Two hours after the news report was released, the attending physician responsible for Hoshino Haruka called the police.
“Regarding that sixteen-year-old female patient, you may need to update your report. Please also contact the news media.”
23:58, Emergency Center of a university hospital in Tokyo.
By the time Hoshino Haruka was brought in, every medical staff member present had the same expression on their face—it was too late.
Multiple fractures on the left ribs, two of which had pierced the pleura.
Ruptured spleen, comminuted fracture of the left arm, obvious impact injuries to the head, and signs of intracranial hemorrhage clearly visible on the CT scan.
As he rapidly reviewed her preliminary test results while issuing instructions for surgery preparation, the emergency department’s lead physician and surgeon, Kyousuke Hiiragi, performed a mental assessment of her injuries.
In the end, he reached a conclusion he didn’t want to accept—Hoshino Haruka’s survival rate for injuries of this severity was approximately below 5%, infinitely close to zero.
Doctor Hiiragi later said verbatim at an internal meeting: “If she were an ordinary patient without a name, my judgment would be ‘do everything to save her but prepare for the worst.’ But she is Hoshino Haruka, which means no matter the outcome, every decision we make will be scrutinized under a microscope. So my instruction was: go all out. Leave no room for hesitation. Even if there’s only a one percent chance.”
That surgery lasted nearly four hours.
Stras Agency’s president, Shinji Kirishima, arrived at the hospital at 12:40 AM.
He had driven from home after receiving Watanabe’s call and ran two red lights on the way.
He wore a coat over his pajamas and had slippers on his feet.
As a company president, he was a forty-four-year-old man known in the industry for being “composed at all times,” but at that moment, his face was filled with the panic and anxiety of an old father.
He didn’t enter the waiting area outside the operating room.
Instead, he stood at the end of the corridor and made about twenty phone calls—to the agency’s legal department, the TV station’s management, the record company, the advertising company, Haruka’s school…
Every call began with the same sentence: “Hoshino Haruka was in a car accident. She’s in surgery right now. It’s very serious.”
Then came different follow-ups: “Please suspend all her scheduled activities.”
“Don’t leak any information to the media.”
“Yes, I know about next week’s recording. I don’t know. I don’t know right now.”
After finishing the last call, he sat down on a bench in the corridor.
His hands wouldn’t stop trembling.
Finally, he dialed another number.
A confused and anxious male voice answered on the other end.
“Shoichi, it’s about Haruka. Come to the hospital.”
—
Ritsu woke up and refused hospitalization for observation in the emergency room.
One of his ribs was fractured.
The concussion caused mild dizziness and tinnitus.
The ER doctor advised him to stay for at least twenty-four hours of observation, but he said, “I’m fine,” signed the waiver refusing hospitalization, and walked out of the emergency room.
As he walked, he kept his right hand pressed against his left rib area.
Every breath felt like someone was stabbing him with a dull knife.
He didn’t go wait outside the operating room.
Instead, he went to the hospital’s administrative counter and, suppressing his discomfort and pain, handled the following for Haruka:
First, confirmed Hoshino Haruka’s hospitalization procedures and signed the expense guarantee document under Stras Agency’s corporate name.
Second, confirmed the information of the other two casualties in the accident.
Third, provided a testimony of the accident sequence to the police officers who arrived.
After finishing these, he walked to the waiting area outside the operating room and sat down on a bench.
Kirishima came over from the hallway, saw his exhausted face, and was silent for a few seconds.
“You should be hospitalized. Your face is paler than paper right now.”
“I’m fine… How is Haruka?”
“Still in surgery.”
Ritsu nodded once and then said nothing more.
He folded his hands on his knees and kept his back very straight, because bending forward would put pressure on his fractured rib.
One arm of his glasses was crooked, and there was a thin crack on the lens—a hit from the airbag deployment.
The surgery light remained on.
At 4:17 AM, the lead surgeon, Kyousuke Hiiragi, came out of the operating room.
Seeing this, Ritsu and Kirishima stood up at the same time.
The doctor took off his mask, his expression complicated.
Both Ritsu’s and Kirishima’s hearts clenched.
“The surgery… is complete. Uh… rest assured, Miss Hoshino’s surgery was very successful. She’s completely out of danger. You don’t need to make that face.”
Doctor Hiiragi seemed to realize that his earlier expression had caused a misunderstanding, so he forced a smile.
After all, his tone had sounded less like a report of a successful surgery and more like a question about a puzzle.
“Honestly, given the severity of her injuries when she was brought in, we had prepared for the worst. I didn’t even hold out hope for success. But…”
He paused, as if choosing his words carefully.
