Was this a chimiazome, an endogenous magicell that traveled within the human body?
A chimiazome was one of the intracellular organelles that broke down magic power.
The small organ was either sabotaging, striking, or shutting itself away. The chimiazome in me, Luri Hizumi, refused to work, and the magic power it didn’t break down became accumulated, causing symptoms of heart failure, kidney failure, and respiratory issues due to the underdevelopment of my motor functions.
My disease was called Chimiazome Disease.
By the time I was old enough to know what was what, I had become a girl who dressed in hospital gowns that smelled of medications and wore bracelets with injection scars.
“Okay, then make sure you check your timetable.”
The more the waste magic power built up, the more likely the chances were that my heart would stop working. I had a time bomb hidden in my chest, and there was no way I could go to an ordinary elementary school.
As a patient with a designated intractable disease, I shared a study room set up at the hospital for children suffering from similar diseases.
“We’re going to start with arithmetic today. Please open your textbooks,” a teacher would say to the eight pupils at the hospital’s elementary school.
Girls with chronic respiratory problems, kidney disease, and others like me who had symptoms that could kill them at any time attended the classes. It was a jumble of kids in various grades and was an arts and crafts room, library, and music room all in one.
We studied Japanese, math, social studies, science, arts and crafts, music, and home economics… We had English classes now and then with AETs (Assistant English Teachers,) computer studies with students from a social welfare university, and events like the Star Festival in July and celebrated Christmas.
“L-Luri.”
Not looking at the blank wall that was decorated with everyone’s smiling faces—feeling threatened that space meant someone would disappear—I looked up from the notebook with my name, Luri Hizumi, written on it.
It was Riina Shiina… The girl everyone called Rii-chan came to me and whispered, “I—I heard Ai’s going to start studying at her bed today…”
There were nine of us, including the teachers. It was reckless to whisper in a small classroom of eight people, not including Ai, who had started studying in her bed.
I clammed up, finished what I was writing, and showed Rii-chan the edge of my notebook.
“She won’t come back.”
She looked stunned.
Her eyes widened—and a girl in a pink hat came from her side and grabbed my notebook.
Her name was Ruby Oliet… She was a foreign girl who everyone nicknamed Ru-chan. She wrote something boldly and showed it to me.
“She will be back.”
“…No, she won’t.”
“She will! For sure! She’ll be back!!!”
“I’m telling you, she won’t—”
She grabbed me by the chest—and glared at me with tear-stained blue eyes.
“She will be back…!!!”
“……”
“H-hey, hey, hey! What‘s going on here?! Don’t fight!”
Nagisa, the teacher in charge of the in-hospital class, pulled our small, frail bodies apart.
Carefully, as if we were fragile objects that could easily break.
Irritated by her kindness, I lashed out and quickly lost my breath. The sound of my heart racing echoed through my brain, and my breathing became labored within seconds. I crouched, huffing and puffing as I pushed against my chest.
Nagisa put a hand on my back like she was used to doing that.
“Are you okay, Luri? Luri? Can you hear me? Does your chest feel tight? Is it hard to breathe? Hello. A student is having trouble breathing. Her oxygen level hasn’t changed. She may have symptoms of tachypnea, level two. She has discomfort in her chest.”
As usual.
I was carried away by the nurses who charged in, and the worried look in Ruby’s eyes as she watched me truly irritated me.
After that, it was the usual routine.
They took my blood and put a nasal cannula on me, and my grandmother worried about me.
Finally free, I returned to my made-up bed and flipped through the pages of a book.
“…What?”
A pair of blue eyes peered at me through a crack in the door.
Accompanied by Riina, Ruby slowly opened the door and entered with an apologetic look on her face.
“L-Luri…”
As Riina gently prompted her to step closer, Ruby slowly lowered her head.
“I’m…sorry…”
“Why don’t you at least take off your hat if you’re going to apologize?”
“L-Luri… Ru-chan’s, um, taking medications…and, um…”
“It’s okay, Rii-chan.”
She removed her hat.
She bared her hairless head and gave me a deep bow.
“I’m sorry.”
