She crouched on the floor, wiped away the tears she had shed, and went home.

#nana56b


Opening line


I’ve been working as a nurse at this hospital for a long time.

Late one night in November, an unidentified woman in her 60s was brought to the emergency room.

She was unconscious. Her only belongings were a worn-out shopping bag and an old pendant hanging around her neck.

I attended to her alongside Dr. Sasaki, the doctor on call.

Dr. Sasaki is thirty-four years old and is set to get married next month.

In the treatment room, he gave instructions in a matter-of-fact tone.

We needed to contact her family, but there was nothing to confirm her identity.

I reached for the pendant hanging around the patient’s neck.

It was an old-fashioned design—a small oval with a hinged lid.

The rust on it suggested it hadn’t been opened in over a decade.

Thinking there might be a clue to the patient’s identity,

I said, “I’ll open it,” and Dr. Mi nodded.




Using the tips of a pair of tweezers, I pried open the rusted clasp.

The thin metal lid popped open with a soft “click.”

Inside was a single photograph: a young boy with neatly trimmed bangs, smiling with a slightly puzzled expression.

It was the same photo displayed on Dr. Sasaki’s desk.

When Dr. Sasaki was about three years old, he was separated from his mother due to a family feud and raised by his grandmother.

His mother had been forced to sign a false medical certificate stating she was “mentally ill,” and she was even forbidden from approaching her son.

However, there was one day when the two were reunited.

It was when the professor, at the age of seventeen, collapsed from an acute blood disorder and no bone marrow donor could be found.

The one who came forward was his mother, who had been presumed missing.