Chapter 2: Florence Nightingale (Part 1)

After giving my umbrella to Kousaka-san, I stayed for a bit longer under the shade of my dango stall. The tarp overhead fluttered whenever the wind struck it, sending droplets running down the edges like tiny silver beads. I watched them fall, pretending they were what kept my eyes busy.

I kept telling myself that if I dared to look in her direction—even for the tiniest fraction of a second—she would somehow sense it. She always carried that sharp, animalistic sort of intuition. The kind you don’t test unless you're prepared to get bitten. So I did the safest thing I could: I avoided her silhouette completely.

The rain didn’t let up. As if it would listen if I begged them to.

So I waited, staring at the camphor tree above her bench, tracing the shape of each trembling leaf and counting them in my head—one to ten thousand—because that felt easier than acknowledging whatever unfamiliar warmth was crawling up my ribs. It was a useless, functional wasting of time. A ritual of denial disguised as observation.

At the 10,156th leaf, I decided to stop. That's when I noticed that the gold-spiked porcupine turned artist had already vanished.

Strangely enough, I felt a little inexplicable throb on my chest. Ridiculous. It shouldn't matter. People come and go. She owed me nothing, and I expected nothing.

With that thought, the desire to go home came in full throttle, so I packed up and left.

The first step beneath the storm was enough to send me chills—the cold water slammed against my shoulders, seeping through my uniform until the fabric clung to me like a second skin. My socks squelched with every step—a rhythm embarrassingly loud in the empty street.

I didn't mind the things inside my bag being soaked or anything. I already covered them in a plastic wrap, the only thing I should worry about is stumbling over the wet road surface. Besides, there were other things I was concerned about: the lack of sleep from all the nights I'd spent studying and preparing the dango mixture, the cold, the fatigue, and even more worrisome yet, my inability to stop thinking about what I did.

Oh, come on, Itsuki. This isn't part of your plan. Practice what you preach, would you?

After several minutes of walking, I decided to drop by a pharmacy to buy medicine just in case I would fall over dead before I reached the apartment. I can already feel the faint heaviness between my eyebrows, and I don't even know if it's because I still have so much work undone or this is a prelude to losing a fight against fever.

I wrung out my uniform and shirt at the back alley and dried myself up. I pushed open the pharmacy door, the little bell above it chiming with the same tired ache I felt in my throat. A gust of cool, disinfectant-tinged air drifted out—and it's such another critical hit to the already chilling feeling I'm currently in.

Great. Even the air conditioning is telling me to go home.

Inside, a few students and adults were browsing in the rows of neatly arranged shelves lined with boxes of medications. They seemed too absorbed in their own worlds to pay me any attention as I made my way slowly between the shelves, trying to find the medication I needed.

"All of this because of a single umbrella…" I muttered to myself. I'm not angry at myself for making such an impulsive decision. In fact, it already sunk in, and all I could feel is this fuzzy and satisfied sensation, like, yeah, similar to that jazz music playing in the background of the store.

Is it worth it? Yes. Definitely.

Did it feel like I traded my immune system for her convenience? …Also yes.

After a few moments, I reached the OTC section after passing a couple of office workers browsing nutritional supplements and a pair of students chatting on the vitamins section. There, I spotted some generic ibuprofen that I knew I could use without getting any side effects. I grabbed a box, turned it over to see the price, and sighed.

798 yen isn't a joke. But in my defense, hospital bills aren't either. A life lived in a pan balance, huh?

"Obaa-chan, that one…the red one..." a voice said from beside me and I immediately turned around to see the source.

There was an elderly woman on the maintenance medicine section, standing on her toes, with her neck strained upward, hand trembling as she reached for a bottle on the very top shelf. Her cane leaned uselessly against the shelf beside her, and next to it stood a small boy—maybe six or seven, clutching her sleeve.

"A little bit more...obaa-chan!" he said, pointing insistently to the shelves and jumping slightly as if to cheer her.

"I know, dear…I just…" her fingers brushed the bottle, but her hand wavered mid-reach.

That wasn't my problem, at least if I'm carrying my default philosophy. Strangers are absolute trouble, involvement with them is trouble, and trouble ruins the delicate balance of a life I’ve carefully curated to avoid getting hurt. Even after all these years, that instinct clung to me as stubborn as a bad habit and I can't afford to trust them anymore.

But well, it's not about trust, it's about her incapability. I am young, and I have the strength, speed and endurance to waste on unnecessary movements. Elders don't have that luxury.

I once read in an old essay that the elderly aren’t just people with wrinkled skin; they’re the walking archives of the world. That made me realize that we, the younger generations, are not self-made.

