#you guys made it seem like an awful cringe thing or smth. IVE BEEN REALLY LIKING IT SO FAR

[comfortstars]

ive caved in and been watching jjk lately im so sorry

[hiirunakaarchive]

– to act in haste (3)

↳ Facts could never be disputed, but natural and insensible phenomenons like fate were fickle and ever-changing. Ethan hoped that maybe the outcome of this god-awful situation he was in right now could be fickle and ever-changing too.

↳  (pt 1), (pt 2), (pt 4)

◇ pairing: ethan ramsey x mc (haruna sakurai)

◇ genre: like 99.9% angst, 0.1% comedy (?) i hope that part of the story was funny man idk

◇ word count: 4.6k+

◇ tags: @aworldoffandoms, @perriewinklenerdie, @jooous​, @senseofduties​, @moteestro​, @anything-but-reality​

◇ author’s note: hey friends, i hope yall are staying safe and indoors during these strange times! classes have been moved online, so i’ve been writing and lo and behold –– part three to my series (which i finished a lot sooner that i expected :o) ! i was honestly writing this thinking it’d be the finale but the 10k word count was telling me smth else, so a FOURTH part is gonna be posted and THAT is gonna be the last one! also not to toot my own horn but i really, honestly, TRULY believe this third part is the best ive ever written, and i hope you guys like it as much as i do! like always, feedback is super appreciated and i’d be more than happy to add anyone to the tags! happy reading!

–

Dr. Ramsey was almost never wrong.

Almost.

And he hung on to that almost with a vice-like grip, that one in a million possibility that maybe this time, he could be wrong, and God, he had never wanted to be wrong so badly. But anyone with half a brain could put two and two together and figure out why his spiteful ex-lover stood in his office long after her shift had ended; white coat folded neatly and hugged against her chest with a sealed envelope at hand. Yet, despite knowing fully well what that letter being slid across his desk meant, he dared to challenge the inevitable truth. To let himself hope—

I could be wrong.

He took it in his hands carefully, and tore the envelope open.

Let it be wrong. Let it be wrong, let it be wrong, let it be-

”You’re resigning.”

He read it slowly and steadily, gathering himself with one long breath and the last sliver of calm he could find.

Over the course of the year, Haruna Sakurai had become some sort of a celebrity in Boston’s exclusive world of health care professionals, dubbed the perfect model to emulate in all aspects of being a doctor. She was as kind as she was intelligent, but unflinching in her righteous principles and a terrifying force to be reckoned with.

She was Edenbrook’s most valuable asset, yet the letter of resignation laying open on Ethan’s desk seemed to taunt him in ways that delved beyond a professional context. He regarded it hollowly, absorbing the great loss her departure would serve to the hospital, but also let his mind pathetically wander to the thought of where her resignation would leave the both of them.

It was silly and stupid, because they weren’t even romantically involved anymore. That tranquil period where they sat across from each other in comfortable silence, danced in his kitchen until they realized breakfast was burned, talked and laughed until they couldn’t breathe – it was such a distant memory that Ethan was convinced that it was nothing but a dream. 

It didn’t matter because she was slipping from him anyway.

“Losing you would be quite a blow to the hospital, Dr. Sakurai. Is there anything that would make you reconsider?” He had to be impartial. 

Convince her to stay. For the hospital, not for yourself, you selfish prick. No more of this lovesick nonsense.

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her, and it was deplorable. The year Haruna spent on the fellowship had changed her. She stood taller, spoke louder, smiled wider, and Ethan convinced himself that losing her was a trivial price to pay for the success she so deserved. 

Haruna had grit her teeth and accepted his twisted gift, abandoning that whirlwind romance they had, and as compensation, acquired invaluable knowledge that no one could pry from her cold dead hands. She had so clearly moved on, thus, there was nothing left to do but for Ethan to make peace with it and follow suit. 

“I’m sorry, but my mind is set. It’s a...career move.”

Yet why did he still insist on making her stay?

