An old friend

Days turned into weeks. Neither Naoki nor Kotoko brought the white file matter up again. Since Kotoko was not talking about it, Naoki thought maybe it wasn't important and moved on. On the other hand, Kotoko was determined never to talk about it with him again. She decided she will take her time to think what to do with her illness. According to Dr. Shinju, this illness doesn't have a 100% cure yet in Japan. She found out a new piece of information in the internet. In some parts of the USA, this disease has been successfully cured. That gave her hope. Hoping she wouldn't die right away she concentrated on her studies again. She informed Dr. Shinju that her terms exams were approaching. She will contact him after she is done with it. She also visited all the other hospitals in Tokyo which had a renowned neurology dept. and every neurologist she was either referred too or she could get an appointment with. She gathered a few more information on Neuroshia and most of them referred her to the Hope hospital. Despite the terrible situation she was in, she did exceptionally well in her terms. After her terms she was called in by Head nurse Hanoi of Tonan.

"Hello, Hanoi-san. How are you?" Kotoko asked her.

"Ahh Irie-san. How do you do? Did you lose some weight?" Nurse Hanoi asked her.

"No not much." Kotoko smiled at her.

"Grandma Yoshida was admitted here yesterday." Seeing Kotoko panic she immediately added, "She is doing absolutely fine. Apparently she had another son who lived in the USA. He moved back to Japan as soon as he found out she was ill and took her into his home. He brought her yesterday for a full-body check up to make sure she was doing fine." A big smile spread across Kotoko's face as she felt relived.

"She is in cabin 214 and was asking for you. So I thought I should inform you."

"Thank you so much Hanoi-san." Kotoko thanked her genuinely and went to meet grandma Yoshida.

"Grandma." Kotoko called in from the door.

"Oh no! Why did you come here? I will definitely fall ill now." Grandma acted to be irritated.

"Really? I know you miss ordering me around. Now don't deny it." Kotoko replied in a mischievous tone.

Grandma stuck out her tongue at Kotoko and turned towards a man in the 40's. "She is the good for nothing nurse I told you about."

"Oh... You must be Irie Kotoko san. Nice to meet you finally. I heard a lot about you from oka-san. I am Jiko, Her son. You can call me uncle Jiko." He smiled warmly.

"Hello uncle. Nice to meet you too." Kotoko smiled broadly at him.

They talked about the health issues of grandma Yoshida for a while, then uncle Jiko told her that he had taken grandma to a summer house beside the sea beach. He thought it would refresh her mind.

"I will stay with her there. But I have also prepared a permanent caretaker for her. I will have to leave for USA in 2 days. I will return within 3 weeks with my wife. We might not be able to stay constantly in the Japan due to our works but we will be visiting always. I have applied for her to take her with me but that is going to be difficult. Since I'm not her actual son..."

"You are the best son in this world." Grandma cut in. She rarely compliments anyone so it made both uncle and me speechless. He beamed at her unable to say anything. Then he told Kotoko that she should visit grandma when she has time and gave her the address and contact number.

"You can also come and stay in the summer house for a trip when you have holiday." Uncle said.

"Come and stay in winter vacation. But bring your husband along though. I miss him." grandma said. Uncle and Kotoko laughed.

"Okay I will."

...

When Kotoko returned home that day, she was very happy. She called Naoki at night and told him about grandma Yoshida. He was also happy knowing that someone was there to take care of grandma.

A/N: Thank you so much everyone. I'm thrilled with all the responses. Thank you for the great reviews. I'm sorry this chapter is shorter than any other I wrote. I just wanted to introduce a new character 'Grandma Yoshida'. Well You all probably remember, she is Kotoko's first real patient she had to take care of during her 2 weeks training at Tonan. :)