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1.
Because of Chiyuki's pregnancy, Decim starts taking extra shifts at the bar.
Before, Decim had only worked day shifts: he finished work at about the same time Chiyuki did; sometimes he would meet her at the skating rink, or she would meet him at the bar, and they would ride the train together. It suited Decim fine, as human work sometimes confused him; he would rather spend his time with her.
"What is this?" Chiyuki says. She looks at the trinket Decim hands her, frowning.
"The woman at the street corner sold it to me. She told me it was for good luck," Decim says.
"How much did you pay for it?" Chiyuki says. Decim tilts his head.
"It was a yellow bank note," Decim says. Chiyuki's eyes widen.
"Wait," Chiyuki says. "You paid ten thousand yen for this?"
"I was told it was for good luck," Decim says.
"Decim, you got ripped off." Chiyuki looks distraught. "I know you didn't mean to, but we have the baby to think about. We need to start saving," Chiyuki says.
Decim looks at the trinket and considers. "If I am able to make more money," Decim says. "Would it fix things?"
Chiyuki stares at him and doesn't answer.
xXx
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He starts working the late shift. It causes him some distress, as he no longer sees Chiyuki: the shift begins at 5 PM, he leaves before she gets home; and when he comes back at 3 AM, he only sees her when she is asleep. The only time he is able to talk to her is if he can manage to be awake when she leaves for work in the morning.
Some days he works two shifts back-to-back, and on those days he never sees her at all.
xXx
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There are too many customers, and all of them are drunk. Unruly and angry, they push and pull together in one heaving sweating mass, and the shouts for drinks and bar food is such that if Decim had his powers, they would all be tied with puppet string and flung together against the wall.
He staggers home well past closing, but he doesn't want to sleep. He sways a little but doesn't sit down, knowing his body well enough to realize that if he sits, he will fall asleep.
It's 7 AM when Chiyuki wakes to her alarm. He is at the foot of the bed, bizarrely awake and somehow managing to stave off his exhaustion. He waits as she blinks slowly, opening her eyes.
"Decim?"
He pulls her into a hug. It is an awkward one - she's still in bed and he's still standing - and his entire upper body drapes over hers like a sack of flour. "Mmm, I missed you. How was work?" Chiyuki says. He tucks his face into the crook of her shoulder. "That bad, huh?" she says.
He's starting to feel better. She gives him one last squeeze before pulling away from him, but he holds onto her tighter.
"Should I call out sick?" Chiyuki says. Decim straightens.
"Are you feeling ill?" Decim says.
"No, I just thought, maybe I could stay home?"
He catches the meaning. Chiyuki smiles.
xXx
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2.
"So we need to get you a job that will make you more money." Nona chews on her lip and furrows her brow. "I wonder what job will suit you?"
Decim doesn't need to ask to know that Nona has been watching them. Nona made that point very clear the last time she came.
"You really shouldn't be doing that thing you did last night," Nona had said, apropos of nothing. Decim blinked.
"Thing?" Decim echoed.
"Cunnilingus," Nona said.
"What?!" Chiyuki said.
"Ugh," Nona said, and she snapped her fingers. Chiyuki went to sleep, whacking her head against the table.
"Oh, don't look at me like that, it's not like she'll remember," Nona said.
After Decim begged her to please stop knocking out Chiyuki-san, she does not like being put to sleep, Nona finally got to the point of it:"Have you ever heard of an air embolism?" Nona said.
"I beg your pardon?"
Nona grinned wickedly. "It's what can kill a pregnant woman during oral sex," Nona said.
Decim's face went pale. Nona grinned, then stood, fluffing Chiyuki's hair as she walked passed him.
"We see lots of souls who die from it," Nona said. "You should probably look it up."
He went to the library and read all the books he could find on obstetrics; when he came across terms or concepts he didn't understand, he read different books to cover those.
"What are you doing?" Chiyuki said.
He was sitting at the table, pouring over the stacks of books he'd borrowed from the library. Each book had thick hard covers and easily over a thousand pages, and Chiyuki frowned reading the titles.
"Operative Obstetrics?" Chiyuki glanced at him. "The Clinician's Handbook of Maternal-Fetal Medicine?"
"I thought it best to familiarize myself with your condition," Decim said. At the time, he was still only working day shift; secretly he regrets wasting his nights reading textbooks when he could have been spending time with her.
xXx
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"Geez, so what can you do?" Nona says. She's staring up at the ceiling, furrowing her brow. "You're technically an arbiter, but there's no way you could be a judge here. You'd be a terrible lawyer, you have no charisma."
"I can continue bartending," Decim says.
"Yeah, but then you're gonna get tainted, and I'm gonna lose my bet," Nona says.
