“There are a lot in senior high school, but not that many in junior high.”
“…I see.”
Kento wasn’t quite as riled up about it. He was very much used to not fitting in. He had always stood out in class, being a year older than the rest of his classmates since elementary school, due to certain reasons.
“Anyway, enough about that.” Tomoya took out a pack of gum from his pocket and passed a stick to Kento. He chewed on one himself as he picked up where he left off.
“Who do you think will make the audition?”
“We won’t know until it’s over,” Kento said unconcernedly. Tomoya stared up at him.
“You’re lucky, Kento, you’ll probably make it. Mr. Mori scouted you himself.”
Tomoya was talking about Nobuyuki Mori, the managing director and son of the female president of the production company.
Kento’s mother owned a small boutique on Omotesando, a high-end shopping district, and Kento often hung out there after class. Nobuyuki Mori had stepped into the boutique one day, accompanying a female personality affiliated with the company. That was when the two had met. Mori had sweet-talked Kento’s mother into letting him scout Kento for Sion Promotion.
“That doesn’t matter. An audition is still an audition,” Kento said as he chewed his gum. “Anyway, look at you. Your whole family is involved in music. And you’re a good singer.”
Tomoya wrinkled his nose and shook his head.
“But it’s classical music. That doesn’t count.”
Tomoya’s father was a professor at a college of music. His mother was a piano teacher, and his two older sisters were in vocal programs at music school. They were a family of born and bred musicians.
“I hate classical music. It’s not catchy, and it’s boring.”
Kento figured it must sound that way if you had to listen to it every day.
“Your family is way cooler,” Tomoya said. “Your dad’s a photographer and your mom’s a fashion designer. You’re like a TV-show family,” Tomoya said enviously.
“I guess it is if you put it that way, but in reality it’s pretty different.”
His father, Ikuto, was indeed a photographer; however, his subjects were rather dull ? archeological remains or things related to anthropology or other specialized academic fields. He often submitted work for a famous science journal published by the American Geographic Society.
His mother, Hisae, designed textiles ? the dyeing and patterning of fabric. She played a more backstage role in terms of fashion. But she was now a sought-after designer, currently working in London for an up-and-coming designer. Their family currently lived apart, with each following their dreams.
The headquarters of Sion Promotion, where they were both affiliated, was located in Shinjuku.
A year ago it had transferred out of a rented office in the Aoyama building into one of the high-rises at the south exit of the station. The agency used to rent a dance studio in Shimokitazawa, but now had its own studio in the new office for dance lessons. Members of the agency were now free to come at any time to practice.
The dance studio, at a spacious 150 square metres, was like a gymnasium. A part of the wall had a mirror and a barre. DZ’s concert tour was planned for the winter holidays, in addition to out-of-town concerts on weekends starting in December. That meant lessons were becoming steadily tougher.
A professional dance team formed the core of the troupe of background dancers. Kento and his junior team had to dance to eight songs, including the opening and finale.
As he danced along with Uehara, the choreographer, he felt the sweat begin to stream down in droplets.
The exhilaration was indescribable. The lessened pain in his leg only spurred him on; Kento let his boundless energy flow to the tips of his hands and feet as he went through the routine.
“Looking good, Kento,” Uehara said, clapping him on the shoulder.
“Kento, stop stealing the spotlight,” grumbled Ryusuke Kawara, one half of the DZ duo, in a joking way as he popped in from the doorway. “You need to tone down your dancing, or else you’re going to outshine us both.”
Mori, who was beside him, smiled behind his glasses and gestured for Uehara to lean in and listen.
“I think the results are in,” he murmured into Uehara’s ear, which of course went unheard for Kento.
“Right. Along with him, I’d vote for Nishimura and Oka as potentials.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
Chapter 3
Kento’s fervent practicing over the weekend came back to bite him in the butt on Monday.
His knee had been aching since morning, and he had no appetite.
“Normal size, please,” he ordered in a feeble voice, instead of the extra-large he normally ordered. The woman over the kitchen counter looked at him wide-eyed.
“Kenny, what’s gotten into you?” she said.
“I had a snack earlier,” Kento lied. Tomoya was right behind him, and Kento did not want the boy to worry.
However, his smaller portion at breakfast came back to haunt him during Physical Education in third period. Now, in addition to the pain in his leg, his hunger was sapping the energy out of him.
They were practicing on the vaults in Physical Education today, and to make things worse, they were practicing a particularly difficult move called the handstand vault. Students had to do a handstand on the vault, somersault in the air, and land on the other side.
Physical Education was a strong subject for Kento, but he was definitely not in his best condition right now. His right knee bothered him and prevented him from concentrating.
He, along with the rest of the students, jumped the vault in order and went back to the end of the line after their turn. They had gone through the routine a number of times before the accident happened.
When Kento stepped onto the springboard with his good foot, the familiar pain shot through his knee. He regained his balance, but barely, and did a handstand on the vault. The moment he sprung off and landed on the mat, the pain shot through his leg again ? but this time, it was his left leg.
“Agh!” The pain made him curl up on the spot.
“What’s wrong?” The PE teacher came running up to him.
