentally killing someone. That one is put to the test that weekend, when he gets the call shift from hell. Every time he picks up the phone to answer his pager, another three pages arrive. Bed 63 O2 sats dropping to 92%, please review. Bed 52 BP 170/100, please advise. Bed 11 wanting to self-discharge. Bed 35 has weird spot on bum needs review. Xiao Zhan decides the last one can go to the bottom of the priority list.
He runs around ordering pathology, auscultating crackly chests, doing ABGs and charting fluid orders. Bed 63 turns out to be fluid overloaded and needs oxygen and IV furosemide. Bed 11 is agitated and upset, not to the the level of needing security, but to the level where it still takes up too much of the time Xiao Zhan doesn’t have. It feels like he has to contact the on call medical resident for advice nearly every hour, judging from the increasing grumpiness in their tone throughout the day. All the while, the pager never shuts up.
At around 1900 hours, Xiao Zhan straightens up from a hunched position over the patient he’s examining, then stumbles and has to catch himself.
“Are you alright?” asks the patient, an elderly woman who surveys him beadily.
“Yes, I’m fine,” says Xiao Zhan. Spots are still dancing in his vision.
“You don’t look very fine,” she says. “All you doctors are young enough to be my grandchildren. You should take better care of yourselves.”
“I will,” says Xiao Zhan, thinking about how he hasn’t eaten, drunk or peed for the past eleven hours.
By the time his shift draws to a close, all Xiao Zhan can think about is his bed at home, and how thankful he is that he chose a flat that was only fifteen minutes walk from the hospital, even if the rent was expensive. He can’t fathom waiting for a subway train or getting behind the wheel in this state.
He’s walking past a strip of clubs and bars, brightly lit and raucous at this late hour, when he hears a “Zhan-ge” from nearby. Now he’s so tired he’s hallucinating.
“Zhan-ge,” and no, that’s Yibo, standing in front of him, looking too solid to be a hallucination.
“What are you doing here?” asks Xiao Zhan, blinking. “You should be in bed.”
Yibo laughs. “Zhan-ge, it’s a Saturday night. I was out drinking with some other students. Most of them are still going.” He peers closely at Xiao Zhan’s face. “Did you just finish work? You look tired.”
“Yeah, it was a super shitty shift,” says Xiao Zhan. “I need my bed, even if you don’t.” He’s too exhausted to go into more details. It must show in his face, because Yibo doesn’t make any more quips, but comes up to him and takes his arm.
“I’ll walk you home, then,” says Yibo. “Someone should make sure you get home safely in this state.”
“What a gentleman,” Xiao Zhan says, smiling tiredly as they fall into step. If he had enough functional brain cells he’d probably be freaking out over this. As it is, it actually feels kind of nice to lean on Yibo’s arm and walk together in comfortable silence. Yibo clearly recalls the route from his motorbike lift the other day; as they approach Xiao Zhan’s street, Yibo’s almost guiding him rather than the other way around.
“Thanks for walking with me,” says Xiao Zhan, when they reach his apartment building. “You’re a good guy, Yibo. I may not say it much, but I think you’re great.” Fatigue has essentially left him with no filter and no care factor.
Yibo lets go of Xiao Zhan’s arm so he can turn to face him. He gives Xiao Zhan a funny, searching look, and there’s a distinctly hesitant air about him. That’s strange. Yibo never hesitates.
Just when Xiao Zhan’s about to say goodbye, Yibo speaks. “Hey, Zhan-ge.”
“Yeah?” says Xiao Zhan, stifling a yawn.
“We hang out a fair bit on the wards, right? I mean, you teach me—us—a lot, which is great, no one else takes the time to even acknowledge us students. You know what it’s like.”
“Okay…” Xiao Zhan wonders why Yibo is rambling. He should spit out whatever he’s working up to, so Xiao Zhan can crash into his bed. Xiao Zhan’s bed, not Yibo’s. Although… Xiao Zhan shakes his head and reels in his thoughts. Extreme fatigue is equivalent to intoxication, he tells himself.
