The taller ignored the man’s offer at best, guessing that it was just one of those mind-games – one of these tricks. Trying to earn his trust or something alike to that, he knew all of these procedures, but he wouldn’t rub it into the brunet’s nose. The less he knew, the better. The more he thought his patient wasn’t as smart as he was – or in Tsuji’s own opinion even smarter, because doubtlessly that nurse wasn’t the brightest – the easier it would be to have him on his good side, the easier their relationship would be. Simple as that.
As soon as he had calmed down from his small breakdown there, he peeked up to look at the man once more, observing him closely, pondering just why he had the urge to apologise for that. It was neither the other’s business, nor would it hurt him if it was Akihisa who suffered from these things, right? Emotions such as compassion and sympathy have been long forgotten and buried away underneath hate, solitude and remorse. To him, it made no sense why anyone would apologise for hurting another being – may it be physically or mentally – it has been too long ago that he would do the same thing to those he cared about. Care about. Ah, he guessed these people were long dead anyway. “You didn’t know better. There’s no need to apologise.” He replied blandly, leaning his head back onto his knee to relax as much as he could in a straight-jacket, that is.
As he felt the other’s hand gently caress his opposing cheek to where he worked on with the sanitiser (which he barely felt anyway due to the long tortures he had been through in this facility), he couldn’t help but look up to the man and searching his eyes, scanning them intensely despite knowing that they would’t lock with each other, figuring that he was too attentive of his own work as a nurse. He tried to understand why it was that the stranger wanted to take not only such good care of him but also treat him so nicely —- it made no sense to the man —- but he couldn’t help and lean his head into the gentle palm and closing his eyes, wanting more of those nice touches, that made his skin feel like as if a thick layer of numbness was brushed away with kindness and warmth. He remembered something akin to this situation, but he guessed that’s what one of the psychiatrists called ‘repressed memories’ that just do not seem to surface to his mind, no matter what. Akihisa was anxious to know what he urged himself to repress so much that he couldn’t recollect it anymore.
Despite that, he was able to experience something that seemed like a piece of his past – perhaps? He wasn’t sure, but he saw a silhouette, reaching out to his face just the way the nurse did; there was no way he could see the person’s face despite it getting clearer and clearer, but something was familiar – though once the man was done, he felt torn out of his comfort zone, the familiar feeling of closeness and tenderness, it was gone altogether with the fact of being close to discover the look of said silhouette’s face. All he could do now was staring at the other, mumbling a quiet “Thank you” due to the treatment.
Taking note of the other’s panic attack, he snorted and said “Your name tag.” quietly to confirm he wasn’t just wildly guessing names there like some psychic. Though the confession he received might’ve been subtle but obvious enough for the man to hear out. So, he was bullied by his co-workers? That was a pity. Mostly if he was treated more nice by Akihisa than by these people who were labelled as ‘sane’ and ‘human’ while he was such an insane monster —- ironic. “I have no reason to be mean to you. You’ve been the nicest to me. No nurse and no doctor has treated me like that before. I don’t see why they should be mean to you…”
Once they were looking at and sitting opposed to each other again, face-to-face, he tended his head back, unsure what to talk about with the man – he guessed, if he was curious about something, he’d ask Tsuji. For now, he didn’t think anything about himself was worth mentioning – or it was just plain stupid to mention, because he neither wanted to scare the man, nor gross him out.
he could have easily guessed that the patient wouldn’t be too open to tell him things, honestly he was just lucky to have him talking. not many of the other nurses had managed to do that much, and if they did … it was not polite talk. it was just him telling them disturbing things to scare them. it was relieving that he wasn’t doing that to ihara, since he did not take well to those kinds of scary situations. he could agree that just being on good terms was much better than being on bad, since the patients that didn’t like their nurses tended to even go as far as to bite them … being kind was so much easier than putting up with that mess.
looking over at him, hunched over in his straight jacket, he nearly had the urge to take that off of him as well. but that posed the issue of his patient having an easy means to over power him … which would not be good in the long run. tsuji was being very kind to him right now, but he didn’t doubt that could flip on a dime. he was in here for some kind of reason, and he wasn’t willing to find out the consequences if he was to put too much trust in him. even taking the mask off of him would have been careless in the other nurses’ eyes, but he couldn’t take to sit there and watch him suffer while he was taking care of him. the damage to his face from wearing that so often was already so bad, and it would only fester if it wasn’t taken care of. maybe that was what the others wanted, but ihara wasn’t here because he didn’t want to properly care for people. it was just where they stuck newbies to make sure they went through some hell before they got a luxe nursing position.
he wasn’t sure if he really deserved a thank you for treating him the way that a nurse should, but he still offered a small smile in reply when he was packing up the medkit. it was embarrassing to be caught being nervous around his own patient, especially since he was acting like tsuji should know something that he didn’t tell him. “i knew that uh, --- i knew that.” ihara is quick to try and cover, despite the fact that he had hit the nail on the head about his anxiety. he should have guessed that he was reading off of his name tag, but a part of him felt as if it just rolled off of his tongue so casually that he must have heard it … or known it already. whatever it was -- it had startled him. once the medkit was placed off to the side, and the other’s injuries were looking at least a little bit better, they were left there in awkward silence. sure, he could have just left right there and tended to other duties, probably just mindless cleaning … but that would mean he would have to put the mask back onto tsuji. his goal for right now was to give him some room to breathe, and hopefully let his wounds air out a bit as well. as for the mask .. he really wasn’t sure if he should try to put some cotton on the sides to keep it from digging into his skin like that, or if the other nurses would berate him for messing with anything when he was a new hire.
there was some eye contact as the two sat there, but the brunet always had a difficult time keeping his eyes locked with others; call it anxiety, or whatever, he was just nervous to have to stare at someone so blatantly. “they just bully me because i’m new. i guess that’s normal with these kinds of jobs.” he said softly, feeling too weird to go into more detail about it. they did more than just tease him for being new, they would tease him for acting too femininely, or being chubbier than them. it was much more than just the new hire thing, but it felt almost pathetic to be complaining to someone in a worse situation than himself about it. he would just have a quick cry on the walk home, and forget it by the time that he walked into his apartment.
