RP Log: Kite Eishirou & Oishi Syuichirou
Rating: PG
When: Before Kite goes swimming out to the lifeguard boat
Where: In the cave infirmary
Summary: Oishi gives Kite a lesson in stitching wounds
Oishi knelt on a blanket spread out over the floor of the infirmary cave. Laid out in front of him were a tealight, needles, a scalpel, a basin of water and a small bottle of iodine solution. He looked up at the suntanned muscular outline of the Higa tennis player standing by the cave entrance.
“Kite-kun, I thought we’d run through how to stitch an open wound,” he said, smiling a little uncertainly. Kite still made him nervous, despite him agreeing to help Oishi with the medical side of the island’s challenges. “It’s the kind of accident that can easily happen, especially with people building shelters, and we’ll need to prevent it getting infected.”
He gestured to the space opposite him on the rug. “It would be easiest if we made small cuts on ourselves and then stitched them. Um, would you be okay with that? You could watch me first if you felt uncomfortable about blood? It’s a common prob...” Oishi’s voice trailed away as Kite turned to stare at him.
The stare was one of general disbelief. Surely, Oishi would remember the sort of person he was. He could tell, without even moving an inch that the other was very nervous around him. He knew he gave off the aura of someone who would punch you as soon as he met you. He did absolutely nothing to change that thought of him either. Probably because in some cases, it was true. However, this was not one of those cases. This was Oishi and this was training. Though Kite still didn’t really understand why him. Of all the other boys on the beach, Oishi had to chose the most distrusting volatile one.
He stare became that of a very hard smirk when Oishi suggest he had a problem with blood. Kite nearly laughed out loud at that. In a cool, smooth voice, he stated, “It’s no problem.” He wasn’t bothered by blood at all. He was a fighter before anything else. He had shed a great deal and made others lose even more. “I can assure you I have no issue with the sight of blood.”
With that, the Okinawan started over to the small area the other had made for them. As usual, he made absolutely no sounds as he moved, only stopping when he arrived at the blanket and dropped down to sit. “So. How do we start?” He asked,eyeing the scalpels and then Oishi, on guard against being suddenly stabbed by the always too nice medic.
“R-right,” Oishi mumbled at the obviously dismissive tone. He hitched his smile back into place and picked up the bottle of iodine. “This water is clean,” he said, indicated the bowl beside him. “But normally, you couldn’t be sure of that, so it’s good to add a few drops of iodine to anything you plan to wash with or drink.”
He unscrewed the bottle’s top which turned into a pipette, allowing Oishi to add a few drops of the violet liquid into the water. Lifting the scalpel, he dipped it into the basin and then pressed it against his arm, drawing a thin line of blood a few inches long. He forced himself not to flinch. The wound was not very painful, but the process of making it still made his stomach turn.
“This obviously isn’t a deep cut,” Oishi explained, showing the slice to Kite. “But for the purpose of this exercise, we’ll pretend it’s deeper and not as clean edged.”
Dipping the scalpel back into the water, Oishi washed the blood from it before passing it to Kite. “Do you want to do something similar?”
Kite focused on the way the other boy made the water sanitary. A part of him thought that the step really wasn’t necessary. He thought that sea water and burning things over a hot fire and searing things shut worked just as well. But he wasn’t the expert. Oishi was. So he listened and took it all in. If that was how it was supposed done, who was he to question.
He watched the other cut himself. He then waited until the blade was handed to him. Once again, he was rather surprised that Oishi would trust such a dangerous object in his hands. He would not betray that trust. And that meant turning the small knife on himself. Without the slightest of hesitation, he turned blade towards his arm. What was one more scar. He had enough of them already, from his fights and from his tennis training. Another would just be one more.
He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even seem to care one bit. The blade cut and it cut deep. He didn’t stop. Oh there was blood. Red over his darkly tanned skin. He still didn’t stop until he was satisfied with the incision he had made. Deep, angry and bleeding profusely.
Oishi’s jaw dropped in horror as Kite slashed a long, deep cut in his arm. While his wound would come to no serious harm if not properly seen to, Kite’s had the potential to loose a life-threatening amount of blood. Not to mention scar horribly.
