Chapter 4: Last Stop of the 5 AM Train
Part 1
The first midterms of my high school life were coming up.
“Let’s study together again.”
It was Natsuki’s suggestion, to which Shuu immediately agreed.
We studied at the public library near my school. It was a big building in the park, right next to the museum that bore the same name.
Every day during the halt on club activities (where even the elite sports teams got to take a break), the minute school let out for the day, the three of us would dash to the library and get the key to one of the private study rooms. There were a limited amount of private rooms, and they were on a first-come-first serve basis, so getting the key was the responsibility of those involved in sports clubsーnamely, Natsuki and Shuu.
And that’s how we ended up acquiring a private room with a four-person table. Standing from the doorway, you’d see me and Shuu on the right, with Natsuki on the left. We just kind of naturally settled into that arrangement.
As for the studying itself, it went well enough, I suppose. Now that I think about it, we had, also at Natsuki’s suggestion, studied together for high school entrance exams, so it was perfectly natural to a.s.sume that we would continue to study together in high school.
The halt on club activities lasted a week, and during that week, we studied at the library together every day―except for the one day where Natsuki left early. It was to go to the hospital or something, apparently.
“Now that’s a bolt out of the blue. You’re in top shape, after all.”
“Girls have certain problems, you know.”
“Are you pregnant, or what?”
“Yuuto, are you saying you did something?”
“O-of course not! I’m talking about Shuu.”
“He would never!”
“Yeah, I know. Well, what if some other guy…”
I shut my mouth right there. It wasn’t impossible. This was a co-ed school; there were a lot of guys besides Shuu and me. Seeing as there was a girls’ volleyball team, there was bound to be a boys’ volleyball team as well, and she likely had some sort of connections with the uppercla.s.smen there. You know what they say, a woman’s heart is fickle.
Shuu must’ve been thinking the same thing as the three of us sat in silence.
“…..I’d be kinda p.i.s.sed.”
“Yeah.”
I broke the silence with a sigh, and Shuu murmured his agreement.
To be honest, if Natsuki were to date someone other than Shuu or me, we’d feel betrayed. I knew it was a selfish thing to say. It was only a dumb statement of self-derision.
My mind wandered for a moment, causing the mechanical pencil that I’d been twirling between my fingers to fall to the floor. I’d been dropping things a lot lately, and there was still that constant ringing in my ears.
In the end, I put no effort in studying that day.
It was after midterms, and we were fooling around on the way home, which we hadn’t done in a while.
“Yuuto, are you free today?”
“Sorry, I was thinking about going to the hospital later.”
“What’s wrong, Yuuto, you pregnant?”
“Idiot―”
Natsuki didn’t know a single word of the conversations Shuu and I had had in her absence. How much did she know about how Shuu and I felt about her, I wondered.
The two of us parted on our respective paths, and I headed towards the ENT clinic, insurance card in my pocket.
“When did your tinnitus begin?”
“From when I started high school, I think.”
“You’re a first-year, right?”
“Yes.”
“That makes it around March. You’ve had it for a long time, then. Have your ears been ringing constantly?”
“Yes. Sometimes, I’m acutely aware of the ringing, but at those times, I feel like it’s just always been there, maybe.”
“Hmm…”
The ENT doctor thought for a bit, then slowly opened his mouth to speak.
“There are many possible causes for your tinnitus. For example, it may stem from stiff shoulders, or may be a symptom of onset of mental illness. If you really want to know, you should get a more in-depth examination from the university hospital.”
A week later, I skipped morning cla.s.ses and went to the hospital. My parents were really worried to learn that I was getting a scan done at the university hospital, but I told them, “I’m fine, so don’t worry,” and left the house alone. I mean, technically speaking, I was healthy.
I went up to the receptionist and filled out my forms, and was then directed to the radiology department.
In the examination room, I lay on a bed that was little more than a paper sheet draped over a metal slab. A tunnel-like object descended towards me from above my head and made a tremendously loud clanging sound. This was the device that they would use to get an image of the cross-section of my brain, huh.