“I know you’re busy,” Yibo goes on. “And you’ve already spent a lot of time on us. Teaching, like I said. But, maybe we could hang out sometime you’re free and not working? Just you and me, I mean. One on one.”
Xiao Zhan’s neurons are flagging. “But Yibo, you don’t need that. It’s unnecessary.”
Yibo’s expression fractures. “It’s…what?”
“I mean,” says Xiao Zhan hastily, because Yibo is looking like a kicked puppy and Xiao Zhan can’t deal with that even on a good day, which today is not. “You’re smart. You don’t need any extra tutoring. If you really think you do, I’m happy to help, but I think you’re fine.”
Yibo gapes at him for a second. “I—what? Tutoring? Where did that come from?”
“Isn’t that what you were asking?” Xiao Zhan is so confused and so, so tired. He yawns again and nearly falls over from the force of it. Yibo is suddenly in his personal space, steadying him with a hand. He smells like oranges. Very masculine oranges. Xiao Zhan might be delirious.
“Zhan-ge,” says Yibo, and at least his voice sounds back to normal, warm and lightly mocking. “You should go to bed. Let’s talk about this on Monday.”
“Okay,” mumbles Xiao Zhan. He pats Yibo on the shoulder, then turns and stumbles into his apartment building. Even though he’s half asleep on his feet, he can see through the glass doors that Yibo doesn’t leave until Xiao Zhan’s safely in the elevator.
Xiao Zhan wakes on Sunday at midday with a cottony mouth and a horrible realisation.
The cottony mouth disappears after brushing his teeth. The horrible realisation stays.
He picks up his phone and searches, what do you do if you think a guy asked you out but you didn’t notice and accidentally turned him down.
All the results are self-help articles or forums on toxic relationships. Okay, maybe he needs to streamline his search terms.
He backspaces and then types, how to tell if someone asked you out. The first hit is a webpage titled, ‘10 Signs He Wants To Ask You On A Date’. Xiao Zhan opens it.
1. He gets your phone number
2. He wants to know your schedule
3. He touches you
4. He makes eye contact
5. He jokes about dating you
6. He messages you ‘good morning’
7. He brings you gifts
8. He compliments you
9. He honks his car at you
10. He finds excuses to hang around you
Xiao Zhan frowns, thinking.
1. Yibo doesn’t have his number.
2. He knows their ward round schedule, but so do all the other students.
3. He is very touchy, though.
4. Eye contact? More like eye-fucking.
5. He’s made jokes with sexual innuendo, not about dating, as far as Xiao Zhan can remember.
6. See point 1.
7. He did bring Xiao Zhan tea that one time. That could be counted as a gift, right? But then he’s also stolen Xiao Zhan’s tea loads of times.
8. More like dissing. Or deliberately exaggerated compliments.
9. He has a motorbike, not a car. Admittedly, he’d honked it at Xiao Zhan the day he’d given him a ride home.
10. Yibo definitely hangs around after rounds more than any of his fellow students. But he’s a keen med student! That’s what all the keen ones do!
If Xiao Zhan squints and tries really hard, it’s about a fifty-fifty split across the list. Ergo, not helpful. Not that he was expecting much from a clearly unstandardised and non-peer reviewed article from a dating site.
He’ll just have to ask Yibo directly tomorrow morning and clarify for himself.
Actually, now that it’s the next morning, hiding from Yibo forever sounds like the better option to Xiao Zhan. So he’s a coward, what of it. He asks Yu Bin if he can start the round alone with Yizhou and the students, while Xiao Zhan does ward jobs.
“But we usually start the round together,” frowns Yu Bin. “And today’s an attending ward round, remember. We both have to be there. Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing’s wrong,” says Xiao Zhan hurriedly, glancing at the office door. The students are going to turn up at any minute.
Yu Bin’s eyes narrow. “Did you and Yibo have an argument or something?”
“No, we—why would you think that?”
“Oh my god,” Yu Bin’s eyes are stricken saucers. “You guys broke up.”
“What?” Xiao Zhan’s voice goes so high, Yu Bin flinches. “No, we—we’re not even together! What the hell, Yu Bin! Again, why would you think—”
He stops mid-sentence when Yu Bin flinches again, this time towards the door. The open doorway where Yibo and a bunch of other students are standing.