“I think I sprained my left foot.”
“It’s rare to see you trip up, Yamashiro,” said the teacher, touching Kento’s right foot. “You should go to the infirmary. Can you walk on your own?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
Truth be told, his right knee also hurt, but it wasn’t so bad that he had to humiliate himself and lean on someone’s shoulder. Tomoya was giving him a concerned look, so Kento flashed a peace-sign at him to show him he was alright. Kento dragged his foot as he lurched into a walk.
It was like a textbook case of bad luck. First it was his right leg; now his left foot was hurt.
“This sucks,” he muttered as he left the gymnasium. He went outside and walked along the edge of the schoolyard instead going into the school, mindful of the classes still going on. The infirmary was located in a separate wing at the end of the long main building.
When Kento rolled open the glass door, he was met with the stinging smell of disinfectant. Although he had come here several times to get cold compresses for the unbearable pain in his right knee, he could never come to like this smell. The school nurse, Kazue Fujimoto, was a kind, plump woman in her fifties. Although she was nice, Kento did not want to become a regular visitor to this room if he could help it. But today, he couldn’t afford to be picky.
“Mrs. Fujimoto,” Kento called as he stepped inside.
A corner of the quiet room was partitioned off with a curtain, and there was a presence behind it. When he drew closer, he heard a deep man’s voice.
“Just bear with me a bit… it’ll prick a little. There, all done. You can open your hand.”
The curtain was drawn, revealing a man in a white lab coat. There was someone lying on the bed, hooked up to an IV b
ag that was hanging from a metal stand resembling a coat rack. The man in the lab coat adjusted the speed of the infusion.
“It’ll be over in about two hours, so take a nap until then,” he said to the boy in the bed. He then closed the curtain and turned to look this way.
“Hey?you’re…”
It was the man Kento had met in the hallway of his dorm last week. The lab coat made him look different, but there was no mistaking his slim stature and gentle face.
The man also noticed Kento. “Hi there, what’s the matter? Coming down with a fever?” he said, his eyes smiling at him from behind his glasses.
“No. I kind of sprained my foot,” Kento mumbled. The man’s eyes turned worried.
“I’ll have a look. Have a seat on that chair.”
“Where’s Mrs. Fujimoto?” Kento stared warily at the man’s face.
“Mrs. Fujimoto isn’t here right now. Would you rather not have me instead?”
“That’s not what I meant. I wanted to ask who you are.”
The man, still smiling, ushered Kento onto a round stool in front of his desk.
“I’m the school doctor, or rather, a substitute. My name is Yuri Orihara.”
“School doctor?”
Kento tilted his head in perplexity over a phrase he wasn’t used to hearing. He sat down on the round stool as Orihara patiently explained to him.
“The school doctor does medical checkups and administers vaccines to you and your fellow students. You remember having checkups every April at school, don’t you?”
Now that he thought about it, he did. He remembered back in primary school, he was always getting some kind of vaccine or medical checkup. He vaguely remembered a certain Dr. Someone in a lab coat consulting him, though he hadn’t realized that this person was the school doctor.
Was there one in junior high school?
Kento still kept his head cocked as he replied, “Yeah.”
Orihara smiled wryly at his half-hearted response.
“Well, we only see you students once in a while, anyway. I guess it can’t be helped if you don’t know about us.”
He was right. It was impossible to remember the school doctor if you only saw him once or twice a year.
“So, what’s a school doctor like you doing here?”
“Mrs. Fujimoto asked me to make a house call to a student who was in bed with a fever,” Orihara explained as he crouched down on his knee in front of Kento. “Is this the leg that hurts? I saw you trying not to put weight on it.”
Orihara touched his right foot as he spoke. Kento shook his head vehemently.
“No. It’s the other one.”
Orihara took off Kento’s sneaker and touched his left foot with his slender fingers.
“Can you try moving your big toe?”
Then, he supported Kento’s ankle as he carefully rotated each toe.
“There’s no swelling, so your ligaments and bones should be alright.” Orihara took poultice from the medicine shelf, applied it from the heel to the ankle, and wound an elastic bandage around it.
The sliding door opened with a rattle, and a portly middle-aged woman appeared.
“Oh, Doctor, I’ll handle that.”
Fujimoto, the school nurse, was back.
“You again, is it?” she said with a smile when she saw Kento’s face, but her tone of voice changed when her eyes fell on his bandaged left foot. “Have you hurt your other leg, too?”
At her words, Orihara furrowed his brow and adjusted his glasses.
“So he has hurt his right leg, hasn’t he?” he said to Fujimoto.
“That’s right. Lately he’s been coming here all the time to get poultice from me.”
Kento shook his head as insistently as he could. He hadn’t wanted word to get out about his right leg in the first place. There was no way he was going to see a doctor about it.
“It’s nothing. There’s nothing wrong with it.”
Orihara nevertheless directed a sharp gaze at Kento’s right leg. He ran his fingers searchingly along it. He held the knee and lifted the heel with his other hand.
“Does it hurt?”
“No.”
Orihara carefully studied the front of the shin just below the knee.
