Door Pop

September 2, 2023

The fire brigade was doing training today at the paid fire station once again, this time cutting apart two cars that had been donated to them with their hydraulic rescue tools. As one half of the firefighters worked on the first car, including all seven of the student firefighters, the other half were busy working on flowing water out of hand lines, a common practice when enough volunteers showed up to split them into two groups.

As Rumiko hooked up a set of spreaders to a hydraulic line running to a portable power plant, she asked her sister, “Who’s going first?”

“I think it’s gonna be you and Sumire-san,” she replied. “Since you two are the newest, they’ll have you two run the spreaders and cutters first.”

Hideaki then turned to the group and instructed them, “Morishima Rumiko-san, Suwabe-san, you guys will be the spreaders and cutters. Morishima Tomoko-san and Okubo-san, you two will take care of cribbing. Tamura-san and Koda-san, you two will take care of glass. Yui and Lieutenant Hoshizora will be in charge of EMS for the patient inside. Amano-san and Hanae Ryohei-san will take care of the ram and the ropes. I’ll be the incident commander, and Miyagi-san will be the safety officer. Now, let’s get to work!”

Tomoko and Hiro looked at each other and nodded, walking over to a tarp full of equipment they had laid out and opening up a full set of wooden blocks for cribbing vehicles, with both of them grabbing several pieces and walking over to two different sides of the car. Meanwhile, Ayumi and Shiori grabbed a manual glass cutter, two rolls of duct tape, and suction cups and walked over to the driver’s side of the car first, with Ayumi taping up both windows as much as she could. As she did, she commented to Tomoko, “Ever since your sister and Sumire-chan graduated from their class, we’ve been deader than a doornail for calls.”

“Tell me about it,” she sighed. “It’s not a bad thing that people don’t need our help, but it also worries me a bit since it increases the odds of our next call being serious.”

“That’s just a superstition.”

“Whatever. There’s a reason we don’t say things are ‘quiet,’ after all.”

Shiori then used a window puncher to break the window by pushing it against a corner. As she did, she told Ayumi and Tomoko, “As long as I’m around, I wouldn’t be too worried.”

“Our resident white cloud has a point,” Tomoko joked.

Once the window was broken, Ayumi pulled it using the duct tape and left it on the ground. The two then went to the rear window on the driver’s side and did the same. Meanwhile, Tomoko and Hiro finished putting the cribbing on the driver’s side, with the latter telling the former, “Passenger’s side next.”

“Yep.” Tomoko grabbed more cribbing and hauled it over to the other side of the car. Within a few minutes, the car was fully cribbed and all of the regular windows had been broken and removed. The last windows left were the windshield and the rear window, the former of which was to be taken out first. “You got the glass cutter, Shiori-san?”

“Right here.” Shiori then made a purchase point on the windshield with the pick end of the glass cutter before cutting into it. When she got to the halfway point on the bottom, Ayumi took over for her until she got to the halfway point on the top, at which point Shiori finished the job. The whole time, glass particles were flying in the air, and both of them made sure to keep their mouths shut to ensure no glass flew into them.

After they finished the windshield and removed it, they moved to the rear window and kept going. Yui and Kana then walked over with a medical bag, simulating making patient contact as they put rubber gloves on. “BSI, scene safe,” Yui said out loud, prompting some chuckles from the other firefighters.

“For the purposes of this drill,” her father explained. “Your patient is a male with a broken right leg complaining of severe neck and back pain. What will you do?”

“Check his airway, make sure he’s breathing, and check his pulse.”

“He is having trouble breathing and his pulse is very fast, indicating tachycardia.”

“Put him on oxygen with a nonrebreather, set it to twelve liters per minute, and then put a C-collar on him to stabilize his neck. I can’t really do anything else until the door is taken out.”

“Alright. So far, so good.”

Kana patted Yui on the back and told her with a smile, “Atta girl.”

…

After the drill had concluded, the brigade pulled Engine 31, Utility 35, Light Rescue 34, and Ambulance 33 out of the fire station to eat around some tables they had set up. Among them was a man dressed in a polo shirt and shorts who had not been around for some time and was clearly enjoying being back at the brigade. “Sounds like I missed a lot,” he said to Taichi and Hideaki. “That pesky broken ankle sure got in the way.”

“You were almost as much of a white cloud as Koda,” Taichi joked. “But maybe we’ll finally get some relief now that you’re both around again.”

