Chapter 5: Outside One's Comfort Zone

In spite of my resolve to graduate on time, I found the task more difficult than I had anticipated, since the things I needed to accomplish in order do so went against my very nature. Breaking habits can be difficult; not just ones like smoking that are enforced by virtue of being addictive, but habits that run the gamut from your daily routines to the things you do without thinking about them.

The demands of the body are especially difficult to ignore merely through other considerations, such as your responsibilities. No matter how much I knew I had to wake up, I had to fight my body's desire to remain in bed. No matter how little time remained to get to school, I walked at a stagger. I found it bizarre that, in anime and other works of fiction, protagonists could stand up from wounds that would nearly have killed them out of sheer determination to achieve their goals or protect their friends, when for me, willpower was not enough to overcome drowsiness or fatigue.

It also didn't help that a single tardiness was unimportant, especially in my mind, as I believed that my grades were good enough to compensate for that. In my mind, surely the school could compromise a little, especially when my grades were so good. In my mind, learning the material was most important of all, and if I could do that despite being late, it was to my credit.

During our first year of high school, Saori was in a different class from me, and making friends of her own. One of her closer friends at high school was a girl named Isuzu Hana, whom I ended up meeting later. Saori was much better suited to waking up early and socializing than I was, even if she wasn't quite as good at academics.

Saori's interest in socializing was not limited to a solely platonic sense; she had reached an age in which she started to have a serious romantic interest in boys. Unfortunately, she didn't have much luck, especially considering that our school was exclusively for girls.

Even though I was, as always, less social than Saori was, I did end up meeting people on my own, even if not always on the most pleasant terms.

"You're late again, Reizei-san!" A familiar-looking girl with her hair in a bob haircut called out to me as I staggered to the gates of Oarai about two weeks after starting there. She was carrying a tablet computer and wore an armband in addition to her uniform.

"Do I… know you?" I muttered sleepily. For some reason, all the hall monitors seemed to look alike around here, so I considered it a reasonable possibility that I had seen her before.

"Sono Midoriko, second-year and member of the Disciplinary Committee," the girl said. "I have a computer that lists tardies, and you've already racked up several."

"So…do…ko," I stammered out, struggling to stay awake, and yawning after finishing it.

"That's Sono-senpai to you, Reizei-san!" Sodoko said. "When addressing your elders, you use their proper name and correct honorific!"

"Whatever, Sodoko…" I said while walking off.

My encounter with this girl left me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. She took herself so seriously, obsessing over all the rules and taking pride in her ability to enforce them. She cared more about the letter than the spirit of the rules- I might not show up on time, but isn't it better to show up 15 minutes late than 30 minutes late, and aren't both better than not showing up at all? And did she even question why classes were held the first thing in the morning?

I could picture Sodoko , in about ten years, going to work every day at some office job wearing the same business suit every day, or getting married to a respectable man and having kids, all while sucking up to her betters, preaching her adherence to the rules and looking down on those who didn't do things her way. But then a thought occurred to me- wouldn't that be a pitiful existence? And what if she was forcing herself to do this because she knew no other way?

Those thoughts rarely came to mind, since most of my exposure to Sodoko consisted of her reprimanding me for my lateness. But I had to wonder- just as there was more to me than being an often tardy but excellent student, was there more to her than that?

Another day, a while after my previous encounter with Sodoko, I walked toward the school, already late, knowing that Sodoko would be on my case regardless of whether I made haste toward the school or walked at a leisurely pace. Perhaps I would be able to wake up by the time I got to the school if I proceeded at a walk; running seemed impossible while I was half-asleep.

Suddenly, my cell phone rang and I picked it up, not recognizing the number.

"This had better be important..." I thought, suspecting even then that I would regret this wish.

"Hello?" I said

"Reizei Mako-san?" a male voice on the other end said.

"Yes?" I said.

"This is Dr. Ishida Tatsuya, of Oarai Hospital," the doctor said. "Your grandmother collapsed earlier this morning and has been taken to the emergency room.. You are… her only remaining family, are you not? We found a card with your number in her purse."

"Yes…" I said, my state of shock freezing my mind to the point at which I could only utter a reflexive response.

"Then it would be best if you could come over as soon as possible, please," he said.

"I will, doctor," I said. He then told me how to get to the hospital. "I'll talk to you there. Goodbye." I said, before hanging up.

I was gripped with terror for a moment as I pondered what had happened, but that went to the back of my mind- albeit not disappearing completely, as I realized what I needed to do.

Sodoko was the last person on my mind as I quickly made my way to the hospital. I didn't care if she gave me detention, held me back or expelled me, or even whether she had the authority to do any of this. What I was worried about, more than anything else, was how bad Grandma's condition was, whether she was still alive or how long she would be, or if I would part from my last living family member, the one who had raised me since my parents' deaths without a chance to say goodbye.