“A career move? Dr. Sakurai, you do know that you’re employed at one of the best hospitals in the United States.” He pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, and she rolled her eyes at his statement of the obvious.

“Of course I do, but our partnership with Panacea Labs has them trampling on every standard and principle that made Edenbrook one of the best in the first place.”

“I hate saying this as much as you hate hearing it, but that’s not something we can change.” Ethan sighed as he rubbed his temples. 

“I know, so I’m leaving before it disappoints me further.”

“Life in and of itself is a disappointment, Dr. Sakurai.” he argued. “We-“

“I’m going back to Japan.” She blurted.

Haruna bit her lip, bringing a hand to her face like it was a secret she meant to keep and just as suddenly as she said it, Ethan’s world stopped all at once. The clock that hung just above the entrance to his office stopped ticking. He saw Haruna’s lips moving as she continued to speak, but couldn’t hear a thing. Every joint in his body seemed to have froze and gone numb. Dead silence enveloped Dr. Ramsey to the deepest part of him that it could dig.

Dr. Sakurai’s confession rang in his ears like a siren, and Ethan wanted nothing more than to make it stop. The loss of what they had stung him to the point that he almost clutched at the imaginary ache of his chest, but despite that, he carried on. Seeing Haruna was never easy, but the dull sting at the sight of her served as a very real reminder that she wasn’t just a dream. That there once existed a period where Ethan loved a woman so much that he was no longer himself. She was real and tangible, and as long as she remained so, Ethan fooled himself into thinking he had a chance and the luxury of time in fixing what seemed to be irreparable.

You can’t fix this anymore. 

That cruel realization slapped him back to reality.

“-y parents are encouraging me to come home and work in their hospital. I’m hoping that it can offer me new and invaluable insight– Dr. Ramsey are you listening?”

Ethan lifted his gaze from the envelope on his desk and met her eyes. He stood from his office chair and planted his hands on the surface of the table, leaning forward.

“I’m listening. And what insight, pray tell, can the Sakurai Medical Centre give you that Edenbrook can’t?”

The tone of his voice adopted a subtle bitterness to which Haruna raised a brow. She uncrossed her arms, imitating Ethan’s pose and setting one hand parallel to his on top of his desk.

“It’s a new experience.” She responded impatiently, “A more challenging setting.”

“In the hospital that your parents own? How could that setting ever challenge you the same way we do here?” He continued to prod.

“In ways you couldn’t possibly hope to understand. Are we done here?”

“Not until you tell me the real reason why you’re resigning, Dr. Sakurai. You’ve made a name for yourself in this city, you’ve accomplished what thousands of doctors wished they could at your age. How could you leave that all behind?”

Here they were again, arguing, God, they were always arguing. Both of them were far too proud and far too stubborn to swallow their pride and back down. The only thing that seemed like a capable reminder to keep things civil was the mahogany desk that kept them mere inches apart. 

She placed a hand on her hip and leaned closer across the table.

“I think you’re taking things too personally, Dr. Ramsey.” Haruna accused.

She was close. Too close, and Ethan swallowed hard and realized he could never win against her.

He looked away, in denial. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Haruna scoffed.

“Really? Then look at me and tell me that I got this far so early into my career because of my own hard work. Tell me that every doctor in Boston would know my name even if you didn’t use your position to land me that spot on the diagnostics team even though I was in fourth place. Face it, Dr. Ramsey, you don’t want me to leave because it means that everything you did was for nothing.” She spat.

Ethan threw his hands up in aggravation. “Sakurai, this isn’t about me, god damn it! This is about you compromising a perfect career that–”

“You don’t know what it’s like!” She yelled, her voice resonating across the room. 

The sudden raise in volume took Ethan by surprise, and he bit back a response as Haruna scowled in an attempt to calm herself.

“You have no idea what it’s like...walking into that room everyday with doctors like you, June and Baz, and knowing that I’m not even supposed to be there. I come in here and see you and am just reminded that every bit of success I have now is because you loved me. Too damn much, if you ask me.” 

