When Ritsuko entered the break room, Toshio was already there looking completely exhausted, collapsed into one of the chairs. She said a formal good morning to him but the voice that answered was faint. He made no attempt to meet her gaze, so thinking that he was probably incredibly worn out, she stayed quiet and brewed his coffee.
While she was preparing the coffee, Yasuyo came in to work and Towada had come into work. While she was serving it, Yuki and Satoko had arrived. While aware of how strangely sullen Toshio was, they were talking about how moving was going when Kiyomi came in.
"Mutou-san is running late isn't it."
It happened when Kiyomi looked up at the clock.
"---Mutou-san's not coming," Toshio interposed in a low voice. "They're in mourning."
Eh, Ritsuko looked to Toshio's face. Fatigue was written thickly on his features, as if exceedingly depressed---.
"Did something happen?" The one bracing herself with that question was Yasuyo. Toshio gave a sullen nod.
"Tohru-kun died. He's Mutou-san's place's oldest son."
But that's, Ritsuko was at aloss for words. Who was it whose voice said that it couldn't be, as if questioning it. In response to that, Toshio again gave a sullen nod.
It's that, she thought. Ritsuko had a sense of vertigo. It felt as if she had only been looking straight ahead of her that she hadn't noticed that the ground beneath her feet had been swept out from beneath her from behind.
"But that's..."
"When there's time, I don't care if you take turns going to pay condolences. There's the mourning crew so it seems they have enough help but until everyone sees Mutou-san's face you probably won't be able to calm down. I've got my doubts we'll be finished with appointments by the time the all night vigil's over. Tomorrow just during the funeral, we won't be taking appointments."
Toshio himself couldn't tell whether he was exhausted, whether he was angry. If he was, what was certain was that the target of the sentiment wasn't at Mutou nor even the disease, but himself.
The plague was serious. While he was spinning his wheels in vain, one of his own staff's families bore a victim. Why didn't you notice Tohru's condition, he wanted to blame Mutou, but that was something Toshio himself recognized as unfair. Mutou was even bringing his work home with him. He had even come in to work on the recent day off. His wife Shizuko had even come in with him to help. In those circumstances did he ever even see his son? Nevermind if he were still a young child in need of his parent's oversight, Tohru was a full-fledged adult.
But---those who were afflicted with this illness wouldn't complain of their symptoms themselves. Far from it, the person themselves didn't seem to notice that they were in poor condition. If the family didn't notice, there was nothing to be done.
He should have given more stern warnings. He should have thought more about his staff's safety first, he thought. Just maybe, he should have said, planting terrible worries in their minds. Tohru had to be infected with it through some means. Maybe it was human, maybe it was an intermediary animal. If that was the case he didn't mind. But if---if it were something brought out from the hospital, then. Or if Mutou had a sub-clinical infection.
(This is no time to be thinking about that.)
Right now he was in examination hours. He had to get it together.
So he thought while troubling over what to do, leaning into the chair and letting himself drift in doubts. His eyes came back to his vacant and spacious desk, puzzling over what it was he should have been doing, wondering why he was spacing out like this, without really knowing at all.
He shouldn't have had the time to space out. And yet why was it then that he had no patients before him, no nurse at his side awaiting orders. How could this be, he thought turning to look around him when Ritsuko who had her head bowed looked up. She gave a troubled looking smile.
"....Not yet."
Toshio couldn't grasp the meaning of those words. Ritsuko added on.
"Hirosawa's Toyoko-san."
That's right, he thought. It was time for Hirosawa Toyoko's appointment. That's why he was free right now. Toshio found himself rapidly coming to.
"She hasn't come yet?"
"Yes."
Again, Toshio cursed internally. Why did every last asshole pull this, he felt like raging in a fit. Just at that moment, Kiyomi poked her face into the examining room.
"Doctor, I'll be going first."
Toshio nodded, then called out as an afterthought.
"Sorry but while you're coming back from Mutou-san's place, could you stop by Hirosawa Toyoko-san's place for me?"
Kiyomi blinked. "She hasn't come? ---Yes, understood."
Kiyomi nodded and returned roughly an hour later. Kiyomi made a face as if at a loss.
"How was it?" Toshio asked, and she hesitated.
"Uhm... if it's about Hirosawa-san, then." Kiyomi seemed uncharacteristically subdued. "She isn't there."
"Not there? Did she go out?"
"That's not what I... Uhm, it seems she moved, last night."
Toshio stared fixedly at Kiyomi's face. "What was that?"
"I'm as susprised as you. When I went, nobody was there, it was all locked up. While lingering around wondering if there wasn't an opening somewhere, a neighbor came over, saying 'If you're looking for Hirosawa-san, she moved last night.'"
"That's ridiculous..."
She didn't mention that. He pushed the importance of her coming on her that much, and even Toyoko nodded that she'd come if he recalled.
What's going on, Toshio had started to say when he remembered what Seishin had said. Strange moves were taking place in the village. Right, when was it he'd received the memo? Some family somewhere moved, that before that the family was acting weird, it said----.
Toshio stood up and went to search for the memo when he noticed Kiyomi squirming and shifting as if she wanted to say something.
"---What?"
