"Chairwoman Lanara, it's late. You should go home."
Lanara glanced up from her work, finding Levein standing there, looking concerned. "It's fine, Assistant Laprouge. It's time for you to clock out, however. The operations lasted quite long, so I suggest you go home and get some proper rest."
"With all due respect, Chairwoman, it's nearly midnight. I believe you have also deserved a rest," Levein insisted.
Lanara hands stilled from typing on her laptop. "Also with all due respect, Assistant, it is not uncommon for the higher-ups of a corporation to work overtime. I assure you I take care of my health very well. A few more hours won't prove to have an impact on my work. However, I know that my subordinates do not have as much of a tolerance for long hours as I do. So please don't make me worry for you and go home to rest."
Levein hesitated before nodding. "Very well, Miss Chairwoman. Thank you for your work today. I will see you soon."
Lanara nodded and watched Levein leave the office before focusing back on the documents she was reading.
That day, there would be a meeting with the psychology, psychiatry, and mental health departments. The main topics of the meeting would be funding and recruiting, but other ideas may pop up, as well as other problems.
Lanara sighed. There was always one doctor who made it rigidly to every meeting, only to give her a hard time.
Lanara began the work for the next day, glancing at the clock in the bottom right corner of the screen. It was nearly two in the morning, which meant she had four hours to waste before the hospital officially opened and she could begin duties.
Meetings with the the psychology departments always put Lanara on edge, mostly because every time she would come face-to-face with someone from the department, they'd always bring up something about her mysophobia.
But Lanara didn't want it cured. If her fear of uncleanliness could save lives, then it was a blessing. Besides, others had mysophobia like her, and they didn't want to get it cured. There was nothing wrong with having mysophobia. As long is it didn't have an effect on her work, then there was no need to change.
Lanara's fingers flew across the keyboard, not making a single mistake after constant repetition.
There was no need to change. She was fine how she was.
No need... to change.
.
"Good morning, Miss Chairwoman. What do I owe the pleasure of you coming down here in person?"
Lanara nodded. "It's nothing, Doctor Lucas. I just wanted to check up on your patient. I hear he hasn't been cooperating very well and even cause injury to one of the nurses on staff?"
"Indeed, though it was hardly a scratch and bruise. The nurse is fine, though I'm afraid of sending someone else inside in case it happens again."
"You won't need to. I will take full care of this patient during the duration of his stay in our hospital. I do not mind an attitude toward being in a hospital, but harming one of my nurses is unacceptable. I would rather get hurt myself."
"Thank you so much for your dedication, Miss Chairwoman," said Doctor Lucas. "I will leave him to you. Please be careful."
Lanara nodded. "Of course." She nodded as Doctor Lucas held the door open for her. She held up her clipboard as she walked in. "Yoosung Jang, twenty two years old, male. Pop idol. Injured during an accident during a concert involving a sudden attack by a fan. Injured eye, and bruised facial bones. Anything else you would like to say, Mr. Jang?"
"Yeah. Can you get the hell out?"
Lanara glanced up over the tip of the clipboard, at the young man with bright gold hair and warm, beautiful brown eyes. "I apologize, Mr. Jang, but you have been transferred under my care due to troublesome behavior."
"I just don't like hospitals, doctors, or nurses," Yoosung whined.
"I understand that. However, if you do not want your injuries to get worse and/or never heal, I recommend you follow my instructions completely. I am more afraid of a patient getting worse rather than them complaining, so I will not be afraid of tying you down to receive treatment."
"You realize I could sue you for that?"
"I'd rather loose a couple million dollars than have one of my patients regress. Money is nothing more than something I can gain once again through time. The same with reputation. However, a patient's life comes only once, and I want to treat it with the utmost care, so that they never deteriorate like the things I can regain again. Human life isn't something someone can use like money or fame. Human life is fragile, and comes only once." Lanara gave a slight smile. "You should cherish it."
Yoosung stared at her for a long while. "You're not an ordinary doctor, are you? You said 'I'd rather loose a couple million dollars.' I, not the hospital. You're no ordinary doctor, are you?"
Lanara gave another part-smile. "You are very perceptive. Can you guess who I am?"
"The head of the department?"
"Wrong. My role in this hospital is as the Chairwoman of our entire chain."
Yoosung sprang up from laying down to sitting straight up. "If you're that high in the chain, then why are you here taking care of me?"