Oh, shit.
Yibo’s face is unreadable.
The students look mutely terrified, like they do when they’re witnessing one of their number being verbally eviscerated during rounds by seniors. Xiao Zhan kind of wants to eviscerate himself, at this point. He doesn’t get the chance. Yizhou shows up with a terse, “Attending’ll be here soon,” so they have no choice but to hop to it, students included. Xiao Zhan can’t look at Yibo. He just can’t.
He looks. Yibo’s not looking back.
Xiao Zhan’s heart sinks.
It’s all he can do to focus on rounds after that. The attending physician has a real knack for making you feel like the dumbest person in the world, and normally Yizhou and the interns cop the brunt of it, with occasional runoff onto the students. Today, Xiao Zhan gets a dressing down over his lack of knowledge on antimicrobial sensitivities. On any other day it would have bothered him immensely. Now, he’s more concerned with the way that Yibo is standing at the corner of the bed that’s farthest from Xiao Zhan, only the top of his head showing behind all the other students, like a remote iceberg cap.
After several weeks of having Yibo’s attention focused on him with all the force of a small sun, the sudden absence of it has a decidedly hypothermic effect on Xiao Zhan. And he can’t stand it.
When the attending gets a phone call and steps away, effectively pausing rounds, Xiao Zhan seizes his chance.
“I really have to pee,” he mutters to Yu Bin, shoving the chart he’s holding into his hands. Then he sidles around the wall of students and nudges Yibo. “Can I talk to you?” he whispers.
There’s a split second of what looks like surprise in Yibo’s eyes, but it’s quickly smoothed over into impassivity. He nods and ducks out after Xiao Zhan into the corridor.
Xiao Zhan leads Yibo into the storage room, which is little bigger than a closet. It means that when he turns around, Yibo’s only a handspan away from him, which instantly speeds up his heartrate. Maybe he should have thought this through more.
He takes a deep breath. Coward Xiao Zhan, begone.
“Yibo. On Saturday…I, uh…did you…do you…date?”
Around them, the boxes of syringes and tubes on the shelves seem to silently mock him, and Xiao Zhan cringes. This is worse than the first time he ever presented a case at a bedside tutorial, where he’d gotten as far as saying ‘sixty-three-year-old male admitted due to a problem with…’ and then had clammed up, mind blank.
Yibo doesn’t react like Xiao Zhan’s tutor had done (which had been to yell at him for the rest of the tutorial). He just stares. Xiao Zhan’s insides crumple with embarrassment and he tries to backtrack.
“Uh, what you heard me saying to Yu Bin earlier—it wasn’t because I didn’t want to. Go out with you, I mean. That’s what you meant on Saturday night, right? Or—or maybe it wasn’t…sorry, I’m not sure why I assumed that, you know I was pretty out of it that night—”
“Yes, I was asking you out.” Yibo cuts through Xiao Zhan’s rambling as efficiently as a scalpel. His lips quirk up on one side. “And yeah, you were pretty out of it.”
“Oh,” is all Xiao Zhan can manage at first, then, “Oh! Yeah so, I was thinking maybe we could run that through again. That is if you’re still…interested?”
Yibo actually laughs out loud. “Yeah, Zhan-ge. I’m very interested.”
Relief floods through Xiao Zhan in a hot rush, and his mouth broadens into a grin. “Yibo, I’d really like to go on a date with you. What about you?”
“I don’t know, Zhan-ge,” says Yibo, affecting a thinking pose. “I thought I signed up for tutoring…”
Xiao Zhan swats him on the arm, and Yibo lets him, laughing again.
“I should finish around seven on Friday,” says Xiao Zhan. “Do you want to grab dinner after?”
“Sure, that works for me,” says Yibo, his face like sunshine dazzling on fresh snow.
They stand there for a second, beaming at each other, when Yibo’s eyes get A Look. Xiao Zhan knows this Look. We’re going to kiss, he thinks, heart palpitating as Yibo leans closer. It smells like antiseptic in here but I don’t care, we’re going to kiss, and—
The door flies open and they jerk away from each other into the surrounding shelves. Yibo catches a stack of dressing packs before they fall to the floor.