I ignored her apology and returned my attention to my book.
“Ai won’t be back.”
“…How can you say that?”
“She was moved to the intensive care unit.”
Very slowly, Ruby’s jewel-like blue eyes widened.
“It’s the usual. They move someone from our class back to their bed, then to the ICU…and then…”
I closed my book with a thud.
“It’s the end.”
“……”
“You know, life is just like a book. The number of pages in a person’s life is set from the time they’re born. This girl has so many pages, that girl has so many, and they end when they run out of pages.”
I threw my book against the floor.
The paperback slid on the floor and stopped when it hit Ruby’s toes.
“And books under categories like intractable diseases, genetic defects, children’s wards, and so on have very few pages. Like that book.”
Ruby looked down at the novella on the floor, about a hundred or so pages long, without a word.
“…You don’t know that.”
“Sure, I do.”
I grinned.
“A picture of a smiling face on the wall will be taken down in two weeks.”
Ruby suddenly raised her head—and Riina desperately gripped her arm.
Ruby opened and closed her mouth, unable to get the words out—and relaxed her strained muscles as Riina dragged her out of the room.
Two weeks later—
The hospital staff removed Ai’s drawing of a smiling face from the wall and replaced it with the smiling face of another child.
Ruby watched that, holding a friend’s IV stand, and stood speechless in front of the replacement picture.
“A hospital magician?”
“Yeah, I heard she’s an important magic handler who’s going to give us an interesting lesson.”
“Oh yeah?! I hope it will be fun!”
The young children were making a commotion.
Our class now consisted of eight people, including the teachers. Everyone was talking loud except me, the girl people were saying bad things about, as if to ward off negative energy.
“L-Luri?”
Riina, the only person who talked to me, smiled and tugged on my sleeve.
“Th-this hospital magician… I wonder what she’s like…? Hee-hee-hee… Could she be like a witch who comes up in wizardry…?”
“Wrong, dummy.”
I snickered.
“It’s part of the charity work the Magical Society does. It sends magic handlers to hospitals as temp teachers to help patients recover from illnesses related to magic and magical powers. They aren’t appreciated by medical practitioners, though, since they’re just trying to score points with the public, and they aren’t helping patients recover at all. They’re fake teachers who aren’t qualified to teach at special needs schools or even have basic teaching licenses, and they’re frauds.”
“Hey, Rii-chan.”
Propping her chin on her hand, Ruby whispered, looking straight ahead, “Don’t talk to a girl like her. It’s a waste of your kindness.”
“Huh…? B-but…”
I snickered again.
“Why do people who consider themselves kind souls talk like they’re offering charity with a higher-than-thou attitude? Will you please stop pushing your kindness on me?”
“…You bitch!”
Ruby stood up, and I was about to intercept her—when Tutankhamun’s golden mask got between us.
A woman with leather sandals was wearing the golden mask from ancient Egypt, squatting and staring this way.
Her golden skin could be seen through her Kalasiris. A necklace adorned with gold and jewels covered her neck, and a black veil held in place by the bracelets on her wrists covered her back.
She intimidated us by slamming a triple cane shaped like a combination of an ankh, a Djed pillar, and a Was scepter.
“…I’m cursing you.”
Ruby and I froze before the monster.
“…An ancient Egyptian curse is about to burst.”
The being stood up, and we were stunned to see how tall she was.
She had to be at least six feet tall.
She struck a pose with her hands. A pose that said she was going to eat the girls. Then her golden mask shook as she said in a sweet voice, “I’m going to curse you! A beauty not second to Cleopatra has come back from ancient Egypt, and I’ll let you see my outstanding figure while I curse you! I’ll introduce every skincare item I’ve spent at least seven hundred dollars on this month alone while I’m at it!”
“…Atiifa.”
Nagisa looked appalled as she pulled the golden mask off the woman.
An exotically beautiful face appeared, and the children exclaimed in awe.
“O-oh. Oh! D-don’t do that, Nagisa. I-I’ll die of embarrassment…if you do that…!!!”
The tall beauty hopped around, desperately trying to get her golden mask back.