After giving up on the idea of going to a nightclub, the chill surged in from every direction, slipping into her collar, piercing through her stockings, and stabbing straight into her bones.
“Hiss…”
Imagawa Ori drew in a deep breath, took a step forward, gritted her teeth, and headed toward the station.
One step.
Two steps.
Her gait was odd, as if she were drunk, or like a toddler who had only just learned to walk, one step sinking deep, the next shallow.
“Where are you going?”
Kiryu Kazusuke’s voice sounded from behind her.
“The station. Home.”
But Imagawa Ori’s voice sounded as if it had been squeezed out of her throat, thick with obvious slurring.
“Senpai, it’s 1.5 kilometers from here to the station.”
“At your current walking speed, it’ll take roughly thirty minutes. Factoring in wind resistance and snow accumulation, your actual energy expenditure will be three times the usual.”
“Your core body temperature is probably around thirty-four degrees right now.”
“By the time you get halfway to the station, it’ll drop below thirty-two.”
Kiryu Kazusuke stood with his arms folded, speaking in a steady, cold tone, as if presenting a case at morning conference.
He did not finish what came next.
Imagawa Ori was, after all, a specialist. Though her brain had grown sluggish, her basic knowledge of pathology remained.
Sure enough, after hearing the warning, she stopped.
He was right.
Even if the road to the station was only two or three kilometers, she would not make it.
Many people mistakenly believed that in a situation like this, moving around would warm them up and they would be fine.
But under these circumstances, that did not work.
The severe cold forced the body to produce heat through violent shivering, which would rapidly deplete the glycogen in the muscles and liver at several times the normal rate.
If she had to walk on top of that, it would only make things worse.
Once the glycogen was exhausted, the shivering would stop.
At that point, the body could no longer generate heat on its own, while the cold air outside would continue stripping heat away.
When the gap between supply and demand could not be made up, core body temperature would begin to plummet.
Then, the thermoregulatory center in the hypothalamus would fail completely.
The peripheral blood vessels that had originally constricted to preserve heat would suddenly dilate due to paralysis, and the warm blood gathered deep in the core would rush toward the limbs.
At that point, she would not feel cold. On the contrary, she would feel hot.
Very hot.
So hot she would want to take off her clothes.
This was the famous phenomenon in forensic medicine known as “paradoxical undressing.”
Finally, the cold blood would flow back to the heart, triggering ventricular fibrillation, and ultimately cardiac arrest.
Barring any surprises, tomorrow morning’s headline would be: “Female Doctor from Prominent University Hospital Suspected of Freezing to Death After Running Naked in the Street Due to Excessive Work Stress.”
That was far too humiliating.
Even if she died, she could not die like that.
If she had to die, she wanted to die on a bed covered in banknotes, not strip herself naked like a lunatic and die in a snowdrift by the roadside.
“Then are you going to give me that coat you’re wearing?”
Imagawa Ori turned back and glanced at the thick wool coat on Kiryu Kazusuke.
Even though the coat he wore was ordinary in style, it looked very warm.
If this were a scene in a TV drama, the male lead should now take off his coat in a dashing manner, drape it over the female lead, and then carry her princess-style.
At the very least, as a junior doctor, seeing his superior frozen like this, shouldn’t he offer up his coat of his own accord to demonstrate loyalty?
As long as he gave her his coat, she felt she could still endure the rest of the way… probably?
However, Kiryu Kazusuke shook his head.
“Impossible.”
“Senpai Imagawa, this is reality, not some soap opera you saw on TV.”
“The outdoor temperature right now is at least minus five degrees, with level-six winds.”
“If I give you my coat, I’ll be hypothermic in fifteen minutes too.”
“Besides, what you need right now is active rewarming—an external heat source. My coat can retain heat, but it doesn’t produce any.”
Not only did he show no intention of taking off his coat, he even pulled the zipper at his collar higher, until it covered his chin.
In this kind of weather, the deterioration of hypothermia was exponential.
Giving his coat to someone whose core body temperature had already begun dropping would not stop her temperature from continuing to fall. Instead, it would drag him into a desperate situation as well.
This was basic knowledge in emergency medicine.
And what little reason Imagawa Ori had left told her that Kiryu Kazusuke was right.
Even so, she still felt that this man was simply a bastard with not the slightest trace of gentlemanly conduct.
“Then what do you suggest?”
Imagawa Ori clenched her teeth. Because of the cold, her upper and lower teeth were still chattering uncontrollably.
If she wanted to call an ambulance, she could only do so through a landline or a public phone. But the only place nearby where she could make a call was the grocery store from earlier.
When she turned her head to look again.
The grocery store’s rolling shutter had already been pulled all the way down. Only the vending machine at the entrance still gave off a faint light.
Clearly, the shopkeeper could not stand this damned weather either, and had closed up to go home.
“Let’s get a room.”
Kiryu Kazusuke extended a hand and pointed diagonally across the road.
Imagawa Ori followed the direction of his finger.
Amid the wind and snow, a pink neon sign was flickering.
Though the snowfall was too heavy for her to make out the words on it, that iconic heart symbol had an unmistakable meaning in conservative Gunma Prefecture.
A love hotel.
Go there?
With Kiryu Kazusuke?
He couldn’t mean that, could he?
“Heh.”
The corner of Imagawa Ori’s mouth twitched. It was a cold laugh she forced out under the assault of extreme cold and extreme absurdity.
“Kiryu Kazusuke, so this was your goal?”
“You watched me make a fool of myself in the snow, waited until I was about to collapse, and then made this kind of demand.”
“You really went to great lengths.”
Imagawa Ori’s voice came in broken fragments, every word as if it were filled with ice chips.
She finally understood why this resident had not left, why he had been standing by watching the whole time.
So he had been waiting for this opportunity.
How despicable.
To coerce a superior female doctor in this way, all to satisfy his vile desires.
Kiryu Kazusuke laughed. He was amused by what she said.
“Senpai Imagawa, have you frozen yourself stupid?”
“Didn’t I tell you that no taxi would stop in this weather?”
“Didn’t I tell you to find somewhere to take shelter from the wind and snow first?”
“Didn’t I warn you that you’d become hypothermic?”
“Weren’t you the one who said you were a specialist, and that a little snow like this wouldn’t kill anyone?”
“You haven’t forgotten all that already, have you?”
He stood with his arms folded, speaking with complete confidence, wearing an expression as if he were looking at an idiot.
Imagawa Ori froze.
Her memories rewound like a tape, rapidly playing back in her mind.
Yes.
More than half an hour ago.
At that time, the snow had not been this heavy, and the wind had not been this piercing.
Kiryu Kazusuke had indeed stopped her, had indeed advised her to hide in the tobacco shop for a while, and had indeed warned her not to stand stupidly by the roadside.
At that time, her mind had been filled entirely with the two very large suitcases stuffed with cash that the manager had mentioned.
What was a little wind and snow?
At that time, Kiryu Kazusuke had indeed reminded her.
But not only had she ignored him, she had even used her status as a specialist to pressure him, saying he was meddling in other people’s business.
Imagawa Ori opened her mouth.
She wanted to argue back, only to discover that she could not find a single reason.
Her current pathetic state was entirely her own fault.
She was in the wrong.
She was speechless.
The shame of being lectured to her face by a junior doctor made her cheeks sting with a burning pain, even more unbearable than the scrape of ice and snow.