My brother had often listened to this kind of music. Aphex, if I’m not mistaken…
“Don’t move.”
At the sound of the voice coming from the speaker, I shifted my gaze upwards.
After about 20 minutes, the noise stopped.
Afterwards, as I made my way towards the stairs that led to the examination room, I thought I saw someone that I recognized.
I only saw her from behind, but… that was definitely Natsuki, wasn’t it? Why was she at the university hospital?
Was it for the maternity ward, as Shuu and I had joked? My flippant mood soon changed to suspicion. I turned to look at the building diagram on the wall. Medicinal Health, Pediatrics, Obstetrics, Gynecology. The medicinal department was where one would go for a cold or something. She wouldn’t come all the way here just for a cold. So then what…?
I might be overthinking it. No, but this was Natsuki we’re talking about. How should I approach her?
When I opened the door to the examination room, the world faded to monochrome.
I’m in this world again.
There was a female doctor in a white coat sitting inside.
“Ehehe, how’s it look? Does it suit me? I’m Dr. Maki-chan now, okay?”
“No no no no, it looks weird. It’s too weird for Maki-chan to be a doctor.”
“It’s not like I wore a white coat here for cosplay. I’m like your own personal doctor, Yuuto. I’m here to help you.”
“Even so, why bother dressing the part? There’s no real need to wear a lab coat, and what’s with those gla.s.ses you have on?”
Maki-chan looked at me with contempt as she pushed her gla.s.ses up by the bridge.
“You’ve got to do things by the books. We’re in the examination room, so might as well, you know? Alright, sit down, sit down. I’ll be explaining your examination results now―”
In an attempt to become even more in character, she changed her way of speaking a little.
“There’s just no pleasing you, is there…”
I reluctantly did as I was told, and sat on the small round stool in front of Maki-chan.
She was at the computer, pulling up brain scan images. I could see my name, “Hashidate Yuuto”, above them. MRI images were always monochrome in the first place, so they didn’t look weird in the monochrome world.
“In principle, the human brain never forgets anything. You might think you’ve forgotten something, but that is just a case of being unable to locate existing memories. It follows, then, that the human capacity to form memories is limited. However, over the course of your many resets, you’ve lived much longer than those around you, and so have picked up that many more memories. As a result of this rapid overload of your memory, even if you filter out the unneeded memories, there is still not enough s.p.a.ce, here―”
Maki-chan made a circling motion over the center of my brain displayed on the screen. Somehow, I felt a faint buzzing sensation from the back of my neck, as if someone were actually poking around inside my brain.
“This section, your hippocampus, is beginning to atrophy.”
“Atrophy? You mean it’s withering away?”
“Correct. The hippocampus governs memory, so its atrophication is a sign that your memory capacity is also degrading. You forget not only bits of your past, but also parts of your most recent resets. Am I correct?”
“I feel like I’ve forgotten them, but at the same time, those memories seem almost within reach.”
“I see…”
Maki-chan propped her chin up onto her hand. It looked like she was thinking very hard about it, but I couldn’t really tell whether she was actually thinking, or just playing the part as a doctor.
Dr. Maki-chan finally spoke.
“It might not be a good idea to use the b.u.t.ton from now on, then.”
“…You mean, I can’t use it any more?”
That would be a problem for me. After all, the b.u.t.ton was an indispensable part of my plan to lead a perfect and tidy life.
“It’s not that you can’t use it anymore, per se…”
“It’ll be a problem, a real problem! This is terrible! If I can’t use the b.u.t.ton…”
“But the more you use it, the more your hippocampus will wither away. Do you want to keep resetting despite the risks? You want to keep resetting that badly?”
If I were to keep resetting, my brain would slowly wither away.
What would happen after it decayed completely?
I’d die, probably.
As I imagined the consequences, my mind was engulfed in a wave of fear.
The gradual decay of my brain, and my subsequent death, was a harsh consequence to face. However, it might be worth the ability to reset. After all, that b.u.t.ton was already such an integral component of my life strategy.
If I told Maki-chan now that I would stop using it, everything that had happened would be for naught.