Look at the chair you sit in, the road you drive on, the constitutional freedom you enjoy—these were not conjured by our generation. They are the accumulated capital of our elders' sacrifice, labor, and perseverance. They fought the wars, built the institutions, endured the hardships, and paid the taxes that funded the schools where we learned to challenge them.

We have the value of time, and they have the value of wisdom. And yet, most of them are discarded into nursing homes, treated like burdens rather than the foundations they are.

So standing there, watching that old woman straining for a bottle she couldn’t reach…I couldn’t pretend I didn’t see it.

I stepped forward with my shoes thudding against the glinting tile floor.

"Um…excuse me." My voice came out as flat as I intended. “Would you like some help getting that?”

The grandma blinked, and our eyes met. Somehow, I am seeing my future in her washed out irises: an old recluse with no direction at all, slackened skin, hollow cheeks, brittle hair, with pensive stillness, frozen in a rocking chair. That is a profound, even terrifying, realization: it is the final chapter we will all face.

"A-ah… sorry, young man. I didn’t mean to be a bother…" as she pulled her hand back, flustered.

"It’s no bother. I’m tall enough to reach it anyway. Might as well make myself useful."

The kid stared at me like I had descended from the heavens specifically to solve their crisis. I reached up easily and grabbed the medicine box, placing it gently into the grandmother’s waiting palms.

"There you go."

She let out a relieved breath. "Thank you. Really, thank y—"

The bottle slipped from her shaking grasp, shattering upon hitting the ground. It happened so fast that I didn't even hear the cracking sound.

For one brief moment, we both froze. The old lady stared at the floor, dumbfounded, as the brown liquid crept to stain the white tile. I can see her features gradually turning pale as she struggled to comprehend what just happened, but as soon as the pharmacists arrived at the scene, she recovered.

“Are you alright?” I blurted out, hands ready to catch her if she stumbled.

"I—I’m so sorry—! My hands…they sometimes—" Her fingers curled inward as if ashamed of their own instability.

"It's okay," I told her before she could bow again. "This kind of thing happens."

"No, no…young man, I should be the one responsible for it…"

Before she spiraled deeper into apology, I turned to the crew and asked for cleaning materials.

When they responded in kind, I worked on it almost immediately, wiping the spilled contents and taking care of the glass pieces. The little boy beside her watched me carefully, holding his grandmother's sleeve close to him.

After confirming that the glass shards were removed, I stepped closer to the pharmacist who was standing next to us.

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience. Can I pay for it?"

The old woman tugged at my sleeve.

“You don’t have to if it wasn’t your fault—”

“It’s fine. You're trembling and I should've known better.”

Yeah, I shouldn't have handed it to her.

I was guided back to the counter where another pharmacist was waiting behind the register. She eyed me over her glasses with a slight hint of concern on her face but scanned the bottle anyway and the price immediately flashed on the screen.

1,278 yen. I can feel my wallet physically recoiling.

It's too much for a bottle of Kakkonto, but what choice do I have? I'm still partly at fault for that accident.

Still, I slid the bills forward. The pharmacist replaced the damaged bottle with a fresh one and bagged it neatly.

When I returned to the woman, who was now sitting in the waiting area, she rose up slowly with the help of her cane.

"You bought it…?”

“Un,” I nodded.

“Oh dear, oh dear…I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to waste your money—"

She kept mumbling apologies and now looking like she was on the verge of crying.

"It’s not wasted. You need it, and you'll use it eventually. I'm glad that I was able to help.”

The kid tugged her sleeve. “Obaa-chan, say thank you properly.”

"Hush, you,” she said gently—then bowed deeply. “Thank you and sorry for the inconvenience I caused, young man. Truly. You have a good heart.”

Heat pricked embarrassingly at my ears, making me exhale to regain composure.

“I just did what anyone would’ve done.”

"Not everyone does that, you know? Not everyone has a gift of kindness like yours."

Well, that was true. We both knew it. The world today didn’t have that many people willing to pay for strangers' accidents. Or people who see the value in elders.

I turned around and took my leave.

The kid waved at me enthusiastically as they shuffled toward the register.

"Bye, nii-chan! Thank you!"

“Yeah. Stay healthy so you can take care of your grandmother.” as I lifted a hand awkwardly.

When the automatic door closed behind me and the bustle of the world outside entered into my ears, only then did it hit me:

…Did I actually forget to buy the medicine I came for?

I looked down at my hands. I did forget—though I managed to buy a spare tablet of melatonin to force a deep sleep.

I sighed. "Of course. I'm trading my life again for goodwill."

Between the cold creeping into my bones and the lingering scent of disinfectant, I suddenly felt very, very tired. I rubbed the bridge of my nose, hoping that no similar incident would happen if I visited the market a bit later.