"'Tainted'?" Chiyuki says.
"More human," Nona says. "You missed it the other night. Decim was gonna lose his shit."
"It was...frustrating," Decim says. Chiyuki rubs his back, soothingly.
"Ugh. This is terrible. Make me a drink or something, it'll help me think."
Decim stands. He pulls out the bottles from the cabinets, setting them quietly on the table.
"Where are you going?" Nona says, as Chiyuki rises. Chiyuki smiles at her apologetically.
"Sorry," Chiyuki says. "The smell of alcohol makes me nauseous."
"Again?" Nona says. "You already threw up twice this morning."
"How did you-" Chiyuki blinks, then touches her forehead. "Nevermind."
"It is actually quite common," Decim says, coming out from the back. He sets down Nona's drink, which tinkles, lightly. "Chiyuki-san has high levels of progesterone circulating within her body, which would interfere with the neuromuscular function of her GI tract. It is the reason why she is nauseous," Decim says.
Nona sets down her drink. "The hell are you talking about?" Nona says.
"Slow wave dysrhythmias," Decim says. "I read it in my book."
"Which book?" Nona says, and her eyes follow Decim as he dutifully pulls the textbook from the shelf.
"Page 638, the second column, third paragraph. It is listed under potential causes for pregnancy-related nausea and vomiting." Decim can see the page perfectly in his mind. He flips open the book, showing them the page.
Chiyuki cranes her neck while Nona looks on with mild interest. "Wow, that's amazing, do you remember anything else?" Chiyuki says.
"I remember everything," Decim says.
"Everything you read?" Chiyuki says.
"Yes," Decim says. Chiyuki takes the book and flips it open to a random page.
"What does it say here, on page 335? What's the first sentence?" Chiyuki says. Decim thinks a moment. Repeats it. Chiyuki's eyes widen.
"Okay. What about the picture here on 245?"
"Which one?" Decim says. Chiyuki flips through the book, excited.
He answers them all perfectly. He doesn't understand what's making Chiyuki so excited, but it seems to make her happy so he doesn't mind doing it, and Nona is too busy thinking to notice.
"Okay, how about the graph in this other book, on um, page 115?"
"Are you done?" Nona says. Chiyuki looks up.
"This is amazing," Chiyuki says. "Decim! You have a photographic memory. Don't you realize how incredible that is?" Nona huffs, annoyed.
"He's an arbiter, of course his memory is good," Nona says. "He probably remembers more of what's in those books than the doctors do. Why do you think he's so good at making drinks? It's because he read all those mixology books Quin left at the bar."
And then Nona's eyes widen.
"That's it," Nona says. "Decim. You should be a doctor!"
"Hai?" Decim says.
"Ugh. But it's just like being a lawyer, your bedside manner would be terrible." Nona sinks back into her chair, defeated. She thinks a moment, then brightens, snapping her fingers.
"You should be a radiologist!" Nona says.
"What is a 'radiologist'?" Decim says. Nona stands, excitedly.
"They're a type of doctor that sits alone in a dark room and looks at pictures all day, it's perfect for you," Nona says. "All you do is write down what you see."
"There is a job like this?" Decim says. Behind him, Chiyuki shakes her head.
"He isn't a doctor, though," Chiyuki says. Nona shrugs.
"I got him a birth certificate, didn't I? A medical degree won't be that hard," Nona says. "As for his training, that's easy. We'll just take a bunch of memories from all the doctors that came through so far. Let's see...you still have the memories of that first guy you two judged, right? The jealous guy who came in with his wife?"
"Takashi and Machiko," Decim says. "But Nona-san. Takashi was not a radiologist."
"No, but we can find you the memories of someone who was. Hold on a minute," Nona says, and suddenly she's not in the room.
"I didn't know you can still receive memories," Chiyuki says, but before Decim can answer Nona's disembodied voice interrupts them.
"Of course he can, he's still an arbiter."
There's a loud bang, and Nona pops in from nowhere, crossing her arms.
"You better not screw this up," Nona says to Decim. "I have a lot riding on this."
"I will try my best," Decim says, and then the memories start flooding over.
xXx
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3.
The memories Nona curates are a jumbled mess: unlike the normal set of memories, an elegantly curated set of the important points of a guest's life, this set of memories is a hodge podge of different memories from different radiologists. His mind lurches to a halt and suddenly he's familiar with many hospital systems, many different computers and films and imaging techniques, has seen hundreds of thousands of rare and common cases both, has the expertise of someone in this profession for many, many years.
"Dr. Quin," Decim reads his badge. "Quin is my family name?"
"It's like your birth certificate, stupid, don't mess this up for me." Nona stands with her hands on her hips and pushes him through the hospital doors.