NICK

The afternoon at the hospital did what afternoons at hospitals always do. It refused to stop.

The building was a machine that ran on a continuous cycle of crisis and routine, and I was just one of the gears kept in perpetual motion.

I moved through my rounds. I handled the consults. I performed two post-op checks that required my full attention.

There was a resident who needed a sharp correction on a basic procedure, and a stack of charts that sat on my desk like a threat.

The calls from other departments were constant.

I preferred it this way. Continuous movement leaves no gaps in the day. Gaps are dangerous things.

Gaps are the places where thoughts manage to take root and grow when you aren’t looking.

My body began to register the cost of the last few days.

A dull pressure formed behind my eyes. It wasn’t a sharp pain yet, just a heavy, present reminder that I was running on a deficit.

I had lived on insufficient sleep for too many consecutive days, and my physical form was beginning to present its invoice for the debt.

My muscles were sore, but it wasn’t the clean ache of physical exertion. It was the grinding fatigue of a body held at high tension for too long.

My throat felt strange. It wasn’t painful, but there was a precursor to pain there... a small, scratchy warning that I was reaching my limit.

I took a break in the mid-afternoon. I sat in the staff room, surrounded by the smell of burnt coffee and industrial cleaner.

I found my medication and swallowed it with a cup of lukewarm water. I treated myself with the same clinical attention I gave to any patient.

I identified the symptom, I addressed the symptom, and then I prepared to continue.

But as the medication dissolved, a memory pushed its way through my defenses. I thought about my apartment this morning.

I thought about the clock showing 5:24 AM. I remembered squatting on the floor in front of my own couch, reaching out to touch hair that felt like silk, and saying something to myself in the dark that I shouldn’t have said.

The irritation followed the memory. It was a familiar feeling by now. It was the frustration of a thought that refused to stay where I put it.

I ran the situation through my head again. I did it with a method, the same way I would analyze a difficult diagnosis.

I asked myself why I was fixated on this person.

I chose that word carefully. Fixated. It wasn’t interest. It wasn’t a draw. It was a fixation.

That made it bearable. That made it something I could explain and, eventually, something that would prove to be temporary.

I began to build the case against my own focus. I looked for evidence of why this was unreasonable.

First, there was the hair. It was pink. It was loud. It was a choice made specifically to be noticed by everyone in the room.

I have never appreciated things that demand to be noticed. I prefer things that exist quietly and fulfill their purpose without fanfare.

Then, there was the energy. It was excessive. Cyan’s presence didn’t just inhabit a space; it filled it to the corners without ever asking for permission.

I require my spaces to behave themselves. I like order and predictability.

I moved on to the general presentation. The rings, the piercings, the layers of everything. It was too much of everything. It was deliberately too much, and it grated against my sensibilities.

But the case against him stalled when I reached his face. I couldn’t put his face under the category of "too much."

I couldn’t find anything negative to say about it without being dishonest with myself. I don’t do things dishonestly, even when a lie would be the most convenient path to take.

His face was simply there in my mind. I saw it at close range in the early morning light. I remembered the length of his lashes and the shape of his lips. I remembered the exact color of his eyes from that distance.

I stood up from the staff room chair. "It’s temporary," I whispered to the empty room.

"It’s just a stupid fixation. It will pass." I started moving again because the quiet of the staff room had become uncomfortable.

I was on my way to Cassian’s ward. I walked the familiar route through the corridors, keeping my eyes on the chart in my hand. I was performing the role of a doctor who was focused entirely on his work.

A figure appeared at the edge of my peripheral vision. Someone was turning a corner or stepping through a doorway further down the hall. The image lasted for a second, maybe less. It was just the back of someone’s head, but the color was unmistakable.

Pink.

I stopped in the middle of the corridor. I stood there for exactly three seconds before I caught myself and forced my feet to move again.

Cyan is at my apartment, I told myself. That is not Cyan. I am thinking about him too much, and now my brain is producing images of what I’ve been preoccupied with. This is textbook. This is embarrassing.

I resumed my walk. I gripped the chart tighter. I accepted the explanation because it was logical.

Sleep deprivation and excessive cognitive preoccupation with a specific stimulus will cause the brain to supply that stimulus even when it isn’t present.

It was documented. It was explainable. It was handled.

But the thought didn’t stay flat. It curled at the edges, refusing to be smoothed away.

I opened the door to the room. It was quiet inside. The machines hummed their steady, rhythmic song. Cassian looked exactly the same as he had during my last check.

Noah was sitting in the chair. His laptop was open on his knees, but he looked up the moment I entered.

There was a tension between us that had been growing since that moment at the lobby. It was the weight of the hospital, the argument with the guards, and everything I had done that I was still deciding whether I should have done at all.

I didn’t acknowledge the tension. I moved straight to the monitors and began my professional inventory.

Noah watched me without speaking. He has learned over the years that I function better when I am not interrupted while I’m working.

"Anything notable?" I asked.