"Wait, you said Hagiwara was injured in an explosion, and the medical bill is 500,000—and that's in RMB?!"
Hiromitsu Morofushi nodded, handing his phone to the man with wheat-colored blonde skin and grayish-purple eyes. The text message had been sent by their class squad leader, Wataru Date.
The whole thing started when Hiromitsu heard rumors that a police officer had been accidentally injured by a bomb, and it happened to be during a mission involving both Kenji Hagiwara and Jinpei Matsuda. Worried, Hiromitsu had reached out to ask.
"Should we go check on them?"
Hiromitsu asked, worried that doing so might jeopardize their undercover mission. Yet, if they didn't go see the truth with their own eyes, a lingering unease would remain in his heart.
"Now isn't the time. We can slip over for a quick look, and quietly pay Hagiwara's medical bill while we're at it."
"But where are we supposed to get that kind of money?"
Hiromitsu sighed. Rei Furuya straightened his jacket and pulled out a card that had never been used before. "We'll use their money. Let's go buy a car, take the extra US dollars, exchange them for RMB, and cover Hagiwara's medical expenses."
"Good idea. Let's go right now."
The two rushed to a dealership and bought a white Mazda RX-7 FD3S worth five million yen, drove it to the vicinity of the hospital, and headed straight for the front desk.
"Excuse me, where is Kenji Hagiwara's room?"
The young nurse looked up and found herself looking at a short-haired man with blue eyes and double eyelids. Acting lovesick upon hearing that he was looking for Kenji Hagiwara, she immediately pointed the way. "It's the last room on the left of the second floor straight ahead. Are you single, handsome?"
She added that last part with a clear intention. Hiromitsu gave an awkward smile and tactfully rejected the cute young nurse.
"Oh well, another handsome guy slipped away today." The nurse's voice was barely a whisper. Hiromitsu comforted her, "You'll have your chance. You're bound to find your own happiness, but I don't have plans for that right now."
"I wasn't talking about that. I meant Dr. Hiramiya, Kenji Hagiwara's attending physician. He resigned and left today."
"Then he's just abandoning his patient?"
Rei stepped forward to ask. In Japan, it was exceedingly rare for a doctor to voluntarily resign and abandon a patient—especially since the man had saved Hagiwara's life. Even though it was just part of the job, Rei still wanted to meet the doctor and thank him in person.
"He had no choice but to leave. It was just too unfair to him. Last week, another doctor because..."
"Hiramiya, what on earth are you talking about with the family members?!"
The head nurse's sharp voice cut off Hiramiya's words. All he could do now was lower his head in grievance and take the scolding. As Hiromitsu and Rei walked away, they could faintly catch fragments of their whispered conversation.
"Dr. Geng Jing was such a good person. It was those people being too unreasonable that forced him..."
"Stop talking like that. No one is here to protect us now. If we're overheard, none of us will get off easy. Besides everything else, he has to think about his child."
The rest of the conversation drifted off. From just those few fragments, Rei gathered that the doctor who treated Hagiwara was named Geng Jing, that he had a child at home, and that he had been forced to resign and leave the hospital due to some special circumstances.
"Excuse me, how much is Kenji Hagiwara's medical bill?"
The nurse at the billing counter didn't even raise her head as she stared at the computer, her tone sullen. "Five million. What about it?"
"Sorry, everyone, she remembered wrong. It's 500,000, not five million."
A young female nurse nearby hurriedly interrupted, nudging the computer-straining, impatient woman with her elbow while managing an apologetic smile.
"You only need to pay 500,000. Come this way with us."
After paying the bill, Hiromitsu and Rei hid in a corner to eavesdrop on the two nurses, who had broken into an argument.
"Why would you go saying all that to the family?"
"The guy's already gone anyway, so what's wrong with me venting a little? He ended up covering 4.5 million out of his own pocket for no reason—it's completely obvious they engineered this just to extort money."
"And what can you do about it? That 4.5 million didn't end up in their pockets. Do you have any idea how long it's been since we were paid? When is the last time payday happened without Geng Jing digging into his own pocket to cover the patients so we could get our wages?"
"That's why I'm mad! How much nonexistent money has he paid out of pocket for patients? Every payday, everyone is getting paid with his money. What makes him want to play the fool like this?"
The billing nurse's words sounded like a complaint about unnecessary meddling, but listening closely, it was clear she was speaking up for Geng Jing out of injustice.
"Look at it this way: he pays the salaries, he assigns the work. In a way, we've basically been working for Mr. Geng Jing this whole time."
"Let's just hope no one else ever comes to this hospital."
Neither of them expected that casual remark to become a prophecy. Rei quietly slipped into the archives room and pulled up Geng Jing's file. The man's background was suspiciously clean, almost to an absurd degree, which naturally aroused some doubt.
"Are his eyes naturally heterochromatic?"
In the photograph, that pair of calm eyes held neither sorrow nor joy, resembling a stagnant pool of dead water. His thin lips possessed a faint, nearly pale-orange hue, and his entire appearance lacked any vitality whatsoever—like a man with one foot already in the grave.
"Let's head back and figure it out. We've got his home address and phone number right here. We'll make a note of it and drop by to thank him another day."
No sooner had the two left than Jinpei Matsuda pushed Wataru Date over in a wheelchair to pay the medical bill. After taking traditional Chinese medicine for a few days, Hagiwara's injuries were mostly healed, though since broken bones take a hundred days to mend, he would still need to spend a few more months in a wheelchair.
"This is practically a world-class masterpiece of tragedy, *Les Misérables*!"
Hagiwara wailed while mourning his missing salary for the next few months. Jinpei rolled his eyes and sneered, "Who told you to go goofing off without wearing your bomb suit? You brought this entirely on yourself."
As if half a million of that wasn't coming out of his salary too!
"Huh? You're saying the bill's already been paid? By a slightly tanned blonde man and a short-haired blue-eyed man?"
"Yes, they left right after paying."
"Is that so? Well, thank you for your trouble."
Both of them had heard Wataru's words. As for who had paid the bill, they didn't even need to guess, though due to certain special circumstances, they couldn't meet just yet.
Little did they know that three groups of people who could have easily reunited were instead walking completely divergent paths. The first two moved onward accompanied by close friends, while the third walked entirely alone.
Solitude has never been an original sin, but rather the courage and foundation required to push forward. The fearless press onward without fear of danger or obstruction.