“Does it happen to hurt around here, by any chance? Especially when you put weight on it?”
The pair of piercing eyes right beside him looked at him steadily, as if they could see through everything. Kento reluctantly nodded.
“Yeah. How can you tell?”
Orihara rested his chin on his fist and lapsed into thought.
“I don’t think I got your name,” he said as his face softened.
“Kento Yamashiro.”
“And how old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
Orihara turned to Fujimoto beside him, who was listening in with a worried look. “Do you know how much he’s grown in the past year?” he asked her.
Fujimoto extracted some documents from the cabinet and looked for Kento’s personal record. She let out an exclamation of dismay.
“He just transferred here in September, so we don’t have any of his former records.”
Orihara turned back to Kento. “Do you know how much you’ve grown in this past year?”
“Not really… but I did get a lot taller. Maybe about fifteen centimetres more.”
Orihara’s eyes widened in surprise, but pointed at Kento’s large sneakers and let out a sound of amazement.
“You probably did grow quite a bit, didn’t you? You have pretty large feet, and you’re almost as tall as me.”
Orihara crouched down again and applied another poultice on Kento’s right knee. He wound a support around it, then spoke to Kento in a grave tone.
“Kento, I think you should get an X-ray taken of your right knee. Since there’s no X-ray machine in this infirmary, would you be able to come to the clinic I work at tomorrow instead?”
“Clinic?”
“Dr. Orihara works at Miyashita Clinic, right in front of the back gates of the school,” Fujimoto jumped in to explain. “Dr. Miyashita is actually the school doctor, but Dr. Orihara is his nephew and he’s filling in for him.”
Kento was a little overwhelmed by the bombardment of information, but one thing he did understand was that he needed to get an X-ray taken and examined.
He was suddenly overcome with anxiety.
“Am I seriously hurt?” he asked Orihara in a trembling voice.
“No. We’re just going to take an image just in case. Could you come by with one of your parents tomorrow?”
Kento bowed his head, unsure of what to do. “Neither of them are in Japan. That’s why I’m living in a dormitory.”
“Oh, dear. What shall we do?” Fujimoto said worriedly.
“Do you have any sort of guardian?”
As soon as Orihara said those words, a boyish voice spoke up behind them, making everyone turn around.
“What about the manager of the agency?”
The sliding door stood open, and Tomoya was poking his head in.
“Remember whenever we’d get sick at concerts out of town, the manager would take us to the hospital with our health insurance cards?”
“Manager?” Orihara turned his body to face Tomoya.
“We’re part of an agency called Sion Promotion.”
Orihara nodded, looking convinced. “Ah, so you boys are entertainment personalities, then. Part of what they call the entertainers’ club? Alright, then in that case, I’m expecting to see you tomorrow with your manager.”
Fujimoto patted her voluptuous chest with firm resolution. “I’ll phone the manager.”
After watching Orihara leave the infirmary, Tomoya immediately pounced on Fujimoto.
“Mrs. Fujimoto, who was that?” he asked. “He’s really handsome. And he looks nice.”
“Really? I thought he was normal,” Kento said indifferently. “Besides, what’s up with him, anyway? He said there was something wrong with
my leg. He gets on my nerves!”
Fujimoto patted Kento’s shoulder with an air of exasperation.
“Dr. Orihara is just concerned about you.”
“Is that his name? Dr. Orihara? So if he’s a doctor, he must be really smart!” Tomoya gushed excitedly to Fujimoto.
“He’s the school doctor, dear.”
“But he’s not Dr. Miyashita. That’s who usually comes.” Tomoya at least appeared to know about Miyashita, since he had been at Shonan since seventh grade. “Is he a new school doctor? So he’s replacing Dr. Miyashita?”
A school doctor was more or less just a doctor who came to school on a part-time basis as necessary. Most of the time, schools asked doctors at a nearby practices to be their school doctors, like a side job to their regular practice. The school had asked Miyashita to take the position since his practice was right in front of the back gates of the school. Shonan Private School also had a dormitory full of students to take care of.
“He hasn’t replaced Dr. Miyashita. He’s a substitute.” Fujimoto told the same story to Tomoya which she had just told Kento.
Orihara was Miyashita’s nephew. Recently, Miyashita had been hospitalized due to an injury to his cervical spine. At the hospital he was also found to be suffering complications from diabetes, and was forced to extend his stay. Since he could not simply close his clinic during that time, in a last-minute effort he had summoned Orihara from his post at a university hospital to act as his substitute.
“He’s also taken over as our school doctor while he’s at it.”
Now that he knew that a university hospital doctor like Orihara had told him he needed to undergo a thorough examination, Kento was at once seized with uncertainty.
Don’t tell me I’m actually seriously ill? With bone cancer, or something like that?
Kento had had to put weight on his right leg in order to protect his freshly-injured left leg, which meant by the time Kento crawled into bed, the pain had gotten utterly unbearable.
What if I have to amputate my leg? There was no stopping his imagination now. Tomoya noticed Kento’s ashen colour and propped himself up in his bed across.
“What’s wrong?” he said. “Does your leg hurt?”
All My Loving_Yaoi Novel Page 2
