For the whole morning, appointments had been pouring in nonstop ever since—whether because Engineer Team Na was on break or because their team leader had left. I pressed confirm on every single one of them. After three days, I was finally getting the hang of working here. Once I sent the confirmation messages, Japanese patients came in one after another, right on time for their treatments.
The first five had cavities, a ceramic crown that had fallen off from a previous treatment, tartar removal, periodontitis, and so on—nothing particularly unusual. But the last patient was a bit peculiar. He was a man named Tamaki Yuzuru. Aside from his lips being completely torn up, as if he had been biting them, he seemed fine. But when he opened his mouth, it was a complete mess.
It was the first time I had seen someone with so many oral ulcers. The inflammations were densely packed, including on his tongue and beneath it, and the sight alone made me frown involuntarily. What had he done to end up like this? Had a bomb gone off in his mouth? When I asked what on earth had happened to him, he gave no answer.
“Did you chew on a sea urchin or a hedgehog?”
“······No.”
And then silence fell. Even when I asked questions, he wouldn't answer, or would answer very slowly. I administered anesthetic and cauterized the wounded areas with a laser. One by one, I burned away the inflammations as the smell of burning flesh filled the air, and since it seemed I would run over into the next appointment time, I sent the next patient a message in advance asking for their understanding.
I had him gargle and wrote prescriptions for anti-inflammatory medicine and gargle solution. Then I nagged him extensively: avoid rough, hard, or raw foods as much as possible, absolutely no alcohol or tobacco, and get at least eight hours of deep sleep. Tamaki, who had been listening to me in a daze, slowly nodded. And then I grabbed a handful of the vitamin candies I kept in my pocket and placed them in his hand.
“They contain vitamins, so have one whenever you’re stressed. Can you take some vacation?”
“······No.”
How do these people take vacation? Mine was fixed for the weekends, but I really didn't know how people on four rotating shifts used their vacation days.
“Not working and getting plenty of rest, eating well, gargling, and sleeping a lot would be best. But if you can’t, it can’t be helped. Ask your team leader if you can take vacation on a dentist’s medical opinion, and if they say yes, come running back. I’ll tell them that you absolutely need it, that you need to take two days off to recover.”
Between giving dental floss to the speechless Tamaki on top of everything else, I was practically overflowing with generosity.
“Let’s see each other in three days. Take care of your health.”
I finished the consultation where I had done almost all the talking, and called for the next person.
While I was in the middle of treating a cavity for an Engineer Team A staff member, someone sent me a chat on my pad window. It was a Japanese staff member who had received treatment from me. Oddly enough, he wasn't asking about his own teeth, but about Tamaki Yuzuru’s dental condition. I thought it might be Sato, the team leader of Team Na, but the name was different.
While the patient was rinsing his mouth, I sent a reply. [I cannot share another person’s medical records.] After that, no more chats came.
Even though it had been four days since I came here, I still couldn't believe I was on the ocean floor. First of all, even when I tried not to be conscious of being trapped, I felt it from time to time. It was strange.
A dentist is someone who, if patients keep pouring in nonstop from morning until evening, works without rest except during lunch. In that regard, it's similar to ordinary office workers or self-employed individuals. You have to stay cooped up in one place, and aside from lunchtime, you rarely stray far from your assigned position.
I had thought life on land and life at the undersea base wouldn't be very different. But actually coming to the seabed, the difference was clear. Even the air you breathed at the undersea base felt different. It felt like treating patients inside an airplane. I felt like a fish trapped in a fishbowl artificially created just barely enough for humans to survive.
I considered it fortunate that I wasn't a very sociable or active person. People who hate staying stuck at home might go crazy after just one day at the undersea base. Despite being an introvert, I had intensely felt a sensation that I would go mad wanting to feel the wind and inhale fresh air. And it had only been four days!
Seeing that I had some time before the next appointment, I took the central elevator without hesitation. The moment I got off at Floor 0, I wandered aimlessly around the artificial island. The wind was blowing tremendously. The white pinwheels of the wind turbines installed on the island were spinning round and round in the powerful wind. After walking a few steps, thinking that I would have been blown away if I were any lighter, intense sunlight attacked my eyeballs.
After enjoying the sunlight, sea breeze, and dust for five minutes, a longing welled up to return to the warm, quiet dental clinic where no one would be yet. It's cold. The wind is blowing too hard. I want to drink something sweet. I quickly took the central elevator back down to the seabed. And then I rushed to the coffee shop in the central building.
[Red Coral] at the Fourth Undersea Base is a coffee shop run by a Japanese woman named Fumiko. For the past few days, I had been drinking most of the beverages here, two cups a day. The best one was the [Red Coral Coffee], a latte that when drunk as a triple shot felt like caffeine going straight into your veins. It was really delicious, but after drinking it, my hands would tremble from the caffeine. I wanted something sweet, but I ordered an Orange Blended and waited for the sake of the next appointment.
There were quite a few chairs to sit on next to the cafe, and people who ordered drinks would sit and wait, or chat, or argue with words. It seemed a man and woman had been quarrelling since before I arrived. I had prepared to intervene if they came to blows, or call a medic, but until my drink came out, they sat peacefully, baring their teeth at each other as they fought with fast, aggressive tones.
I sat in a chair and downed the finely shaved ice of the Orange Blended, pretending not to watch while keeping an eye on them. And then, realizing that most people around the cafe were watching the two of them just like I was, I felt relieved and headed back to the dental clinic where patients would be arriving.
Walking back to the dental clinic, I suddenly wondered: if a problem or fight broke out here, how would it be handled? Reading the undersea base guidebook, there was something like the Undersea Relic Protection Treaty; there must be an Undersea Base Staff Protection Treaty too, right? I still hadn't finished reading all my employment documents. Looking at a shark's skull visible in the distance, I suddenly asked myself.
······Am I tired? I held the Orange Blended in both hands. Perhaps because I was a newcomer here, working at the undersea base still felt somewhat awkward. Maybe it was because the work itself was so different from on land. With no dental hygienist and no dental technician, trying to do the work of a hundred people by myself was killing me. Fortunately, there were only a handful of patients and everything was high-tech equipment; otherwise, I might have run away on the first day. ······No, would I even be able to run away? They pay this much?
For one, it was certain that the undersea base operated under different laws than Korea. After all, a dentist could make prosthetics here. I had asked Priya if I was the only one using the dental clinic, and if they weren't hiring additional staff, and she said they had already put up job postings. In Russia and New Zealand. Thinking back to my own hiring process, it would probably take at least two months for a new person to arrive. Looking at the approaching shark's open maw, I thought. Alright. Let's set surviving for two months as my first goal.