“Kite!” he fumbled, spilling half the water as he doused a small wash cloth into the basin and hurriedly pressed the soaking rag against the wound. Its colour turned from purple to red.
Oishi looked up, green eyes wide, into the impassive stare above him. Kite evidently was utterly unbothered by what he had done and considered this a completely acceptable cut to train on. Oishi looked back down to see the blood had engulfed the wash cloth and was now staining his hands scarlet. It was the kind of wound that would have forced his supervisors to use the small amount of anesthetics they carried on trips in the field and probably send Oishi off for a body bag. However, neither of those were an option now. Oishi swallowed hard.
“Why don’t I show you how to stitch this .... “
Life threatening injury?
Suicidal thrust?
Insane act of masochism?
“.... cut,” he stammered. “And you can do mine afterwards. After all, largely we will not be stitching ourselves.” He attempted a calm smile. It failed.
Kite was used to such injuries. He had wondered through the jungle for weeks with horrendous burns and cuts to his body. It was merely a flesh wound to him. He’d gotten worse wrestling sharks. He wasn’t eve phased by the color the cloth was turning. He could tell though...Oishi might just have a problem with it. And the fact that it didn’t seem to hurt him at all.
“We won’t be?” He asked, picking up a needle and thread and looking it over. He had done some sewing before. A talent he wanted to make sure few knew about. He was sure he could do himself without a problem. He probably wouldn’t eve get a local anaesthetic. He didn’t have one at the moment and he seemed just fine. “Then...” He held the needle out towards the other boy. “It’s all yours. Show me how it’s done, Oishi.” A part of him wondered just how long before the poor guy passed out from seeing any injury he might bring through the door.
Oishi took the needle with a deep breath. Focus, he told himself. Focus on what needs to be done next and we’ll get through this while Kite still has blood in his veins. At least one part of this situation was easier than normal; it appeared utterly unnecessarily to keep the patient calm.
WHY THE HELL WAS THAT?!
Calm. Focus. You can do this, Syuichirou.
Putting down the needle, Oishi picked up a box of matches. “Keep soaking the wound, Kite,” he said as he tried to strike one. The match broke in his unsteady hands. “It should be cleaned for 3-5 minutes.” Providing you don’t die.
The second match lit and Oishi held it to the tealight before holding the needle in the flame. “This is a good way to sterilise a needle,” he told his patient / helper / masochistic maniac. He lifted the heated metal free and deftly pulled the cotton through the eye.
“You need to start the stitch a good distance away from the wound,” Oishi told Kite. “Ideally, as far away as the wound is deep.” He lifted the bloody cloth free and examined the cut. Probably if he did as he suggested, the stitches would wrap around Kite’s entire arm.
Calm. Focus.
Oishi glanced up briefly at Kite’s face. “Try to hold still,” he said before putting the first stitch in to the torn skin.
Kite could see the nervousness growing. He raised an eyebrow and muttered, “Are you sure you don’t just want me to do it?” Because if Oishi couldn’t even light a match without breaking it, Kite wondered about him having a needle anywhere near him. He paused after that lightly did as he was told. Eventualy, all bleeding did stop. Though usually when there was no blood left to bleed. Kite didn't think he was at that stage yet.
He smirked a little when the other made mention of the flame. A part of him wanted to reach for his own hunting knife and heat it up. Instead, he asked, stoically. “Couldn’t you just burn the wound closed with the same effect?” To him, it seemed a way to save supplies.
As he waited for the answer, he noticed that the other boy was looking at him again. Adjusting his glasses and knowing that the small tea light would make them flash ominously, he smirked a little. “Have I moved yet?” And he didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t even utter one sound that might be associated with pain as the needle pierced his flesh. He could endure this. He was resolved. He would endure as he had endured so much else.
“We don’t cauterize wounds unless we really have to,” Oishi said, focusing on the stitching. “The burning causes far more cell damage and leaves bad scarring.” It would also hurt like a bitch, but apparent that wasn’t a consideration here. “We’d only use that if we were doing an emergency amputation.” He broke off the cotton after a 1/4 inch and knotted it, before re-threading. “We don’t remove limbs unless we absolutely have no other choice to save a person’s life.”