“You want to know the worst part of it all?” She laughed despite herself. “Acting like I didn’t enjoy every minute of that fellowship, when the truth is that I relished in it. I spent this entire year resenting you yet basking in all this knowledge and these opportunities that you gave me. Then I’d come in the next day and hate you a little less than I did the day before. One day, I woke up and realized that I probably never even hated you at all. If anything, I was...grateful.” She cringed as she said it, then looked at Ethan with contempt.

For the first time in a long time, it wasn’t directed at him, but at herself.

“Do you get it? I can’t keep working here, because the mere sight of you is proof that I’m just as greedy and self-serving as bastards like Declan Nash, and I’d sooner die than become a doctor so disgusting. If I can’t bring myself to hate you, then...” She trailed off and looked away, taking a deep breath to steady herself.

The revelation was all too much for Ethan to process, and his mind was riddled with questions. For over a year, he’d wake up in a cold sweat from nightmares of how she regarded him with immeasurable animosity. Was she trying to tell him that, that too, was a facade? A tense muscle in Dr. Ramsey’s jaw relaxed as he asked her quietly,

“Are you running from me, Haruna?”

“If I am?”

They looked at each other in a moment that seemed to end all too quickly, and the weight and meaning of what she said dawned on the both of them. Her eyes widened at the proclamation she mistakenly let slip and Dr. Sakurai snatched her letter of resignation from Ethan’s desk, starting towards the door.

“Never mind. Forget it.”

For a moment, he considered listening to her. To let her go like he’d always done. Every time they spoke, she always ended up leaving anyway. Ethan persuaded himself into believing that she was better off without him, but–

You are never going to have another chance after this.

And he realized, that the moment he let her leave that room, everything would really be over. He’d have to live with the regret of never having taken that final opportunity to mend what they’d both thought was unmendable, or at least try to. Would she have also wished that he’d tried to stop her?

“Wait...I said wait!”

Ethan bolted towards the exit, and Haruna froze in her tracks as he slammed the door back shut as she was about to leave. Her back was to him and his arm remained situated on the wooden surface, inches from her head.

“I need to know, Dr. Sakurai,” He breathed,

“Do I still mean something to you?”

Ethan heard her sharp intake of breath, taken aback by his sudden inquiry. Cautiously, Haruna turned to face him and that calm air of hers that always seemed so natural now looked like nothing but a brittle front to hold herself together.

“You do.” She admitted.

“I still love you, Dr. Ramsey. So much. I’ve loved you all this time but I-“

Her breathed hitched, and like a dam, she, and that distant and unbothered facade she was so adamant on maintaining, collapsed. Her cheeks were wet with tears and Ethan’s face fell as Haruna buried her face into her hands. He willed himself not to hold her.

She wouldn’t want you touching her. You don’t have the right. You don’t-

But against his better judgement he took her in his arms, and the solace he felt with the familiarity of this woman’s warmth, who seemed so small trapped against his chest, overwhelmed him with emotion. It had been so long since he last touched her, and both Ethan and Haruna knew that it may very well be the last. So he held her. He held her the way he wished he could have in the year that they didn’t speak. The way he should have held her from the start. And she let him.

He wasn’t sure if he could ever embrace anyone else the same way ever again.

“God, Ethan, where did we go wrong?” She sobbed.

He rested his chin gently on her head and didn’t respond, because he knew that nothing he could say in this predicament that they were in– no, that they’ve been in, would console her. Dr. Sakurai’s shoulders shook uncontrollably as she cried, and Ethan felt her go slack against him, holding her tighter as he lowered the both of them gently to the floor. 

***

She was in his arms for the next hour. Sixty minutes of pure silence, apart from her weeping, and Ethan could do nothing but comfort the woman. He looked up at the ceiling as Haruna sniffled, and couldn’t remember the last time she had let herself be so vulnerable in front of him.

