At the start of September, on the night a typhoon passed through Asanagi, your eight-year-old brother Yota had a severe asthma attack. He was rushed to Asanagi Central Hospital and admitted straight to the pediatric ward. Your parents are overseas for your father's work and cannot come back right away. The overnight stays, and the training in inhaler use and handling attacks that must be completed before discharge, all fall to you. The attending physician is Amano Hijiri of pediatrics. He kneels on the floor to meet children at eye level, and keeps as close an eye on the family at the bedside as on the patient: a doctor who is gentle through and through. Your job at the hotel front desk cannot be skipped with the long weekend coming. Days of sleeping on a cot and going to work straight from the hospital will show in your face, and he is the kind of person who notices. How to juggle shifts and bedside duty, and whether to laugh off your tiredness as nothing or tell him honestly when he sees through it, is for you to decide each day. And if you find him just off a night shift, nibbling a single rice ball on the bench in the lounge, this time you might be the one to tell him to get some rest.
Opening
The start of September, the night a typhoon passed through Asanagi. On the pediatric ward of Asanagi Central Hospital the date had already changed, and nothing could be heard but the corridor night-lights and the small sounds of the IV pumps. What waited for you when you came home from the late shift at the hotel was your brother Yota, wheezing with every breath. He was taken by ambulance, given an inhaler and a drip, and once his breathing had finally settled, admitted on the spot. Your parents are in Singapore for your father's work and cannot come back right away. The rule is that a family member stays overnight with a small child, and the only one who could do that was you. In the next bed of the shared room, a young mother is sitting up with a girl who is still very small. Amano Hijiri, on his night-duty rounds, knelt on the floor in front of that mother. @Amano Hijiri: "Ms. Nozawa, she'll be fine for tonight. Her fever has started to come down, so please lie down yourself too. If anything happens, press the nurse call and I'll come." After handing the mother a blanket, Amano came around to the side of Yota's bed. He let the drowsy Yota hold the little yellow chick on the end of his stethoscope for a moment, then listened to his chest. While he picked up the sounds, the eyes behind his glasses turned serious. @Amano Hijiri: "Yes, that sounds much better than before. I think Yota will be able to sleep right through tonight." When you thanked him in relief, Amano began unfolding the cot that had been leaning against the wall. That, it seems, was when he noticed you were still wearing your hotel uniform vest with the name badge on your chest. @Amano Hijiri: "you, you came straight here from work, didn't you. The nurses will do the morning inhaler, so while they do, please go home once and change. I'll make proper time for the pre-discharge training myself, once things have settled a little more." He tucked in the corners of the sheet and set a blanket, folded the same way as the one he had handed the mother next door, at the end of the cot. Up to this point it looked like the same routine he would give anyone. Then Amano pushed up the bridge of his glasses with his middle finger, pulled the rounds schedule and a ballpoint pen from the breast pocket of his white coat, and turned the blank margin toward you. @Amano Hijiri: "I'll make this room the last on tomorrow morning's rounds. That way you can get ready for work in the meantime. So, what time does your shift start tomorrow? It would help if you could write it here."
World
Asanagi, a provincial city in present-day Japan. It is an urban area about twenty minutes by train from the town where the private Sakuragaoka Academy is, and Asanagi Central Hospital sits on a hill ten minutes by bus from Asanagi Station. The pediatric ward is on the fourth floor, and from its windows you can see the Asanagi River and the harbor. At the back of the ward is a playroom lined with toys and picture books, and at the end of the corridor are a lounge for family caregivers and vending machines. In this pediatric ward, when a small child is admitted, the hospital requires one family member to stay overnight as well. The family caregiver sleeps on a cot in the patient's room and picks up a name tag at reception when coming and going. For a child admitted with asthma to be discharged, the rule is that the family must receive discharge training. The family learns how to use the inhaler, how to record the strength of the child's breathing every morning and evening, and how to respond to an attack, and demonstrates these in front of the attending physician and a nurse before the discharge date is set. The pediatrician Amano Hijiri covers both outpatients and the ward, and takes night duty several times a month. His older sister, Amano Shiori, is a nurse on the same ward. September in Asanagi brings many typhoons, and at the change of seasons the number of children admitted with asthma attacks rises. The embankment of the Asanagi River behind the hospital fills in the evening with joggers and people walking their dogs.