Chapter 9

Mutou opened his eyes to the sound of his alarm clock. Monday, October 3rd.

Rolling over in his bed and breathing a heavy sigh, the sounds of the lively household flooded into his ears. The flurried footsteps trailing around the house were probably Tamotsu's. In that direction, he could hear Aoi's voice saying something. The smell of the breakfast Shizuko made faintly wafted in. 

It wasn't bad waking up. Since last week, his wife Shizuko had been helping out at the office, so it was fun. The paperwork that had piled up over the weekend was able to be sorted for the time being too, with Shizuko and Towada's help. It felt like a weight off of his shoulders. 

On the other hand, he thought that that was all the exhaustion he had to handle. It was well and good that he could receive help but all the more it reconfirmed how weary Toshio whom nobody could help was by now.

(The Junior Doctor has it hard....)

It was in consideration for that that the nurses put forth the idea of working on the weekends. Yesterday the two nurses who commuted from outside the village moved into the village, and for the time being were staying in properties for rent the Ozaki family owned. 

(They're good girls....)

The clinic's staff were a blessing. This had to make it easier on Toshio, didn't it? And even during ordinary times, Toshio cherished his staff, and thinking of that made him feel good. Having Shizuko come as a part timer, Mutou was energized bit it too. Now they could be together on weekends. Towada said he would help too---.

While lingering in his futon, thinking of such things, Shizuko's footsteps came before the bedroom door. He was grateful for the help but it must have been hard on his wife too, he thought. She came to work part time, but other than that was also doing the usual household tasks and cleaning. The reason he thought about that might have been because he's always heard Yasuyo and Kiyomi's idle complaints about such at the hospital.

"Tohru, that's enough already."

He could hear Shizuko's voice traveling up to the second floor. Tohru's not waking up again, he thought. Even after turning twenty he wouldn't make it to work unless his mom woke him up to go? he thought, finding it at once pathetic and worth a smile. 

"Tohru, come on. You're going to be late." 

Mutou at last got himself up. 

"Hey, are you going to skip today, too?"

While listening to Shizuko's voice as she climbed the staircase, Mutou thought, that's right. Tohru skipped the day before yesterday, Saturday. He remembered Shizuko saying to him as if frustrated; "He says he's skipping because he caught a cold." Shizuko's tone suggested she thought he was just blowing it off. 

Sharply, a small something could be felt lodged in his chest but Mutou didn't know why. Just as his ears took in the sounds of the house without particularly meaning to, his head was remembering something he didn't particularly intend to scrutinize. 

"---Tohru!"

He could hear Shizuko's loud voice from directly above him. At the same time Mutou stretched hugely, wondering what it was, sensing his own nonchalance in his movements. He had the feeling he was doing something unsuitable. What he was being 'unsuitable' towards he himself didn't know. 

Tohru, Shizuko's voice loudly cried out again. Her voice sounded shrill. What's this, he thought while looking up at the ceiling at the same time as, once again, Shizuko's grief stricken voice sounded.

"Dad! Dad!" 

Mutou pushed aside his futon and rose. He quickly felt a bad premonition coming on. Ridiculous, he thought. Nothing bad's happened. While thinking that, he flew from the room. He met with Tamotsu looking blankly towards the stairway. What happened, came that carefree feel again from Aoi this time as she poked her face out of the bathroom. 

Mutou ran up to the second story, towards Tohru's bedroom right above his own. Shizuko was crumpled down at the entrance of the room. "---Dad, Tohru is!"

"What is it?"

He had come flying to the room but with Shizuko there clinging to the knees of his pajamas, he couldn't make it in. In Tohru's six tatami mat room the futon was laid out, Tohru lying out in it. The inside of the room was dark due to the curtain being drawn but there was a slim crack in the opening, wavering with the breeze that blew in, at times letting in a clear lay of light. 

At one point that light fell over Tohru's sleeping face. Tohru's eyes were half open, looking in the other direction.

"---Tohru."

Mutou tore off Shizuko who was clinging to him, approaching the futon with long strides. Kneeling down, he peered at his son's face, looking into his half opened hollow like eyes, realizing they were indeed opaque. They looked in different directions, unmoving. Not only that, he wasn't blinking. Once more he cried his name while putting a hand to his son's face, feeling the cool temperature against his fingertips. 

He had no body head. He was already cold. Far from having the power to turn towards him, his eyes looking in different directions couldn't move, Tohru's body having become hard.

"Tohru... oi!"

It can't be, he thought. This can't be happening. This is some kind of mistake. If he didn't hurry and find where the mistake was, he wouldn't be able to take it back.

"Mom, what's wrong?"

He heard Aoi's voice. Footsteps coming up the stairs. She can't come, Mutou thought turning around. Shizuko sitting in the doorway turned at the same time towards Aoi who was coming up the stairs, and following after was Tamotsu's voice saying something from below. 

(Don't come.)

Nobody could see it. If nobody knew, it wouldn't be true; the absurd throught rose to mind, and at the same time the sense of danger that they shouldn't come closer to something unsafe arose.

"What's wrong?" Aoi asked peering into the room dubiously.

"What's wrong with Onii-chan?"

Nothing, Mutou wanted to say. It's nothing, so go back downstairs. But, Mutou heard his own low voice. He didn't realize he was the one speaking.

"....Call the hospital for me."

"Eh?"

"I'm saying to call the hospital and tell the Junior Doctor to come. Hurry."

"What's wrong with Onii-chan?"

Mutou didn't answer. From behind Aoi, Tamotsu peered in dubiously.

"Is he sick?" He could see Aoi's face stiffen with unease. "Should I, call an ambulance? Would that be..."

"It's fine. Go and call the Junior Doctor."

"But."

"...Onii-chan is dead."

Shizuko remained seating but looked as if she were to spring up. Her expression changed, and like that she crept towards him. They knew Aoi would, Tamotsu would come flying into the room.

"Anyway, make the call!"

He couldn't let them get near Tohru. 

"Leave it like it is here and have the doctor come. Tamotsu, bring Mom downstairs."

But, Tamotsu tread in. He kept back Shizuko who screamed, crawleing towards Tohru with all his might. "Go downstairs.  Tamotsu, takeher with you.

"But."

"Just do it!"

He forced Shizuko, nails clawing at the tatami mats, out of the room. Forcing Tamotsu out he slid the door shut. He couldn't let them get close. ---He had to isolate him. 

Thinking that, Mutou collapsed on the spot. 

It was that. If not then was there any other way his son would pass away so suddenly like this?

"Why....."

He didn't notice it, he should have been faster. Yes, Tohru skipped work on Saturday. He was saying it was a cold. How terrifying were those words? But Mutou didn't realize that.  The answer was because Mutou and the others were avoiding realizing it.

They were thinking it was all right. The answer as to why, Mutou knew. Nevermind if he didn't know about the plague, Mutou did know of its existance. So, it couldn't come sneaking up to attack him from the shadows, so he had gotten himself to thinking.

"....How?"

How did he come to such a misunderstanding? Why couldn't he have understood it? Without realizing his son's peril, his son died before his eyes. Whether Mutou realized that or whether he didn't, it could not have changed the result. 

He tried to tell himself that but he absolutely could not make himself believe it. If I'd realized it, couldn't I have saved him, he thought. If not for some mistake of his at some point in time, there should have been a chance to fix things. Even now it wasn't too late. There should have been a proper way. Some way to put everything back in order.

But, it was clear no such way existed. 

".....Sorry." Mutou prostrated himself over the tatami floor. "I'm so sorry.... Tohru."