“Hashimoto-san,” then asked Hideaki. “Did you already get back to work at your office?”

“Yeah. That was a week ago. Starting today, though, I’ll be back to full work.” The man, who was in fact a doctor who worked in the village name Ryosuke Hashimoto, had been a volunteer firefighter for quite some time, albeit one that was never SCBA-qualified and stuck to fighting fires from the outside along with handling medical and rescue calls.

Shiori and Tomoko then walked over, the former having heard her name called. “Welcome back, fellow white cloud,” Shiori joked with Ryosuke.

“Thank you, fellow white cloud,” he replied as the two shook hands. “I heard you did pretty well at that recital while I was gone.”

“I did, thank you,” she replied with a bow. “My piano instructor was very pleased with me.”

“And I heard your sister got her SCBA certification,” Ryosuke then said to Tomoko. “Good for her.”

“Rumiko’s pretty excited,” Tomoko replied. “No more having to stay outside for her, or for Suwabe-san for that matter, either.”

Meanwhile, at another table, Rumiko, Sumire, Ayumi, and Naoko were all looking at Yui and Rentaro from across the apparatus bay, who were eating together and acting rather chummy with each other. “Those two are definitely dating,” Naoko said to the others in a whispered tone. “I’ve seen girls on the swim team act just like this when they meet up with their boyfriends from other schools.”

“I wonder if they know we know,” Sumire pondered out loud. “Have they told anyone?”

“No,” Rumiko shook her head. “I haven’t heard a peep about it from my sister. She would tell me if Yui-chan told her something like that.”

Ayumi, confused, asked her, “Wait, does your sister tell you everything about us?”

“No,” she shook her head. “But for this, she would, since I’ve known Yui-senpai for so long.”

“Ah, right. I keep forgetting you knew her for longer than everyone else among us besides Tomoko-san.” She then playfully asked her, “So, Rumiko-chan, do you have anyone in mind like that?”

Blushing rather intensely, she stammered out, “M- Me with a b- b- boy? Uh, ah…”

“Come on,” Naoko then teased her as well. “Yui-chan’s not the only one who’s shown interest in boys here.”

“I don’t think, um…” Rumiko then took a deep breath as she tried to hide her reddened cheeks. “The idea of being with someone feels so… Overwhelming.”

“She may be a lot less shy than when I first met her,” Sumire pointed out. “But she still has her moments, and this is one of them.”

Confused, Ayumi asked her, “Wait, how shy were you before we met you, Rumiko-chan?”

…

April 11, 2022

In the Harukawa Junior High School library, Sumire was reading a book by herself after the school day had come to an end. This was a common activity for her since she did not belong to any after-school clubs and had nowhere else to go besides a group home in the village. As she read a passage, she remarked to herself under her breath, “I’m surprised this is allowed here. The detail is insanely high for something so graphic.”

She then got the feeling that she was being watched, and as such, she turned around in her seat, finding no one to be behind her near the book shelves. She did, however, hear what sounded like shuffling feet, and got up to investigate. As she walked to a row of shelves, she heard what she thought sounded like a peep and turned her attention to a corner in the shelves.

“Hello?”

“Aah!”

Sumire was surprised to find Rumiko, who was frightened by the fact she had been caught and bad subsequently fallen onto the ground after losing her balance. She extended a hand to her and asked, “Hey, are you alright?”

“Ah, well, um…” Rumiko then reluctantly held Sumire’s hand and got up. Feeling deeply embarrassed, she profusely apologized to her classmate. “Sorry about that! I just noticed you reading and I was really interested in the book you had! That’s all!”

“Calm down,” Sumire replied to her. “It’s fine. You could have just walked over to me.” She then realized that she had used her burned hand to help Rumiko up, causing her to let go of Rumiko and turn away slightly to show off the unburned side of her body. “Oh, um…”

Rumiko also realized she had been looking at the scars on Sumire’s body, and blushed in further embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to look.”

“No, no, it’s not your fault. I’m just glad you only looked. Anyway…” She then began to walk back to the desk she was at. “Do you want to read the book with me? Be warned, though. It’s pretty messed up.”

“Su- Sure, um… I’m okay with that.”

…

Present

“I see,” Ayumi nodded. “So that’s what you meant, Sumire-chan.”

“I guess you could say that we both helped each other out with our shyness,” Rumiko theorized. “Well, that and having it basically ripped out of you by being in the fire brigade.”

