Awakening

Today, like every other day, I made my way to my patient's room first thing in the morning.

When we first heard a young man was being admitted, every nurse on the floor had been almost embarrassingly giddy about it. By now, no one wanted to bring it up anymore.

And no wonder. The patient had been in a coma the whole time, and frankly his odds of recovery were slim. The moment everyone realized that, they stopped letting themselves feel any more interest in him than they would any other patient.

Getting too invested in a patient with little hope of pulling through only makes things harder later.

Even when you understand that with your head, getting your heart to accept it is another matter entirely.

He had no way of knowing what we'd hoped for at first, or how quickly we'd done a complete one-eighty and lost interest.

Even so, I couldn't help feeling sorry for him.

While I drifted along on those half-formed feelings, I somehow ended up being assigned as his nurse-in-charge.

Every day I walked into the same unchanging hospital room. A room that, by all reasonable expectation, would never change.

As always, I checked the room and the patient's condition, did some light cleaning, and that was it. There was never any conversation to be had.

"Good morning～. Coming in～"

I called out as I entered, just out of habit. It probably didn't mean anything.

A young boy with the lingering innocence of a child still on his cute, sleeping face, bathed in clear winter sunlight. Fifteen years old, if I remembered right.

So young, and already stuck in hospital living, with worse odds of making it than not… If there really is a god, he must be a pretty mean one.

Seeing him like this every day, I was starting to understand why everyone wanted to look away.

In my time as a nurse, there had been lives I couldn't save. Each time left me with the same bitter regret, and the thought of going through it again here made my chest ache.

Caught somewhere between praying for his recovery and quietly resigning myself, I finished my rounds and headed back to the staff station.

The other nurses had wrapped up their morning duties and were just settling in when the nurse-call chime rang out.

In the Men's Ward especially, we got called out for trivial nonsense all the time. Honestly, every nurse on the floor was a little worn out from it.

Even so, the job was popular precisely because it offered so many chances to interact with the precious male population. I used to fantasize about wonderful encounters with men myself, back in the day.

But reality wasn't that kind. Every ideal I'd built up about men had been thoroughly dismantled.

For starters, most of the men who get admitted are elderly. And when a younger one did come in, he was either terrified of women, which made communication a nightmare, or so spoiled and selfish there was no dealing with him.

I'm a nurse, so of course I work hard for my patients. But it's not like I became a slave. Would it kill them to be a little kinder?

Well, the truly lovely sort who'd think to be considerate of their nurse already has a partner, I'm sure.

I was running through my mental list of grievances when I noticed something strange in the air around me.

Normally we'd answer the nurse-call and pass it to whoever was in charge of that patient, but everyone seemed weirdly unsettled today.

I looked around the room, then checked the number lit up on the nurse-call panel, and understood why.

The call was coming from that boy's room. My patient.

The junior nurse assigned alongside me as his other caretaker and I exchanged bewildered looks.

In the Men's Ward, there were usually more nurses than patients. To make sure each patient got attentive care, two nurses were assigned to every one.

I'd had her on a different task this morning, so she hadn't seen him yet, which probably made her even more anxious.

"Senpai, the patient in that room is…"

"Yeah, that's definitely his room…"

"How was he this morning?"

"Same as always, was all I could say…"

Seeing that none of us could shake off the confusion, a veteran senior picked up the receiver and took the call.

"Hello? What seems to be the matter?"

The fact that she could stay calm and handle it normally even in a situation like this really did come down to experience, I thought, a little impressed. Then again, we could have answered from our own terminals just as easily; we'd just been too startled to react in time.

A lecture was definitely in my future after this…

"Yes, understood. We'll send the nurses in charge right over…"

So it wasn't an equipment malfunction, by the sound of it.

Which meant he'd woken up and called the nurse himself…?

The thought only made my head spin more.

"This patient's nurses-in-charge are Nakano-san and Houzawa-san, correct? Get over there now."

""Y-yes!""

Shrinking under the senior's brook-no-argument pressure, we hurried out of the staff station.

===================================

side: Protagonist

After blacking out in the Japanese-style room, I came to flat on my back.

The only things in my field of vision were a pure white ceiling, lights, and an air conditioner.

Yeah, this was exactly the "ceiling I don't recognize" trope.

