2025-12-26: Doctor's Distress
- Log: 2025-12-26 Doctor's Distress
- Cast: Tae Takemi, Ren Amamiya
- Where: Takemi Medical Clinic, Yongen-Jaya, Tokyo
- OOC Date: December 26, 2025
- IC Date: Friday morning, August 31, 2012
- Summary: After running some more clinical tests with her 'guinea pig,' Tae gets a call from a client who just won't accept she's the Plague. Ren cares enough to ask what's going on while she's off-kilter, and she explains the mistake she made that lost her the respect of the medical community. (Basically Tae's Rank 5 Confidant, with a few flavor changes.)
<Pose Tracker> Tae Takemi has posed.
It's Friday, which means the Takemi Medical Clinic is open. When Ren dropped by for their lab-ratting, Tae nodded once, usual punk rock demeanor, and led them to the examination room as usual.
It goes like it normally does. Tae gives Ren some of her experimental medicine, watches to see if they pass out (probably not at this stage in their experiments) from the scent or taste, and then asks them how they're feeling.
"Alright, that's all for today, looks like you lived. If you're feeling okay, you can go home now."
Before Ren can even get up, a phone rings on the desk. Tae grasps it without even waiting for him to leave, placing it to her ear as she answers.
"Hello, Doctor Takemi's Clinic of Internal Medicine."
Someone speaks over the phone, and Tae's brow furrows.
"What? Again? But- that ship's already sailed..."
As the call ends as quickly as it started, she hangs up, looking... stressed? She places the phone back where it goes on her desk.
A sigh leaves her lips, barely noticing Ren is still there. "What a pain..."
This might be a good time to talk to her, should they care.
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
Ren does indeed live. They manage to get through the clinical testing without fainting and with a minimum of gagging, even. They have gotten better at this.
They nod once when Dr. Takemi finishes taking down her notes and bids them leave for the day. Before they can even shift their weight forward, though, the phone rings, and Ren is nothing if not curious. They stay right where they are, watching as her eyebrows furrow and she hangs up.
For all their typical deadpan, they do care--much like how she cares, but pretends not to.
"What's up?" they wonder.
<Pose Tracker> Tae Takemi has posed.
As Ren stays, and indeed, asks her what's up. there's a momentarily blip of consideration on Tae's face, before she sighs again.
"You remember that little girl you got me to treat? The Chief of Staff Oyamada's patient?" Tae definitely remembers. Ren had to be scolded a bit, even if they could assume she truly did want to treat that girl.
"Well, her father's been bringing her here. Ignoring the hospital I referred them to and everything." Tae glances slightly downwards, a bit downcast.
"I even told them about the medical error I made... they didn't seem to care."
As if they should, is the way she's thinking it.
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
They do remember that little girl. Ren is typically one to let people live their lives, but when they see someone so obviously denying their own wishes--not to mention a kid in pain and their father earnestly begging for help--they have to step in and give them a push. Sure, the good doctor scolded them for that afterwards, but they consider it worth it.
Hey, at least they didn't get arrested this time. Compared to that, anything is a win.
Aloud, though, they say nothing, only nodding once in acknowledgement. If it weren't for how downcast Dr. Takemi is about it, they'd smile at the news. "They trust you," they comment. "Which makes sense. Someone who's messed up before, and cares about how they messed up, is going to be a lot more careful in the future. Right?"
Not that they're convinced she really did mess up; they don't even know what she did. But it's clear she thinks they should care, so better to elaborate on why that trust isn't misplaced.
<Pose Tracker> Tae Takemi has posed.
"...hm," Tae vocalizes as Ren nods. "...I suppose that's true, but..."
She looks up from her downcast position. "My error is well-documented, and everyone in my field knows about it. I... led the development of a new drug for an incurable disease. Crawford-Ende's."
She takes a breath.
"Although I wasn't the one who administered the medicine, it was the source of the error."
She looks back to Ren, realizing they probably have no idea what that is.
"It's an autoimmune disorder. Some of your cells begin to indiscriminately attack each other. And when it reaches the muscles, the patient slowly begins to die."
A pause.
"There haven't been many cases of it, so there hasn't been much progress on it. I was working with a pharmaceutical company in the final stages, but Oyamada removed me from my position and took over."
A sigh. There's probably more, but she's taking a moment to process venting this to a teenager. But there's also a tinge of 'this is personal to me' in her sighs, in her words, that make it clear this disease wasn't just something she randomly chose to cure.