“We can’t be together like this.” She finally spoke, her voice raspy from the crying.

“I-” Dr. Ramsey began, ready to argue. He knew better though, and sighed as he leaned his head back against the wall. “I know.”

“Good. So you know that you have to let me leave, then.”

He stayed silent in an attempt to avoid the question. Of course he knew that, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. If he did, he’d be acknowledging that this was for the best; and more often than not, the right decision wasn’t always the easiest.

“Haruna, I...” He started in protest, but paused as he felt Dr. Sakurai’s hand slide up to rest on his cheek.

He looked down at her, and wondered if he was being too transparent. If she could see how broken he was at realizing the choice they both had to make. She sat up a little straighter, still in Ethan’s arms and rested her forehead against his. Then she asked him quietly. Pleadingly.

“Please, Ethan.”

How could he ever say no to her?

So he responded wordlessly, tilting his head and bringing his lips to hers. Haruna met him halfway, and a year and a half of fierce self-restraint and inexplicable pining for the feel of each other erupted all at once. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him closer by the nape of his neck. Ethan cupped her face in his hands as he kissed her, softly at first, but every second that passed with her mouth on his summoned a tide of longing that he forced himself to keep latent all this time, and it only urged him to kiss her harder.

“I love you.” He groaned against her mouth. “God, I love you.”

She merely smiled at his reckless confession, holding him by the lapels of his coat until, Ethan, breathless, forced himself to pull away. He brought a finger below her chin and tilted her head up to look at him. Her eyes were red and swollen from the crying and her hair was disheveled from the moment of passion they just shared, but Ethan couldn’t recall ever being in love with her more than he was in that moment. 

“Haruna, marry me.” 

Her eyes widened in surprise. She looked like she was going to say something in protest, but Ethan continued in order to validate his outrageous request.

“Not now.” He interjected. “You’re going to go to Japan, and become the best damn doctor they’ve ever seen. Your success will be your own, and no one will ever remember that you were ‘The’ Ethan Ramsey’s protege in the first place because you’ll become someone a hundred times better.” 

Dr. Ramsey pushed himself off the floor, and pulled Haruna up following that. Her eyes had begun to shine with tears again, dangerously close to falling, and Ethan held her face in his hands. He offered her a comforting smile, but he wasn’t certain if it was meant to reassure her, or to hide his own brokenness.

“Then, if these god damn stars ever choose to align for us and we see each other again, however long that might take, we’ll get married. Is that clear, Rookie?”

She laughed through the tears.

“Crystal, Dr. Ramsey.”

–– 

Dr. Haruna Sakurai departed for Japan the following week. No one knew of her resignation except for the diagnostics team, Naveen, and her closest friends from intern year, so Ethan remained unbothered at the gossip that rang through the hospital when one day, she had stopped coming to work and no one knew why. 

After that evening where he vociferated that almost childish marriage pact, Dr. Ramsey and Dr. Sakurai failed to have another chance to speak. He was busy with his own doctorly duties and Sakurai was preoccupied with tying up any loose ends before she left for good. They’d merely pass by each other in the halls and their interactions alternated between a subtle smile, a curt nod, or a discreet brush of the fingers.

When Haruna accepted his poor excuse of a proposal, Ethan thought he’d convinced himself that it was going to be alright. That things would turn out fine because they parted on good terms and with the knowledge that they’d made the right choice.

So he had to pretend, and to an extent he never did before.  

Pretend like he wasn’t heartbroken at the fact that she didn’t say goodbye. 

Pretend like he wasn’t just as surprised as everyone else when he came to work and didn’t hear the sound of her voice by the nurses’ station like he would everyday.

The feigning of indifference had embedded itself so deeply into his routine that Ethan believed it was real. He readopted his strictly objective nature, like how he used to be before he met her, and just like that, his world went numb and grey.  

“I’m worried for you, Ethan.” Naveen sighed as he sat across Ethan’s desk, genuine concern written all over his face.