Mulling that over, I tried to sit up for a better look at my surroundings, but my body felt heavy. It creaked all over like a rusted-out machine, refusing to move the way I wanted.

Come to think of it, Goddess-sama did say something about the Evil God's reach extending to the me on this side too…

So there must have been something going on with this me as well. His soul had apparently been destroyed, so it wouldn't be strange if the body was a wreck.

When I finally managed to push myself up, my eyes landed on a large window and the clear blue sky beyond it.

Looking around the room, I spotted a work desk, a table, and even a sofa piled high with elegant cushions.

There was a TV so big I couldn't help wondering how many inches across it was.

For a moment I thought I might be staying at some kind of high-class hotel, but apparently not.

A bunch of tubes ran out of my left arm, and my right arm was wrapped in pure white bandages.

From the looks of it, I'd been badly injured thanks to the Evil God and ended up hospitalized.

No point in just lying around, so I used my left hand, the one I could move, to press the nurse-call button.

"Hello? What seems to be the matter?"

A nurse's voice came through the handset.

But she was asking me "what seems to be the matter," and I didn't really know how to answer that.

I'd just been asleep up until a moment ago, and on top of that I had no memories from before…

No point sitting here thinking about it, so I figured I'd start by asking a nurse or a doctor to come.

"Um… could someone come, please?"

"Yes, understood. We'll send the nurses in charge right over…"

"All right. Please do."

Mission accomplished, at least as far as getting someone to come. A relief that it had gone smoothly.

But it was only a matter of time before they realized I had no memories. Without anything beyond my own name, there was no way to hide it. There was definitely going to be a fuss…

Just thinking about it got me down.

While I sat there agonizing over what was about to happen, I heard the pitter-patter of someone hurrying toward the room.

Well, "someone" had to be a nurse or a doctor.

As I was silently riffing on that to myself, a knock came at the door.

"Izumi-san? It's the nurses, Nakano and Houzawa. We're coming in!"

"Ah, y-yes～"

Two nurses with reddish hair came in, looking flustered.

I hadn't meant to imply they should rush… had I made them hurry over? I felt a little bad about it.

"Izumi-san, how are you feeling? The doctor will be here right away, all right?"

"Ah… yes. I'm feeling pretty well, actually…"

Of the two, the nurse with the deep crimson hair was the one tending to me. The other one, with vermillion hair, was on her phone with someone.

The doctor, maybe? Watching her get so worked up was starting to worry me.

Also, which one was Nakano? And which one was Yoshizawa? Wait, was it Nakazawa and Yoshino?

"Shiori-senpai! Kudou-sensei is here!"

"Houzawa-san, please call the testing room and let them know."

While she checked my vitals against the numbers on the machines, the doctor in charge had finally arrived, by the sound of it, and given the nurse some instructions on her way in. So the vermillion-haired, slender one flapping about was Houzawa-san.

"Izumi-san. Good morning. I'm Kudou Chiaki, your attending physician. How are you feeling?"

"Good morning. Um… my body feels reasonably well."

The moment she stepped into the room, Kudou-sensei began the interview.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Um… a hospital…"

"That's right. Do you remember why you were brought here?"

"…I don't."

When I gave my one-word answer, Kudou-sensei jotted something down on the memo pad in her hand.

I was dying to know what she was writing.

"Can you tell me your name?"

"Um… Izumi…"

"Izumi…?"

I was sure Goddess-sama had told me before the reincarnation. Come on, remember…

"Izumi Shouya."

Thank goodness… I'd actually remembered.

"Can you tell me your age and date of birth?"

Crap. Super basic information, and I didn't know. Would it really have killed her to tell me my birthday at least?

There was no way to fudge it, so I'd just have to come clean.

"…I don't know."

"Eh?! Ah, I'm sorry…"

Nakano-san let out a startled gasp at my answer. Not that I could blame her. Not knowing your own birthday was abnormal, after all.

"Your occupation, your family, today's date… anything at all is fine. Is there nothing you can recall?"

"…Nothing… besides my own name… I can't remember anything…"

"That can't be…"

In the hush of the room, the nurses' murmurs sounded painfully loud.

"I see… Let's wrap up the questioning here for now. I'd like to move on to testing next; would that be all right? If you're tired, we can wait a little while…"

"No… I'm feeling fine physically."

"Understood. We'll come collect you once preparations are ready."

With that, Kudou-sensei left the room.