Madara didn't take my hand as we walked back home. I tried to take his, but he smiled apologetically without looking at me, and put his hand in his pocket.

And I realised that we were in danger. That I had hurt us a lot.

"Madara..."

He held up a hand.

"Don't."

When we came home, he stood in the hallway, and I saw his eyes were dead.

Why hadn't I told him earlier? Why had I let it come to this? How upset must he be, having seen my ex carrying my dream in a stroller, realising I was still mourning?

M, I'm sorry...

"I'll..." He swallowed. "I'll just take a walk."

We had just taken a walk, but I nodded.

"Let me just put on better shoes", I said.

But Madara shook his head.

"I need to be alone."

He left without saying goodbye.

I could deteriorate then. Just lay down on the wooden floor of our shared apartment and let the world eat me up. But I didn't. Instead, I kept my mind busy. I cleaned the apartment. I took a shower and cut the tips of my hair. I did laundry. I cooked dinner that would also suffice for several lunch boxes during the week.

But still, no Madara.

He didn't even come home at our bedtime. That was the first time I called him. I started to get worried something had happened, so when he didn't pick up, I sent him a message. He read it, but didn't answer. At first, I was relieved because that meant he was, at least, not dead in an alleyway somewhere. But then, I realised the fact that he hadn't even bothered to refrain himself from reading meant he didn't care. It broke my heart into a thousand pieces. But then, I thought about my own dark thoughts. The feeling of ownership of a daughter that wasn't mine in the slightest. Madara was a sensitive soul; he had noticed. Hadn't I broken his heart first?

At midnight, I gave up waiting for him, and for the first time since my life had begun for real, I was forced to fall asleep without him in our bed. 

Madara hadn't come back that night. My theory, that he was staying with a friend, was impossible for me to test since I didn't have any way of contacting said friends. I phones his university, asked if he has attended his lectures. They said they first of all couldn't say due to confidentiality, but also that they didn't know seeing lectures weren't mandatory, so they didn't check whether  students showed up or not.

Days passed. Weeks. I tried calling him. I sent him messages, some of which he read, some of which he didn't, before I gave up, not out of respect for him but because it pained me so much. I cried myself to sleep every night. I woke up crying. I lost a huge amount of weight as I could neither eat nor lift weights. I couldn't focus at work, terrified and excited as I was of the thought of him showing up for a placement, although he never did. Even his two classmates showed up, and when I asked about their "third party", not wanting to reveal I knew Madara personally, they had said he had asked to be moved to a hospital closer to his home, and had that request granted.

Which home? Madara lives with me.

The first few weeks, I had rested well in the fact that Madara would come back for his clothes. But then, I remembered man was fucking loaded, and could buy himself new things and probably add daily breakfasts at Tiffany's on top of that.

But it still took me months to finally, finally give up, and let Madara go to live my own life without him. 

3 years later

"But... Why?"

"I quit. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to be a trauma surgeon in a public hospital."

"What do you plan on doing instead, Hashirama?"

I smiled a crooked smile.

"As a trauma surgeon, I have a base in emergency medicine. Me and Catherine, who finished her specialist training this month, are going to open up our own private practice."

My boss, soon to be former boss, looked at me as if he couldn't believe his eyes.

"A private emergency ward? Are you out of your mind? So people will come to you in dire need of help and then get a hefty bill?"

I sighed, but refused to let go of my crooked smile. Years of friendship with Catherine had built a steel armour for me that protected me from my colleagues' toxic words.

"I have educated myself thoroughly in how this works. You, apparently, have not, and I do not blame you. Yes, it's a private practice. But seeing the need of emergency healthcare is so dire, the government has a budget to buy places from private practices for public cases. They have bought all of ours. No patient of ours will pay with bills. It will be paid for by tax money. The money already exists. It's up to the government how they want to spend it. They have chosen us. We have bought some grounds and the building is already under way. I quit. I have a one month notice period but I also have one month's vacation left. I don't come back after I leave today."

And so, I left the world that has made me suffer for so long.