Dr. Ramsey didn’t bother looking up as he flipped through applications for the year’s new batch of interns. “We have hundreds of patients to treat and a budget cut that still needs to be solved. I’m not who you should be worried about, Naveen.” He replied dryly.

“My shift ended twenty minutes ago, my boy,” Dr. Banerji chuckled. 

“I’m not here as administration, I’m here as your friend. Now tell me, why are you acting this way?”

"Acting what way?” Ethan quipped, setting down a folder to give his mentor his full attention. “I’m not any different from the last twelve years we’ve been working together.”

“Completely and wholly devoted to your job, I know. But in the past twelve years I’ve known you, you’ve never been so...” Naveen rested his elbow on the armrest of his chair as he pondered for the right word. “Anesthetized?”

Banerji eyed Ethan carefully, almost strictly. 

“You’ve always been a workaholic, Ethan, but never to the point that you neglected your own health. You’re a walking contradiction as a doctor.”

Ethan knew he was right. If there was anybody in the world that he could never win against in an argument, it was his mentor and his mentee. The three of them were an elite trifecta with a unique bond equipped with boundless knowledge, and Ethan swallowed hard as he remembered her for the first time in the four months since she left. 

After coming to terms with her resignation, Ethan thought that their parting satisfied him enough to live on happily and assured of their love for each other. But the following week of being deprived of her presence and being reminded he might never see her again made Dr. Ramsey realize that it was stupidly naive of him to think so. This was nothing like the two months he spent in the Amazon, because he didn’t have that certainty of her greeting him when he inevitably came back. He was unsure of whether the stars really would align for them like he suggested, but certain that he’d never love anyone the same way he loved her. 

He drowned himself in work and almost stopped coming home. The bags beneath his eyes had grown so much more prominent, and four months of this self-negligent lifestyle had aged him more than twelve years of working as a doctor of internal medicine ever could. Of course Banerji had been the first one to notice.

“She’s there everywhere I go, Naveen.” Ethan confessed, unable to keep it to himself any longer.  

“Can’t even leave this damn office and grab a coffee anymore. I ordered my usual roast at Derry’s, and you know what happened? The barista snuck me a free espresso Romano! Told me, ‘for the other pretty doctor,’ and I almost lost it.”

Dr. Banerji stared in disappointment at his own pupil’s oblivion. He had given him too many invaluable lessons to count, but the one thing he never succeeded in helping Ethan understand was the importance of subjectivity. That sometimes even the most logical and calculated decisions were no match against the fickle loyalties of the heart. 

“Answer me honestly, Ethan,” Naveen dropped all hints of playfulness. 

“Do you regret letting her leave?”

–– FIVE YEARS LATER

“Do you regret letting her leave?”

When Naveen asked that question, the answer popped into Ethan’s mind shamefully quick. Accompanied with that epiphany, his world, the one that went numb and grey, began to scream altogether. The imaginary pain that once pricked him frivolously like pins and needles hit him all at once and burst into flames. Shallow incisions made to his heart with every thought of her and what could have been, transitioned into relentless, deep cuts that came at a pace faster than he could heal. 

Over the course of five years, Ethan stopped trying to fight it and left his heart to be mangled by the regret.

“Yes, I regret it.” 

Today marked his seventeenth year of working at Edenbrook, and Dr. Ramsey had lost count of how many batches of interns had come and gone. He still thought about her occasionally, when he’d see her friends in the hospital or at midnight in bed and alone with his thoughts; but time had done a fairly adequate job of healing that wound. Five years in retrospect didn’t seem that long, but it was enough for Dr. Haruna Sakurai’s face to blur and drown into the deepest recesses of Ethan’s mind. 

“He’s so freaking fine, but I swear he doesn’t have eyes.”

Making his rounds, Ethan’s brows furrowed irritably at the interns he caught gossiping in the hall. He tucked his clipboard under his arm, more than ready to reprimand them until a calloused hand caught him by the shoulder.

“Shhh. I want to know what they’re saying about you.” Ethan turned his head just enough to see that it was Dr. Lahela.