A small part of his mind pointed out to Oishi that such a clarification would not be necessary with anyone else on the island. Yet somehow, the lack of medical help had come up in conversation with Kite and he did know a great deal about the island. It had not seemed a big jump to ask for his assistance .... at the time.
He broke off his thread and wiped sweat from his forehead. The stitches were neat, but the skin swelled an ugly red beneath them. At least the blood was no longer a gushing flow. The wound was closed. Oishi lifted a roll of bandage. “Use short pieces of thread,” he said. “Not just one long bit for all the stitches. This should now be bandaged and checked regularly.”
He nodded at that. He still thought it was a good way of doing it. But he again would leave it up to the expert. That was why he was the student and Oishi was the very nervous teacher. This time,when he spoke, he finally voiced his concern about the entire idea behind this. “Oishi...are you sure you wouldn’t rather have someone else for this?” After all, he was proving once more that he wasn’t the most sane person on the island. No one would could be sewn up without any sort of painkiller without even wincing.
He watched each stitch go in him. He watched every knot. It was only when the other mentioned taking off limbs did Kite look back up. His smile was dark and there was a nearly cruel intent in his eyes. “Oh...Really. And I was so looking forward to chopping off a few arms and legs.” It was hard to tell with him, but Kite really was joking about that. Someone missing a body part would be liability on this island.
He nodded, the work complete, lightly running his finger over the wound. “You do well. Better than the butchers back home that call themselves doctors.” He let his arm be wrapped with bandage an then looked to the needle. “Now...I’m supposed to do that you?”
Oishi would have thanked him for the compliment but the suggestion that Kite was keen to lope off limbs coming immediately before the reminder than now he had to put his own care into the Higa player’s hands, dried up his voice. He wet his lips and looked down at his own arm. The cut was still bleeding, but only slowly.
He won’t learn unless you let him practice.
Of course, he could find someone else. Tell Kite that he was not needed or, perhaps more to the point, was not suitable. He looked up into the bespectacled eyes and oddly found he did not want to do that. Perhaps it was because Oishi hated the idea of rejecting anyone. Maybe it was because he suspected that Kite would not be half so full of bravado if he were not lonely. It could be that however unsettling Kite was, Oshitari Yuushi was still that bit worse. Or that his companion’s unflinching attitude would probably give him the steadiest hands and head on the island.
“I want you for this job,” he said firmly and held out his arm. “Try the stitching here.”
Kite just sat there and waited while te other paused. Was there hesitation? He wondered if he should make a promise between men. Kite might be a lot of things, but he was a man of is word. He gave his word, he kept it, no matter what he had to do in order for that to happen. So long as he kept his promise. A part of him wondered though if Oishi would reject him. He wouldn’t blame him if he did. He wouldn’t even be hurt. Or at least that was what he told himself. Atobe’s miracle hunt had made Kite keenly aware that his skill set wasn’t as special a useful as he thought it was. If a pampered peacock could get his hands bloody....or his minion’s hands bloody... then his role as a hunter and a survivor was severely lessened. He had outlived his usefulness.
He had no teammates here. He had fewer friends. He’d only had his usefulness to make him feel he was a viable part of the group and not just an outsider. And here was Oishi, offering him a chance to remain in a position of use. Because a wolf without his pack became rabid. Kite wasn’t ready to go crazy quite yet.
“I won’t hurt you.” He stated. It was a promise. But the grip on the others arm was still arm enough to leave bruises if held like that too long and the position of the needle once it was sanitized by flame would probably hurt a great deal. “Like this?” He started the stitch. Hands steady, needle work precise. The knots would need work though, but that was normal for a person just learning.
Oishi was glad of the iron grip on his arm. It removed the option of flinching, which would have seemed cowardly after Kite’s unmoving performance under Oishi’s gentler hands. Worse, it might have appeared that Oishi did not trust Kite which was ..... almost .... not true.