Grandma was unconscious when I got there, albeit in a stable condition, so the doctor spoke with me about what had happened in his office. It was at this point that I truly realized just what kind of difficulties lay in taking care of someone Grandma's age. But if I didn't step up, who would?

In spite of my resolve, though, I realized that things were unlikely to get better, and it was possible that Grandma had been keeping her problems to herself as long as she could. She always struck me as a fairly proud individual, keeping her grief inside after my parents' deaths as much for the sake of wanting to seem in control as for my sake.

"This…. isn't an isolated occurrence, is it?" I asked the doctor after he had detailed what had happened and Grandma's present condition.

"No, unfortunately," Dr. Ishida said. "People your grandmother's age can be prone to falling, which can have dire consequences for them. Your grandmother's health has been declining over the last few years, so it is entirely possible that there will not only be future instances of this, but the subsequent ones will have more severe repercussions for her."

"And th…there isn't anything that you can do about this?" I said, more accusingly than I intended.

"Reizei-san, please understand," Dr. Ishida said. "While your grandmother is in our care, we do everything in our power to care for her. But for a woman her age, incidents like these are not something that will happen only once, nor is her survival always guaranteed. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but it's also the truth. I cannot say much more to you than that, except that you honestly have my sympathies."

As I listened to the doctor's grim predictions and declaration of the limits of what he could do, my gaze drifted to the single photograph on his desk, showing two adults posing for a picture with their child. I thought the father was the doctor, but he seemed to have a different hair color and more facial hair, compared to the child. The picture thus seemed very old; did he not have a more recent one with his family? Or did he have any other chances to get one?

But in a sense, I began to understand what he was saying, even if I was altogether unhappy. Perhaps he also understood what I had experienced, as well as that which I feared I would.

"I know my grandmother is not in the best of health, doctor," I said. "I know she might collapse again. I know that in the future, she might not be so lucky. I even know that she may not live much longer. But I want to be able to care for her in her remaining years. And, more than anything, I want her, the only family I have left, around."

"For what it's worth, Reizei-san…" Dr. Ishida said, his expression becoming warm and sympathetic, "so do I."

About an hour later, Grandma came to, and I was able to see her. As I walked into the room, I did so with a sense of trepidation and nervousness of what I would find once inside.

I saw her sitting up in the bed, better off than I had expected, much to my relief. Her expression showed that she was tired, but not entirely surprised to see me.

"Hello, Mako," Grandma said wearily.

"Hello, Grandma," I said as I stepped into the room. An awkward pause ensued, as Grandma looked almost embarrassed. She then glanced over to a small daily calendar on the nightstand, most likely noticing that it was a Tuesday.

"You aren't missing school, are you?" Grandma said crankily, although the discomfort in her face seemed to suggest that most of it was directed at herself. I could only nod in response. "This isn't something I wanted you to see, nor did I want you to have an excuse to get out of class, especially not with your attendance as it is."

"Hey, it's not like it's a picnic here for me," I said. "If I skip class, I at least want to have fun. Besides, it's too late to get back in time for class already; they already called the school and said I'd be out."

"I had hoped you wouldn't have to hear about this," Grandma said resignedly, before turning irritated again. "But so what if I fell? I'm not completely helpless yet, and I won't be treated as an invalid, not by the doctors, not by the government, and especially not by my own family."

Grandma's pride was kicking in again, realizing that because of what had happened to her, people were bending over backwards for her. She was always fairly independent and had no desire to impose on others, so she saw my having to come over for her as humiliating and shameful. But a small part of her was touched that I was willing to come over for her, even if she, realizing that I would do so by nature, hoped I wouldn't have to.

We talked about other things for a few minutes, including what the doctor had told me, and Grandma scoffed at his more pessimistic predictions. I wanted to believe her, so it cheered me up slightly to hear her say such things, even if I suspected she wanted to convince herself as much as me.

"Visiting time's almost over," I said late in the visit, "and I got what I came for, so I should go. You're OK with that, right, Grandma?"

"Do you need to ask?" Grandma said. "You've got too much to do to waste time here worrying about me."

I nodded and started to leave, but when I heard Grandma's voice behind me at the threshold of the door, I stopped and turned around.

"You know, Mako, you really should look to yourself first," Grandma said, her glare replaced by a solemn expression. "It's all well and good to want to be there for others, but you shouldn't neglect your own needs and responsibilities to do so. If you cause them to worry about you while you're looking after them, it defeats the purpose of trying to help them."

"Who says I can't do both?" I said. The question was largely for the sake of getting a final rebuttal in, but I honestly believed this.