If that happened, I would be dragged back to that cla.s.sroom, reeking of feces. I would be forced to live my old life again, with perfection forever out of reach.
No way could I let that happen.
“A strong wish.”
When I raised my head at the sound of Maki-chan’s voice, the world was once more flooded with color. Before me was a male doctor, sitting at the desk.
He studied my face, and spoke.
“Take a look at the monitor, and I’ll explain for you.”
“Eh? ….Uh, okay.”
There were MRI scans once again displayed on the monitor, but they were different from the ones Maki-chan had showed me.
“This is your cerebrum, and this is your cerebellum. Here’s the brain stem, and inside of it is something called the hippocampus. Suppose a blood vessel here were to be cut. You’d have a hemorrhage, and this part here would be all dark. But that’s not what we have here. Yours is very healthy.”
“Uhm…so my hippocampus isn’t decaying…?”
“Your hippocampus? What you’re talking about is Parkinson’s Disease. It doesn’t look like that’s the case, but…do you suspect something? Do you get hand tremors, or anything like that?”
“No, I…ah.”
I recalled how I’d tried to twirl my pencil but dropped it. I wonder if that was because of tremors.
“What is it?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
I’ll just a.s.sume that it was all my imagination.
After all, there was nothing I could do about not being able to reset anymore.
The end-of-term exams came and went without a hitch, and summer vacation arrived.
The ringing in my ears showed no sign of stopping. I still couldn’t tell if Maki-chan’s prediction of the atrophication of my hippocampus was coming true or not.
But there was no denying it. My ears kept ringing. It might have been my imagination, but I felt that I was also experiencing more bouts of shaking in my hands.
As soon as summer vacation started, I visited the hospital a second time.
“You still have the ringing in your ears? But your scans showed no anomalies in your brain… It may be a psychogenic reaction, so let me direct you to the psychosomatics department.”
“Psychosomatics?”
“Sometimes, physical symptoms will arise from psychological problems. In those cases, we usually refer them at first to the medicinal department. We don’t have any specialists in psychosomatics here, but there’s a doctor in the medicinal department who also happens to be familiar with psychosomatics.”
“So if I go there, the ringing in my ears will be cured?”
“It wouldn’t be wise to go in there with too many expectations. There are plenty of patients there with unexplained symptoms.”
He made a call to the medicinal department, and secured an appointment for me. It seemed that I would be able to have an examination immediately.
I cheerfully started off in the direction of the medicinal department.
“Hashidate-kun. Room 5, please.”
As I stood up to enter, I locked eyes with the person who was exiting Room 5.
“…Natsuki?”
“Y-Yuuto?”
Natsuki turned around, fleeing back into the room she’d come from. I chased after her. It was my examination room, after all, and I still remembered the time when I thought I had seen her figure in the hallway of the hospital that day.
Once she stepped into the examination room, Natsuki made a beeline for the elderly doctor inside, hoping to hide behind him. As I reached out my hand towards Natsuki, the doctor interrupted me.
“Calm down. What’s the fuss? Sugita-san, who is this?”
“…My friend.”
“Sugita-san’s friend, why are you here?”
“I’m Hashidate Yuuto…my name was called.”
“Hm? …Ah, yes, you are the next patient.”
He glanced over my medical charts and gave a look of understanding. I pressed the question immediately,
“Doctor, is Natsuki ill?”
“Since she’s at a hospital, she must be experiencing some kind of symptoms, no? But this is a matter of patient privacy, so I’m afraid I can’t tell you the specifics.”
“Doctor, it’s fine. He’s my…friend, you see.”
Once he heard her words, his face took on a troubled look.
“Is something wrong?”
The curtains at the back of the examination room were pushed aside, and a man wearing a lab coat entered the room. He was a doctor too, probably.
“Ah, Dr. Kakitagawa. This one here is the patient’s friend, it seems.”
The doctor, who was apparently named Kakitagawa, looked to be about 30 years old. He had a fearless expression on his face, and really looked like the cool, sporty type.