I couldn't say why, but that evening, I felt particularly lonely. I sat down on my couch, the couch where me and Madara had shared so many evenings, and hid my face in my hands. Maybe, it was the force of change catching up to me? Leaving such a huge part of my life such as my job in order to do something completely different. Of course that would make me long back to the normality that had been taken away from me unwillingly, the normality that was my life with Madara.

I had heard nothing from him. Nothing, in three years. I had stopped trying to contact him long ago, but I knew there was a part of me that was still waiting... Still hoping.

I still checked his social media from time to time, but he was never active, not even signing in. I checked the gossip magazines to see if there was anything. I googled his name in the news pages, but nothing. It was like he had disappeared from the surface of the world.

A tear ran down my face, landed on my hands which I held in my lap. Either, it meant he was very happy, or that he was very miserable. I honestly didn't know which was worse. Or, of course I knew. I knew which alternative was worse for him, and I knew which alternative was worse for me. It made me feel so selfish, I considered if I actually deserved living on the same planet as him. 

Schrödinger came and sat in my lap and purred, a very rare occurrence; she almost only came to me when I was laying down. 

Then, I did something I hadn't done for years. I took my phone out, and went to the messaging app me and Madara had used when he was M, and I was H. I scrolled through our conversations, crying all the while. Our soft kindness. Our kinky weirdness. Our cheat days, when we talked about our tattoos. 

And before I could stop myself, I wrote to him.

Me: Dear M. I hope this finds you well. I hope that you are happy and healthy, that you have graduated from nursing school or found something else you'd rather do with your life. I am doing fine. Me and Catherine, my friend from work, are opening up our own private practice where we will take care of emergency and trauma patients. We are currently building up the practice on a patch of land we've invested in. We have even hired a landscape architect to do a little garden outside. I think it will be beautiful. Since we cannot run a practice with only two doctors, in case one or both are sick, we are in the process of hiring. Tomorrow, I have an interview with a doctor coming in from Asia. I have high hopes. 

I don't mean to blabber on about myself, but it's hard to do anything else. I have a lot of hard questions to you, but I'm too afraid to ask them. I have some milder questions as well. Like, how are you wearing your hair now? Where do you live? Is your favourite colour still orange? Salmon still your favourite food? I haven't had salmon since you left. Nobody does an oven-baked salmon like you do, so I haven't even tried. 

I want you to know I am here, and ready to talk about what happened and how it made you feel. I do not expect you to come back to me. But you are still part of everything I do, and I am sorry I hurt you. Know that I understand. Please. 

Xx, H

I could hardly sleep that night because I was waiting for an answer. When I woke up in the morning after about two hours of slumber, the first thing I did was checking my messages. Still no answer. He hadn't even read it. When I interviewed the potential new doctor, I could hardly focus. Thank God, Catherine was there and made the decision to hire him; the young Asian doctor was warm, funny, frightfully intelligent and wanted to move to the US permanently. 

Me and Catherine had lunch together, and of course, she noticed something was wrong. So over chèvre pasta salads and wine, I told her that I had tried to contact Madara again.

"You know I'm all for building bridges, but... Is it really good for you? Is it worth the potential risk of pain?"

I chewed on an olive. I didn't particularly like olives, but Madara did.

"I don't know", I said, trying to be honest with my friend. "I mean, he was my best friend. I am hoping he wants me to do well just as I want him to do well. Maybe, he understands the pain will be too great if he doesn't answer me."

"Yes, but maybe, answering will hurt him too much to manage", Catherine said, her voice full of sympathy. 

We finished our pasta talking interior design for our clinic. 

Coming home alone that evening was particularly tough. One part of me wanted to send Madara another message where I begged him to show me mercy. I didn't know if it was respect for Madara or a fear to make a fool of myself that prevented me, but I hoped it was the former rather than the latter. 

But when I opened the messenger app once more, I saw that Madara had opened the message and read it.

But he had not answered.

With at trembling hand, I phoned Catherine. 

And I didn't realise I was ugly-crying, tears and snot wetting my face, until she picked up and I tried to speak.