As Kite finished, Oishi examined the result. “This is very good,” he said with approval and a tinge of relief. “It’s better than my first attempt.” He showed Kite a scar on his other arm. “If I’d sewn as neatly as you did, there wouldn’t have been a mark left.”
He looked up at Kite for a moment, wondering whether to say more. In the end, he lifted the needle, dipped it in the iodine and then reheated it over the tealight for storage. “I know you won’t hurt me,” he said. “I wouldn’t have asked you for help otherwise.”
Blowing out the candle, Oishi rose and gathered up the various implements, putting them away in containers about the cave.
Kite looked at the other mark when he was shown it. A part of him wanted to mock the other and ask if he seriously thought that was a scar. To some of the ones he sported here and there, that seemed to him a paper cut. But he was sure to Oishi it was indeed an unsligthly wound. So instead, he smiled just slightly and stated, “Scars make you edgier.” As if that would make it better somehow. Because from what he had seen of Oishi here in the cave, Oishi had all the edges of a circle. “And if you must know, for a while, sewing was a secret little hobby of mine. We’re poor so my little sister couldn’t get the pretty dresses and stuff she wanted. Ad far be if from me to tell her no.” There. Now Oishi had something good on him. Surely, with blackmail like that, the other would stop being so nervous around him.
He stood when other did, seeming not to care that after such blood loss he should probably be sitting down and resting. He wasn’t one to take it easy. So instead, he chose to help the other put things away. “Any other lessons while I’m a captive audience?”
“Edgier?” Oishi smiled as he opened a box and put the half-a-tealight inside it. There was a description he did not think would ever be applied to him. He quite liked it.
Kite’s revelation about his sister and family life surprised Oishi. He had never heard the other tennis player talk about anything so personal. “Your sister is lucky to have such a brother,” he said and his tone was more relaxed. The image of the hard-as-nails male sewing bows onto little girl’s dresses was a touching one.
They finished putting the last of the items away and Oishi scanned the room. “We could talk a little about bedside manners,” he said. “A patient who feels at ease will have a slower heart rate and is generally less likely to collapse on us.” He pointed to a pillow propped against one wall. “If that were a patient, could you show me how you could move them across the room and get them comfortable?”
Kite made a fist and stared at it. “I wouldn’t consider her lucky at all. Right now, she’s probably dating as many boys as she can because I’m not there to knock their teeth in for looking at her wrong.” He wasn’t joking about that at all. Dating Kite Eishirou’s sister was as good as a death sentence. He was more than a bit protective of her. Even now that they were older and Kite was on the mixed martial arts circuit, he was. And being so made him inherently more dangerous to suitors.
He let his hand relax a little and turned to look at the other teen and then at the pillow that he was supposed to imagine was hurting patient. He did have an imagination so he could apply it a little he supposed. “So that’s someone who’s not wanting to get in bed and be worked on.” He turned to look at the pillow and his entire demeanor changed. Any softness he might possess vanished like smoke.
He had been given the nickname Hitman for a reason. At the moment, the area he was exuding was one that promised a great deal of pain, very very soon. He knew he was terrifying when he put in his killing face. His stride was even more silent than before. He was by Oishi and then he was suddenly by the pillow, that old tennis move, still good for other things.
Crack....pop...crack...ten separate sounds as he popped his knuckles and loomed over the pillow. “Stop your damn whining and get the hell in there or I’m going to put you there myself.” And since Oishi wanted him to take the “patient”, he grabbed the pillow and all but slammed it into the cot, knocking loose a bunch of feathers. “There you go, Doc...you’re patient is ready.”
Oishi had been peaceably imagining the pillow as a hurt patient. Tezuka, Momo, Fuji or Echizen. Maybe even his own little sister. The people he wanted to help, who had caused him to pursue medicine as a career.
To see his wounded and hurt friend threatened, hauled up, thrown against the hard cot to have their stuffing, quite literally, knocked out of them was the worst thing Oishi had seen all week. He gaped, trying to remove the mental imprint of his sister’s face from the flurry of feathers that floated around the pillow, like angels exiting to heaven.
He turned to stare at Kite, trying to keep his eyes from the pillow. This was going to be a very long lesson.
