【T.C.】【Morie and the Receptionist’s Daughter】T.C.-19

Winter. Fallen leaves swirl into the air.
Christmas songs drift from the street corner.

Morie grew up in a strict household.
For that reason, Christmas was always spent at home.

Even so, he hasn’t returned to that home in a long time.

He trudges along toward the clinic.
It’s called Morie Clinic.

A self-proclaimed clinic Morie built with money he scraped together through sheer effort.
Insurance doesn’t apply here—an underground kind of place.

Morie thinks to himself: maybe I should change the name.
After the chaos of the war, hospitals were scarce, and new technologies kept emerging.

Well—
it’s a gray-area place, that much is certain.

He enters the clinic.
The receptionist, who is also a nurse, greets him.

“Good morning.”

Her name is Yuka Sato.
She’s two years older than Morie and has one daughter.
There is no father.
Morie deliberately avoids asking why.

Morie thinks.
Sato-san is a qualified nurse, after all.
It feels disrespectful to have her working in a place like this.

Lately, Morie has been considering obtaining a medical-related qualification.

What he has in mind is a newly established field: Information Speech-Language Pathology.
In addition to conventional speech therapy, it deals with relationships involving AI and computers.

Morie has always been good with computers—and with people who work with them.

A girl he doesn’t recognize is hopping around.
Their eyes meet.

Sato-san presses a hand to her head and says,

“Yuki. Say hello.”

Apparently, Sato-san has an urgent matter and needs to go to a neighboring prefecture.

Someone who once helped her is in poor health.
She asks if her daughter can stay here in the meantime.

The girl, who introduces herself as Yuki, is in her third year of middle school.
She seems mature for her age.

This feels kind of loose.
Maybe that’s just how this clinic is.
Morie lets out a small chuckle.

Sato-san whispers to him.
Yuki has what’s called Information Panic Disorder.

Apparently, she’s afraid of the internet.

She feels as if her mind is being pulled in.

It’s not severe, but there’s no quick cure with current medicine.

Sato-san bows repeatedly and leaves.
Yuki stays behind at the clinic.

“Hey, doctor,”
Yuki says to Morie.

“Yes?”

“What should I do?”

Morie answers,
“Your mother said she wants you to study.”

“Ehh— I don’t wanna do that in a place like this.”
“Then what do you want to do?”
“I dunno.”

Yuki slouches.

“Oh yeah— my mom said this.”
“You graduated from med school, right?”
“That’s amazing.”

Morie replies that it’s not amazing—he didn’t graduate, and it wasn’t even his choice.
“Huh.”
“And it’s all in the past.”

“I see.”
“Hey, let’s play a game.”

“I like games,”
Yuki says, pulling out a handheld console.

She hands one to Morie as well.
Morie thinks: games are okay for her.

And—

For a while, the two of them quietly tap at their screens.
Every now and then, they exchange a few words.

Yuki asks,
“Was school fun?”

Morie answers,
“Not really. I like things better now.”

“Huh.”

“I wanna go to college, but we don’t have money.
So when I get to high school, I want to work part-time.”

Morie honestly tells her,
“That’s admirable.”
“More than me.”
“You’re doing things properly.”

“I went to med school, but I didn’t do anything.”
That’s what he says.

Yuki replies,
“I don’t think that’s true.”

Morie blinks.

“Because you went through stuff, you can say things like that.”

“Maybe.”
“Oh, I’m just saying whatever, though.”
Yuki laughs.

They go back to playing in silence.

Quietly, Yuki mutters,
“I got scared.”

“When I look online, everyone’s rich, smart, athletic, talented.”

Morie says,
“So what?”

“They’re just other people.”
“I’m practically declared dead, you know.”

“But I liked game centers more than university.”
“I went to arcades, then to bars, hung out with idiots, messed around—
and well…”

“That’s how I ended up like this.”

“Huh,”
Yuki says.

They continue playing without speaking.

Eventually, Yuka Sato returns.

She bows politely and says to Morie,
“Thank you very much, doctor.”

“We were just playing.”

“That’s not true,”
Sato replies.

“No, really.
Though… maybe that’s not good either,”
Morie adds.

Yuki snickers, then suddenly says,
“Oh yeah— Christmas is coming up soon.”

“Is it?”
Sato says.

“Hey, let’s eat cake and play games here together,”
Yuki says with a smile.

“Well… this is technically a clinic,”
Morie says, smiling wryly.