Chapter 3.3

Toshio was awakened by the phone. Eyes open, he didn't have the resolve to get up out of the bed. An early morning phone call was a death notice. That was what Toshio learned this summer.

"---Yes?"

When he answered, what was in the back of Toshio's mind was not 'Something happened, didn't it?' but instead 'Someone died, didn't they?'

On the 29th he heard that Ohta Kenji died from Seishin. The next day, on the 30th, Takami's death notice came in. After that, the day before yesterday, the 5th, he had just been contacted by Ishida saying that on the 4th Saeki Akira in Sotoba died.

"This is Yasumori, the contractors."

The one on the other end of the phone was the contractor's Setsuko. Then, somebody caught it from Nao, Toshio thought. What's happened, he asked, but this was nothing more than an empty sound put out into the conversation to convey that he understood.

"Susumu---something is wrong with my grandson. He's limp, even if we shake him his eyes won't open. He's blue..."

"I'll be right there. In the mean time, call an ambulance."

Hanging up the phone on Setsuko's tear-mingled voice saying 'yes' Toshio got dressed. When he rushed out of the house and sped by car to the contractor's firm, Susumu was still breathing.

His breath was shallow and fast. Rather than being short of breath, it was clear he was hyperventilating. In the middle of treating him his breath stopped. Acidosis from hyperventilation, probably. When Toshio confirmed that his heart had stopped, the ambulance finally arrived.

"His heart's stopped. Just now, hurry!" he instructed to the ambulance crew. She must have heard that, as Setsuko's voice cried out in a loud wail.

"Susumu---is he dead?" Yasumori Tokujiro clung to him with a shaking hand.

"It isn't impossible for him to be resuscitated yet." While answering, Toshio's brows furrowed. Setsuko and Tokujirou were in a frenzy over their grandson. His all important father himself, Mikiyasu, watched over that with oddly glazed eyes. He didn't seem to be dismayed in the slightest.

"Mikiyasu, you all right?"

Leaving Susumu to the ambulance crew, Toshio went to Mikiyasu's side. Losing his wife and his child in the course of one summer---he was a man who was losing everything. But, Mikiyasu's expression showed no change. A vacant, absent-minded stare leveled over his son.

"Mikiyasu, ---oi."

As if trying to convey something, Mikiyasu nodded.

"You, how're you feeling?"

Mikiyasu nodded mechanically, then, as if suddenly remembering to do so, murmured.

"Is Susumu, dead, Toshio-san?"

While hesitant to answer with yes or to answer with no, Toshio peered at Mikiyasu's face. The strange look in his eyes must have been because of the blued nature of the whites of his eyes. Looking at him up close, his breath was shallow.  Taking his pulse, it was clear he had tachycardia.

"Mikiyasu."

"Toshio-san, last night, like..." Mikiyasu's mouth faintly frowned, his eyes still vacant. "Susumu talked in his sleep. Mama, he said." He murmured in a disinterested voice. "Then he woke up. Those.... were the last words I'll hear from Susumu, I guess..."

Toshio gripped Mikiyasu's hand. His fingertips were cold. His arm in his lap had nodes here and there on them that looked the same as Nao's.

"Wait a sec," Toshio turned back, calling to stop the ambulance personnel carrying Susumu out. "Him too. Take this guy to the National Hospital."

Tokujirou and Setsuko who were following Susume out stopped and turned.

"Junior Doctor---"

"I don't know the details but tell them out there that he has aplastic anemia or acute leukemia."

The EMS crew looked at each other in surprise and brought in the stretcher. In the mean time, Toshio took out a syringe.

"Mikiyasu, put out your arm."

As if he weren't the first to be doing this, the left arm with the tourniquet already had nodes over the veins. Avoiding those he stabbed the needle in and withdrew a peripheral blood sample. 

"Junior Doctor, is Mikiyasu---"

Toshio looked into Tokujirou's panicked face.