When: Before Kite goes swimming out to the lifeguard boat
Where: In the cave infirmary
Summary: Oishi gives Kite a lesson in stitching wounds
Oishi knelt on a blanket spread out over the floor of the infirmary cave. Laid out in front of him were a tealight, needles, a scalpel, a basin of water and a small bottle of iodine solution. He looked up at the suntanned muscular outline of the Higa tennis player standing by the cave entrance.
“Kite-kun, I thought we’d run through how to stitch an open wound,” he said, smiling a little uncertainly. Kite still made him nervous, despite him agreeing to help Oishi with the medical side of the island’s challenges. “It’s the kind of accident that can easily happen, especially with people building shelters, and we’ll need to prevent it getting infected.”
He gestured to the space opposite him on the rug. “It would be easiest if we made small cuts on ourselves and then stitched them. Um, would you be okay with that? You could watch me first if you felt uncomfortable about blood? It’s a common prob...” Oishi’s voice trailed away as Kite turned to stare at him.
The stare was one of general disbelief. Surely, Oishi would remember the sort of person he was. He could tell, without even moving an inch that the other was very nervous around him. He knew he gave off the aura of someone who would punch you as soon as he met you. He did absolutely nothing to change that thought of him either. Probably because in some cases, it was true. However, this was not one of those cases. This was Oishi and this was training. Though Kite still didn’t really understand why him. Of all the other boys on the beach, Oishi had to chose the most distrusting volatile one.
He stare became that of a very hard smirk when Oishi suggest he had a problem with blood. Kite nearly laughed out loud at that. In a cool, smooth voice, he stated, “It’s no problem.” He wasn’t bothered by blood at all. He was a fighter before anything else. He had shed a great deal and made others lose even more. “I can assure you I have no issue with the sight of blood.”
With that, the Okinawan started over to the small area the other had made for them. As usual, he made absolutely no sounds as he moved, only stopping when he arrived at the blanket and dropped down to sit. “So. How do we start?” He asked,eyeing the scalpels and then Oishi, on guard against being suddenly stabbed by the always too nice medic.
“R-right,” Oishi mumbled at the obviously dismissive tone. He hitched his smile back into place and picked up the bottle of iodine. “This water is clean,” he said, indicated the bowl beside him. “But normally, you couldn’t be sure of that, so it’s good to add a few drops of iodine to anything you plan to wash with or drink.”
He unscrewed the bottle’s top which turned into a pipette, allowing Oishi to add a few drops of the violet liquid into the water. Lifting the scalpel, he dipped it into the basin and then pressed it against his arm, drawing a thin line of blood a few inches long. He forced himself not to flinch. The wound was not very painful, but the process of making it still made his stomach turn.
“This obviously isn’t a deep cut,” Oishi explained, showing the slice to Kite. “But for the purpose of this exercise, we’ll pretend it’s deeper and not as clean edged.”
Dipping the scalpel back into the water, Oishi washed the blood from it before passing it to Kite. “Do you want to do something similar?”
Kite focused on the way the other boy made the water sanitary. A part of him thought that the step really wasn’t necessary. He thought that sea water and burning things over a hot fire and searing things shut worked just as well. But he wasn’t the expert. Oishi was. So he listened and took it all in. If that was how it was supposed done, who was he to question.
He watched the other cut himself. He then waited until the blade was handed to him. Once again, he was rather surprised that Oishi would trust such a dangerous object in his hands. He would not betray that trust. And that meant turning the small knife on himself. Without the slightest of hesitation, he turned blade towards his arm. What was one more scar. He had enough of them already, from his fights and from his tennis training. Another would just be one more.
He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even seem to care one bit. The blade cut and it cut deep. He didn’t stop. Oh there was blood. Red over his darkly tanned skin. He still didn’t stop until he was satisfied with the incision he had made. Deep, angry and bleeding profusely.
Oishi’s jaw dropped in horror as Kite slashed a long, deep cut in his arm. While his wound would come to no serious harm if not properly seen to, Kite’s had the potential to loose a life-threatening amount of blood. Not to mention scar horribly.