“Oh!” The nurse who’s walked in has her hands to her mouth. “Sorry, I didn’t realise anyone was in here.”
“That’s okay, we were just getting some—” Xiao Zhan grabs the first thing to hand, which happens to be a catheter bag. “—one of these,” he finishes weakly.
“Okay,” says the nurse, still rooted in place, her eyes round. Xiao Zhan can already hear the gossip that’s going to spread in the nurses’ tearoom. He cares about that much less than he cares about the interrupted moment.
Ah, well. No use crying over spilt almost-kisses. He and Yibo slip away back to rounds. The attending doesn’t even seem to have noticed that he skipped out.
“Why did you take so long?” hissed Yu Bin. “And…why are you holding a catheter bag?”
“Long story,” whispers Xiao Zhan. He ends up passing the catheter bag to Yibo, who hides it behind his back. Their eyes meet, and it’s all Xiao Zhan can do to keep a straight face. He can tell that Yibo feels the same.
“Not together, my ass,” grumbles Yu Bin from beside him.
The usual Friday afternoon madness includes a newly septic patient, a newly fractured patient, an important scan that got delayed, Wang Yizhou yelling down the phone every other minute while Yu Bin stress eats his way through hospital-issue crackers, the mound of empty packets growing on the desk. Xiao Zhan floats through it all, buoyed along by the memory of the emoticon heart that Yibo had used to punctuate his last text message. Nothing can or will touch him today. Sure, they have fifteen discharges, but he’s gotten better at punching out the paperwork. He’ll make it to his date on time.
At 1858 hours, Yu Bin’s already left and Xiao Zhan’s packing his bag when Code Blue, ward 5, bed 18, echoes over the PA system. Xiao Zhan’s pager buzzes wildly at the same time. He covers that ward. Shit.
It’s a clusterfuck from start to finish. The patient’s collapsed in the tiny ward bathroom, so he has to be dragged out to a more open space before they can actually start CPR, which takes up precious seconds. No one can find the patient file. The defibrillator pads don’t stick well due to the patient’s hairy chest. Someone has to run for a razor. The file turns up in another patient’s slot. The ICU team hasn’t turned up yet. The poor duty medical resident running the code in their absence is green, both figuratively and literally, but she’s doing her best.
“He’s in PEA,” she says, feeling around for pulses while nurses run around them like anxious chickens. “How long have we been doing CPR? We need adrenaline at three minutes. And we need IV access and bloods stat. Any interns around?”
“Me,” Xiao Zhan pants in the middle of chest compressions. He finishes off his round and lets a nurse take his place, then scrambles for the IV equipment.
“4 T’s, 4 H’s,” he hears the resident saying to herself, as he searches for a vein. Despite himself, he flashes back to that ward round when Yizhou grilled the med students. It feels like worlds away.
IV in, bloods out, into a handful of tubes that get sent off marked urgent. ICU and anaesthetics rock up at last. They take over, but it’s still chaos. Bags of fluid get squeezed in. The anaesthesiologist tubes the patient. Someone postulates whether to do a bedside echo to check for tamponade or massive PE.
Somehow, at forty-eight minutes, they get a pulse back. Everyone lets out a breath in unison, though the ICU team looks pensive as the patient gets loaded up to go with them. With a downtime like that, it’s likely that the patient will suffer some extent of hypoxic brain damage. Right now, though, everyone’s just thankful that they managed to wrangle a result that wasn’t death out of the past hour. Even if it’s only a postponement of the inevitable.
Xiao Zhan’s hands are still trembling when he finally makes it back to the office, where his half-packed bag is still sitting. His phone was left on the desk when he’d rushed off. A cold sweat breaks out when he suddenly remembers. Oh no. Yibo, date, what’s the fucking time, fuck.
He dials Yibo’s number, preparing to grovel.
“Yibo, I’m so sorry, I had a—“
“—code, yeah, I heard,” came Yibo’s voice over the line.
“You—you heard?”