“That’s true,” Naoko agreed with a chuckle. “If you were shy when you came in, you definitely won’t be when you leave.”

Then, their conversation was interrupted by the sound of tones playing out over the radio, followed by everyone’s pagers ringing. Everyone quickly got up from their seats and ran over to their gear lockers to put their gear on as information about the call came in and the siren on top of the fire station began to go off. Instructions as to who would go on the call and on what apparatus flew about the bay as the light rescue and the ambulance were started up. It was a well-oiled machine in work, and within a minute of the call coming in, Light Rescue 34 and Ambulance 33 sped off.

…

A few minutes later, the two rigs pulled up along with units from the paid fire station in the village to a car that had hit a telephone pole. Because none of the chiefs went, Hideaki would be in charge of the volunteers. He jumped out of Light Rescue 34 and walked over to the lieutenant on Engine-Aerial 4 to do a size-up of the accident. “Let’s see what we got before we pull out all the stops.”

“Yeah,” replied the lieutenant. “I’d say it’ll just be a simple door pop from what I can see. You guys got here quick.”

“It’s almost as if we were just at your place cutting up a car,” Hideaki replied as the two of them laughed. “I’ll tell you, considering we just did training on this, nobody’s got an excuse if they fuck this one up.” He then turned to the original caller and asked him by the side of the road, “So, are you the one who called?”

“Yeah,” the man, who was roughly the same age as Hideaki and was dressed in a business suit, replied, clearly worried about the driver. “He hit the pole and he hasn’t moved since then.”

“As in the car or…?”

“The driver,” he replied. “I knocked on the window, but he didn’t reply. I tried the door, but it won’t budge.”

“I see,” Hideaki replied as he and the paid lieutenant walked over. As they did, he told the crew of Light Rescue 34, “Grab cribbing and the spreaders! We’ll do four points of contact!”

When the two of them walked over to the car, they knocked on the door to try to get the driver’s attention. To their surprise, the driver moved, albeit very slowly, and what they saw indicated that he had a forehead injury. The paid lieutenant asked him, “Sir, can you hear us?”

“Ugh,” said the driver, clearly disoriented. “What happened?”

“You were in an accident,” he replied. “We’re gonna get you out.” A paid firefighter with a glass window puncher and a small blanket then walked over, with the lieutenant telling him, “Take the glass on the driver’s side rear window out first. We’ll reach in and cover the driver with a blanket before taking out the front.” The paid firefighter did as instructed and broke the rear window by making a hole punch in one of the corners. He then covered the patient up as best as he could from the rear as the lieutenant told the driver, “We’re gonna take this front window out next. We’ll cover you the best we can, but we also need you to look away and cover your eyes.” Once the driver was covered, the front window was also punched out and cleared.

While the crew of Ambulance 4 approached to assess the patient as best as they could, the volunteers got their equipment ready. Yui and Naoko set up the spreaders, hooking it up to a hydraulic pump while Hiro pulled a rip cord to turn it on. “Looks like we’re running the tools,” Yui told her partner.

“It should be a simple door pop,” Hiro told them. “That car doesn’t look too bad.”

“We’re gonna find out.” Once several other firefighters got done setting up cribbing around the car, Yui and Naoko walked over with the spreaders before placing the tip under the car to lift the driver’s side up. “Ready to go, Captain.”

“Lift up on the driver’s side,” said Hideaki before Yui turned the spreaders on slightly, slowly lifting the car up and allowing two other firefighters to slide cribbing underneath. Once this was done, Yui backed the spreaders out and walked over to the passenger’s side to do the same.

Meanwhile, two paid firefighters were assessing the patient through the smashed driver’s side front window and applying a c-collar to him. One of them said to Hideaki, “The driver has a left leg injury. If we can get the door open and spread it wide, we can get in and stabilize it, and that should be enough to get him out. He’s also got a cut on his forehead and severe bruising on his face.”

“We’re ready to begin,” Naoko told the others as she held the spreaders in her hands, having been given them by Yui. “Just tell us when and where to spread.”

“Right here,” Hideaki instructed as he pointed at a spot on the car.

Naoko nodded and adjusted the safety glasses she had on before approaching the car and burying the tip of the spreaders in as best as she could, with Yui backing her up. “Opening up on the spreaders!” With this warning, Naoko began to spread the door little by little, making adjustments to the placement of the tip as she went along.