“Kite!” he fumbled, spilling half the water as he doused a small wash cloth into the basin and hurriedly pressed the soaking rag against the wound. Its colour turned from purple to red.
Oishi looked up, green eyes wide, into the impassive stare above him. Kite evidently was utterly unbothered by what he had done and considered this a completely acceptable cut to train on. Oishi looked back down to see the blood had engulfed the wash cloth and was now staining his hands scarlet. It was the kind of wound that would have forced his supervisors to use the small amount of anesthetics they carried on trips in the field and probably send Oishi off for a body bag. However, neither of those were an option now. Oishi swallowed hard.
“Why don’t I show you how to stitch this .... “
Life threatening injury?
Suicidal thrust?
Insane act of masochism?
“.... cut,” he stammered. “And you can do mine afterwards. After all, largely we will not be stitching ourselves.” He attempted a calm smile. It failed.
Kite was used to such injuries. He had wondered through the jungle for weeks with horrendous burns and cuts to his body. It was merely a flesh wound to him. He’d gotten worse wrestling sharks. He wasn’t eve phased by the color the cloth was turning. He could tell though...Oishi might just have a problem with it. And the fact that it didn’t seem to hurt him at all.
“We won’t be?” He asked, picking up a needle and thread and looking it over. He had done some sewing before. A talent he wanted to make sure few knew about. He was sure he could do himself without a problem. He probably wouldn’t eve get a local anaesthetic. He didn’t have one at the moment and he seemed just fine. “Then...” He held the needle out towards the other boy. “It’s all yours. Show me how it’s done, Oishi.” A part of him wondered just how long before the poor guy passed out from seeing any injury he might bring through the door.
Oishi took the needle with a deep breath. Focus, he told himself. Focus on what needs to be done next and we’ll get through this while Kite still has blood in his veins. At least one part of this situation was easier than normal; it appeared utterly unnecessarily to keep the patient calm.
WHY THE HELL WAS THAT?!
Calm. Focus. You can do this, Syuichirou.
Putting down the needle, Oishi picked up a box of matches. “Keep soaking the wound, Kite,” he said as he tried to strike one. The match broke in his unsteady hands. “It should be cleaned for 3-5 minutes.” Providing you don’t die.
The second match lit and Oishi held it to the tealight before holding the needle in the flame. “This is a good way to sterilise a needle,” he told his patient / helper / masochistic maniac. He lifted the heated metal free and deftly pulled the cotton through the eye.
“You need to start the stitch a good distance away from the wound,” Oishi told Kite. “Ideally, as far away as the wound is deep.” He lifted the bloody cloth free and examined the cut. Probably if he did as he suggested, the stitches would wrap around Kite’s entire arm.
Calm. Focus.
Oishi glanced up briefly at Kite’s face. “Try to hold still,” he said before putting the first stitch in to the torn skin.
Kite could see the nervousness growing. He raised an eyebrow and muttered, “Are you sure you don’t just want me to do it?” Because if Oishi couldn’t even light a match without breaking it, Kite wondered about him having a needle anywhere near him. He paused after that lightly did as he was told. Eventualy, all bleeding did stop. Though usually when there was no blood left to bleed. Kite didn't think he was at that stage yet.
He smirked a little when the other made mention of the flame. A part of him wanted to reach for his own hunting knife and heat it up. Instead, he asked, stoically. “Couldn’t you just burn the wound closed with the same effect?” To him, it seemed a way to save supplies.
As he waited for the answer, he noticed that the other boy was looking at him again. Adjusting his glasses and knowing that the small tea light would make them flash ominously, he smirked a little. “Have I moved yet?” And he didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t even utter one sound that might be associated with pain as the needle pierced his flesh. He could endure this. He was resolved. He would endure as he had endured so much else.
“We don’t cauterize wounds unless we really have to,” Oishi said, focusing on the stitching. “The burning causes far more cell damage and leaves bad scarring.” It would also hurt like a bitch, but apparent that wasn’t a consideration here. “We’d only use that if we were doing an emergency amputation.” He broke off the cotton after a 1/4 inch and knotted it, before re-threading. “We don’t remove limbs unless we absolutely have no other choice to save a person’s life.”
