Chapter 06
SUE'S EGO
"If you live to please others, everyone will love you, except yourself."
-Paolo Coelho
When Oshima Sennichi entered my life, I knew it would never be the same again.
"SHIORI-SENPAI HAS A YOUNGER BROTHER?" I hollered, entering the busy delivery room of Oshima University Hospital after class. The woman lying down on the labor bed, dressed in a sweaty, green hospital gown with her hair tossed in disarray and feet firmly pressed against metal stirrups paused from her ongoing Valsalva maneuver to look at me in incredulity. Even the baby she was delivering momentarily stopped in her grand entry to Planet Earth.
"Who? Sen?" Hideki answered me, receiving a warmed towel from the nurse. "You came all the way here just to ask me that? Can't you see that I'm a little bit busy here?"
"You know Sen!"
"No, I don't know who Oshima Sennichi is. That's why I don't know that he's Shiori-chan's brother. That's why I don't know that he dropped out of medical school two years ago just as much as I don't have any idea that he's the soon-to-be medical director. I don't know he existed." I would know if Hideki-onii-san was getting annoyed whenever sarcasm starts to metastasize to his words.
"And this should be Honda Sumiko-chan? My, she looks just like your late mother! Teeheehee," the woman in the process of giving birth giggled, "Say, is she going to be an obstetrician like you, Honda-sensei? Or maybe a great heart surgeon? Like Honda Megumi-sama!"
For some reason, the woman did not seem to be in any pain while in labor. She talked so casually with neither a cringe of anguish nor hint of exhaustion. Despite this, I only allowed myself to be perplexed for a split second, convinced that there was no necessity to overreact to her apparent oddness. She was just giving birth – I was stabbed. Just like her, I did not feel pain. And so, it could only be either of two things: 1) Just like me, she could be 'different'; 2) Just like others, it could be the anesthesia.
"Sue, please excuse us for a sec. I'm busy pulling out a living creature from a pelvis, see?" He pulled up his surgical mask and instructed his patient to bear down.
"But onii-san…"
"Aw, c'mon! Why don't you listen to what your little sister has to say?" the woman said to him. "Can't you see how excited she is to tell you about her new friend! Teeheehee!"
He is NOT a friend, excuse me. I would have cleared my throat and uttered a fervent rebuttal, but I suddenly became too awed when she acted as though she was completely oblivious to the fact that her baby's head was already coming out of her introitus. It was only when she finally heard her baby cry that she reverted her attention back to onii-san. "Oh, out already? Is it a boy?"
"Girl."
"Aw man, I wanted a boy this time… Oh well, let's just try again next time, shall we? Teeheehee!" the woman said. "Am I done?"
"No, not yet."
"Oh yeah, the placenta… I always forget about that part, teeheehee!"
What a weird woman, I thought. The process of labor only took her less than three minutes. From the way she spoke and acted, she most likely had given birth to a couple of children in the past. If I was the expert medical student, she probably was the expert baby maker.