“A friend? You mean this one?”
“Wait, you’ve got it wrong. I’m the next patient.”
“Um…Doctor? Could you tell Yuuto about it?”
The doctors’ eyes met. The older one nodded, and stood from his seat.
“Dr. Kakitagawa, please give the explanation. It falls under your department, after all.
Now it was Dr. Kakitagawa’s turn to sit in the chair.
"Understood. Sugita-san, and um…Hashidate-kun. First of all, please sit. Hm? …Hashidate….Yuuto-kun?”
“Yes?”
“Do you by any chance have an older brother?”
“I do. He’s in college.”
“Kouga University?”
“Yes. He started a year ago.”
“I see. I’m an a.s.sociate professor at Kouga University. My name’s Kakitagawa Yuzuru. So…would your older brother be, by any chance, Hashidate Taishi?”
“You know my brother?”
“I know him quite well.”
A professor who knew of my tidy and perfect brother!
I stood a little straighter. My brother, who had just started university, had made an impression on an a.s.sociate professor! That was nothing to sneeze at. Just as expected of my brother.
“Anyway, we can save the conversation about your brother for some other time. So, Yuuto-kun, you want to know about Sugita-san’s illness, am I correct?”
I nodded.
“How about you, Sugita-san? Are you really okay with me telling him?”
Natsuki, too, nodded.
Dr. Kakitagawa let out a sigh of resignation, and spoke to us as respectfully as he could.
“Sugita-san is also aware of her own situation, so I don’t see a point in hiding it from you, but I’m not altogether pleased to be doing this, either. She has a small tumor that may affect her respiratory and digestive systems.”
“Eh!?”
My mind went blank.
“We cannot perform a full biopsy at this time, so it’s unclear whether it’s a malignant tumor or not―that is, whether it will turn into cancer or not. From what the endoscopy showed, it appears not to be of the cancerous type. However, it is also different from any other case we’ve seen.”
“…What do you mean?”
“It’s possible that this is a new illness, one that we cannot diagnose at this time.”
What the h.e.l.l is that?
Unknown? A new illness? Unable to diagnose?
They had no idea how to cure it? That’s what he was trying to say, wasn’t it.
The more I tried to desperately comprehend what the doctor had just said, the less sense it made to me.
“Doctor, Natsuki is…”
“If you’re asking about what conclusions we drew…”
He stopped his words short.
Natsuki nodded again. The doctor opened his mouth to speak.
“We have concluded that by our best estimates, she has about three months left to live.”
Huh…?
Natsuki was going to die?
Did he really just say that?
“But…Natsuki’s perfectly healthy right now, isn’t she?!”
The doctor explained.
“When we ran blood tests on her, there was no abnormal increase in white blood cells like what we would normally see with a tumor. From a biological standpoint, she seems perfectly healthy. However, from what we can tell from our observations of the disease’s progression over the past three months, we can only predict that in three months’ time, her respiratory and digestive organs will cease to function.”
“B-but Doctor, you might find a cure before then, right?”
“That’s precisely why I was summoned from Kouga University. I will do everything I can to find out about her disease, do further research on it, and find a cure.”
What was all this.
Natsuki had only three months left to live…
But this doctor was going to cure her illness. Could I believe in the words of this doctor, who knew my brother? I had no choice but to believe in him.
Did Natsuki really only have three months left to live? Three months amounted to only half of the second semester, and would end right about halfway through the school year. Not even able to finish her first year in high school…
“Hey, Yuuto.”
Natsuki’s voice pulled me out of my daze.
“I know that I let you know about it, but please don’t tell anyone else about my illness.”
By “anyone else,” she meant Shuu, didn’t she.
She had an incurable illness. There was no way that I could deny her request.
Natsuki and I exited the hospital in silence. We walked together in silence, and eventually parted in silence as we headed towards our respective homes. I waved at her, and Natsuki waved back at me; that, at least, we still had between us.
Huh? What had happened to my appointment?
I decided to become a doctor.
I decided that I should become a doctor and cure Natsuki’s illness.