A small part of his mind pointed out to Oishi that such a clarification would not be necessary with anyone else on the island. Yet somehow, the lack of medical help had come up in conversation with Kite and he did know a great deal about the island. It had not seemed a big jump to ask for his assistance .... at the time.
He broke off his thread and wiped sweat from his forehead. The stitches were neat, but the skin swelled an ugly red beneath them. At least the blood was no longer a gushing flow. The wound was closed. Oishi lifted a roll of bandage. “Use short pieces of thread,” he said. “Not just one long bit for all the stitches. This should now be bandaged and checked regularly.”
He nodded at that. He still thought it was a good way of doing it. But he again would leave it up to the expert. That was why he was the student and Oishi was the very nervous teacher. This time,when he spoke, he finally voiced his concern about the entire idea behind this. “Oishi...are you sure you wouldn’t rather have someone else for this?” After all, he was proving once more that he wasn’t the most sane person on the island. No one would could be sewn up without any sort of painkiller without even wincing.
He watched each stitch go in him. He watched every knot. It was only when the other mentioned taking off limbs did Kite look back up. His smile was dark and there was a nearly cruel intent in his eyes. “Oh...Really. And I was so looking forward to chopping off a few arms and legs.” It was hard to tell with him, but Kite really was joking about that. Someone missing a body part would be liability on this island.
He nodded, the work complete, lightly running his finger over the wound. “You do well. Better than the butchers back home that call themselves doctors.” He let his arm be wrapped with bandage an then looked to the needle. “Now...I’m supposed to do that you?”
Oishi would have thanked him for the compliment but the suggestion that Kite was keen to lope off limbs coming immediately before the reminder than now he had to put his own care into the Higa player’s hands, dried up his voice. He wet his lips and looked down at his own arm. The cut was still bleeding, but only slowly.
He won’t learn unless you let him practice.
Of course, he could find someone else. Tell Kite that he was not needed or, perhaps more to the point, was not suitable. He looked up into the bespectacled eyes and oddly found he did not want to do that. Perhaps it was because Oishi hated the idea of rejecting anyone. Maybe it was because he suspected that Kite would not be half so full of bravado if he were not lonely. It could be that however unsettling Kite was, Oshitari Yuushi was still that bit worse. Or that his companion’s unflinching attitude would probably give him the steadiest hands and head on the island.
“I want you for this job,” he said firmly and held out his arm. “Try the stitching here.”
Kite just sat there and waited while te other paused. Was there hesitation? He wondered if he should make a promise between men. Kite might be a lot of things, but he was a man of is word. He gave his word, he kept it, no matter what he had to do in order for that to happen. So long as he kept his promise. A part of him wondered though if Oishi would reject him. He wouldn’t blame him if he did. He wouldn’t even be hurt. Or at least that was what he told himself. Atobe’s miracle hunt had made Kite keenly aware that his skill set wasn’t as special a useful as he thought it was. If a pampered peacock could get his hands bloody....or his minion’s hands bloody... then his role as a hunter and a survivor was severely lessened. He had outlived his usefulness.
He had no teammates here. He had fewer friends. He’d only had his usefulness to make him feel he was a viable part of the group and not just an outsider. And here was Oishi, offering him a chance to remain in a position of use. Because a wolf without his pack became rabid. Kite wasn’t ready to go crazy quite yet.
“I won’t hurt you.” He stated. It was a promise. But the grip on the others arm was still arm enough to leave bruises if held like that too long and the position of the needle once it was sanitized by flame would probably hurt a great deal. “Like this?” He started the stitch. Hands steady, needle work precise. The knots would need work though, but that was normal for a person just learning.
Oishi was glad of the iron grip on his arm. It removed the option of flinching, which would have seemed cowardly after Kite’s unmoving performance under Oishi’s gentler hands. Worse, it might have appeared that Oishi did not trust Kite which was ..... almost .... not true.