"It's not confirmed or anything. It's just in a worst case scenario, that might be the case."

"But..."

"It's just a precaution. ---Now, go with Susumu-kun and Mikiyasu."

Toshio took the peripheral blood sample back and sent out half of it to the Yajima Health Institute for testing, affixing a label to it and storing it safely. The other half he took towards the examination room. His hematocrit values were down, hemoglobin concentration decreased, clearly anemia, but by looking at the smear sample, the erythrocyte count was high.

"...It's that."

"---Susumu-kun? The contractor's boy?"

While changing into her nurse's uniform, Yasuyo's eyes were wide. Ritsuko nodded.

"It seems like it was this morning. Mikiyasu-san appeared to be sick too, so he was transported to the National Hospital in Mizobe."

I see, said Yasuyo, in a low voice mixed with a sigh she couldn't help. Nagata Kiyomi let out a deep sigh as she affixed her nurse's cap in her hair.

"...The poor things. But, this is shaping up to be the real thing."

"It sure is," Yasuyu nodded. "The wife, the son, and the husband in a row. It's an epidemic."

Kiyomi nodded. "It's been on my mind for a while, so I'd been turning books inside out, but I can't figure out what it is. No matter how you look at it, it seems suspicious, but each one I've looked at seems different from this one."

"We aren't doctors, after all. ... ...But, it doesn't show many symptoms, does it?"

Yasuyo who answered looked as if she too had researched and researched with no results.

"I wonder if we'll be all right?"

To Ritsuko's question, Yasuyo gave an utterly uninvolved seeming smile.

"It's no use the bunch of us getting worried. The Junior Doctor is well aware. We'll be fine if we just work as the Junior Doctor says. That's our job, after all! .... But, well, I hope nothing terrible happens, still."

"I hope we can keep it under control," Kiyomi said once again with a sigh. "If we don't handle this well, it's going to get even busier, ... from here on."

"I'm not grateful for it, but that's the job so it can't be helped. If there are patients, we follow the doctor's orders, that's our duty. If the doctor feels like he's managing somehow, then we can't very well say that it's too mysterious and we don't know so we're running away, now can we?"

That's true, Kiyomi smiled. Ritsuko, too, somehow managed a smile. They were the nurses with seniority, so that they were so firm was reassuring. They were firm in what they must do, enough so to brag about it.

"I'm sorry. I just became a little panicked."

Yasuyo gave a carefree smile. "That's bound to happen. Well, just be sure to eat well and keep up your strength. If you don't take care of yourself, you'll lose this test of strength!"

"I wonder if we might lose weight?"

At Kiyomi's interruption, Yasuyo gave a hearty laugh.

"Well, that would be a plus. ---But, while we might become shapely, Ricchan would probably just become a stick."

Ritsuko smiled. "Surely if that happens, the doctor will become nothing but a shadow."

"Without a doubt!"

Laughing, Ritsuko came out of the locker room towards the break room. That was when the part timer Miki called out to stop her. Behind Miki, Fujou lingered looking unease.

"Uhm, say, Ricchan, we had heard that the contractor's boy had died, but."

"It seems like he did, didn't he."

"I wonder if things are all right. ... I mean, doesn't it seem like we keep hearing about all these deaths?"

Fujou seconded her, flustered. "I wonder if some terrible disease isn't spreading. We have a small grand child at my house, too..."

Ritsuko smiled. "I think that the doctor is aware of what is happening. If you can't help worrying, then perhaps we should try consulting the doctor about it?"

"Ah, ... that's right."

Miki murmured, turning back towards Fujou. Fujou nodded but did not seem satisfied.

"If you would like, I could convey to him that Miki-san and the others are worried for you."

"If you would be such a dear."

Miki and Fujou bowed their heads to her.

"The doctor has not said anything yet, but just in case, please be careful when taking out the medical waste."

The two nodded as if clinging to her words.