In A Lifetime ( KBTBB : Eisuke Ichinomiya )

Chapter 12

"Grace, no, don't hold the needle like that!" cries Ichiro, snatching away the syringe from her. "Do you want to stab your patient!?"

This earns a sigh from the brunette. And a hint of a glare. "This is how you hold it. Besides, whichever way I hold the needle, I'm going to be stabbing the patient with it sooner or later, anyways."

"There's a difference with giving people medication through a needle, and stabbing them accidentally because you can't hold it right."

"I can hold it right. I am holding it right!"

"No you aren't."

"Yes, I am."

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am!"

This goes on for a while before, suddenly, a sharp female voice interrupts them.

"I wasn't aware that we had accepted two overgrown 5 year olds for the internship this year." Dr Akiyama, the senior who both Ichiro and Grace were under the supervision of had appeared out of the blue and was watching the arguing pair with critical eyes.

Both Grace and Ichiro stammered for words but the woman was having none of it. "I didn't come here to listen to your excuses." she glared before suddenly raising her voice a notch so that she was louder than before but not so loud that the patients would be bothered. "Grow up, or get out!"

With that said, the middle aged woman spun on her heels and walked away from the pair. Grace and Ichiro were quiet after that that. Until she had dissapeared from view anyway. After that, the pair were bent double almost instantly, holding their stomachs as they desperatley tried to contain their laughter. Tears were forming at the corner of their eyes due to the lack of oxygen in their lungs as they tried to speak repeatedly but failed, erupting into fit of giggles instead. All notice of their little fight was forgotten and the syringe that they had been practicing with was stood upright, stabbed into the knee of the dummy that they had been told to 'revise their skills' with. Yes, they'd learnt all this a long time ago but the hospital still wanted to be sure they remembered it all and didn't trust them with the proper patients just yet. Especially when it came to handling sharp objects.

Thank god for it was a dummy. Goodness knows what they would've done to a real person.

But on a more serious note, Grace was more thankful to Ichiro than she'd ever been. After what he saw happen in the hotel between her and Eisuke, the dread that she felt going to work the next day was parallel enough to what a prisoner would be going through if they were going to be executed the next day. She'd even considered calling in sick to avoid him but she knew the problem would only grow and damage their friendship the longer she kept him in the dark. With that kept in mind, and the fact that she couldn't betray her patients like that, Grace had forced herself to go to work.

What she met there, though, was far from what she expected. Ichiro was totally calm about the whole thing and even said that she needn't say what was going on because it wasn't hit pace to intrude on her business. Though taken aback with his patience, Grace stuck to her decision and explained everything to him. Almost everything. Of course she hadn't said anything about the auctions to him, she'd simply given him the same information that they'd given Mr Bucci, Carolina and all the other guests at the hotel; they were a couple.

She hated lying and she hated not being able to look him in the eye but he'd only smiled and said that he understood. When she asked him what he had been doing there, he replied that he liked going to one of the bars in there. She'd simply nodded her head at that. But what mattered the most was that there was no bad blood between them. That he didn't hate her for not telling him that she was "dating" Eisuke Ichinomiya. Though if he did find out the whole truth, about the auctions and everything, he'd surely hate her for saying such lies to him. Then she remembered exactly who ran the auctions.