"Because I believe I will be able to take care of you better than my staff, and I'd rather have you throw your food trays at me rather than my nurse."
Yoosung glanced down. "I'm very sorry for that. I just... couldn't accept what they were saying about me."
Lanara tilted her head. "I'm all ears."
"They were saying this might be the end of my career as a performer because of my eye. I can't dance if I can't see and percieve distance like I could before."
Lanara tilted her head in the opposite direction. "That may not be true. Would you like me to show you how?"
.
Yoosung gaped at the large rectangular room, one of the long sides covered in large mirrors. "This is an amazing studio! I didn't know you had something like this in a hospital!"
"This is a place where employees are free to exercise on their free time. However, most use the room next to this one, because it's the one with the equipment to build muscle. This room has been my favorite place to dance in past times."
"You used to dance?" asked Yoosung, looking around.
"Indeed I did. I once dreamed to become a competitive skater. However, in past years, I have had to put my mind elsewhere."
"What kind of dancing did you do?"
"I wanted to be a pop star who choreographed all of my music videos. However, I couldn't just let this place fall into another's hands, so when my parents died, I compromised with having this room built in the hospital."
Yoosung looked around once more. "I'm very sorry to hear that. Both that you had to give up on your dream and that your parents died."
Lanara just smiled slightly. "Well, that's the cycle of life. You have to get quite used to it in this profession. If anything, doctors have to have quite a bit of mental strength, because if they don't , they will break after the death of one patient. I've gone through the deaths of hundreds in the years I've run this hospital. If I let every one of them weigh me down, I would have cracked long ago."
"You have a point, Miss Chairwoman."
"Please, just call me Lanara or Doctor Lanara. I am only your doctor when we meet like this. If you happen to meet me during other times, then Chairwoman would be appropriate. However, during the time I treat you, a less formal greeting is acceptable."
"Very well, Dr. Lanara." Yoosung smiled. "What are you going to teach me?"
"I'm going to teach you that you don't need your eyes to dance. You don't need flashy moves that need your sight. You can perform moves without using your eyes at all. Figure skaters can perfect their programs to where they don't even need to open their eyes to be able to perform amazing jumps. All you have to do is gain mastery over your body and come up with a performance best suited for the environment you're in.
"What I recommend is counting the steps of the width, and height, both normal walking steps and leaping steps. This will give you the limit to the amount of place you have to pull off your dance. You start dead in the center, at least you will until you gain more mastery over yourself."
"That makes sense, but it has to be a bit more difficult than you say."
Lanara's lips twitched. "Very well. Where are you performing next?"
"The stage in the Rose Bowl in Redlands."
"I'll get someone to take measurements and have them reconstruct a stage the same size in here, or at least form the outline. You have one and a half weeks before your performance, don't you? You will practice every day with me here." Lanara reached out and patted Yoosung's shoulder before peeling off her gloves and throwing them in the trash. She felt as if her skin was crawling, but he needed the encouragement. Her priority was her patient's wellbeing. "My dream may be gone, but you can live it for me."
Yoosung's eyes filled with tears. "Thank you so much, Lanara!" He ran at her, wrapping her in a hug.
Lanara stiffened, suddenly feeling very nauseous. "It's no problem at all. Now, I have a meeting to attend, so please take all the time you need in here. I will ask Dr. Lucas to bring you back to your room once you are done."
Yoosung let go of Lanara and saluted. "Yes, Doctor."
Lanara gave one more slight smile before walking briskly out of the room.
As soon as the doors closed, Lanara went into a full sprint as she ran for her elevator. It took only seconds for the elevator to open to her office, and she ran out, startling Levein as she bolted into her office and into her private full bathroom. She slammed the door shut as she threw up her breakfast into the toilet.
A nice boy, but still a human. His touch effected her as anyone's would have.
"Miss Lanara, are you okay?"
"I'm fine! Push the meeting back ten minutes. I need to take a shower. And arrange for new clothes. The old ones need to be burned."
"Yes, Miss Chairwoman. I will have it done."
Lanara stripped off her clothes, tossing them in a corner, before stepping into the shower and turning it on scalding. She scrubbed her skin until it was pink and stinging.
When she was satisfied that she was clean, she turned the water off and stepped out of the shower, finding a new set of clothes waiting on the edge of the sink for her, packaged in plastic. She opened the packages and removed the pressed clothes, slipping them on and drying her hair with a packaged towel.