“I was hanging out in the foyer because I thought I could catch you leaving and we’d go together. I saw Yu Bin leave and he told me you’d be down soon. Then I heard the code blue on your floor. I figured you’d gotten caught up in that.”
“Oh.” Xiao Zhan can’t fathom it. Yibo sounds normal. Not in the least irritated or impatient. “Are you still in the hospital?”
“I’m in the canteen. You wanna come down?”
When Xiao Zhan reaches the canteen, Yibo’s sitting looking down at his phone, a bottle of iced tea and an opened bag of chips on the table in front of him. The only other people there are a middle-aged couple speaking to each other in hushed tones in the corner.
Yibo looks up and his face brightens at the sight of Xiao Zhan, a smile glimmering over his face like stars coming out at dusk. The stress and tension in Xiao Zhan’s body instantly starts receding.
“Sorry,” says Xiao Zhan penitently, sitting down. “You must have been waiting for ages.”
“It’s fine,” says Yibo, pushing the iced tea and bag of chips towards Xiao Zhan, who’s suddenly ravenous. “Tell me what happened?”
Xiao Zhan tells him in between polishing off the chips, which incidentally are his favourite flavour. Partway through, Yibo lays a big, warm hand over his. Xiao Zhan nearly chokes on his tea, but he turns his palm up so their fingers can interlace, and it feels grounding, like home. It also reminds him of where they are.
“I’m sorry,” he sighs. “All I’ve done is talk about work to you while we’re sitting in the hospital canteen. I swear I’m usually better at planning first dates. I know it’s pretty late now, but we can still go somewhere else if you want.”
“It’s okay, Zhan-ge,” says Yibo. “I get it. It’s always going to be busy, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” says Xiao Zhan, with a grimace. “I suppose I can’t promise this won’t happen again. It’s the life we chose, I guess.”
“So we make the most of any time we have together,” says Yibo. He gets a stupid grin on his face. Xiao Zhan loves that grin. “And you can make it up to me by getting me nice things. I like Chanel.”
Xiao Zhan rolls his eyes. “Save your sugar daddy dreams, you know what training physician wages are like. I’ll have to become chief physician just to fund your expensive habits.”
“Well, I’m going to be a surgeon, and they earn more, so I’ll fund my own expensive habits,” says Yibo, ever competitive. “And then you don’t have to work so hard, and we’d have more time for other habits. Like, less expensive and more physical ones.” He makes suggestive eyebrows with that statement. Xiao Zhan laughs. Trust Yibo to get straight to the point. But also, the fact that he’s referring to a future together—even if in jest—only adds to the sweet warmth Xiao Zhan feels inside.
“In all seriousness, though,” Yibo says, his eyes becoming soft, “you know any date is already a great one if I’m with you, right?”
Xiao Zhan’s cheeks flush. “Yibo,” he whines. “Who said you could be so cheesy? Kids these days…”
Yibo automatically slaps Xiao Zhan’s hand. He tries slapping back, but Yibo grabs his hand and won’t let go, even when Xiao Zhan pulls his elbow back and throws his weight into it. The impromptu arm wrestle gets interrupted by a canteen worker informing them tersely that they’re closing in fifteen minutes. They end up in a giggling fit once she leaves. Xiao Zhan doesn’t even know what they’re laughing about, but it doesn’t matter. He thinks that he would like to have opportunities to laugh with Yibo for a very, very long time.
“Hey, Zhan-ge,” says Yibo, once they’ve calmed down. “Wanna see a magic trick?”
“Okay, hit me,” says Xiao Zhan, amused.
“Come a bit closer. No, closer than that. Now watch my hand.”
Xiao Zhan obeys, wondering whether Yibo’s going to spring out a pack of cards or something. Then Yibo grabs the back of Xiao Zhan’s neck and fits their mouths together.
The first thing that goes through Xiao Zhan’s mind is, you’re such a dork.
The second thing that goes through Xiao Zhan’s mind is, I definitely have a thing for dorks.
The third thing…there’s no third thing. Xiao Zhan’s lost capacity for rational thought beyond the heat and softness of Yibo’s mouth.
“See, best first date ever,” Yibo murmurs into his lips. Xiao Zhan laughs and has to agree.