sinnesspiel | Shiki Novel Translations 2.7.5

That day, Toshio received the phone call informing him of Gyouda Etsuko's death in the evening. When Toshio had rushed there, Etsuko was without a doubt dead, and a few hours had passed since she'd died. It seemed she had died while her husband Bungo was in the mountaints. Her dead face was calm and her clothes were undisturbed. Lethargic and her breath just stopped. Toshio mechanically wrote acute renal failure on the death certificate.

When handing over the death certificate, Toshio requested for Gyouda to allow him to take a blood sample from Etsuko but, as expected, Gyouda refused. Aside from not being able to do a blood test, he could only theorize but Etsuko had held out relatively well for her age. She was quick to visit the hospital, and with treatment for a bit its worsening had been abated. But---Toshio thought as he returned to the hospital where patients were working him to death. The problem was that the bunch from the village were hurrying into the hospital when there was no particular condition, while the ones who were really ill were avoiding the hospital. Unable to get past their own physical condition, they didn't want to go out, and while avoiding that they became unable to move about.

What to do, he could probably have the patients hospitalized right away; while worrying thusly, examination hours ended. Seishin came when he was drawing back to his own room glaring at medical charts.

"---How is it?" Seishin opened, speaking first.

Toshio answered carelessly that it was hopeless. "As expected, the premonitory symptom's anemia. There's a fever too, but not too high. From there in about three days it dramatically worsens. Deterioration of multiple organs, furthermore accompanied by light edema and mild jaundice, or possibly blisters and inflammation from a diminished immune mechanism. Since antibiotics don't work, it isn't bacteriogenous."

"Bacteriogenous?"

"Vancomycin doesn't have any effect. I dare say it's probably not caused by a bacteria. At any rate, at the level where it's manifesting amnesia, with a full blood transfusion, it feels like there's some effect that keeps them alive longer. Characteristics outside of the anemia include blisters. In all cases festering traces of insect bites were found presenting near blood vessels. I think that confirms that there's an intermediary carrier but I can't concretely specify what it is. That's all the commonalities between the patients. Their physical health and characteristics, lifestyles and habits, circumstances, they're all unrelated. I can't think of it as contaminated water, soil, or food. It's not poison, it's an infectious disease. That much I can say for the time being is reality. ---And, on your end?"

Seishin opened the notebook. He passed over a copy folded within it to Toshio.

"A common point was, as usual, not found. As you can see. Also, ----I don't know whether this has any connection or not but...." Seishin hesitate to speak. Toshio, resting his chin in his hands, urged him to go on.

"Gigorou-san from Yamairi left and returned to the village when he was sick."

"You said that before too, last time," Toshio started to say, Seishin talking past him.

"Ohta Kenji, Hirosawa Takatoshi, Saeki Akira, Takashima Yasuo, Shimizu Gardening's Ryuuji-san, and Ohkawa's Shigeru-san, these six commuted to work outside of the village. And---Just before their death, suddenly, they retired from office."

Toshio titled his head. "What's that?"

"I'm saying, before they died they resigned without a word to their families. And furthermore, very, tremendously suddenly, quitting without a reason. In the case of Hirosawa's Takatoshi-san, he made as if he were going out to work and he was passing his time in the Pachinko parlor in Mizobe, where he collapsed."

"Funny story, isn't it..."

"Of the people who have died, there were six people who had commuted. Each of those resigned before they died. ....What do you think this is?"

Like I know? Toshio answered. "Just, if nothing else it's not connected to the disease. Those guys didn't have symptoms."

He tried to give a smile but Toshio himself wasn't satisfied with that dismissal. It might have been a coincidence but even so six people were six people, and all of them.

"Also, I know that this isn't related either but.... There are fewer people.. Have you noticed?"

"I know there're fewer."

"That's not what I mean. Not just from dying. There are a lot of move-outs. There are also many who it's unknown if they moved or died. They're also suddenly leaving the village. They're leaving the village as if running away into the night, without a word to their neighbors." Seishin said, presenting the copy of the memo. In withered characters were written 22 names, not in Seishin's hand writing, and at the end of that, this time in Seishin's writing, "Maruyasu (San'Yasu) * Naka-Sotoba" was added.

"The circumstances of the moves are strange, too." Saying this, Seishin talked about the examples of the Sakai-Matsu and San'Yasus. Toshio scowled. Indeed, these circumstances were bizarre. But, unless they realized the illness and fled, moves were unrelated.

"I received the certificates of residence from Ishida-san, too. By the way, from August until now, there haven't been any moving notices turned in to him."

"Not a one?"

"Not a one. Even Takami-san's family did not turn one in."

"That's a strange story too, another one."

Toshio gazed at the note but it didn't invite much of his interest. It obviously had no connection to the disease. No matter how many people there may have been moving out, that wasn't within Toshio's sphere of action."

