[Autobiographical Novel] The Unknown #3

When I realized it,

I was lying on my back

on the concrete there,

and before my eyes was Takemori crouching,

and behind him

the student council members were standing,

surrounding Maki.

Takemori held Maki's shoulders,

and desperately said, "Breathe."

What is breathe?

I didn't know what he meant.

Then, once again,

Takemori shouted, "Breathe."

On the second time, finally understanding the meaning of breathing,

Maki,

like at the end of radio calisthenics,

slowly inhaled and exhaled.

At the same time,

the senses that had been nothing until then began to stir,

and a sharp pain shot through my back.

While wincing at the pain in my back,

I took a few breaths,

and a stretcher was prepared from out of nowhere,

and Maki was placed onto it.

The elderly, petite school nurse

at the front of the stretcher

called out clearly, "One, two, one, two..."

as she carried it, but because she was the only one who was short,

one side of Maki's head kept dipping down.

Then,

the female P.E. teacher, unable to watch any longer,

said, "Let me take over, teacher," and swapped in,

and Maki's head stopped dipping.

The transport continued smoothly after that.

The female P.E. teacher,

saying, "You might develop a fever,"

placed a plastic bag filled with ice

against Maki's head.

Upon hearing about the accident,

in the panic-stricken staff room,

the one who prepared the ice first

was likely a display of the P.E. teacher's

calm and precise quick-wittedness.

The stretcher bypassed the infirmary,

rushed straight down the hallway

of the staff room building,

and at the staff entrance in front of the office,

was lowered to the floor.

In the middle of the entrance lobby,

Maki, lying on the stretcher,

Teachers formed multiple rings

and looked down.

As if slipping through those rings,

"She is a student in my class,"

in a familiar, deep voice,

Otsu, the homeroom teacher,

leaped into Maki's field of vision.

Otsu,

even when he made eye contact with Maki,

did not speak to her,

but perhaps so that all the teachers present

could hear him,

again and again,

"She is a student in my class"

he repeated.

Because she was wearing gym clothes,

her name was written on her bib.