"No. ...It is completely unrelated, but." Kiyomi said, hemming and hawing, hemming and hawing. "It's just that, it's.... even with Hirosawa-san, something felt.... No, it really does not have anything to do with illness, but."
"What is it?"
"Mutou-san's place's Tohru-san quit his job, they said."
Toshio turned around to look at Kiyomi. "Quit?"
"Yes. Mutou-san didn't even know about it, he called into the company said said that he quit---that was two days before, they said. But... if it was two days before, thinking of the other cases until now, he would have already been sick by that time, wouldn't he....?"
Indeed, thought Toshio. Since he died this morning, Tohru's physical health should have been in decline a few days before.
"It couldn't be that Tohru-kun knew, do you think? About this illness. And so... But, he didn't say anything...."
"It can't be," Toshio said, remembering Seishin's words all the more. "---That can't be the case, right?"
"That's right, isn't it?" As if relieved, Kiyomi let out a small smile. "I'm over thinking it, aren't I?"
Toshio nodded but he felt a chill run down his spine. Tohru commuted out of the village for work. And wasn't Seishin saying that other villagers who commuted out of town for work had suddenly quit their jobs?
Toshio turned towards the waiting room and looked for a folder on top of the desk. All of the notes Seishin had given him, all of them should have been in there.
Fishing around some, he soon found it.
Right, Naka-Sotoba's Koike. His son's family suddenly moved out. Just before that, his son's family seemed to be in bad condition. And his son Yasuo quit his job without old man Koike knowing about it.
On the memo were over 22 full names written. The ones who had moved from here. Toshio looked over that once again and found the name "Maebara Setsu." Setsu was a patient. Even though she had been coming to the hospital for a very long time, now that he thought of it he hadn't seen her face in a while. When was the last time he met her he wondered, groping around in his memory, having the feeling he had heard Setsu's name somewhere.
When was that, hadn't he talked about her with Ritsuko? Right, Setsu had taken too much of her medication.
Toshio sat down in the chair.
(That's right... it was the day of the incident in Yamairi.)
He talked about that with Ritsuko. Setsu was prescribed a thyroid hormone for her Hashimoto's disease, and she altered her dose on her own---.
Toshio pressed his fingertip to his temple. In the case of an illness from thyroid gland failure, the first symptoms would be a washed out feeling throughout the body. And muted emotion. Those were similar to signs of anemia.
"Is that right...."
Setsu's condition didn't worsen. At that point in time she was inflicted with the illness in question. Thinking that was her condition flaring up she used too much of her medicine. Ritsuko only gave her two days of medication and told her to be sure to come in on Monday but Setsu didn't come. Since then she hadn't come to the hospital. She wasn't here. That Monday Setsu had gone and left the village.
Yamairi went extinct on August 5th. Setsu moved on the 8th. And Setsu was suffering the outbreak. Setsu had heart blockage. If that was the case, it was probably a critical blow to her weakened heart. Even without that a few days after the outbreak it was over, so in Setsu's case there was no doubt it wouldn't give her three days.
"That's pushing it...."
Setsu moved on Monday morning--early enough to be called late at night. But, by that time Setsu was probably already dazed. Her body should have been in bad condition. Even if she herself was or wasn't aware of it, she should have been ill enough that she couldn't be moving around unhindered, and if she was careless it wouldn't be unusual for her heart condition to kick in.
And none the less she moved. Neither that reason nor the destination were written in the note. Did Tamo Sadaichi research all of this? That probably meant even Sadaichi didn't know, right?
"....That's impossible."
Thinking of all the instances until now, Setsu shouldn't have been able to move out. Even under the very best conditions, without anybody left taking care of her, she shouldn't have been able to walk properly. Even if you allowed that she had already made plans to move, even if you allowed that the movers might have done every last thing, Setsu shouldn't have even been able to command the operation, or even survive the journey herself. Nevermind if her family were there, Setsu was an old woman living alone.
If, Toshio thought holding his breath, looking over the scraps of paper entrusted to him by Seishin. If every family written here was afflicted. Toshio looked at the graph spread out over the top of the desk. On the horizontal axis was the day, on the vertical was the number of people afflicted with the illness. At the current point in time it doubled as a count of the number of deceased. By now the horizontal axis was nothing but a continuous dotted line. If this were an epidemic it should have been drawn out as a wave but there still hadn't been enough inflicted patients to draw a distinct wave.
Toshio took his pen in hand. He traced the names written on the scrap of paper. Maebara Setsu lived alone. Inoda Matasaburou had a wife. Calling to mind the family structures, for the sake of argument he drew onto the graph as if all those who had moved had been a part of the outbreak. For families whose structure he wasn't clear on, he tried asking the nurses. For the families he didn't know even with that, he counted them as three for convenience sake.
Drawing it all out, Toshio spent some time staring at that graph. On it, starting in August, revealed in disconnected points, in putting the days together for one or two weeks, a very small wave formed, the second one growing higher, and come September there was a clear consecutive wave forming.
"....That's what it is, huh?" Toshio at last murmured. This is what Seishin had been fussing about. And it was more than Seishin had thought, there was a correlation between times of the illness and moves--or possibly quitting.
He had to meet with old man Koike. He had to at least ask about how his son's family's condition was.
And, he had to meet with Seishin.