As Kite finished, Oishi examined the result. “This is very good,” he said with approval and a tinge of relief. “It’s better than my first attempt.” He showed Kite a scar on his other arm. “If I’d sewn as neatly as you did, there wouldn’t have been a mark left.”
He looked up at Kite for a moment, wondering whether to say more. In the end, he lifted the needle, dipped it in the iodine and then reheated it over the tealight for storage. “I know you won’t hurt me,” he said. “I wouldn’t have asked you for help otherwise.”
Blowing out the candle, Oishi rose and gathered up the various implements, putting them away in containers about the cave.
Kite looked at the other mark when he was shown it. A part of him wanted to mock the other and ask if he seriously thought that was a scar. To some of the ones he sported here and there, that seemed to him a paper cut. But he was sure to Oishi it was indeed an unsligthly wound. So instead, he smiled just slightly and stated, “Scars make you edgier.” As if that would make it better somehow. Because from what he had seen of Oishi here in the cave, Oishi had all the edges of a circle. “And if you must know, for a while, sewing was a secret little hobby of mine. We’re poor so my little sister couldn’t get the pretty dresses and stuff she wanted. Ad far be if from me to tell her no.” There. Now Oishi had something good on him. Surely, with blackmail like that, the other would stop being so nervous around him.
He stood when other did, seeming not to care that after such blood loss he should probably be sitting down and resting. He wasn’t one to take it easy. So instead, he chose to help the other put things away. “Any other lessons while I’m a captive audience?”
“Edgier?” Oishi smiled as he opened a box and put the half-a-tealight inside it. There was a description he did not think would ever be applied to him. He quite liked it.
Kite’s revelation about his sister and family life surprised Oishi. He had never heard the other tennis player talk about anything so personal. “Your sister is lucky to have such a brother,” he said and his tone was more relaxed. The image of the hard-as-nails male sewing bows onto little girl’s dresses was a touching one.
They finished putting the last of the items away and Oishi scanned the room. “We could talk a little about bedside manners,” he said. “A patient who feels at ease will have a slower heart rate and is generally less likely to collapse on us.” He pointed to a pillow propped against one wall. “If that were a patient, could you show me how you could move them across the room and get them comfortable?”
Kite made a fist and stared at it. “I wouldn’t consider her lucky at all. Right now, she’s probably dating as many boys as she can because I’m not there to knock their teeth in for looking at her wrong.” He wasn’t joking about that at all. Dating Kite Eishirou’s sister was as good as a death sentence. He was more than a bit protective of her. Even now that they were older and Kite was on the mixed martial arts circuit, he was. And being so made him inherently more dangerous to suitors.
He let his hand relax a little and turned to look at the other teen and then at the pillow that he was supposed to imagine was hurting patient. He did have an imagination so he could apply it a little he supposed. “So that’s someone who’s not wanting to get in bed and be worked on.” He turned to look at the pillow and his entire demeanor changed. Any softness he might possess vanished like smoke.
He had been given the nickname Hitman for a reason. At the moment, the area he was exuding was one that promised a great deal of pain, very very soon. He knew he was terrifying when he put in his killing face. His stride was even more silent than before. He was by Oishi and then he was suddenly by the pillow, that old tennis move, still good for other things.
Crack....pop...crack...ten separate sounds as he popped his knuckles and loomed over the pillow. “Stop your damn whining and get the hell in there or I’m going to put you there myself.” And since Oishi wanted him to take the “patient”, he grabbed the pillow and all but slammed it into the cot, knocking loose a bunch of feathers. “There you go, Doc...you’re patient is ready.”
Oishi had been peaceably imagining the pillow as a hurt patient. Tezuka, Momo, Fuji or Echizen. Maybe even his own little sister. The people he wanted to help, who had caused him to pursue medicine as a career.
To see his wounded and hurt friend threatened, hauled up, thrown against the hard cot to have their stuffing, quite literally, knocked out of them was the worst thing Oishi had seen all week. He gaped, trying to remove the mental imprint of his sister’s face from the flurry of feathers that floated around the pillow, like angels exiting to heaven.
He turned to stare at Kite, trying to keep his eyes from the pillow. This was going to be a very long lesson.