As the door was being spread open, the sound of crunching and snapping metal filling the air, Sumire and Rumiko stood by with fire extinguishers, talking to each other as the extrication continued. “Sounds like the driver’s hurt pretty bad,” Rumiko said to Sumire. “Hopefully, they can just pop the door open quick and pull him out.”

“At least there’s no one else inside,” Sumire pointed out. “We can take the driver out of the car and we’ll be done, minus the cleanup of course.”

“I wonder if Dr. Hashimoto go on Ambulance 4. This looks like something he’d ride along for, since they wouldn’t need online medical control for most things if he’s with the ambulance.”

“Wait,” Sumire then remembered. “If he gets on Ambulance 4, who will drive Ambulance 33 back? He brought us down on it, remember?”

Ryosuke, having heard his name called, then walked over to the two girls. “Hey, what’s up? I heard my name called.”

Sumire asked him, “Are you going with Ambulance 4 to the hospital?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Captain Hirasawa’s gonna drive the ambulance back with you two. Once the patient’s out, we’ll start packing up to go home. The paid guys are gonna do the on-scene cleanup with the police and a tow.”

“Ah, okay.”

Back at the car, Naoko and Yui continued to spread the door while a paid firefighter used a rope tied around the door to pull from the opposite direction. Once the door was pulled far back enough, it broke loose from one of the joints holding it to the rest of the car. Yui told Naoko, “Stay here. I’m gonna grab the cutters.”

When Yui came back with the cutters, Naoko asked her, “Are we all good with the spreaders?”

“Yeah, we should be. You can run that back. I should be good with just the cutters myself.” As Naoko walked back with the spreaders, Yui put the cutters into position and slowly opened up on them before sliding them down and closing the claws, cutting into the last joint holding the door to the car. With one last snap, the door was now fully off of the car, and the paid firefighter with the rope pulled it away. Yui backed away as several other firefighters immediately rushed in with a backboard, arm and leg splints, and other pieces of medical equipment to get the driver out.

Naoko said to Yui as she came back with the cutters, “And just like that, we’re all set.”

…

After the call was over, the girls were putting the equipment away at the firehouse, having just finished cleaning it with the rest of the brigade. Tomoko asked Yui, “How’s the driver doing?”

“Last I heard,” she explained. “He’ll be alright. He had a concussion and a broken leg, but that’s it. It knocked the wind out of him, though.”

“I was worried when dispatch said the guy was unconscious. You know how those can end.”

“Yeah, me too. Thankfully, it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t as fucked up as that accident a few years ago.”

Curious about what they were talking about, Sumire turned to the duo and asked them after putting away a set of cribbing, “Tomoko-senpai, Yui-senpai, what are you talking about?”

“She doesn’t know,” Tomoko realized as she turned to Yui.

“Sumire,” Yui explained. “There’s some things we don’t really talk about too much, and what we were talking about was one of them.”

Concerned about what she said, Sumire asked her, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Yui assured her. “But that’s just a thing I don’t like to talk about, Sumire. I’m sure you have things you don’t want to talk about, either.”

Knowing she was right, she sighed and admitted, “Yeah, there are.”

“Good, then you understand. I wouldn’t go around asking about it, either. You’ll probably get the same answers from everyone else.”

Tomoko was clearly somewhat uncomfortable with how Yui responded to Sumire, but did not raise any objections since she was also rather bothered by what had happened in the past. She thought to herself, “If Yui-san wasn’t here, I’d tell Sumire-san outright, but it’s clear she just wants the issue to go away.”

…

September 3, 2023

Yui and Rentaro were going out on a date in Yoshimatsu, walking around downtown in the afternoon. As they passed a restaurant, Rentaro reached out and surprised Yui by holding onto her hand. “Huh?”

“I feel like if we’re going to be an actual couple,” he pointed out. “We should probably act like one outside of the bedroom.”

“That’s a fair point,” Yui realized. “I was just surprised, that’s all.” They then noticed they were walking blast one of the city’s fire stations, the one where Kana worked out of. “Hmmm… I wonder if we should stop in and see Kana-san…”

Shocked that Yui referred to her lieutenant in such an informal way, Rentaro asked her, “Wait a sec, you call her Kana-san?”

“I’ve known her since I was a little girl. When we’re not doing official business, we call each other by our first names. Lieutenant Yamada is a bit different since she left to go to college when I was still a baby.”

