This patient had a star mark indicating a difficult case, so I didn't need to assist with the treatment and could come back out. If anything, that's a relief.

"Eek!"

It seemed the doctor had marked the patients he considered beyond my ability to handle, but I personally wished he would lower that threshold considerably.

Praying that the appointment would go long, I turned to leave the room and tripped over the threshold.

"I'm sorry."

I bounced back up and closed the examination room door. It was dark, so I couldn't see what expressions the doctor and patient were making as they watched me. I was mortified and wanted to brush off my knees, but I forced myself to act like nothing had happened and returned to the desk.

Well, on the way back, I banged my knee on the chair one more time. Please.

"Ugh, I can't even write the chart like this."

Once I get nervous, I have trouble remembering which patient came in, so I need to write things down right away. I was straining my eyes in the darkness to write down na, me, less, when I realized I hadn't heard the symptoms yet.

This was also one of the reasons I needed to fill out the chart in advance. At first, wanting to get everything over with as quickly as possible, I'd shove the patient into the room in a jumbled rush, then just bite my lip when the doctor asked me what the symptoms were.

But it wasn't easy to conduct a detailed intake while looking at all manner of monsters, like ones with eyeballs on their tongues or ones whose teeth came cascading out mid-conversation.

"nameless patient, I'm sorry, I didn't catch your answer earlier. What brought you in today?"

The monster shook its head. That is the neck area, right?

"You're not in any discomfort? You do know this is a hospital?"

The monster still shook its head. Mouthing silently. Even in the darkness, the mouth that looked more like a black hole you could fall into moved again, expressing "don't have."

No name, no pain, what do you have? Can you even pay the treatment fee?

Today is one of the rare days when I haven't been accumulating losses for the hospital.

"If it's hard to speak, you can write it here on the chart... no, below! Below! Don't touch the top!"

Too late. The monster took the pen and snapped it in half, then used the tips of its black fog-like fingers to write something. Marks spread thickly like spilled ink, covering all the patient records written before. No!

[It hurts]

"...Yes. Could you please stay seated and wait just a little longer?"

tears are blurring my vision. More than half the patient list was covered. Which patients came in today? And on top of causing all that trouble, it hadn't written an explanation of where or how it hurt, just scrawled the word "hurts." I'm hurting too, in my heart.

I gave up trying to extract more patient information and returned to the desk. I banged my knee on the same chair I'd hit before, but recovering the list before I forgot was more important.

"The first patient was definitely the banshee..."

I tore off the smeared chart and fumbled through the list from memory. But even though quite a bit of time had passed, my eyes still hadn't adjusted to the dark.

...If anything, it seemed to be getting darker?

Wait, hold on. It's not just the light that's gone. The ambient sounds of daily life are disappearing too. I can't see or hear anything. Literally, "nothing."

"Huh."

An instinctive terror made the fine hairs on my body stand on end. Since there are plenty of monsters that try to attack me the moment they walk into the hospital, I had relaxed thinking this one was docile.

My hands are shaking. But wasn't I holding a pen to write the chart? I can't feel the pen in my trembling hand.

No. I can't feel the paper under my palm either.

The eyeball at the front of the desk that signals waiting patients? That should have a red pupil visible even in the dark. I can't see it.

"Ah, ah."

The voice I let out in panic was barely audible to me. Did I have ears? Am I sitting in a chair? When I banged into things earlier, my legs didn't disappear, did they? Do I have anything? Am I alive? Do I have a life?

"Kgh, p, patient says it's urgent! doctor!"

I flung myself forward in suffocating terror. I had no idea if the direction I tumbled in was toward the examination room. I was crying and clawing at the floor, and even the floor seemed to be disappearing. I felt like I was flailing in a bottomless void.

No, I don't even have arms and legs to flail with...

"Staff Kang. Haven't I told you multiple times not to interrupt a consultation?"

In an instant, something grabbed the back of my neck and lifted me up. Right. I've been grabbed. I have a neck. I have arms and legs. The floor, the hospital, the patients! Everything is still there!

The lights had come back on at some point. And the doctor, who had come out of the examination room with the difficult patient, was standing there holding me with an expressionless face. tears and sweat dripped down in a rush.

"Na, nameless patient. Urgently. Needs to. Go in... sniff."