“During the surgery, we discovered that some of her wounds showed… abnormal signs of repair.”
“What do you mean by abnormal?” Ritsu asked.
“Exactly what I said.”
The doctor looked at him.
“The splenic rupture was Grade IV on the preoperative CT. Typically, damage of that level requires a splenectomy. But when we opened the abdominal cavity, the rupture had already started healing on its own in a way we couldn’t understand. It wasn’t fully healed, but the blood loss was far below our estimates. Some of the rib fragments also showed signs of… recovery? Or rather, ‘accelerated healing.’”
“Is there a medical explanation for that?” Kirishima asked.
“No.”
Doctor Hiiragi said bluntly.
“Not in my thirty years of medical experience, at least. If you ask for my professional opinion, Miss Hoshino is alive right now not because our surgery was particularly good, but because for some reason I can’t explain, her body chose to survive on its own.”
The corridor was quiet for a few seconds.
After hearing this, Ritsu and Kirishima seemed to breathe a sigh of relief; their tense backs relaxed.
“However…” the doctor continued, his tone growing heavy.
“The situation with her head isn’t optimistic.”
“Although the intracranial hemorrhage was controlled, the degree of brain damage is significant. The CT and MRI results worry me. There are injury marks of varying degrees in both the frontal lobe and temporal lobe. These areas are responsible for personality, memory, emotional processing…”
“Wait.”
Ritsu interrupted him, his voice cracking for the first time.
“Are you saying that after she wakes up, she might not remember—”
“No, I understand your concern, but it’s not like in novels or TV dramas where she loses all her memories.”
The doctor cut him off.
“More precisely, after she wakes up, she might become a completely different person, no longer the one you know.”
“Memory confusion, personality changes, altered behavior patterns… these aren’t uncommon in patients with severe brain trauma. How much it affects her will need to be assessed after she regains consciousness. It could be mild memory blurring, or it could…”
The doctor didn’t finish the sentence.
“Of course, all of this is just my speculation. I’ve treated many similar patients before, and they all experienced varying degrees of personality change. But everything depends on when Miss Hoshino regains consciousness and wakes up.”
“Also,” the doctor looked at Kirishima, “regarding her recovery afterward, my recommendation is to completely suspend all work activities. At least two months, at most maybe over a year. No strenuous activity, no excessive stress, regular follow-ups, especially for the head. Recovery from brain damage is a long process. Any excessive stimulation could lead to unpredictable consequences.”
Kirishima nodded.
“I understand. Thank you, doctor.”
After the doctor left, only two people remained in the corridor.
They exchanged glances and nodded, as if relaxing.
“Ritsu, you’ve worked hard. Go get some rest. I’ll handle the rest here. After all, you still have internal injuries.”
“…No need. There’s one very important thing I have to do.”
“What?”
Ritsu didn’t answer.
He pulled out his phone from his pocket.
The tempered glass screen protector was cracked, but the phone still worked.
He opened a news app—the accident had already been pushed as a notification.
「Shibuya Ward late-night large truck accident, multiple casualties」
The earlier temporary news report had been deleted at the police’s request.
This new report, unlike the previous one, didn’t mention the names of Hoshino Haruka or the other casualties.
The police generally don’t disclose identities before notifying the families.
But social media and gossip accounts had already caught the scent.
Someone had photographed the accident scene, and someone had recorded the video of the on-site news report from a few hours ago.
In the comments section, people were already guessing:
“That Alphard looks like an entertainer’s car.”
“A support vehicle? Who is it?”
“Shibuya is right next to several TV stations. Late at night, maybe someone who just finished recording a show…”
…
Ritsu stared at these comments for a few seconds.
Then he closed the news app and opened LINE.
He scrolled to a chat he hadn’t opened in days.
The contact name: Hidetoshi.
The last message was from three days ago, sent by Hidetoshi:
「There’s a new anime that’s super good. Have you seen it? It’s that romance one called Exactly the Opposite」
「Busy. I’ll check it out next week when I’m free.」
「Alright, alright, everyone’s busy. Being busy is good.」
「Remember to take care of this lonely shut-in.」
He stared at that last message for a long time.
He knew that the other person might never reply again.
But he still clung to a sliver of hope.
—What if that passerby just looked a little similar?
Trembling, he typed a code phrase that only the two of them shared—
「Wake up. Let’s play A together.」
Unread.
More than ten minutes later, he received a call from the police.
“Are you Mizutagawa Ritsu? We need to handle some belongings from the deceased, Matsumoto Hidetoshi. He set you as his emergency contact. We can’t reach any other family members. Please come to the station when you have time.”