Grandma sighed and considered my words for a moment. I thought I saw her smile for a moment.

"If you can manage that, go ahead," Grandma said.

I returned home in the evening, and prepared to get back to school the next day. But after I had gotten home, told Saori about what had happened, finished my homework and climbed into bed, I was left pondering what the doctor had told me. How long did Grandma have left? Would she be taken from me as suddenly as my parents were, without an opportunity to make amends or say goodbye? Even my most optimistic evaluations of the scenario could not completely blind me to the worse possibilities, and I tossed and turned restlessly in my bed.

When I next opened my eyes, I realized that I was already running late for class. It was not a case of my being unable to drag myself out of bed this time; I had simply slept through my alarm due to being unable to get to sleep the previous night.

I walked up to the gate, and saw Sodoko standing there as she always was, as though nothing had happened the previous morning.

"Reizei-san, not only are you late today, but you didn't show up yesterday at all!" Sodoko said as she greeted me at the gate.

"Here," I said and handed Sodoko an envelope containing a letter from the doctor. She opened it and perused the contents, which essentially described the situation with my grandmother and said I had been out for the day.

As Sodoko read the letter, her expression shifted from her usual outrage, to a mixture of surprise, shame and sympathy I had never seen on her face before, and I don't think she had ever expected to show to me.

"Go on in," Sodoko said, almost reflexively. "And, Reizei-san… I'm sorry."

Without saying another word, I nodded and entered the school building. Seeing Sodoko at a loss for words was less amusing than I had anticipated, whether because I had not expected it, or because of the circumstances I was in.

One thing I've noticed about our habits and characteristics is that while they are things we commonly do, often without thinking about them, we can only do them when circumstances allow. One case is when something happens that we're completely unprepared to deal with; we merely react to them, with all pretenses and routines falling away.

For Sodoko, it was the first time as seeing me as someone more than the constantly tardy and presumably lazy girl who liked sleeping in that she assumed I was. And for me, it was the first time seeing Sodoko do something other than the stuck-up, rules-obsessed girl I thought of her as. Just as she didn't think there was more to my situation than not liking getting up early, I didn't think her capable of compromising or showing sympathy to others when they didn't follow the rules. When we were no longer acting quite like ourselves, we could not respond to each other's actions in our standard way, and even when we returned to more normal behavior, we did so with the knowledge that the other was no longer as simple or one-dimensional as we had thought.

Perhaps being forced out of our comfort zones was a good thing for the two of us. And in our next year of school, the time would come when we, through Tankery, would experience this again.

Omake

"Sodoko?" I said as I saw a familiar-looking girl at the gates of the school, as I was once again late.

"No… I'm not Sodoko," the girl said. "My name is Gotou Moyoko, and like you, I'm a first-year. It's nice to meet you, Reizei-san."

"Gomoyo…" I said, muttering out a nickname that seemed natural at the moment. If Sodoko's nickname alternated between the characters in her name, then Gomoyo's would use the first parts of each of hers.

"Did Sodoko tell you about me, Reizei-san?" Gomoyo said. "Most people don't know about this nickname. But please, only my friends call me that."

Her soft, almost timid voice stood in stark contrast to Sodoko's nagging and fierce voice. And upon closer inspection, her hair was, despite being in the same color and style as Sodoko's, slightly longer. But she simply recorded that I was late and let me go on my way without a lecture or scolding.

Luckily, I learned to tell the difference between the girls by the time I met Pazomi.

Author's Notes

This chapter was to illustrate why Mako doesn't change overnight, and just how hard the task of taking care of her grandmother that she's taken upon herself to do is. Simply put, it goes against Mako's nature of wanting to sleep in and take the path of least resistance, so even if Mako has the resolve to do it, she isn't necessarily ready, not even years after making her decision

Saori says in Episode 7 (where I get most of my information about Mako), that Mako's grandmother has collapsed before. I decided to include the first inident that Mako is aware of. It's indicated that Mako worries about her grandmother quite a bit, and I suspect that the first such incident caused her to fear the possibility of more and worse collapses.

Regarding Hisako, I think she appreciates the visits from Mako, but doesn't want her to miss class to do it, as she expresses in the first part of Episode 7, wanting her to get back to school as soon as possible. It's a bit like not wanting someone to give you a flower as a gift if you had to steal it out of someone else's lawn.

Gomoyo, the long-haired member of the disciplinary committee, seems calmer than Sodoko in many regards, such as when she lets Mako drive their tank without complaint. She also looks more similar to Sodoko than Pazomi does to either of the two.

This concludes the pre-series part of the story. The next few chapters will deal with Mako during the events of the series, including her perspective on events and certain ones that weren't shown in the series.