Lanara sighed as she opened the door and walked into her office, opening the box containing her gloves and slipping the pristine white silk on her hand. "Chief Assistant Levein, are you prepared for the meeting?"
"Yes, Chairwoman vi Fiorielle."
"Good. Let's go down. Thirty-sixth floor."
"Yes, Miss Chairwoman." Levein gave a glance at Lanara, who'd been acting a bit colder than she normally did.
That normally meant that something had happened. Levein hesitated to test just how bad it was, but convinced himself that it was for the best.
"Miss Lanara, may I have the documents?"
Lanara's eyes narrowed. "I'll carry them, Chief Assistant Levein. "Please don't trouble yourself with them and focus on the meeting."
"Yes, Chairwoman." Levein winced. She felt like an ice block. Cold, calclulating... But there were two types of her cold behavior. He'd felt this one before, just a wall to keep others from getting too close. But he'd only ever heard of the other from the last Chief Assistant.
"Welcome, Miss Chairwoman Lanara vi Fiorielle. How kind of you to grace us with your inexperienced presence."
Lanara's fingers twitched, itching to strangle the man in front of her, but she just strode right past him, to the head of the table, where she set down the documents. "Thank you for your warming welcome, Doctor Taiga, but I'm afraid assholes belong on a toilet seat," she replied, sitting down and folding her hands over the desk. "Now, what are the problems?"
.
Lanara sighed as the meeting ended three hours later. Most of the doctors had already left, and Levein had been pulled away because of other buisness, leaving her and only about three others.
"Have a nice day, Miss Chairwoman," said Doctor Zoe.
"You as well, Doctor," Lanara replied, standing and starting to organize her work.
"Good day, Doctor Lanara," said Heather, who'd been there to talk about the accident from yesterday and the amount of patients that may need therapy.
"I will see you soon, Doctor Heather." Lanara finished organizing before walking to the door, but finding it closed. Her body locked up as she looked at the handle to open it. There were at least two dozen doctors who'd been present. That meant that at least two dozen different hands had touched the handle twice, once to enter, and once to exit. They'd been at work for two hours before the meeting started, and they could have done anything from worked out to eaten to gone to the bathroom in that amount of time. Just how many germs would be on that handle--
"Chairwoman vi Fiorielle? Are you okay?"
Lanara started, taking a step back as the voice snapped her out of her thoughts. "I- I'm terribly sorry..." She looked up to find a black-haired young man with soft light blue eyes. "Doctor... Yuujiahn zi Lockfehl, correct?"
"I'm shocked you remember my name, Miss Chairwoman. However, I must ask you to just call me Yuuji or Doctor Yuuji. I've never been a fan of my last name. Anyway, would you like me to open the door for you?"" he asked.
"Y-yes, if you would..."
Yuuji reached past her to open the door, but just before his fingers wrapped around the handle, he asked, "If I may, Miss Chairwoman, may I ask a question?"
"Yes."
"Are you, by chance, OCD? Or does it go even further..." His blue eyes flashed in a way that made Lanara shiver. "Mysophobia?"
Lanara got the chills. "Anyway, Doctor Yuuji, I believe I will stay behind a bit longer, so if you need to go--" Lanara started to backtrack quickly, but Yuuji blocked her way by putting his arm in front of her.
Lanara shuddered as she stopped just before hitting that arm, hand going to her mouth.
"It's okay, Miss Chairwoman. I'm not here to hurt you. I just wanted to know."
Lanara stepped back once. "And what are you going to do now that you know? Help other companies get rid of me?"
Yuuji frowned. "Of course not. I'm slightly offended you'd think of me like that." He look a breath. "Miss Lanara vi Fiorielle, I'd like to help you. I will help you cure your mysophobia."
"For what?"
Yuuji smiled. "Nothing. I just want your happiness, Miss Chairwoman." He opened the door and walked out, holding it open. "If you would like to hear more, meet me at the cafe across the street tomorrow morning during the first break. They have automatic doors, so don't worry about having to bring someone to open it for you."
Lanara walked briskly from the room, sending one last glance at the smiling young man. She sighed. What was she going to do? Should she really try to cure her mysophobia...?
Normal.
She wasn't strange. She didn't need to be cured, because there was nothing wrong with her.
Nothing was wrong.
Everything was fine.
Lanara laughed softly. That was the lie she'd been telling since her parents had died.