He had tried to get dressed without waking Fumi. His wife had always been a heavy sleeper, but the faucet in the bathroom was whistling especially shrill that night.
"Manabu… Another emergency?" she muttered sleepily, putting on her glasses to check the time: 3:16 AM and ticking away.
"Grandma Sousa," he said simply, polishing his glasses and pulling his heaviest pair of socks on. It was only October, but this year's winter had come in early, leaving a sharp bite to the air, even indoors in their bedroom.
"Ah. Her epilepsy? Good luck. Give them my love." Fumi rolled over to go back to sleep.
Yukimitsu blinked blearily in the dim lamplight. More than a decade ago, when he had first moved to Nendotani, he had protested these calls. I'm a gastroenterologist, not an orthopedic therapist. No, I work with the GI tract, I don't treat strokes. Intestines- not skin cancer. But the fact was that his specialty didn't matter when he was the only doctor for as far as the night sky stretched over farmland all around. Three hundred miles, to be exact.
"Good night, Fumi. Sorry for waking you. I'll be back in the morning," he promised, grabbing his autumn coat from the closet.
"Manabu." Her voice was quiet from beneath her mound of pillows.
"Yes?"
"You're not a dumb doctor," Fumi mumbled sleepily as she rolled over with the rustling of wool and cotton. "It's not like you can't run a practice in Osaka, or Yokohama, anywhere else. A real place, you know."
"If there was another doctor to replace me here, I would," Yukimitsu replied. "But there's not."
"There's never going to be, you know," she said cynically.
In all likelihood, she was correct. Even for Yukimitsu, if it hadn't been for the two-year loan forgiveness program, he never would have set foot in this county of radish fields and unpaved roads in the first place. But he stayed on afterwards, and stayed on for years later as the sole doctor serving at least five towns, and currently, he was steeling himself for what would probably be the last of his many visits to Grandma Sousa's house.
He didn't bother to reply to Fumi before he stepped out to the garage. The chill from the frosty air woke him up as well as any number of espresso shots. Ahead of him, the dark roads faded into the night sky. He opened his car door and prepared to warm up the engine.
His patient was waiting.
Sorry, no mention of other characters, football, or anything related to high school at all because they aren't part of his life anymore. Go, Go, Deimon Devilbats, but decades from the end of the manga, if they were real people, what did you expect?