Birthday Wishes

"Are you ready for our visit?" Mr. Fujimoto asked cheerfully.

"I guess so…" Saeko sighed, hoping to avoid too much of his usual mockery.

She was already drained enough; she didn't need him to push her out of her comfort zone any further.

"What's with the gloomy face? It feels exceptionally lovely today," he insisted.

Exceptionally? Everyday felt exceptionally lovely for him. He was always so cheerful. She often wondered if he had ever faced true hardships. Did he even realize that not everyone's life was so full of sunshine as his appeared to be?

„It seems your wounds are healing nicely" Mr. Fujimoto said inspecting Sota when his phone started ringing.

"Would you mind answering it?" he handed it to Saeko as if she were his personal assistant. She reluctantly looked at the screen and froze immediately as she saw it was a video call from Satoshi. A sudden twinge of regret pierced her heart.

"Oh, my... I almost forget about that," he said, then reached for his phone to answer it himself. 

"You shouldn't take personal calls during a visit," she grumbled.

"Hey, man! How's America?" he greeted his friend without listening to her.

"Hey, I'm just taking a break. What about you? Are you working?"

"Sure. Look, here is my diligent nurse, as charming as ever, don't you think?" he turned the phone so they could see each other. Saeko flushed instantly, lowering her gaze.

"You shouldn't take personal calls at work," Satoshi grumbled at him.

"Man, the two of you are just the same," he chuckled.

"But even if you don't, my dear patient here totally agrees with me on how charming Saeko is."

Now he turned his phone to face Sota.

This damn doctor really has an incorrigible fondness for chaos.

Sota, however, didn't seem caught off guard at all, not even a bit. He smiled and waved to the stranger with confidence.

"That's for a sure, she is a real catch."

"This handsome fella' gives our Saeko a hard time ceaselessly hitting on her," he added totally proud of himself.

"I'm hanging up," Satoshi said clearly frustrated. Saeko suffered the conversation without a word. Only the vein pulsating on her temple gave away how much the situation actually troubled her.

"Come on, if it disturbs you that much, why don't you…"

"Wish Saeko happy birthday in my name too," he said before ending the call.

She seemed as flabbergasted at this as the others.

"Is it your birthday?" Sota was the first to speak.

"Ah… Then, that is why this day felt exceptionally lovely. Why didn't you tell me?" Mr. Fujimoto asked.

"I… forgot…" she admitted with her usual poker face.

The rest of the day, not only Mr. Fujimoto but also Sota constantly managed to find a way to embarrass her.

That 'lunatic' even followed her in the corridors, playing 'Happy Birthday' on his guitar and gifting her chocolate as a present from the wending machine. Once, he even traded a bouquet of flowers from one of the patients to give it to her. He kept pursuing her relentlessly, not caring about Saeko's fierce rejection.

In fact, Saeko wasn't the only one annoyed by the situation. One of his female visitors seemed quite furious about it.

"Why on earth does he chase someone who is not even appreciating him, when he has others who would be happy to have his attention…" she grumbled, clearly referring to herself, making a scene in the corridor. Not that she wasn't already drawing plenty of attention with her appearance. She wore a tightly fitting bodycon—nothing too provocative, yet it commanded admiration with its elegance.

Who is that girl to them?

"You are the one telling this, Yumeko?" Yasushi muttered, almost to himself.

"Don't get worked up over it. You know how Sota is…" he added placating, gently guiding her toward the door.

Whatever does he mean?

She recalled the 'advice' that Kaito told her the other day:

"If you want to get rid of Sota, just spend a night with him already. Trust me, he'll be gone by the morning."

I guess that's the kind of guy he is.