Five Senses

Disclaimer: I do not own Code Blue or any of the characters.

Chapter 1: Sight

"Summer festival, huh..." She mumbled as she saw a poster on her way to the hospital. It would be held tonight, at a shrine not too far from the hospital. She didn't have many memories related to festivals, always prioritizing her studies before anything else. While her friends were dressed in beautiful yukata, watching fireworks with their respective boyfriends, catching goldfishes, eating junk food, the short haired flight doctor could be found with her eyes glued to textbooks. Not even once had she envied her friends, especially once she saw her name on top of the examination ranking list.

Not until today when she finally realized how much she had missed from her youth, but she was finally where she belonged so there was no need for regrets. She could still go to the festival tonight. Her shift was supposed to end at 8 so she could probably catch the fireworks right before it launched, but going alone would be very lonely. Hiyama would be on night duty. Third-wheeling on Fujikawa and Saejima was not an option, and that left her with...

As she closed her eyes to think her mind wandered to a certain neurosurgeon, imagining him standing by her side as they watched the colorful fireworks blooming in the night sky only to shake her had to dismiss the seemingly impossible situation.

There's no way he would want to go with me.

No matter how many years have passed, sometimes she could still feel the distance between her and the neurosurgeon. He had returned to lifesaving to help them but they still sat at least two seats apart at Mary Jane's. When the four of them went to the canteen for lunch, he still opted to be seated at a different table. It wasn't as if they still felt the rivalry from many years before, in fact they have all been emotionally connected over the years of working together. Although she guessed it wasn't the same when it comes to private matters.

Her feet dragged her back to the hospital building, brushing offs the idea of inviting a certain someone to the fireworks festival. Changed into her usual blue scrubs, she was back into work-mode. Doing follow-ups for the in-ward patients, giving lectures to the fellows, and monitoring changes in the ICU patients. It was a rather quiet day. Their phone hadn't rung since morning.

"Hiyama, you're having it slow today, eh?" Fujikawa said to his friend who was busy teaching Haitani how to change the chest tube in one of their ICU patients. His voice had successfully stolen Shiraishi's attention from the patient's medication history.

"Don't jinx it, Fujikawa."

Just as they were talking the phone rang and Hiyama glared at the glasses-wearing doctor, who could only grin sheepishly. Him and his loud mouth as usual. The three doctors ran towards the ER and Shiraishi grabbed the phone in lightning speed.

"This is Shohoku Emergency Care Center."

"We have a request for Doctor Heli. A few of the stands at the festival site collapsed. Four people are injured including one children is unconscious and one pregnant lady's membrane ruptured."

Shiraishi looked at the operator who gave her a sign that the helicopter was ready to fly anytime. Only 1 hour before sunset, they don't have much time. She need to think, fast.

"Hiyama, you go with Saejima and Aizawa. Natori, Yukimura, and I will go in the next ride. Fujikawa, please receive the patients here. Be prepared for the worst fractures."

Immediately everybody moved into action. The first group ran towards the helipad while she gave Natori a brief explanation before assisting her on the scene later. It was the fellow's first flight after the missed pelvic injury incident, she hoped he would learn from his mistakes and be more thorough with his physical examinations.

"Hiyama will deal with the pregnant patient and Aizawa would be busy with the children's head. We don't know how the other two are doing so it's better to have more personnel on site to assess the situation quickly, just in case we need to transport them with our helicopter."

The helicopter couldn't fly after sunset; they were racing against time. Natori nodded as he seemed to understand just how tricky the situation was even with a smaller number of casualties. It was refreshing to see him without his usually conceited personality for once. Little by little, the fellows were growing and it made her proud as one of their teacher.

"The helicopter's back. Let's go." The two doctors grabbed their equipment bag and rode the helicopter, hoping the situation would be as bad as she had predicted earlier. With her headphone's on, Shiraishi turned the radio on and called her comrades.

"Hiyama-sensei, Aizawa-sensei, can you hear me?"

"Shiraishi, come quickly. I am still busy with the pregnant lady. I am delivering the baby on the spot. Aizawa seems busy too."

"Any problem with the pregnant mother or potential asphyxia for the baby?"

"No. She's 38-39 weeks pregnant with unknown history of pregnancy but her water broke 30 minutes ago due to shock from the incident. The baby's heartbeat seems well. Yes ma'am, push when the next contraction comes! I still hadn't checked the other two patients because my hands are kind of busy." Chaos could still be heard from the background, with another wave of pounding headache.

"Got it. If the mother and baby are well, we'll send them to the closest perinatal center with an ambulance. Aizawa-sensei, how about you?"

"5-year-old boy with an abdominal trauma going into shock. Me and Saejima are still trying to stabilize him as we locate the source of hemorrhage." He too sounded busy at the time so apparently it was the right decision to send more people.

"Got it. How many minutes left until we arrive?"

"Two minutes." The pilot answered and she turned her attention back to the radio.

"Me, Natori, and Yukimura will arrive in two minutes. You two please concentrate with your patients." Her eyes glanced over the fellow beside her, he looked focus and ready to go on the field despite the trouble he had the last time.

"Natori, we'll handle one patient each. If there's anything you are unsure off just call me."

"Yes." His voice was calm but she could note the spark of uncertainty in his eyes.

"I trust you."

The three of them stepped out of the helicopter right after the doors were opened, ran at full speed towards the direction where the fire departments showed them. There they saw the other two patients lying down on the ground, neither looked like they suffered any serious injury but one of them was an elder.