"I've been hearing that Yuzuki-san from the library had quit or that the principal of the grade school had wanted to quit too. ....Do you not think that something is odd?"

"That" Toshio threw down the note. "is a weird story if you want me to call it weird but, but, that and this case aren't related."

Toshio looked serious as he nodded.

"I don't think it is. But it doesn't make sense! It feels like something is happening in the village. It feels like, somehow, the illness is a part of that something."

"It's your imagination," Toshio declared. Something like a faint irritation seized him.

"I've thought that may be the case. But, Sadaichi-san had noted this but look at that moving list. The people who came and went from Yamairi are cleanly, clearly gone now. The three living in Yamairi died, and the people who would have come and gone to Yamairi from any place else have done. With the people related to Yamairi gone, it really is settled. Doesn't Yamairi seem like a place of interest?"

Toshio breathed a sigh. "You can't just tie every little thing together."

"But."

"You're right that that was Yamairi and this is Yamairi too. You're right that there are a lot of people moving out too, and I'll even acknowledge that the circumstances are weird. ---But, what connection are you saying this has to the illness?"

"That's..." Seishin casted his eyes down.

"It must've been a royal pain to investigate all this this far. But, this has nothing to do with us. What we have to think about right now is that disease on our hands. It's building momentum, don't you get it?!"

"That's..."

"You've completely lost sight of the point of the investigation. We have to prove that the string of deaths is being caused by an epidemic. We have to confirm what kind of disease it is, to find a way to treat it. And yet here we are with its premonitory symptoms being hard to read, with it getting to the point where nothing can be done but the time the people around them notice it!" Toshio spit out. While saying it, he knew his own words were setting off his irritation. "We need medical cases. And yet the villagers aren't coming in to the doctor until it's gotten worse! They're counting on a lay person's judgement and folk remedies! As circumstances get worse and worse by the time they're brought in, and if there's no way to save them, I can't even track how it progresses! ---There's no doubt it's an epidemic. There's probably a carrier animal. That's all that we know. We can't even overlap the disease's consistencies. It's true I'm not an epidemiologst. Nor am I a researcher. I'm just an ordinary private practive doctor. There're limits to what I know, I won't deny that. But, I've still put my best into this. But, even if I research and research, I just keep thinking more and more that these symptoms shouldn't be happening. There's nothing wrong with blood formation or hematosis. There's nothing wrong with their bone marrow. We're not finding any internal bleeding. All that leaves is hemolysis but the hemolysis reaction's not happening. Anemia that shouldn't happen is happening. And it's getting violently worse. There're way, way too few medical cases. So it's nothing but a bunch where the mechanism that leads to their deaths don't even match up!"

Toshio smacked the mountain of clinical records.

"The essential patients don't come in until the sickness has gotten to the last stage. And yet the number of patients with pointless complaints of illness are increasing. How many patients do you think come in in one day lately?! Even the staff are mentally strained! They're tired!"

With his eyes still cast down, Seishin remained quiet.

"You think I give a damn about the bunch who leave here because they want to? You've wasted our time! On top of that, you even asked Sadaichi-san, you said?! What do you think Sadaichi-san's going to make of you sniffing around here and there?! Not just that, the bunch in this village aren't idiots! They're starting to notice something's up! If on top of that it gets around that the Junior Monk from the temple's asking around for information, isn't that going to fuel their uneasiness even more!"

The one who was depressed was taking on an explosive form. Seishin tried to say something but in the end he held his tongue. The sympathy he'd felt towards Toshio was visible there on his face. Seishin probably thought that Toshio was impatient and tired, making him irritable. And he'd be right, but right then that compassion laden gaze was rubbing on his nerves the wrong way.

"If you've got the time to spare for all that, then take note of the faces of the people who come to the temple. Looking to see if people are sick, straining your ears to hear if people are talking like someone in their family has a cold would be who knows how many times more useful!"

Seishin didn't object. I understand, was all he said shortly, his head bowed faintly at something.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yay we finally get a Toshio/Seishin chapter! But, uh oh, it's like seeing a child getting thoroughly scolded by his parents.

Poor Toshio, it's really tough on his end. But seeing Seishin all dejected is a bit saddening too. Toshio rather acknowledges Seishin's efforts, but he thinks his efforts weren't in proper place. It makes me truly wonder why he, a rather logical person then so suddenly accepts that all of this which has been happening has perhaps nothing to do with some illness, that this perhaps is something else's doing -- just by jokingly saying that 'well, if she rose up from death, she'd be vampire or zombie!' and then, bam, so suddenly he then comes up with weird theories that perhaps Seishin even thinks that he's finally gone mad. Not to mention that he is rather sure of himself even, it's rather curious for people with medical professions I think. Or maybe it's just Toshio. Or perhaps that part is different in the novel?

