The Burning Desire to Save

Chapter 5

August 2, 2023

Tomoko was on campus, which was largely empty due to it being summer vacation aside from a few resident students who did not return home for the vacation and some club activities, when she suddenly felt her pager vibrate on her hip. She looked at it and remarked in annoyance at being interrupted, "Ugh, a medical right now?"

She had clipped it to her skirt on her school uniform, and as she listened in on the call, she realized that not only was it a medical call, but it was on campus in the dorms. "Harukawa Fire Brigade," said a dispatcher on the air. "Respond to the Harukawa Girls' Academy dorms, Room 27 on the second floor. BLS response for a sixteen-year-old female who fell in the shower. Time of dispatch is 12:04." Doing paperwork in the student council room, she jumped up and immediately grabbed a first aid kit that was kept in the room before rushing out into the hallway to go to the dorms.

About three minutes later, she arrived at the dorms and raced up the stairs to the second floor. She knew based on the fact that the fire brigade had been toned out that the paid fire station's ambulance was out of service and the brigade's ambulance would still be a few minutes out while a crew got assembled at the station. She soon reached the dorm room and saw that another student was already standing outside that she recognized. "Hazuki-san," she said to her. "Is it Maeda-san with the emergency?"

"Yep," said the girl, a second-year at the school as she opened the door. "She's in the bathroom."

"Thanks," she replied as she walked in. She then set the first aid kit down and opened it, putting rubber gloves on, before walking into the bathroom to meet the patient. "Maeda-san, it's President Morishima from the Student Council. Are you here?"

"Yeah," replied a girl who was sitting in the bathtub and covering her otherwise naked body with a towel. "Is the ambulance here yet?"

"No, not yet," she replied. "It'll be here soon, though. While they're on the way, I'm just gonna ask you a few questions and get you checked out. I heard that you fell in the shower."

"Yeah, I did," the girl in the bathtub replied in an awkward tone.

Tomoko looked her over as she pulled back the shower curtain and asked her, "Does anything hurt? Like, do you think you broke, tore, or pulled anything?"

"No, no, not like that. I'm not that hurt." She seemed rather elusive about what the problem with her was, almost as if she was embarrassed about it. "It's... Different.

Tomoko, confused, asked her as she shut the door to give her some privacy, "So... What did you call 119 for, Maeda-san?"

"I, um..."

"Be honest with me," Tomoko insisted. "Please."

It was at that moment that the girl came clean to Tomoko despite her initial hesitancy. "There's a shampoo bottle inside my ass, Morishima-senpai."

Stunned, Tomoko replied with a nod, "Oh... Okay... And you fell on it?"

"Does it really matter how it happened?"

"On second thought," Tomoko admitted. "No, it does not. Let's take a look and see."

The girl sighed and awkwardly got up as best as she could, taking the towel off to show Tomoko what was wrong. "It, uh... It's right up there." She was clearly deeply embarrassed about what was going on based on her tone of voice and her beet-red face. "God damn it, this feels so humiliating."

"Don't feel bad," Tomoko assured her as she began to assess what was going on. "It happens, Maeda-san. The most important thing now is taking it out and making sure it doesn't damage anything up there. G-I bleeds are not fun to deal with. I can tell you from experience, unfortunately."