Page 8 of Mercy Written in Blood

"You saved him," she repeated.

Renji inclined his head. He did not argue. Not this time.

The consultation room remained quiet after they left. Renji sat alone for several seconds. On the table between the chairs, someone had abandoned a paper cup filled with cold tea, a tissue crushed beside it. He looked down at his hands. They were clean now, though he could still feel the weight of the young man's heart against his palm — the sensation lingered after certain surgeries, not physical memory exactly, something deeper. Renji flexed his fingers until it passed.

The wall clock read 3:47 a.m. Twenty-five minutes of rest, Akiko had demanded; he had already spent twelve of them speaking to the family. He stood.

Takamori University Medical Centre had a different personality after three in the morning. During the day, it was all movementand interruption: consultants surrounded by trainees, relatives asking for directions, porters weaving beds through crowded corridors, phones ringing before anyone had finished answering the previous call. At night, the hospital seemed to draw inward — lights dimmed in unused hallways, voices lowered, the air-conditioning became audible, and every squeak of rubber soles travelled further than it should.

Renji walked through the surgical ward with his coffee in one hand and a tablet in the other, reviewing blood results as he moved. Room twelve: post-operative haemoglobin stable. Room sixteen: inflammatory markers rising. Room twenty-one: pain poorly controlled.

He stopped outside room nine. An elderly man lay asleep beneath a thin blanket, his mouth slightly open; his daughter had fallen asleep in the chair beside him with her head resting against the mattress. Renji entered quietly, adjusted the blanket over her shoulders and checked the patient's intravenous line. Neither woke. He moved on.

At the nurses' station, Aoi looked up from her screen.

"You're supposed to be resting."

"I am walking slowly."

"That isn't rest."

"It is slower than running."

"You're impossible."

"So I'm frequently told."

Aoi slid a chart across the desk.

"Mrs Kobayashi's temperature has come down, but she's refusing the nasogastric tube again."

"I'll speak to her."

"She called the last doctor a sadist."

"That was Doctor Ishikawa."

"Yes."

"Her assessment may be clinically accurate."

Aoi covered a laugh with one hand. From further down the corridor came the sound of someone retching, followed immediately by a call bell. Aoi stood.

"I'll get it."

Renji glanced at the ward clock.

"You're due to finish."

"So are you."

"My shift finished yesterday."

"That is not the defence you think it is."

She started down the corridor, then looked back.

"Doctor?"