Nope, that much is about the same. As an ardent opponent of belief in the supernatural, most of us "SCIENCE~!" types proclaim we'd believe in something if it had evidence, tests confirming to its special existence to confirm its properties. Science tends to require analysis of a situation and a hypothesis based off of observations before making a test that would confirm or deny the hypothesis, so I don't see any contradictions. Every other hypothesis's experiments (COOMBS, tests for epidemics, blood diseases) have failed. At that point he might just be happy to have something to try testing even if it's crazy.

...Not that I disagree with Seishin at all when he does accuse Ozaki of having gone nuts.

....perhaps he really has. He's desperate and at the end of his rope after all. Seishin knows that it's insane, but still goes with what he says anyway. Seishin is a true friend.

And I noticed something very sweet from Seishin and Sunako's conversations: "More than for not being able to convey your own feelings, it's painful when the other will not open their heart to receive what you're trying to convey" romantic or platonic, I think it's very sweet because it shows that Seishin doesn't only think about himself, he thinks and care about Toshio even more. (and perhaps he's like that with basically everyone) I wonder if this is one of the reasons of why you and some others seem to think that between the two, it's Seishin who's more likely to harbor romantic feelings? I'm wondering if I misjudged Seishin myself. Now that I think about it, I think we actually don't have much similarities after all... (so when I try to analyze him, I'll try not to project myself onto him too much, because it then turns out quite different too)

I can only speak for me, but a part of the reason I get the impression of feelings from Seishin's side is that Ozaki seems to be his main hitch in action or inaction. That's not to say he lacks empathy for others, but while he feels an obligation to the village and sad for the dead and their families, he seems to have reached the point of empathy fatigue. But while suffering empathy fatigue and getting annoyed at long stories, he's still feeling sorry for Ozaki hating himself later... even when that lashing out is directly against him, he pulls a Jesus and thinks "You're going to hate yourself later and I can't even tell you I understand and don't mind."

I don't think he ever even once thinks "All I've done for you!" or has any problems with Toshio being mean or abusive to him. Sunako seems to try to frame and present it to Seishin as Ozaki having an irrational outburst at poor Seishin, but he doesn't take the bait to blame Toshio for his being down... even if he'd arguably be right to.

He later monologues that he might secretly really want the village to die out. While thinking it'd be best of the village died out, he thinks he can't let the people down and hurries to Ozaki's, only to see him going Mad Scientist--and then suddenly that obligation to the people is out the window. Maybe it's because he relies on Ozaki to sympathize with him about his own burden to the village, but romantic or not you can't argue he's at least very central to Seishin's decisions and deliberations. Ozaki might like him more, but Seishin might love him more, you could say.

That is, in the view of those who read it that way.

I can also read it with seeing the same thing, minus anything romantic in it. I'm sliiiiightly more inclined to say "if Ono wanted this to be a gay romance, she could have" but we've had that conversation before about how that could just over-ride everything, reasons she might not want to pigeon hole her work so much, etc.

Interesting. I'll try to analyze Seishin chapters again then, (especially the later ones to come) but I think I have to consult with other people, again. Just so that I'll be more open to various possible ideas. Toshio chapters as well.

So I take it that you think it's possible for people to not harbor romantic feelings for someone, even if that someone is very central to them? Even if their life seems to revolve around that person? (I like to be dramatic sometimes)

Well, romantic or platonic, Toshio and Seishin's relationship is still precious regardless. Even if it's not romantic, it still doesn't negate the fact that it's an important one. A relationship doesn't need to be romantic for it to be important, to have meaning. I clearly have to drill this into my brain, but stiiilll I guess it's in humans' nature to be attracted to romance, to 'love', even people who aren't exactly romantic like me I think. I still want to see them being romantic. I still can't help but think that romantic relationship is quite in another level of being special.

But now I think I'm starting to accept it though, that 'even if they aren't romantic, they're still special and precious and awesome'. Part of me is also attracted to ships who are more of partners than lovers. And of course part of me is also attracted to tragedy ships where the couples concerned are in long struggle.

About the not necessarily harboring romantic feelings even if they're center, I think so, yeah. There are very close but very dry work relationships, there are ones driven by some psychological cause such as charismic leaders, there are times the person central to your life is central in a controlling, custodial, parenting capacity--perhaps even IS a parent, there are times when someone's just not the right sexuality to be into them romantically. I need more than physical and psychological propinquity to see a pair. Otherwise, half of Ozaki's medical staff are doomed to love him, and Mitsuo's in love with the Murois. Tatsumi and a huge part of the Shiki crew would be in love with Sunako. I'd question reading romantic implications in the statements that Kaori loves Megumi, even.

Still, romance is fun and exciting, so I can see why so many people want to see it everywhere. As one who likes struggling, tumultuous ships, I completely sympathize.

Shiki Novel Translations 2.7.5

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