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
Ren hasn't heard of Crawford-Ende's before. That doesn't stop them from listening, but it does stop them from understanding beyond the fact that being incurable is a bad thing. They're sympathetic, but no doubt Takemi sees their lack of comprehension in their dark eyes.
So she explains the dirty details. An autoimmune disorder that starts to kill the patient when it reaches their muscles... Ren grimaces in sympathy. If she made some kind of major medical mistake, and her medicine was the source of the error... They don't like where this is going.
However, they also don't like where things are going with Oyamada stepping in and removing Takemi from her position right when she was working on this medicine. They frown, but when Takemi pauses to sigh, they nod her on.
Sure, she may be an adult venting to a teenager, but they're worried about her. This seems like a major source of pain for her. If listening to her vent for a bit helps, they sincerely don't mind.
<Pose Tracker> Tae Takemi has posed.
As Ren nods her on... Tae exhales. "I don't know if it was glory or riches or what, but Oyamada... he was careless and rushed the completion. There was this girl, Miwa, who needed treatment for it... so he greenlit the procedure."
"She went into critical condition from an adverse reaction. He blamed me, and Miwa and her family... no matter what I said, it wasn't good enough."
Tae shifts in her chair, a hand against her cheek. She clearly does feel bad, even as she explains what truly happened.
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
Honestly, the way Dr. Takemi describes it... it doesn't sound like her mistake at all to Ren. Oyamada removed her from the team, Oyamada rushed completion of the drug, Oyamada administered it to Miwa... No matter how they look at it, this sounds like entirely his mistake.
But it's clear that Takemi doesn't agree, and they doubt she'd want to hear empty platitudes from a teenager who doesn't know anything about medicine, so they say quietly, "I had no idea." They pause. "Is she...?"
Dead?, they delicately don't say aloud.
<Pose Tracker> Tae Takemi has posed.
Ren had no idea... how could they? She never told them. It's not something someone outside the industry would have noticed.
"...I don't know. I was never told if so. But... the development of the medicine was suspended, so I had no reason to stay at the hospital. Not that... I would have been welcome."
There's a glance to Ren, as she tries to weigh it over, and make at least a little bit of a recovery. "At the least, I still have my license, my own general practice... and my guinea pig to help me with the drug."
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
How could they indeed? Takemi and Ren are both closed-off people; neither of them are inclined to share personal details. If Ren hadn't happened to be here right when she got that call and was thus emotionally vulnerable, and if Ren weren't also the type to take an interest in others and thus ask when something's wrong, this conversation probably would never have happened.
Their dark eyes soften behind their flat glasses. So she doesn't know if Miwa's alive or dead... That has to be a tough position to be in after she went into critical condition. It sounds to them like Dr. Takemi chose to resign rather than got fired--but that's a pretty commonly Japanese attitude: quitting as a way to take responsibility. ...She wouldn't have been able to take responsibility any other way anyway, the way she tells it.
That Oyamada guy really sucks.
They sit up a little straighter when Dr. Takemi looks on the bright side, though. "Does that mean... the clinical tests you've been having me help with are for...?"
<Pose Tracker> Tae Takemi has posed.
Tae sees the softening of Ren's eyes. She softens as well, only slightly, as she nods.
"It's the final testing of this attempt. It attacks cells that take the offensive and destroys them. That's why it's harmless for people who don't have the disease."
A pause.
"Probably."
Her sense of humor is coming back, at least... as vague as it is that that was her sense of humor and not the truth.
"...thank you for listening. You could have left at any point."
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
So that's it... So much for the super-drug that would help them with their studies, huh? Well, that was always an excuse anyway... It's not like Dr. Takemi doesn't have other drugs that help out in the Metaverse. Ren's glad now they agreed to participate in these shady clinical trials--not shady at all, now.
Probably. Ren has enough of a sense of humor to smile rather than sweat, at least. "Glad to hear," they reply mildly. They trust her and her skills by now.
Her gratitude gets a slight shrug. 'Weird to get up and walk out in the middle of someone talking,' they want to say, but truth be told, they would do that if they got annoyed enough with someone. "Nah," they thus reply. "We're helping each other out. So you're welcome, Doctor."
<Pose Tracker> Tae Takemi has posed.
Tae laughs mildly, masking her sheepishness, at the 'we're helping each other out'. "That's right. You better not flake on me this late in the game," she says with a certain amount of sass.
It was a worthwhile conversation, at least. Likely for both of them.
Hopefully, this new patient from the phone call doesn't come back to bite her, but in the meantime, she can at least continue on her experiments. That's all that matters.