He never expected to grow close with one of her brother-like figures, but him and the surgeon spent too much time together at the gym, and Ethan grew fond of the younger doctor more than he cared to admit.

“You know Dr. Tremaine? The pretty one with a sixteen thousand follower count on Instagram? She asked him to dinner and he just walked past her like he didn’t hear anything.”

“You did not turn down Dr. Tremaine.” Bryce covered his mouth with a hand, feigning shock and Ethan retorted almost immediately with his own dry humour. 

“I think you forget sometimes that the thought of your best friend still torments me.”

“Right. Sorry.”

They turned back towards the young doctors, so deep into their conversation that the two didn’t even bother hiding anymore. Ethan leaned against the wall patiently as Bryce cleaned his stethoscope with an alcohol wipe he dug out from his pocket.

“Dr. Castillo’s brother did his residency here too, and rumour has it that Dr. Ramsey actually had a fling with an intern from his batch a couple years back.”

“Shut up. She must’ve been so hot if she could make Dr. Ramsey budge.”

Ethan leaned over to Bryce, unsure of why he was even following his request of keeping silent.

“My ears are bleeding, Lahela.” He aggressively muttered under his breath.

“Wait, they’re getting to the good part. You know how I love hearing Haruna’s praises sung– wait, Dr. Ramsey!” The surgeon’s voice faded as Ethan ignored his plea, beginning his march towards the rumourmongering interns. 

“–Super hot, super smart, and super scary. Apparently she punched Declan Nash in the face once.”

“Shut up! Who is she?”

“You know the one from the last issue of Times? Like, total medical prodigy? Asia’s top doctor who-”

“–Turned her parents hospital into Japan’s top research facility, I know the whole deal. What about her?”

“So, like, she used to work at Edenbrook right? Apparently-”

“You two, interns!” Ethan barked down the hall.

“Dr. Ramsey!” And his terrifying approach was drowned out by Harper Emery’s own voice and the loud clicking of her heels as she rounded the corner.

Complete, utter fear settled into the young doctors’ eyes as they realized that they were in the company of Edenbrook’s most skilled and accomplished staff, one of whom they were gossiping about. Their gaze darted between a cool and collected Harper, and Ethan, who was very visibly seething, and found they could look nowhere else but the floor. 

Harper and Ethan rekindled their friendship following Aurora’s transfer to Mass Kenmore. Harper realized that she wanted the fellowship more for Aurora than she did for herself, and thanks to the younger Emery distancing herself from Edenbrook and her aunt’s legacy, the women were closer now than they’ve ever been before.

“We need to talk.” Harper demanded, despite being aware of the tension.

“It might have to wait, Dr. Emery, I’m in the middle of something important.”

Harper stepped towards him and spoke in a voice low enough that only Ethan could hear, her tone demanding his full attention.

“Dr. Ramsey.” Harper repeated, more firmly this time.

Ethan sensed the urgency in her voice, and looked between his friend and the interns. Exhaling once, he shot them one more infuriated look before turning back the way he came and following his colleague. Ethan eyed Dr. Lahela expectantly as him and Harper strolled past.

“You're up, scalpel jockey.” And Bryce smiled excitedly, closing his eyes and getting into character before storming down the hall.

“Coffee must be one hell of a drug if I’m seeing not one, but two interns chatting ‘til kingdom come while they’re still on the damn clock! Both of you, names!”

Harper failed at containing a smile. “You’re a horrible influence, Ethan.”

He shook his head, repressing his own laughter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. That pupil of yours wouldn’t leave me alone until I showed him the ropes of...what did he call it, ah– oral persecution. So what was it that you wanted to tell me?” 

“You and Dr. Hirata will be in attendance for a medical conference in Kyoto as Edenbrook’s representatives.”

He nodded in response, continuing to look straight ahead as they walked. “Hmph, like always.”

“And Dr. Sakurai will be present as the keynote speaker.”