"Ma'am, can you hear me?" She asked the elder woman who kept her eyes squeezed shut even when she gave a pain stimulus on her chest. Something didn't seem right. Swiftly she did a head-to-toe examination as Yukimura monitored the patient's vital signs. Her skin felt clammy and the monitor showed a flat line on screen.

No, it can't be.

She took her penlight and checked the pupillary reflexes one more time, hoping she was wrong the first time but the result was still the same. Negative, fully dilated.

She was dead, and just mere minutes from then another patient was pronounced dead.

Aizawa's patient.

"I'm counting on you." Shiraishi bowed to the ambulance before it drove off to the perinatal center with Hiyama and Saejima, the mother and her newborn baby girl after a long few hours of birth. The other patient they had was a young man with multiple fractures on the arms and legs. It was too complicated so he was brought to Shohoku for further treatment with Natori and Yukimura along as soon as they noticed how terrible his condition was. As for the patients they lost...

She glanced to her side and found the other doctor dressed in a flight suit with the usual red equipment backpack. He was standing tall, still gazing over the direction where the ambulance had left before. The situation was back to how it was before. They were both dismissed and the only thing left to do was go back to the hospital and finish all the remaining paperworks for today's incident.

"Aizawa-sensei, good work today as usual." She gave him a thin smile.

"No, it wasn't." Shiraishi noticed his hands clutching itself hard as his knuckles turned pale. He was blaming himself for the patient's death.

Just like she was.

"It was unfortunate." The words were not only meant for him, for them both.

But,

Even if it was unsaid, they could hear his word hanging in the air. No matter how hard they studied and worked, there was nothing they could do to defy death. When the changes are made permanent, they wouldn't be able to restart the patient's heartbeat anymore. As humans they have their own limit, they both knew that very well but they couldn't help but think of the other possibilities and what ifs.

Neither of them realized that the sunset had been long gone and the stars had appeared in the sky. The faint noise from the crowds on the festival could be heard from the distance. Despite the incident from before, the summer festival carried on as if nothing had happened. Perhaps it was the resident's way of showing that they wouldn't let sorrow drag them away from the other joyful things in life they could be celebrating on, reminding the two doctors that they should've realized that too.

"The baby from just now, she survived the incident when people older than her didn't. She was a miracle; don't you think?" She turned to him, whose eyes were still staring blankly at the blinking lights from the summer festival though his brain continued replaying the scene from before.

"If I could have saved that boy, he could still enjoy this festival next year." His words were mumbled, as if it was directed to no one but himself, although she could catch each and every word perfectly from their short distance. The neurosurgeon walked took a few steps ahead of her and she got a perfect view of his back.

When she first knew Aizawa, the first quality she associated him with is 'strong'. It was from knowing how well he did on his first flight duty, when she and the other fellows were useless on the scene he dealt with it in impeccable calmness, proceeding with the appropriate procedure flawlessly. The first time she saw his back, they looked so broad and strong even when he was amputating Kuroda-sensei's arm. It wasn't only her, everybody else too thought about him that way.

Slowly, as time passed by her opinions on him changed.

There were times when his back didn't look as strong as before, instead frail and small as if it was ready to break anytime. His tears and sobs as he knelt in front of his grandmother, when he saw her off to her elder home, and when he had failed to save his patients. Exactly like right now. All the time she saw it, she wanted to reach her fingers towards him the way he chased and put his hand on her shoulder when she was shattered from Kuroda-sensei's incident but never did because she always wasted her time thinking if the touch were appropriate and missed the opportunity to do so. What he did was so simple but his presence made her felt less lonely back then.

Today, it was her turn to pay him back.

Her slender fingers were extended to grab on the edge of his scrub sleeve, tugging on it lightly which stole his attention. The two spoke with their eyes, communicating through unspoken words of consolation to mend each other's broken pieces. After all, nobody else would truly understand your pain unless they went through it with you and they did.

Just in time, the fireworks lit up in the sky stealing their attention for one moment. Finally, she was able to see the fireworks directly in front of her eyes, though in a different way from what she had imagined. In the form of an extended shift and following an unfortunate event. She wasn't wearing a yukata, instead covered in her blood-stained lifesaving blue scrubs. Her hand was holding onto her stethoscope while the other was still on her companion's sleeves, no bag of goldfishes nor candied apple on a stick. But she couldn't have imagined anyone better than Aizawa to be by her side that time.

The young woman stole a glance to her side and saw the different colors reflected on his face and right before she could look away, he looked back at her and found themselves healed in the other's eyes. Suddenly she felt something covering the hand was still tugging onto his blue scrubs, his hand enveloping hers with his warmth as if letting her know that he was feeling better already. He squeezed her hand for one second before letting it go and her hands dropped back to her sides again. Their heads were turned back into the bright changing colors decorating the starry summer sky, admiring the beauty with their thoughts fully with the figure beside them.

At the moment, neither knew the true reason behind their rising heartbeat. They blamed it on the loud fireworks thumping and the leftover adrenaline from the previous incident. It would take many more opportunities for them to acknowledge the name of this feeling.

In their case, it was never love at first sight. It was falling in love harder in every gaze into the other's eye.

Author's note: First chapter done! As most of you must have guessed, this will be a five-chaptered fic so there will be four more chapters ahead involving the rest of our senses set from season 1 to 3 and possibly some future AU.

As usual, please let me know what you think about this fic, how I could improve this fic, and any prompts you'd like to read. Every word from you guys boosts my motivation to write, thank you for that and also to all who contributed in keeping this fandom alive. We still have a long way until the movie in 2018 so let's stay motivated ^^

Kimchi/summermelon