To get my feet wet, I bought some home-use medical texts and read them. I understood at once that this was far too much content for me to remember immediately.
If I spread myself too thin, I wouldn’t get anywhere. The doctor had said that it would affect Natsuki’s respiratory and digestive systems, so I should concentrate on those. By digestive systems, he must have meant the stomach and intestines, and by the respiratory system, the trachea and the lungs.
I headed to the university hospital bookstore.
From the shelves that were separated by topic, I picked out books that seemed from just the t.i.tle like they were about the respiratory and digestive systems, and bought them. They were expensive. Thinking about what little allowance money I had leftover was painful.
I did my best to read them.
I came to the conclusion that…I could not understand them at all.
Did one really have to understand all of this to become a doctor?
What could I do to help Natsuki, then?
I managed to change my own hospital appointment to a different day. They gave me medicine to help alleviate the ringing in my ears, and told me to come back to the hospital every other week.
The elderly doctor from earlier, who was in charge of my treatment, wasn’t too involved in Natsuki’s case, and it didn’t seem to me like the right time or place to ask about it. I could only go on believing that Dr. Kakitagawa was researching her illness.
After my appointment, I sat on a bench in the hospital next to the stairs to rest for a bit, and happened to see Dr. Kakitagawa coming down the stairs.
“Are you here as an outpatient?”
“Yeah. Um…How should I say this…Natsuki…”
“Are you asking about her status? Very well, come with me.”
I climbed up the stairs behind him. I thought for sure that we were going to one of the examination rooms, but instead, he went right past the top floor and headed for the roof.
When he opened the door to the roof, the hot summer air slammed into me like a wall. I pushed my way through the heat and stepped foot onto the roof, where I felt a breeze caressing my cheek. Though the weather wasn’t exactly what I’d call nice, it felt good to simply be swallowed up by uninterrupted skies overhead.
“Is it okay if I smoke?”
“Yeah.”
A doctor who smoked, huh. Well, I guess even doctors and a.s.sociate professors couldn’t be perfect, I thought to myself.
“You hate smokers?”
“No, not particularly.”
“Your expression says otherwise. You’re just like Hashidate-kun in that way. Your words and your face tell very different stories.”
As he spoke, he tilted his head towards the sky and blew out a stream of smoke.
“What do you think of my brother?”
“You curious?”
“He never comes home.”
The doctor, once again, exhaled a trail of smoke.
“He’s got high specs. His grades are good, and he’s sharp… Hearing me praise your brother makes you happy, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess…”
My reply had been fairly nonchalant, but of course I was happy. Yet I had answered with a bit of sarcasm.
“To tell the truth, I’m afraid of him.”
“Why’s that, Doctor? Do you…hate my brother?”
“I don’t hate him at all. I’m simply afraid. Those who are incredibly sharp will sometimes find themselves pushed over the edge and lose control…”
“My brother isn’t the type to lose control.”
The doctor inhaled slowly, and exhaled at the same relaxed pace.
“Are you any different?”
“I don’t think I’ll lose control, either.”
He exhaled with a quick puff.
“I wonder about that…”
I didn’t quite understand what he was getting at. It occurred to me that something must have happened between my brother and Dr. Kakitagawa, and that was where the doctor had formed his conclusions. I figured that it would be best not to touch upon this subject any further, and looked to switch to a different topic.
“Is Natsuki doing okay?”
“To tell the truth, it’s hard to tell. We’re having a hard time just holding the disease in check…”
“But you said you’d cure her!”
“Yes, I will. I can’t allow myself not to cure her. Besides, there are other patients in the same boat.”
Having said that, the doctor looked at me, as if waiting to read my reaction.
“There are other patients, meaning that Natsuki isn’t the only one with it, right? Then it should be all the easier to find a cure!”
“We actually haven’t even figured out the cause.”
“Eh? Wait, so, but then, a cure―”
“That’s what I’m researching right now. We never imagined that it would be this difficult to figure out.”
He roughly extinguished his cigarette in a portable ashtray, and walked towards the door. I followed a few steps behind.