3:06.
This was unusual. Or worse, something had happened.
For the past two years, Katherine McKenna had never once been late. She had, in fact, never once been on time, because being on time would have required her to not arrive hours early, which she did, every single appointment, armed with an ever-rotating arsenal of excuses as to why.
She had a question about her medication. She was in the neighborhood. She wanted to double-check whether her appointment was today or tomorrow (it was always today; she always knew this). She needed to accompany him on his rounds because she had recently developed a heart condition that she was fairly certain required the attention of a neurosurgeon.
The heart condition had a peculiar tendency to flare up exclusively when another woman attempted to capture his attention in a way that Katherine deemed unprofessional, which, by Katherine's definition, included but was not limited to: speaking to him, looking at him, standing near him, and on one memorable occasion, handing him a pen.
Everyone knew what she was doing, of course.
But no one, least of all Kazeyuki, had ever called her out on it. Katherine was the sort of person that the entire hospital had adopted like a communal pet. She remembered every nurse's birthday. She brought homemade scones that were, if he was being honest, terrible, but which everyone ate with theatrical enthusiasm because the alternative was watching Katherine's face fall, and no one in this building had the constitution for that. She once spent an entire afternoon helping an elderly patient in the waiting room complete a crossword puzzle, and by the time Kazeyuki came out for his next appointment, the old man was showing her pictures of his grandchildren and asking if she wanted to be adopted.
The only people who did not adore Katherine McKenna were the women she had been jealous of, and even they tended to come around eventually, because being disliked by Katherine was like being mauled by a kitten. You could not take it seriously, and you almost felt sorry for her for trying.
Everyone in the hospital knew Katherine had the biggest crush on him.
"Emily, can you come in for a moment?"
Just like everyone also knew he did not return the feelings.
His assistant appeared in the doorway. She was twenty-six, dark-haired, and in possession of the kind of face that broadcast every thought she had ever had or would ever have with the subtlety of a billboard.
"Yes, Doc?"
"Has Ms. McKenna called to cancel today's appointment?"
And yet.
The moment Kazeyuki saw his assistant's eyes start to twinkle, he knew right away he had made a mistake.
"It's only 3:06."
"You know she is never this late."
"Her appointment is at five."
"Exactly."
Emily tilted her head. Her ponytail swung with it, and her expression was rapidly becoming the kind of expression that he had learned, over two years of enduring it, preceded something he would regret allowing her to say.
"Are you worried about her?"
"So I will take that as a no, she did not call to cancel?"
"Youareworried about her, aren't you?"
"That will be all, Emily."
"Maybe...you're not just worried. Maybe, you're in—"
He pointed to the door. "Go."
She went. But the grin she wore on her way out was the kind of grin that made Kazeyuki wish, not for the first time, that he had hired someone who understood what professional boundaries were. Or at the very least, someone who could identify one if it walked up and introduced itself.
But Emily had been here since the beginning. Since the week Katherine's aneurysm had brought her into his ER, pale and seizing and forty minutes from death. Emily had been the one to manage his schedule through the surgery and the recovery and the follow-ups, and she had watched, over two years, as a girl who could not even say "good" without turning it into "grwd" had quietly, stubbornly, ridiculously made herself a permanent fixture in the life of a man who did not allow permanent fixtures.
His assistant had seen all of it.