Almost on cue, Masako walked out of the firehouse, surprising both of them. Rentaro, blindsided by seeing her, asked, “Lieutenant Yamada?”

Masako quickly turned her head to the couple and asked, “Huh? Nojima and Hirasawa? What are you lovebirds doing here?”

Yui replied to her, “I could ask you the same thing, minus the lovebirds part.”

“Yeah, true. Let’s just say right now I’m the opposite of a lovebird given everything going on with my soon to be ex-husband. Anyway, I came by to visit Kana. What about you?”

“We’re out on a date,” Rentaro explained. “Yui wanted to see if Lieutenant Hoshizora was around.”

“Yeah, she is.” She then turned back to the firehouse and yelled out with a mischievous smile, “Hey, Kana, our fire brigade’s newest couple are here!”

Yui and Rentaro both blushed upon being called such a thing as Kana emerged from behind the fire engines sitting in the building, wearing her normal work uniform. “Hey guys, what’s up?”

“Ah, not much,” Yui replied to her. “We’re just in the area on a date. Also, come on, Lieutenant Yamada, you don’t have to announce to everyone that we're dating.”

“You of all people should know how much we love to fuck with new couples in the firehouse,” Masako pointed out. “Hell, you’ve done it yourself.”

“But it’s diff-“

“But it’s different this time,” Kana finished Yui’s sentence with a laugh. “Yeah, sure, because it’s you, now you suddenly feel different. Anyway, what did you guys do today?”

“We just went out for lunch and walked along the seaside,” Yui replied. “The summer’s dying down, so we want to go out as much as we can before it gets cold as shit.”

“I remember taking walks along the beach with my first boyfriend,” Kana recalled. “Honestly, nothing beats living by the sea when you love the water and the beach, even during the cold months.”

“I remember you doing more than just walking along that beach with people you’ve dated, Kana,” Masako joked. “A lot more.”

“Says the woman who I walked in on getting down and dirty with their future and soon to be ex husband twice when they were back home to visit because she forgot to lock the fucking door,” Kana hit right back in a lighthearted tone.

Rentaro laughed and asked, “You walked in on her doing it twice?!”

Masako admitted, “Yeah, yeah, twice. Still, nothing beats you sending out your first girlfriend to find me while she was wearing your bottoms because you both lost parts of your swimsuits in the water.”

Yui, remembering this story, laughed and said, “Oh man, that was a fucking funny one.”

“Hang on,” Rentaro asked his two lieutenants. “Lost both… What?”

“When I first began to date girls,” Kana explained. “Me and my first girlfriend went to the beach and, well, did more than just walking when we found a secluded spot no one could see us from. Unfortunately, I lost my top and she lost her bottoms in the water. I gave her my bottoms so she could run out and find Masako to get me some more clothes. I was so fucking worried someone was gonna find me totally naked.”

“Feels like a lot of people have fucked on our beach,” Rentaro realized. “I’ve heard stories about the spot I think you’re talking about.”

“Yep, that’s the one. Don’t get any funny ideas, Nojima. Speaking of…”

Yui, curious, asked her, “What is it?”

“Does your father know about you two?”

The couple knew this question would come up eventually. “Nope,” Yui shook her head. “Neither of my parents know about me and Rentaro.”

“They gotta know eventually,” Masako pointed out. “Your mom and dad may not be happy if you keep it hidden much longer. I know I’d be a little pissed off if my son hid that from me for almost a whole month when he gets to your age.”

Then, the bells inside the firehouse went off, followed by a firefighter in the station making an announcement of a call. “Engine 1 and Ambulance 1 for a heart attack!”

“I gotta go,” Kana told the three of them. “I’ll see you guys later!” She then ran to the fire engine she was assigned to for the day and grabbed a set of blue overalls she wore for medical calls that she left beside the truck, putting them on quickly before hopping in the back.

As the engine and the ambulance left to go to the call, Kana waved at them, prompting the three of them to wave back as Masako told the couple, “She’s been pretty busy today, actually. She’s barely had any time to do her assigned paperwork for the day since she ran a lot of calls.”

Rentaro asked, “Is she always on an engine?”

“No,” Masako shook her head. “She has the qualifications to be on an engine, an aerial ladder, or an ambulance. It isn’t the same on every shift. Arguably, she should also be qualified to be assigned to Heavy Rescue 1, but…” She then chuckled. “Well, that’s none of my business.”