A cowardly lie from a rookie slipped out. I had made up something the patient hadn't said, right in front of the patient in question, so I half expected the monster to wipe everything out again as if to say when did I say that, but nameless sat quietly and just looked at the doctor. Thank you...

"I'll need to create a messenger function. Help this patient with payment and then show that one in."

"Yes...!"

I practically crawled on all fours back to the desk before pulling myself upright and barely managed to process the difficult patient's hatred 80. Now I needed to show nameless in and do the chart, the chart. Ha, is it even worth bringing this.

I picked up the ink-soaked scrap of paper that was now useless and walked into the examination room alongside the monster that moved with a sliding motion.

"Symptoms?"

"It says it hurts."

"Where does it hurt?"

"...All over?"

Oh well. It came in hurting somewhere, so something must hurt. I seemed to have reached a point of exhausted resignation. Something was dripping, and when I looked down, the skin on my knee, which I'd banged twice, had scraped off and was bleeding.

The doctor's gaze swept over my knee instead of the patient, then moved on.

"Symptoms are 'none.' Staff Kang, write the chart properly. This is a patient who requires long-term treatment."

"Yes, yes. I'm sorry."

"You can't recover everything at once. Let's set the goal for today as recovering the heart. I'll share Staff Kang's heartbeat."

What? What is he sharing?

"Now. Lie down, Staff Kang."

"Do I have to tear out my heart and give it to them?!"

"Do not raise your voice in front of a patient. I'm only sharing the heartbeat. Lie down."

Can you at least explain it properly! This doctor always just gives orders without explaining how anything is going to proceed. But I was in no position to argue. Blinking back tears, I climbed up onto the examination bed that was normally for patients, and blood from my knee smeared on it. I'll be the one washing it anyway. I have plenty of hydrogen peroxide.

"Patient. Please get on top of Staff Kang."

No, I don't want that!

"No, a little lower. Move down further. The heart position needs to align properly. Yes, that position. Move in closer."

"Urk."

Does fog have weight? The monster slid up onto my body and wriggled around to find its position, and I made a sound like a frog from the pressure. The doctor's expressionless reproachful gaze made me feel wronged. I feel like my chest is about to burst. Is it okay for a person to be crushed like this? Is the treatment having my heart pop out like a pancake and get taken by this monster?

"D, doctor. Sob."

"You're doing well. Fear makes the heart beat harder."

I wasn't happy even at the doctor's rare praise. The tips of my fingers and toes, the only parts not being crushed, trembled finely. The doctor, observing me and the monster layered together, raised a hand and did something, and I felt the pounding of my heart, which had been hammering with fear, begin to spread outward.

Like ripples spreading across water, the heartbeat literally spread. My heart, pounding as if it would burst, knocked against the monster's chest pressed tightly against it, and after what seemed like a long moment of receiving that, very faintly, it began to beat along with it. I started to feel a heartbeat that wasn't my own.

"Eek!"

"Do not move. Even if it presses closer than this, the pace won't increase."

It seemed that the moment I felt the monster's heartbeat, the monster itself also felt its own heartbeat. I couldn't be certain, but the monster, seeming to show signs of joy, hugged me tighter. No, was it crushing me. It felt like my bones were about to break. The sticky sensation of the fog writhing against me in what seemed like rapture made me feel like I might faint.

"You may come down now. That's enough for today."

[...]

"Urk, hk. Th, thank you for, thank you for your time."

[...]

Finally! Finally it's over, I thought, and with superhuman service spirit I offered a farewell, but the monster wouldn't come down. Please save me, doctor. Fortunately, this time the doctor understood my expression.

"The appointment is over, so please come down. If you don't follow my instructions, there will be no further treatment."

The fog, startled by the commanding tone, began to reluctantly flow downward. But as it descended, it subtly swept along and seemed to suck at my injured knee, and I quickly bent my leg away. Ouch!

"Please pay elation 200 before you go. You consumed Staff Kang's blood without permission, but since this is your first visit, I'll let it go."

Two hundred? Normally nothing exceeds 100 regardless of the emotion. The monster also seemed to feel it was unfair, as the black fog surged up toward the ceiling, but at the doctor's next words it sank back down. Is my blood that expensive? Along with the thought that maybe I could just donate blood instead of working, I picked up the smeared chart and helped the monster with payment. Ugh, I want to go home.